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Original poster

Did anyone else do NOTHING with the £250 Child Trust Fund

357 replies

WarblingEttie · 16/10/2022 08:56

I just left it where it was and need to find out where it is as DS turns 18 on December 🤔

What did everyone else do?

OP posts:
AlwaysLatte · 17/10/2022 13:37

We just put it in with our son's other savings.

PinkPalaceinthesky · 17/10/2022 13:39

Ah. As PP's have said it very much depends where you put it and what funds they have invested in for you.

Ds's is due in March - we added zero to it and it currently stands at £1200 but we started out with The Childrens Mutual then it switched to Forrester's Financial.

I did consider the Asda one but looking at PP's am very glad I didn't.

It''s a very mixed bag isn't it?!

PinkPalaceinthesky · 17/10/2022 13:39

@BobaTea sorry the above post was meant for you.

containsnuts · 17/10/2022 13:54

For the people who added to it over the years, would you have done that anyway or did the scheme incourage you to start investing in a way you wouldn't have done before? Just curious.

bellinisurge · 17/10/2022 14:22

I would have done it anyway but I got £ from the government to start so that motivated me. My in-laws (annoyingly) refused to add to it and instead just set up a savings account separately for my dd. Would've made more sense to pool it but I suppose they were worried (unjustifiably) that we wouldn't give them due credit when the time came

fallinover · 17/10/2022 15:06

containsnuts · 17/10/2022 13:54

For the people who added to it over the years, would you have done that anyway or did the scheme incourage you to start investing in a way you wouldn't have done before? Just curious.

I don't think I would.
After dc were born it was a totally chaotic and very stressful time.
I only just managed to set up a payment scheme using the free money at the start.
Once it was set up it was no hassle.
But at the start with DT's I was splitting the days in quarters in my head to survive.

Tegelflughafen · 17/10/2022 15:16

I paid in £25 pm. Currently £21k in his now although it did drop a few years ago.

HuzzahIndeed · 17/10/2022 15:29

As long as we could afford to we would always have put savings away for them. Might not be much but we would have really tried to put something so no, the CTF didn't influence that decision.

Itisour · 17/10/2022 16:24

containsnuts · 17/10/2022 13:54

For the people who added to it over the years, would you have done that anyway or did the scheme incourage you to start investing in a way you wouldn't have done before? Just curious.

I think it encouraged us to invest under his name, and perhaps start earlier but we already have our our s&s ISAs/investments so I think it was very likely that we would've saved for him anyway. I do wish that we had paid more attention to the performance over the years though!
I would not save everything I intend to give to him under his name to be accessed at 18 though.

Walkerbean16 · 17/10/2022 16:50

I would never have done it without the initial £250, I was 18 and skint, my partner was working three jobs. We put the £250 in and set up a direct debit for £20 a month, then when we were more financially stable upped it to £50.

My second missed out on the £250 by a couple of days, she got £50.

The 2 youngest didn't get anything but we set them one up anyway because the oldest had it.

Hopefully his will go back up in the next 2.5 years and then we will top up the others if they don't have as much when they turn 18.

jackstini · 17/10/2022 17:23

We did nothing with both ours, as didn't want to pay into something where they could do anything they wanted with it as soon as they were 18

We have paid into a savings account since they were born and so there will be about £20k for each of them at age 18

We can then decide if we give them all or some at age 18 or save it for Uni, wedding, house deposit etc...

motherofawhirlwind · 17/10/2022 17:53

Have done nothing and it's worth £300 currently (saved for her elsewhere). Utter shite.

threatmatrix · 17/10/2022 18:02

I can’t believe the amount of people who never added to it. Such a waste of a great deal

icelolly99 · 17/10/2022 18:03

We moved my eldest into a LISA. The government top it up by adding a quarter of what you save. With a limit of £4000 per annum; so potentially £1000 extra each year! Plan is to have a enough for a good deposit on a house in 10 years.

Justbefair · 17/10/2022 18:13

Sorry, what is this? 🤷‍♀️ We have a trust fund we set up ourselves, have I missed something lol. X

Gendercritic · 17/10/2022 18:19

We saved £30 a month and his grandparents added £20 a month. When he turned 18 he had £15K and is it using to pay for his rent whilst at uni. It was meant to encourage family to save for their kids and it worked with us!

lindyloo57 · 17/10/2022 18:26

My granddaughter just got hers i think it was £3800 obviously mum had been adding to it.

listsandbudgets · 17/10/2022 18:27

Forgotten all about it though I did invest it at the time but didn't do anything else

16 years later, it's now worth £6 less than when it started!! That was a great investment that was Grin I'm glad we made some better ones for her!!

WotsitsMadeIn1927 · 17/10/2022 18:28

I’d strongly advise putting it in to a savings account rather than anything else.

I had my eldest when I was 20, so I whilst I thought I put it in to a savings account for him, it’s turned out to be a stakeholders account.
I kept forgetting to change it over the years and when he turned 18 and we moved, they wouldn’t deal with me anymore.
So my newly teen turned to young adult had to deal with them himself to try and access this £250. They’ve been nothing but difficult as he knew nothing due to me being the one who did it!!!! In the end he had to tell them he gave his permission to speak to me.
turns out due to a number of human errors, he can finally gain access to it in two weeks, due to the number of changes. In the stress of resolving this, the interest that had generated it to be a slightly bigger sum was dropping by the day due to the nature of the account. Thankfully when we resolved this, the amount has been frozen so he loses no more.

Islandgirl68 · 17/10/2022 18:28

We also just left it as it was. Could afford to add to it, so will mature with what is in it.

Sooziewoozie · 17/10/2022 18:35

i moved my daughter’s in to a child ISA

failingmother · 17/10/2022 18:40

I must have chosen the high risk option. I did nothing and his 250 turned into 4000. We pulled it out and put into an ISA now 6000!

SusanPerbCallMeSue · 17/10/2022 18:56

My twins got theirs. £450 each. One spent it on food, train tickets and days out with friends. The other has saved it so far.

As far as I was concerned it was theirs to do with as they want. I got £500 from an insurance thing my mum did when I was 17 and went to Italy for a holiday. Brilliant!

My youngests is so far worth £600+, he's 15 so a few more years till he can get it.

Pants0nFir3 · 17/10/2022 19:00

I cannot simply believe that loads of people are just doing nothing!? Bloody beggars belief! As soon as I received it I put it into a trust fund in my building society. My dd turns 18 in 5 years and now it's a junior ISA. It's worth a whole lot more than a few hundred quid and I know where it is!! How utterly selfish and irresponsible. Maybe it's because I'm a single parent who works hard to ensure a future nest egg despite constant discrimination.

EmeraldShamrock1 · 17/10/2022 19:06

I have no idea where my DD's one is or if it is still active as we left the UK when she was two.

She was born in the UK in 2009.

It was automatically invested.