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

[WarblingEttie]

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?

Yeah it's nice they get to spend a bit of money on themselves and not having to stress about it.

I'm surprised that was legal.

Why didn't you just set up a seperate account and leave her her money in her CTF account? I don't get why you'd take her money and put it into your control.

Me too. Seems like it's stealing your child's money.

DS1 got it last year, was £500 to start with as I was a lone parent. He got £1600. Him and his bandmate spent it on music equipment and studio recording for their band, which in turn helped DS for his audition for his university degree and he started in September. It has really helped my DS.

DS2 got £250 but is only 15 and DD (11) got nothing. Will be interesting to compare and contrast.

Thought you couldn't move out from the child's name. Did you move it to a different provider? You can't take money out of a child trust fund and it should go to the child when they are 18 (or I suppose it could go to a different product to get at a later age but it will still be in their name and not yours)

Well I could but - to quote pp - Left it alone and saved into an account we could control because we had no idea if 18 year old Ds would blow it

It was a fantastic scheme. Shame so many parents did nothing with it. I paid in between £50 per month and then £100 for the last few years and my dd got nearly £30k.
And she hasn’t blown it, it’s now half in premium bonds and half in an isa and still growing ( although the Ida took a bit of a hit in January) . She won £100 on the last round of PB’s. Completely free money for her.

Can it move to a JISA?

I think it was a good scheme although I never had one myself or have been able to use it for my child.

A sum set aside at birth and invested in stocks etc is going to make a tidy return and be a nice little nest egg by their 18th birthday.

Mine was invested with RBS and got back nearly double last year sorry 😞 my sons is still on the go as only 16

@BlancmanegeBunny - thank you!

@WarblingEttie you should have got annual statements. It can be traced using your child's NI number as that's the unique reference on the CTF. I had to jump through hoops to give proof of identity and address details in order to get Dd's money transferred to her bank account when she turned 18

Yes, it can be moved to a JISA. That would still be in the child's name. That's what I did with the funds for my 2 kids a couple of years ago

It's good that your DD didn't blow it.

But our issue is you don't know which DC will be sensible at 18 and which won't however you parent them. It only takes them getting mixed up with drugs, or an unsuitable partner or just having a teen reckless streak and whoosh it is gone.

We saved elsewhere.

I’ve just logged on and found mine.
DS13 got the full grant in 2008 (and added extra for first 2 yrs) and his is currently worth £2.5k and DS11 got the reduced grant in 2010 (and we didn’t add anything) and his is currently worth £386!
They are invested in different funds.
He will be disappointed once he sees what his DB gets 😳

I didn’t do anything with it, it’s still there, he’s 18 next year and it’s worth about £500.
The reason I didn’t do anything was because I didn’t understand investments back then, or how to chose them. I had no confidence to even add the smallest amounts to the lump sum. It was a shame really, as with increased knowledge now I would know what to do.

These are so interesting to read, my eldest missed out on this by a month a believe, such a good scheme.

Our DS's was with Britannia and they did nothing with it, he had a similar amount in a building society child savings account that earned far more at the time. So we have moved it from Britannia to a JISA. He still has the savings account (where I put his birthday and Christmas gift money), but growth slowed dramatically as they kept slashing the interest rate. Fortunately he also has Premium Bonds and other investments, so it doesn't matter too much.

If he'd only had the CTF we'd have been more proactive with it. It's still got years to run though.

Moved it out of the child trust account before she was 16 so we can have control over it and it not pass to her at 18

You can’t have done this - it’s not possible legally. So whatever you think you’ve done…

We've added to DS one and it's worth about £10k although it probably taken a bit of a hit recently! DS is sensible and I hope he'll use it towards a car and then save the rest.

What will you do to make it fair?

With my first child I put £50 per month in and when they left home last year to go to uni had nearly 16k in total which I think is being spent on pot noodles. Second child I didn’t add anything to until recently so not going so well !!!

Nothing I’m afraid. I will explain the scheme and how he was unfortunate to be born too late to benefit from it as much as his brother.
But I’m not in a position to whip out 2k 🤷🏼‍♀️

Didn't add much to mine it's £1300

I put more into his savings so he couldn't blow it all, which apparently he's planning to do 😫