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?

That was to NoSquirrels

I didn’t do anything with dd’s as she is the only one of my three to get it. And as we were not in a position to set up for the oldest two we decided to just leave that to one side and continue with small savings pots for the three of them.
I enquired as to where it was recently so have the details. Dd is 16 so a while yet before she gets it. I haven’t had any statements or anything to say how much it’s worth. But what ever it is it’ll be a bonus.

I think we put it in a building society account and it's now worth £251.

Didn’t do anything with DDs. When she turned 18 in 2021 it was moved to and isa and was about £1750. No idea what it is now as it has been left there.

Fair enough. It was more the ‘we added to the first not the second’ thing - my second didn’t get a CTF but my first did but we tried to put them in the same starting position.

Yes that's the awkward position lots of families will find themselves in. Parents can't equal out the government hand out but that is the way of life I guess

I've been paying £30 pm into my DC's CTF and JISA

They eventually allowed us to.move it into a junior isa, that we use.

Surely you’ll split them equally?

Didn't do anything. Daughter just turned 18 and it's worth about £500 if she cashes it in, which she probably will. The person from the investment company (Foresters Financial) is being VERY pushy, trying to persuade my daughter to reinvest, as well as asking nosey questions about her friends and family's finances.

We moved it and it's currently about £1400, but who knows what it will end up as when he's 18.

We added a small amount for many years, now we add £50 a month. Think dd will have about 6k when she can access it next year. My ds's all had about £5k each.

You can't. It's in the child's name once they are 18

You can withdraw it from the CTF or JISA if the child is terminally ill but otherwise it looks like no, it can't be moved.

I just left it,we only got the first payment Tracked it down a few months ago and it was about £600 ! DD is over the moon ! Got a few years to go until she's 18 though

Sorry should have added, elder 2 ds's were born before the scheme started so they grandparents set up savings accounts for them already, ds3 got the full £500 ( both payments), and I think dd just got the one payment before it ended. We have made it fair to all of them so they will roughly end up with the same amount when they turn 18. I could not allow just one to have money and not the others, would have to split it.

😂
I could cope with DS blowing that!
He's a sensible lad, saves most of his earnings from PT job but if it were tens of 1000s ...

We moved it to a JISA, and added to it every month. It was quite substantial when DD turned 18, she took a little for spending money and is moving the rest into a LISA every year (do look at those if you don't know about them, they're to save for house deposits). The sum still in the JISA is there as a safety net if the uni budget all goes wrong. Doing same for DS15 at the moment.

I know we've been lucky that she didn't blow it all (plenty of horror stories on other threads). But saving in a parent's name also has pitfalls in the case of death or divorce!

(Sorry, DD's cash is now in an ISA not a JISA as she's 18.)

@NoSquirrels

Wow
Rather condescending reply !

I meant we transferred our dd to a different scheme so we could control how it was invested ( level of risk etc) and it could continue after she was 18 and still be added to .
I may have worded my original post badly - it is still in dd name and will pass to her at 18 but we can continue to add to it for her as we see fit in the coming years to build up the fund.

I put it in a CTF and it increased too around £1200. I wish I has been able to invest some of my own money, I think DD still has it in her savings.

she took a little for spending money and is moving the rest into a LISA every year (do look at those if you don't know about them, they're to save for house deposits

Yes, been reading about those. If you put £4k in per year the Govt put £1k in. Which one to choose though?

At least this generation will get an early lesson in the unfairness of life, and just how much depends on when and where you are born rather than the myths of hard work! .

My oldest just scraped into the birth date for the lowest amount, so I was able to match that for the youngest. It’s not much, but better than a kick in the teeth. Personally I would rather the money had been collected together and invested in decent public services, education for all and laws about not overturning them, but hey.

The problem was that because the scheme only ran for a short period of time, in many families only one sibling was given the money. It didn't seem fair to add to it when the other sibling(s) didn't get anything and couldn’t have a CTF.

I keep track of mine. We have paid £20 a month into them from birth. Eldest is nearly 16 and she has around £7000 atm. Seeing as she wants to go to uni it's not actually a huge amount!