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?

woah! I wish I was this blooming organised.

@WarblingEttie LISA: We stuck with a company we already use for other products. To be honest, the 25% bonus from the Government is going to swamp the small differences between providers!

I did nothing and it was automatically invested for me. I have twins and the amounts were sent to different places. For one twin I get yearly updates, the other one I haven't heard a peep!

I’ve paid little bits into it over the years when I could afford to, it’s currently just over £2000, when she gets it next year it should be around £2500 hopefully. I hope she uses it wisely, as a single parent it’s likely to be the only ‘big’ amount of money she’ll ever get from me. She won’t be going to uni so I guess it’ll likely be used for a car or towards a deposit on a rented flat share or something. Then again, it may all be blown on clothes and nights out, who knows 🤷‍♀️.

We added £20 a month to it and when she turned 18 it was just under £6,000 which she is using as a top up at university.

We’ve been putting £20 a month in and so have grandparents and when the kids are 18 they are forecast to get 15k plus each. At that point both of them will get a small portion to use on a passion or idea (no judgement ) and the rest invested into something important to them.

My issue with it was that the 18 year old gets full control of the money. So while I'm happy to let 250 quid grow and then let him have it, there was no way I was going to pile hundreds or thousands into it as a nest egg that he could potentially have then been foolish with.

I have a savings account for him, in my name, for things like a housing deposit or uni fees. Yes, I control whether his reason for withdrawal is good enough, if that makes me a monster.

I agreed with the point. My first thought was how do you not know where it is? Then realised the op just hadn't bothered with it.

My mum did a savings account for me back in the day. This is exactly what I did with it 😂

We moved ours into Junior ISAs so we could invest ourselves, added birthday money to it from relatives through the years, topped up little amounts when we could afford to etc. Despite the recent stock market wobbles they've both performed extremely well and are now around £15k each (DC are 13 & 12) so we're hoping to get them enough for house deposits when they're older.

Well that's lovely ,you do realise howver many parents couldn't afford to add anything ,not that they just couldn't be bothered?

First child got it, second missed out but I got a kids' ISA - I stick £50 a month in each. I wasn't doing anything but I started after a holiday with friends where a few were talking about the fact that they paid into their kids' savings account, and I know they earn good money so were probably putting in quite a lot, which made me feel a bit guilty! I upped it to £100 during lockdown period seeing as I realised we'd be spending very little for the foreseeable.

I disagree with the 'Don't give an 18 year old money' thing; I think most 18 year olds wouldn't actually be stupid with it. If you bring your kids up right in relation to money, and also let them know they'll come into some money at 18 and it'll be a good idea not to do anything dumb with it, things should turn out OK.

Siblings and I came into quite large inheritance when we were 18 - we were all sensible with it because we knew it was coming and had all been made aware what we could do with it in the long term, so we didn't waste it.

TBH, if your kid does waste a chunk of cash they got on turning 18, they'll learn a lesson from that!

Foster son got one. Would have been given full amount. SS wrote to us the other day as he turned 16 and asked if he wanted control of it or leave it where it is. Not sure how it was invested but expect SS would have gone for safest scheme so less interest. Just hoping not invested in gilts. He will find out in 2 years I guess. I have savings for him too so together might be a little nest egg.

@Noviembre, a sensible, caring monster.

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 although she is very sensible and understood why it shouldn't be wasted and how lucky she is.

How do you do this?

At points where we had money, I transferred a similar amount to child benefit into it each month. When money was tight, I transferred nothing.

Then realised the op just hadn't bothered with it

Had I been more confident back then, I would have researched and possibly invested it in a S&S Isa (or whatever) but no way would I add to something that would automatically be handed to an 18 yr old.

I did know that the government invested it and have given DS the link provided by pp.

We put in in a share trust fund and it’s now worth several thousand.

Gutted my kids were born in 1998 and 2016 so totally missed out.

I put it in a stocks and shares ISA. It was doing really well but has slipped to about £1200 in the last two months. Another Trussism

Ds has a few years to go, so hopefully it will bounce back a bit.

I've been adding to my sons monthly, he's got about £8k currently and hoping by the end he'll have around £12k.

I put a little bit in it every month for a few years then moved and lost track of it. Ds applied to find out what happened to it last week .

Took about 3 days for them to transfer it £2500 it's gone into his savings account for when he does a year abroad for his 3rd year at uni

I find it a bit awkward as I think oldest DS has one of these (set up by the goverment automatically, I did nothing and know next to nothing about it... there was a tonne going on when he was a baby so it was bottom of the pile since it served zero immediate help to our bad situation + we also moved so I dont even get the letters anymore) but my younger two where born after it stopped so pretty sure they dont have one and wont get it which seems unfair.

My DD's has a few years to run but I only paid £20 a month into it. It's been moved by the CTF provider to a more stable set of shares and is currently worth £6k. I was also very conscious of 18yr olds suddenly be given a lot of cash so I have various other pots of cash which I can just forget to tell her about until they are needed for something specific

Maybe you could start an ISA for them now. Even a little bit a month oy aside would be something. Otherwise are you going to explain that you did put some money away for dc1 but not for dc2?

In our family dc1 got the second payment too so we saved and did the same for dc2. They should end up with similar amounts. We have put a small amount in every month since the beginning.