To have spent 12 years of child benefit?

[FullMoomin]

Having a panic attack.
I've just calculated that over the past 12 years of spending child benefit every month I've spent over £20,000!!!!!
I should have saved this money for DC!
If I had saved it, I could give it to them.
Turns out all my friends have been quietly saving theirs and now have a nice big monet pot to give their DC when they turn 18!
Now I feel horrifically guilty that my DC wo t get that, when all their friends will.
Oh help, really panicking.
I will never, ever be in the financial situation to pay £16,000 back to them.
The money goes in to my account each month and first it got spent on nappies, food, supplementing my reduced income, then when they went to school it got used for school uniform, new shoes, clubs, food, etc.
Suddenly 12 years has crept up on me and I haven't saved a penny of it.
Only 4 years of CHB to go now and then it stops!! I feel like I've seriously failed my DC.

The entire point of child benefit is to help you out as you go along, not to save it and present it as a lump of gold when they're 18, 21 whatever. I've seen quite a few young people completely blow their lump sum at that age. One kid I know spent it all on diamonds for his girlfriend who then dumped him a few months later. Its not helpful to give young adults lump sums, too much pressure.

Op you spent it on exactly what it's suposed to be spent on.

I couldn't afford to save mine either.

However those who put theirs into saving accounts, had they invested it would be worth at least twice as much by now if not more.

Some interesting threads a while ago on the remnants of the child trust fund money. Those who left it in the banks got about the same amount back 18 years later. Those who invest, got far more and those who added to it and invested got very substantial sums for their dc.

As many point out very bad idea to put any amount in your kids name that you're not happy for them to blow at 18. Like we all did with the student loan first payment or first few wages or gift saved to help with uni. All gone by week 3 no doubt.

You have spent CB on exactly what it was for. If there are that many people saving CB for their children when they turn 18 then the benefit cap needs lowered.

How would this work? Remember it's about single earner not double, so if you eg lower it to 45k then you're still going to get households on well above that being able to claim. And how would you stop people from saving it in less visible ways to get round it? People have all kinds of ideas about this because they're vaguely outraged, but nobody ever tells us how it would work and what it would achieve.

As a hundred million other people have said: you used CB for its intended purpose. Mine went into the family funds and was spent on the children along with everything else.

Nobody should expect to give their child a lump sum when they turn 18, and no child should expect it either. It's more important to invest (time and interest, and money, if you have any) in their education so that they can end up with decent jobs and improve their own standard of living that way.

Surely if you could have afforded to save £100 a month for each of them, you would have?

saving for kids is hardly a new concept, you must have heard about it at various points and discarded it as unaffordable?

I don't know anyone who saved theirs to give to their child or anyone who was given a lump sum that had been saved for them.

This isn't as common a thing as you are making it out to be. Your child will not be expecting a lump sum so they won't be feeling let down.

The clue is in the name really.
If you can afford to directly save all of it every month then you don't actually need it and/or your child is going without in order to save the money for a day that's not even guaranteed.

I thought the whole point of having it means tested would be to avoid people saving it who don't really need it. I imagine most people spend it.

If they were that affluent they would be over the threshold for CB

@00100001 people will be providing for their kids needs and buying food obviously! Why do you assume otherwise? I think this thread has touched a nerve... some people are probably buying expensive make up, have a gym membership, a car on finance, shop in Sainsburys or maybe they have their nails done.

Bottom line is we all prioritise what's important to us. I don't see why you are upset and think you get to dictate what people spend on, it's quite odd indeed.

Did your parents save up child benefit and
ceremoniously present it to you as a lump sum when you reached adulthood? Did that happen to anyone you know?

Thought not.

All this saving the CB for them really feels like some shitty socially mediated idea that mostly serves to make people feel guilty for not making some weird public display of parental martyrdom.

Why are you panicking OP? About what? Nothing is going to happen because you can't give your children a massive lumper of 20 grand. I think you're massively overreacting about nothing. People who can save CB are very well off. That's not what it's meant for.

this has got to be a windup? CB is to help with cost of children not to save it up for them??

My DD is 16 and I haven't saved any of it. It's been spent on shoes, uniform, school trips, dance clothes, food.....

Thinking that it's morally wrong to take money from the state that's intended to help feed, clothe and support your child as they develop; but actually not use it for that purpose; while other services that children could benefit from go under-funded; might make me self-righteous. But I'd rather be self-righteous than a greedy money-grubber, out to put one over on other people however I can.

The government doesn't care about how it's used, just who gets it.
If you can provide evidence that means testing is to avoid saving, I'd love to see it.

This. All the exaggeration and anxiety in the post and thanking the government every time they got it. Everyone knows CB is money to spend on the child.

Your friends are ridiculous to care what you did with your CB. You spent it on what it is meant for, taking care of your kids. I certainly never had a pot of money from my parents and have managed just fine. I also never received child benefit for my kids and I am confident they will be fine without this pot of money.

Stop being so hard on yourself, you fed and clothed them and took care of them. If your friends were able to save this money maybe they should never have been in receipt of it.

Your friends and colleagues were in the lucky position not to need it. Sounds like you were not in that position. That's the reality. You need to accept it and move on. If you are now in a position to put some aside each month, start doing it. Your guilt is a bit irrational. Very very vast majority of people spend it as you have.

I put it away in their savings account every month. Not to give them a lump sum when they're 18 but it's there for the big things they need. A lump out of both their accounts has just gone on winter clothes because they've put grown everything from last year. Would I have had £500 laying about to spend in that? No I wouldn't. Eldest has just had a new bed, that came out of it. It covers Christmas presents. If there's any built up in there when they are 18 we will use it to help with setting them up for university if they go. I'm not going to lose any sleep if there isn't any though.

For goodness sake, calm down. You needed to spend the money on day to day expenses. This is what it’s meant for. They saved theirs. Everyone’s allowed to be different it doesn’t meander you’re wrong. You sound very anxious

I think a massive lump sum for an 18 year old is not necessarily a good thing. Yanbu.

Don't be stressed. It's far better to have spent on things that you DC needed at that moment then putting it in a savings account to be eaten away by inflation. You do realise this is the biggest mistake people make - you should never keep money in a savings account longer term (unless you keep moving the pot from one high interest account to another, which is a fuff). The combination of historically low interest rates and rampant inflation would have devalued your money pot enormously, so you are much better off having spent that money as intended

What bollocks. Saving for the future of your child is as legitimate as spending on them right now.
Double bollocks to your reference to other services going underfunded. Do you really think the government is channeling the clawback into child services?

You wish.