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.

My DSIS is saving lump sums for her DC when they turn 18. I personally find this silly. At 18 I would have likely blown cash given to me. I'd rather save what I can in my own name and give cash when needed if possible (towards weddings, first house, driving lessons ect) I haven't saved anything yet as we are in the nursery years and cannot afford to. You've spent the money giving them a decent quality of life in childhood, that's what it is there for. The best thing we can do for our DC is bring them up to be good, decent people and give them skills to stand on their own feet. They don't need our money.

You’ve done exactly what you were meant to do with it. Spent it on your kids so they didn’t go without, and by spending it you have also circulated it back into the economy over years, which is exactly how it is supposed to work.

Add £87 + £65 together
That's your monthly figure
Now multiply that by 12 (12 months per year)
That's your annual figure
Now multiply that by 12 (12 years of my DC lives so far)
That's the total over 12 years that I'm saying I should have saved.

OP of all your friends are saying they saved all.the CB either you have very affluent friends or at least some of them.are lying because they are feeling like you do.

Oh no, they're not lying.
They're not the types to lie.

You've spent the money on what he needed. You sat you had a reduced income. You probably couldn't afford to save it. Don't beart yourself up.

In the nicest possible way, get a grip.

Child benefit is there to help with the costs of raising children, not to be given to your children at eighteen.

And frankly I think the idea of giving children a lump sum to piss up the wall at eighteen is obscene. Because at eighteen that’s exactly what they will do with it.

Even my will doesn’t allow my DC to have anything until they’re 25 if I die, simply because before that they’re just not responsible enough to spend it wisely.

But ultimately I agree with PP, if people are saving the child benefit then they should be giving it back. It’s not for saving, and if they can afford to do that then clearly they don’t need it. This is why there’s an upper threshold for receiving it.

Sorry I was making the point for multiple children. But was assuming it was one child.
It's £10k per child OP, which I'm sure has been useful over the years. I have a small pot of savings for my children, but it isn't that much! My children do expensive activities and it goes on that mostly! I'm expecting them to get a job at 18 and their small pot of savings will go towards a car or something.
Not everyone can afford to save it

Your kids have been better off with you spending the money on things they might otherwise have gone without. Those activities they are doing will benefit them far more. I never got a pot of money at 18. No-one has ever given me that much money. Are we now getting to a space where young people are going to feel entitled to a pot when they turn 18? I hope not.

If people are able to save CB rather than using it for expenses associated with raising their child, then they shouldn’t be receiving it at all.

The way CB provision is calculated is wrong and unfair. Households bringing in nearly 100k don’t need it.

Just joining in the general chorus here. Anyone that can afford to save their child benefit shouldn’t be entitled to it.

Please for the love of god just listen to the advice on this thread and stop panicking.

Your friends are affluent if they can afford to save it; that’s a morally grey area in my book. I also use my child benefit on … things for my child. It goes into my general account & is spent on clothes; shoes; after school clubs and activities; food etc. I’m so grateful for it & it makes a huge difference to us. No way could I afford to save it and hand DC a lump sum. A very small amount of the population can afford to do that.

Your friend group is seriously skewed in favour of wealth of that’s what they’re all generally doing. Try listening to some average parents.

If the government, on behalf of society, wanted to give all 18 year olds £20k they'd cut out the middleman and just do that (and can you imagine what the tabloids would have to say about that?). That is not what CB is intended for. It's intended to be used, in exactly the way you used it, to help meet the (considerable) costs of raising a child. Honestly your friends sound like a bunch of smug fuckers - not for saving it if they were in a position to; that's fair enough, but for getting all pearl-clutchy about you not having done the same, when you weren't.

We earn a fairly decent amount between us but we still need the child benefit money! I don’t know anyone who has saved it (although granted I have never asked around). I’m not sure this is anywhere near as common as you seem to think it is. Particularly just now.

I thought child benefit was to help you raise your child, not to save for them when they are18.

I cannot see that you have done anything wrong at all @FullMoomin

Sorry- but you've spent it on exactly what you were supposed to- raising the kids. Others haven't. I'm not understanding why that's suddenly a big issue for you.

I'd imagine it was because her friends looked "shocked and dismayed" when the OP said she hadn't saved her CB. Tactless feckers.

We don’t have CB where I live (sadly!) but my sisters got it. My one sister needed every penny to feed and clothe her kids, my other sister saved it all for her daughter. Different situations, but both did what worked for them.

Don’t feel guilt. You used yours for the benefit of your child, as it was meant to be!

I think you need some new friends. Yours seem to be more affluent than you which makes you feel bad about something that's completely normal. Get some mum friends of a similar economic status to you in addition to your current groups, to keep reality in check.

Well no-one I know is saving the child benefit to give to their child at 18. It’s to help with the cost of raising a child. One thing every parent should be aware of is that student loans are now means tested so your child will only be able to borrow the full amount needed to live off if you’re on low income. Joint income over around 60k and they get the minimum with parents expected to substitute the rest (6k a year roughly). So if they’ve got 18k for their child they should expect to spend it on that if their child chooses to go to Uni. Many parents only find this out a year before when it’s too late to start saving. My son is at Uni now, thankfully his dad is funding him, he didn’t pay any maintenance for 12yrs so this goes some way in excusing that

You’re being ridiculous. I don’t know a single person who’s saved their child benefit to give a lump sum to their child. That’s NOT what it’s for. It’s actually shit that government money is funding more affluent kids to have a big fat payout when they leave home that kids from poorer backgrounds won’t get.

This. You have used it for the purposes you are supposed to use it for. It's not a gift for your children, it's to help with bringing them up. If all of your friends (really?) have been saving it then they obviously are reasonably well off.

Child benefit ] or family allowance as it used to be ] wasn't never intended to be saved for the child. It is intended to help the family income and to be spent on raising the child.
If your friends can all save 18 yrs of child benefit, then they shouldn't be getting it, as they are obviously earning enough without it.

Exactly - it is called 'child benefit' for a reason.
Yet there are often posts from people earning in excess of 6 figure salaries who think the taxpayer should pay them money for each child so they can give it to their offspring on their 18th birthday so they can buy a car!
Some posters think it is capped at 2 children - it is not!

It should be universal

This thread makes me feel really rubbish OP. I couldn’t save for my children because we didn’t have enough money. Now you’re panicking about your more fortunate acquaintances as if they are somehow normal and everyone should have been able to do this, if only they’d tried harder. They’re not the normal ones and the majority can’t do this. You’re perfectly normal if you couldn’t afford it. Rich people setting up their children for life is exactly what perpetuates inequality. It sucks, but we shouldn’t be beating ourselves up about it.