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.

I'm living in Ireland and it's very common to save the child benefit from birth here from what I can see. Most of my friends save it. Places like the Post Office and State Savings offer saving accounts specifically encouraging people to save their child benefit. I think a lot of people save it as a college fund since there are no government loans and it wouldn't be typical for people to graduate college in debt. University fees aren't very expensive here but accommodation is, ideally my children will go to one of the 2 excellent local universities in our city so I can gift them this money towards house deposits instead but we shall see.

It's a universal payment here though so everyone receives €140 for every child (more in the case of twins/triplets), if it were means tested and capped like it is in the UK then I'm sure far less people could afford to put it away. In your case OP it sounds like you needed this money for other things so I wouldn't feel bad about it at all.

Just save what you can for him from now on, set it at what you can afford. £50 a month is £600 a year. You don't need to save your child benefit. And don't think handing 18 year olds large sums of money is a good idea anyway. My children are due to inherit £20K each from a late uncle when they turn 18 and god knows what they'll do with it. I would have preferred them to be 21 tbh. Or even 35.

I’m British but live stateside and so my children won’t be getting anything OP as there’s no equivalent here! So please don’t feel bad! It’s designed to help make your children’s lives better and I agree that if they could save it then it’s a bit of a piss take that they even claimed it!

I didn’t get anything off my parents when I turned 18. No CB, nothing from my useless Dad who had skimped out on a lot of child support payments etc.

@LuckOfTheDrawer exactly!! It's such a controlling and toxic view on this thread. Its like the useless father's dictating to the mother what she be spent yet he doesn't even contribute properly himself. Some of these comments are quite nasty!

You are being unreasonable i would have assumed that if you could have afforded to save it you would have? You said yourself you were thankful for it every time you received it so that sounds like it was needed to help with expenses why are you feeling guilty if you have been taking care of your child alone? The father is the one who should be feeling guilty. The fact he earns that much and feels no way to give just a measly £7 a week is disgusting. I know there are many men who purposely do this do they don’t have to pay much CS. If i were you i report him to HMRC so they can look into his finances properly. Because he is obviously defrauding them as well your child!

Mine went on my child, food for them, clothes for them, books and toys for them. As a single parent (and in those days you got a little bit extra if you were on your own, doubt this happens now) that money made a real difference. There was no way I could have put it away for them much though I would have wanted to as I had friends who were able to do this. It is paid because society (for now!) recognises that raising a child costs money.

I have a direct debit set up for savings for DS.
Every week my account sends £2 to his savings account. Which is what i can afford right now.

That means at 18 he will have an account with £1872 (before intrest) which I'm delighted by.
That's a great amount of money top up to send somone to uni with, or as a deposit on a place to rent whilst buying some basics like pots and pans, or a used car. And it's more than most people will get.

He also got given a few cheques when he was born (£20 or £50) and will probably get some at his christening so they will go in there too so he will probably end up with around 2k and I'm more than happy with that.

Child benefit right now is going on nappies.

"Each month for 12 years that it's gone in to my account I've received it and thought "Thank you, I am so grateful for this"."

Right. So you were completely skint raising your twins. How would you be able to save in those circumstances?

You’ve used it for what it’s meant for, as do the vast majority of people

Your friends don’t need it because they are better off than you. That’s just life.

@Caerulea OP this is normal! Most people rely on CB to get through the month. The fact it isn't means tested results in ppl getting it that don't need it

Except it is means tested and probably less people than ever receive it now.

It never occurred to me to save it.

Seriously stop being so ridiculous

You’ve said that every month you’ve needed it. You’ve spent 20k because it’s really expensive to raise kids.

You just have some affluent friends - I am guessing some of them have bigger houses and more expensive holidays than you too, and some will give their kids more than 20k in house deposits. Are you beating. Yourself up about that too?

FullMoomin · Today 05:15

I'm panicking though.
Really, really panicking.
£20,000 would be a life changing amount of money to be able to give to DC.
I will never, ever be in the position to give them a lump sum of money.
How the f* have I spent this over 12 years😩
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@FullMoomin , you have effectively asked WTAF have I spent this on?

Presumably your children have been:
Housed
Clothed
Fed
Kept warm and hydrated
Given enrichment opportunities eg a club or art/sport materials

The child benefit may well have been the difference between your children not having one/some of the above, or the extras many take for granted.

Over 18 years, your £20k is approximately £100 pcm. With respect, if your friends are saving it, they don't need it. Lucky for them.

Personally, I have experienced grinding poverty (even though I work full-time), and the 'clients' I work with are often much worse off.

Child benefit can feel like a drop in the ocean with the COL escalating, but it contributes to ensuring my children have most of the things I list above.

@JANEY205 I’m British but live stateside and so my children won’t be getting anything OP as there’s no equivalent here!

Actually there is a direct equivalent, the same thing is done in the US via tax deductions for having children as dependents. It’s actually a lot more generous than UK child benefit.
In the UK less people submit a tax return due to PAYE which is why child benefit is paid in the way that it is.

I agree! Worry less about what your friends have done and more about creating savings for the future. I didn’t have a lump sum for my daughter at 18 and i was a single parent also her dad was paying £200 a month (it was only 100 in her early years and increased a bit over time) and i got CB and CTC and I couldn’t afford to save any of it and i don’t feel bad about it. My daughter had what she needed and then some, it’s just meant daughter has worked hard to provide financial stability for herself and has now moved out and is independent. My daughter didn’t want to go uni and i don’t blame her, they gain a huge debt before they even start out in life. She chose a apprenticeship instead. i have invested money now which i can leave for her when i’m gone. You can do the same.

You used it exactly how it’s meant to be used OP. Please don’t feel guilty. They simply must have more disposable income than you generally, OP.

Ignore them bragging - and the PPs here bragging about what they’ve put aside for their kids and how they’ve been so wonderful in ensuring it’s spent well. Honestly… Zero tact. 🙄

@shivawn I'm in Ireland too, and luckily the people I know, if they're saving their children's CB, they're too tactful to say so. Where I live and my age bracket, my contemporaries bought at the height of the boom and are lucky to have much leftover to save. I won't have lump sums to handover to my children.

People are free to save what they can but by creating a 'norm' of saving specifically the children's benefit then a lot of children from families with a more ordinary level of income will feel hard done by because their mother/parents (I'm a single parent) isn't merrily handing over the children's allowance. It will be oh Siofra's parents gave her €30,240 the day she turned 18.

It's harder to convince the children from more ordinary income level households that they were actually fortunate to have security and everything that really mattered.

Calm down!

You've spent the money on your child. Raising your child. So it's not like you pissed it away on booze.

No. The government wanting people to save doesn't = 'child benefit is provided so that you can gift your 18 year old a cash sum'.

But do parents actually do this? I'm sure most parents intend it for university costs, driving lessons etc.

CB is to assist with raising the child. Those well enough off to save money regularly are wrong to make parents who have had to spend their CB on raising their children feel guilty for not being better off.

No one made op feel anything. She felt guilty.

CB hasn't always been means tested. It changed in 2013, until then everyone could claim it. I save mine, and make no apologies for the fact that I am able to. I haven't saved every penny and have dipped into the savings occasionally when needed. It doesn't mean that I don't need it, but I don't own my home, and I'm a single parent. It means that I can put something away to save for my son's future, university, rainy day fund. I don't really understand the anger, even before it was means tested. People earning over £60k are generally paying more in taxes than they get back in CB. My partner earns £65k which sounds like a lot, but he's a single parent of 3, gets no other help or support and despite his income, really struggles at times. Personally I think that the £50k threshold is too low, and that the threshold should be based on household income. If you can save for your kids OP, then do so but you seem to be beating yourself up unnecessarily over nothing.

@OuiRagamuffin nobody has created anything everyone has said on the thread that OP was well within her rights to spend the money on her DC as its expensive raising children. A SMALL minority have stated they do mange to save even as a single parent and all kinds of extreme comments have been thrown around such as "well to do". Are we actually talking about £20 odd per week here? 😀 I wish I could be well to do!

My colleagues are always boasting about saving their CB to create little nest eggs. It’s one of the reasons I’m against CB. Public money should be used to help the neediest, not just given to a household because there’s a child in it.

It’s absolutely mad to me that we have public services literally crumbling and meanwhile we’re paying for a bunch of young adults to have nest eggs.

Eh save it erm nope that's what bought our children nappies, clothes etc like your supposed to. If your saving it then you don't need it. I don't know anyone who saves it

Child benefit isn't supposed to be for people to buy cars for their adult kids. If you don't need it to be spent on your child that month then maybe the taxpayer shouldn't be paying it

I don’t really understand allocating different income to different things. It goes into your bank account and it gets spent on what you need along with any other money. It’s only parents who never needed the money in the first place who have saved it.

To a degree I understand because I know I’ve wasted a lot of money over the years - far more than you’ve spent (not wasted!) but a lot of that was to save my sanity. what if you’d saved the money and been so stressed that you made yourself ill? That wouldn’t have done your children much good would it?