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.

Child benefit is means tested. Hopefully that’ll help your stuck craw. Giving you more time to google stuff, oh things like is child benefit means tested?

Completely agree.

Your mates must be loaded. I work and have done pretty much since youngest was a year old and there were plenty of times that we wouldn't have been eating, or keeping the electricity or gas on, if the child benefit had been salted away to give to the kids when they reached 18. The BENEFIT of me receiving CB was that they didn't go without life's essentials. I'm pretty sure it's like that for a lot of people.

Good for them that they could do that, but many can't, and many that could maybe do not. Just because it's the norm in your friendship group it doesn't make it the actual norm. Don't sweat it, I don't know anyone whose parent did this. It's designed to benefit the child, so if rent and bills are paid and the fridge has food in it you've spent it on exactly what it should be spent on.

As a tax-payer, I'd much sooner it went on feeding your children rather than funding their driving lessons and first car.

It is means tested as anyone with children who lives in the UK would know.

It doesn't say it is mean tested here - just that if you earn over a certain amount you have to pay tax on it.

www.gov.uk/child-benefit/eligibility

That's not what the government website says: https://www.gov.uk/child-benefit/eligibility

Op, if it makes you feel better I'll have spent just shy of 91k and I've not saved a penny either.

I've never agreed with means testing child benefit but this thread is making me think.

We didn't save child benefit either, although perhaps we could have saved some of it. I think it is better that children get good food, some activities, a warm home, etc., than money being squirreled away for the future.

I wonder if all your friends are being strictly truthful. These days I would think it is difficult for most families to manage, even on two good salaries.

@AutumnAuntie you start paying a gradually increasing portion of it back from 50k and you are fully not eligible for it at 60k. How are you arguing that isn’t means tested?!

Exactly, so if you earn over a certain amount you end up paying it all back in tax so effectively don't get it - ie it's means tested.

It doesn't say it because you can claim it. However, if one parent earns over the threshold they have to pay if back via tax. Again, you would know this if you lived in the UK or had children.

But do you pay it all back or just a proportion? So if you earn over 50k you pay 100% tax on it?

Don't you think people with children should be able to save? Many will have to give their children money if they go to university.

OP certainy sounds like she has a very non typical group of friends. I don't know anyone who saves child benefit. I know people who save for their children, but not specifically the child benefit.

Not sure what OP wants to hear. She has spent the benefit which she is entitled to on what it is for. It doesn't sound like she has money to spare for kids savings. We all live to our means. Thats life. It doesn't sound like she could have done anything different even with hindsight.

Child benefit is meant to go towards the costs of bringing up kids. I think it shouldn't have been means tested, but now, I think that families with a parent on higher rate tax don't get it. The change came in some years after my sons (now 16 and 14) were born, I think, and doesn't affect my family as neither dp or I were ever in the higher rate tax bracket, and I now don't really have an income.

OP, you've spent it on what the kids needed over the years, and far more, I'm sure. You shouldn't feel guilty.

And that some people got it in the past who didn't need it is not a good argument for taking it away from the many women and children it made a huge difference to. I hope those who apparently didn't need it also paid their taxes as I believe in redistributive policies.

I know. This thread is bonkers. All those people saying if people don't need it, they should give it back, can't you see how ridiculous and illogical you're being?

Every single parent will be spending more than £20 pw feeding, clothing, housing, entertaining etc their child, therefore they are spending the CB for the benefit of the child.

Plenty of people on low to medium incomes will be able to afford to save the equivalent of £20 pw per child, depending on their outgoings and how they manage/prioritise their money. What are you saying they should do instead? If they have any money left at the end of the week, give it back to the government?

If instead of saving, if the parent who dropped the child off at childcare then bought a coffee each day on the way to work, would you say they shouldn't do that? The cost would be the same and the only difference would be that they wouldn't get their coffee and the DC wouldn't have their £20k lump sum at 18.

What if the parent took the child to McDonalds on the way home each Friday and bought them a Happy Meal, then spent the rest of the £20 on a plastic toy that was broken or forgotten about by the following week? Again, the cost is the same and many people will do that and say they 'can't afford to save'.

Leaving aside the people who can't afford to save, and those who don't qualify due to high income, there are literally millions of families who can save if they choose to do so, and many will.

They might decide that, instead of spending all their spare money on coffees, plastic toys, takeaways, higher grocery or car bills than average, or all manner of other non essentials (I hope no-one in receipt of CB is getting their nails done, buying alcohol, having their hair coloured, going to the cinema, going on more than the basic holiday, buying takeaways etc etc) that people can leak a few tens of pounds a week on, they will use some of their spare money on saving for their child's future instead.

And yet we have hundreds of posters who say that people who choose to do this should have money taken off them because they've decided to be financially prudent. Insanity.

It says here that you pay back 1% for every £100 you claim, surely that means you are still better off because of the benefit even if you earn over £50k?

https://www.turn2us.org.uk/get-support/information-for-your-situation/child-benefit/high-income-child-benefit-tax-charge#:~:text=If%20your%20income%20is%20between,of%20Child%20Benefit%20you%20receive.

Did your parents hand you your child benefits when you turned 18 cause mine or my friends parents certainly didn’t! Your in the majority!

Why shouldn't they have given their child money when they went to university! That is what parents are meant to do if their child isn't eligible for a full loan. Or do you think it is possible to live on a 5k loan?

It's all paid back if you earn over about 60k

I know you aren't going to listen, but all those people have not saved all of their benefits. maybe they all have some money saved up of differing amounts, but they definitely didn't save all of it every month. Not without consequences. It is like when I look around at people around me in the same income bracket and they have newer cars, trampolines, spend thousands on Christmas, have vacations, etc but then I see that they are constantly being evicted, tons of debt, going to the pawn shop all the time, etc.
Also, as a mother with children who are also SEN as you say, they cost a lot more than my children who are not. Just food costs alone are a lot more. everything for them costs more, from having to travel farther to get them to school, incontinence supplies, extra appointments requiring time off work or one parent having to stop working completely and on and on.

@Auntiedear It says here that you pay back 1% for every £100 you claim, surely that means you are still better off because of the benefit even if you earn over £50k?

It’s really strange that you are really struggling to grasp this. Once one earner hits 50k CB starts to be clawed back via tax gradually until it is all taken back at 60k.

Yes, good point about university. Even if both parents earn NMW, they're expected to contribute around £2k pa towards university, if the household income is about £60k, they're supposed to pay nearly £5k pa, so you'd need that £20k to cover a 4 year course, and that's on household incomes that are a pittance by MN standards.

https://blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2016/09/how-much-are-parents-supposed-to-give-their-children-when-they-go-to-university/?_ga=2.260898757.995713605.1696882272-1321274554.1650545330&_gac=1.124629496.1695878345.Cj0KCQjwpc-oBhCGARIsAH6ote-HmVfNySFHaBS6CEeTjCDiD3s4vEnUkEn9AhxdgqSWT_jB2o5WRGkaAko0EALw_wcB&_gl=1mkbd9d_gaMTMyMTI3NDU1NC4xNjUwNTQ1MzMw_ga_X74CWQS9F0*MTY5Njg4MjI3MS4yNjUuMC4xNjk2ODgyMjcxLjYwLjAuMA..#one

So saving a fairly modest sum from birth will lessen the pain somewhat.