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.

This drives me potty.

If you have enough salary coming in each month to be able to save child benefit, I remain convinced you should not be eligible for it. Your friends who are saving it are glibly taking something they can evidently do without when some of the families I work with could definitely benefit from a little bit more in terms of financial support, despite working hard at full-time jobs in poorly remunerated sectors, and paying eye-watering private rents.

Saving child benefit is the epitome of a kind of character flaw at best, or a national malady at worst.

So anyone who can save money should not receive child benefit?

People clearly mean below the current £50k threshold, or that the amount of CB decor over is on a sliding scale like the way the tax return applies for those earning over £50k.

The amount of CB given

They will also be paying taxes though and if they can save a lot more than £24 a week. It isn't "your" tax money that it is paying for it.

What do you mean, 'should have saved'. No, you shouldn't! You spent it exactly how it was supposed to be spent, providing for your DC! And 12 years ago, CB was less, so you haven't allowed for the changes year on year. I expect some of my friends may have saved their CB, but it isn't something we have discussed. I suspect most of them have spent it each month. Please stop worrying!

They will have spent a lot more than CB on the kids. They just took it out of their earnings and assigned the CB amount to their savings. Anyone who thinks they shouldn't do this is saying that people with children shouldn't save money.

I think those who have saved it must have been in quite a priveledged position. No way I could have saved mine.

once again, I am not saying no one can save any money, I am saying that I don't believe that of her 14 friends, all 14 of them saved all of it every single month.

@FullMoomin are you of the opinion, now you have found out that wealthy people who don't need benefits but receive this non-means-tested benefit will typically add it to savings, that therefore people on the breadline who have to choose between eating and heating etc are also obliged to save every penny?

If you aren't a total loony, you will acknowledge that of course there's no such obligation.

Now obviously you aren't bread-line-level poor but also you aren't rich. Like the vast majority of people, you are in the middle.

Equally obviously, there isn't a single cut-off income level, where below that it's ok to spend the benefit on surviving and thriving day-to-day and above which you have to save every penny. Believing that would also be loony territory.

The only non-loony position is that each family makes ends meet in the way that works for them and that if you aren't wealthy enough to meet every reasonable cost for yoir children and still have loads left at the end of every month to go into savings then it's totally ok not to be saving.

You haven't done anything wrong. You don't owe your children a massive savings pot when they reach adulthood, any more than you owe them skiing holidays or their own pony. Some families are richer than you. Get over it.

Stop panicking.

It's very fair people save it and give kids a lump sum.

It's the exception not the norm

You're fuming because we haven't spunked the time and resources to conduct individual means testing of every single child benefit claimant? Because that's the only way we could actually stop anyone who can afford to save from receiving it.

How is this a surprise to you? Were you genuinely not aware that nearly 90 percent of families received child benefit and it was a benefit for all but the wealthiest of kids? You couldn’t have thought they all lived in poverty and couldn’t afford nappies or to feed their kids?

What gets me riled about child benefit is a couple that both earn £49,999 each can claim it, total income of £99,998 a year, but the minute one of the couple earns over £50,000 even if the other partner doesn't work you start to have it reduced. It's a stupid system and should be worked out on a COMBINED income like every other benefit is. If people are able to save this benefit then I'd assume they're both earning around the 50 grand mark and I don't agree they should be getting the full amount, if any of they have that amount of earnings coming in

Exactly, so me an my husband who both work our arses off, me who does o/t at weekends, who live within our means and prioritise saving up for our children's future shouldn't get it????
As a matter of fact I don't get it, haven't had it for years, but even before that I manage to save as I class it as another household expense and its taken out the day the mortgage is!

And I disagree, I think they should get it, as long as it’s used for the child either now or in the future.

am stunned this is what folks are getting riled up about and not the waster parents leaving their kids without and spending it on themselves.

only a small percentage of people can’t afford nappies or food who get it. Which means the vast majority who do, can afford to prioritise saving for their child over other stuff for themselves. Many don’t

@Tessabelle74 If people are able to save this benefit then I'd assume they're both earning around the 50 grand mark

Do you honestly think the only families who are able to save the relatively small amount that equates to CB can only be earning 100k?

@Pinkfluff76 What the actual fuck. Your friends who’ve saved the money… if they could afford to save it then why did they receive it? We don’t receive a penny because we earn enough.

So you are a higher earner and begrudge another family budgeting in order to save £80 a month for their child’s future expenses like further education?

I'd assume that ANYONE that can afford to save in the current climate doesn't require a benefit that is means tested in completely the wrong way.

Yep, just one of the many stupid rules of our overly complex tax and benefits system, which has been getting more complex and unfair for the past 25 years, ever since Brown started faffing around with it. Things were pretty steady until Brown, yes, there were lots of rules, some anomalies, etc., but nothing like the ridiculous situation we're in today. Brown started it with the stupidly ridiculous "tax credits" which are of course, a benefit, not a negative tax as he buggered that up. Then the coalition brought in the stupid child benefit claw back which is basically a tax to recover a benefit and drive a coach and horses through "independent taxation" which women had fought for for years. Tax used to be on the husband then we had it separate, now the child benefit tax is based on joint income, so we're going full circle. No wonder HMRC barely functions these days and it can take 1-2 years for them to deal with correspondence. Successive Chancellors (Brown in particular) have spectacularly buggered up our tax and benefit systems. Trouble is that both major parties want to introduce even more complexities and neither show any interest in simplyfying a failing system - Rishi has even just scrapped the "office of tax simplification", not that it did anything useful in it's 15 years of existence, but it shows they have no interest in making it simpler nor fairer!

It's paying out benefits to hoard of people who don't need it which is contributing to the country's deficit and ever increasing debt. That, in turn, is causing higher interest rates than necessary and also future higher taxes, so it's affecting everyone. Economics is like that - lots of things which are interlinked with each other. Our benefits bill is way out of control and we're going to be bankrupt as a country, if we don't start to restrict benefits (inc state pension!) to those who actually need it. We simply can't afford to continue paying benefits to people who can afford to save it because they have a decent/high income.

The coalition were right to means test child benefit - it was their cack handed stupid way of setting the way it was clawed back which is the problem.

But that's not what you were being asked about- do you really think the only people able to save CB, which if they just have one DC could be less than £100 a month, are those who are both on just below 50k each? Bearing in mind what absolutely massive variation there is in, say, housing costs in the UK?

I don’t believe for one moment those kicking off are all so poor they couldn’t buy nappies or food without this. Some maybe, but not all. No way. Which means they spent their own income on stuff for themselves and chose not to prioritise savings for their kids,

Not just nappies, but babysitters, braces, kids' parties, I'm not BROKE but I had to spend mine.

Whilst I agree that the means testing seriously needs to be revisited for CB, I think even people on lower incomes (note I didn’t say the lowest!) can save and would be wise too - but only if they can.

£16 a week a week saved (which many spend on coffee and other things like that - I always have done even when earning £20K ish when starting my career) is over £15K in 18 years. I’m not talking about those seriously struggling to make ends meet of course and I’d never say “Why don’t you just save?” to anyone this much on the breadline.