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.

It’s really not the norm, you do you and f everyone else.

Stop stressing yourself!. If you can afford it start saving now!. If you can't, just keep encouraging your son to be the best he can be so that he can have a bright future.

@countrygirl99 is that ALL you took from my post?? Even though I shared my actual experience.

Sorry but this is silly.

Child benefit is monet to benefit the child. It's not adult benefit, to present your 18 year old with a pot of money.

I don't think it's good for very young adults to be handed a pot of money, anyway!

Child benefit is for food, shoes, clothes, milk and any other essentials you need to look after your child. It is actually, imo, an aberration of what it was designed for. While it's technically not abusing the system, saving the money is not in the spirit of what it's for. If people can save the money, then do they actually need it? If that's what it's for, then why doesn't the government just give every 18 year old a lump sum of 20k??

Please stop panicking and, as the famous line on MN goes, 'get a grip!'

If people are able to save it, then they don't need the money for what it is intended. Ignore them, you have used the money as it should be used.

The only ones saving it are the ones who can afford it! A Friend told me that once, how she saved it for them later on.
I started laughing because it was coming from someone quite wealthy. That money is there to help you raise your children if you can save it good but don't feel guilty because you used it for what it was meant to.

The fiscal drag. We all know how much inflation has increased since 2013, so 50k now is much less than it was then in real terms. The use of the name high income child benefit charge makes it abundandly clear who they wanted people to think it applied to, and if you look at ONS stats for the period you'll see that the percentage of people earning 50k was much lower then.

I can't prove the negative that they never came out and said this, but have a search and you'll not find it. Interestingly the policy was never in the 2010 Tory manifesto either!

Don't be ridiculous - surely the child benefit is for using for the exact purposes that you have been using it for!! If someone can afford to save their entire monthly amount of child benefit, then they don't really need it! I get CB for my DD but that will stop next July and I could not possibly have afforded to put it all in a,savings pot for her - I need that money to put towards food, bus fares for her etc. Your friends who are saving it are not using it for the reasons they're getting it for!

If you can't afford to save, then you can't can you? I don't agree with most this is a grey moral area, it's just fact.

And if you did save, anything for your children, which money you are saving, your salary, your husbands salary, the CB, into a child savings account, is not relevant, because all money earnt goes into a general pot doesn't it?

If you benefited from CTF 2002-11, that's £250 for starters. And then we saved monthly £20 and bits and pieces here and there, and family birthday money. So my ds's do have savings. Ds1 got his at 18. Not everyone does of course. No need to feel bad.

I don’t have £20,000 to give my child because we have never qualified for CB. This is a non issue.

If I saved my UC I would be told in getting too much.

They shouldn't receive it if they can save it.

This is rather heroically optimistic. Child benefit value is lower in real terms now than it was in 2013 when it stopped being universal, so it clearly hasn't worked that way thus far.

We spent the money on stuff for them when it was worth more. Even with a bit of interest, inflation over the years has eroded the value of that money.

In 2004 we paid £15 for piano lessons. CB was £17. The same teachers rate is £27 now. CB doesnt cover it at £24. Could have had more bang for your buck if you spent it back then. (Interest rates between 2004 and now have been pretty crappy )

The ones who can afford to save it, don’t really need it, the Gov should tighten up the rules even more to reduce the cost and help the deficit

OP, I have done the same-except my DD is older.
Using CB meant in the early days that I kept the heating on, and nappies on her bum.
It meant that school trips were paid for, and the replacements of trousers and shoes.

As our financial situation got better, it became money for treats for her. Or pocket money when she wanted some extra.

I know people who have spent their kids CB on savings, but they've either been OK financially without it or their children have suffered.
One woman saved half of her child's CB for all of her childhood, but that same child waits up to 2 months for a new school bag, grew up without carpets on the floors and had no washing machine for over 5 years, so her mum hand washed which invariably meant she didn't smell very nice because it wasn't washed properly. The same child at 13 hadn't ever been out for dinner and had been to the cinema once in her life so I don't think my decision to spend her money is terrible.

We have more recently managed to save some money for DD, and she will stay at home until late, with a focus on saving to set herself up for life. That's what will make more of a difference.

I agree, there’s no way I would have been able to save the child benefit I’ve received so far for DS(9) and I don’t even want to work out how much that could have been as it’s irrelevant. It has always gone towards living costs, childcare etc that I’ve needed to pay to support him. It’s not something I owe to him or need to ‘pay him back’ it’s literally been spent on his life 😂. As amazing as it would be to have such an amount of savings for our children it is not realistic for the majority of parents.

We are saving for university but not just a pot of money for spending at 18 (we could but it is not necessary). Much better that the money is spent during their childhood to meet any essential needs and, if possible, support extra curricular activities (participating in which helps them to build the kind of life skills that they need to succeed when they leave home at 18).

Er you spent it on them. If people can simply save it then they clearly don’t need it!
You did what it was intended for.

Where did this weird idea that people should be saving CB come from?

It’s money intended to help parents with the cost of raising the children. It’s not directly for them.

It’s totally fine (and from an economic perspective) desirable that people spend it as it comes in.

We don’t qualify for CB as one of earns over the threshold, so no saving of a lump sum for us.

It is compared to the people who are on the average wage of 30k and those below. So of course it's a good wage if it's double the average!

Yes of course savings would help but if you can't, that's it! You used your CB the way it was intended to, you didn't do anything wrong.
There is a lot more you can do to help your kids' future that won't cost you money, like help them research potential careers to generate a stable income, help them develop their skills, pass exams, support them to go to Uni if necessary etc.

Benefit means intended to help not an intention to save .

Anyone giving an 18 year old £20k is an idiot.

I love the idea that your colleague thinks she will give the cash to her 18yo and they will use it wisely.
I have 4 kids. One of which would use it wisely and the others would probably use most of it on food deliveries and clothes!