How much is your gov Child Trust Fund?

[Newtonianmechanics]

My daughter is in y11. 15 turning 16.
I haven't invested much in her trust fund as I was unsure her having loads of money at 18 would be useful.

It is worth about 5k now. My dd says her boyfriends is worth £600.

She says some of her mates families have no idea about it.

Guess my Aibu is can't believe some families don't know where there £250 is?

That is appalling!

Ours went into a stocks and shared ctf and I maybe added 500 over the years. It had a few significant drops unfortunately (financial crash, Brexit, COVID!) so wasn’t more than 1800 in the end.

I couldn't afford to add to my DCs. I'm quite glad because it would have been painful watching them piss it up against the wall (although DD will probably be using hers for travel read holiday or uni accommodation next year) and DS2 bought a car with his after destroying both the one we bought him, and the one he bought himself but didn't want to claim in insurance DS1 didn't have one (he's too old) but if he had he would have been very sensible with his and probably put it towards a house deposit- I'm just pointing out it's not just my crap parenting that has resulted in financially haphazard DC.

My ds's was around £800
That's from 2005 to last year with no added money.

Yes it stopped around the change of government 14 years ago.

Oh God LynnetteScavo I totally get it. I’m quite glad my son’s is not 30k or something because it would get spent on rare trainers or something and I’d cry.

My son is 17, and his is worth around £45,000 now. I moved it to an ISA ages ago and have been putting in an average of about £120/month ever since. I’m hoping he will agree to use it for University fees, when he goes.

How have you managed to move it out of interest? I was informed that they can’t be? My daughters sits at £23k and she’s 17

I moved ours from a stocks and shares CTF to a Junior cash ISA.

Well you still had to claim the £250 and no doubt lots didn't, so no its not surprising and I'm guessing some of these kids don't have one.

Honestly I have no idea how much it is.

My oldest has one and my younger two do not just based on when they where born which always seemed unfair.

The government set it up not me, I didn't pay into it and do not even know anything about it really other than it should exist somewhere.

My kids have their own ISA's/Bank accounts that I actually set up.

DD18 has just over 2k, currently trying to withdraw it for driving lessons - we've had to send photo ID, proof of address and bank account, and now they want us to have a video call with them!

They where set up automatically, we did nothing but use to get the statements however that was well over a decade ago. We moved and didn't even know how to change the address on it as it was all set up without us.

I had one DC in 2007 who got the £250, they'd stopped it by the time DC2 came along in 2011.

https://www.onefamily.com/child-trust-fund/how-do-i-know-if-the-government-gave-me-a-child-trust-fund/

for anyone confused:

'Your parents could use the voucher to choose a child trust fund to open for you, but if they didn’t do this within a year the voucher expired and the government opened one for you. Child trust funds opened by the government are called "revenue allocated accounts".'

They do still exist if your parents didn't personally open one.

I think they can't be moved in the last 5 years before they are accessible, something like that. <Vague memory>.

So if it stopped 14 years ago, then none of them will be able to be moved any more as all the children will be over 13.

Can confirm I never did anything with DS's and it was all invested automatically, they sent me a letter about it, at some point it switched to email as I get the emails now. I don't remember giving anyone an email address, but I suppose I must have done.

I wish I'd been brave enough to do a Stocks and Shares one. Didn't feel I understood enough about the stock market to go for that. So just the standard CTF and set the DD for £10 a month. Just cashed it out at £4.000.

What a delightful perception and attitude you have towards your children

We paid in £10 a month and my parents paid on £20ish I think...DD is year 11 and its worth nearly £10k!! I'm a bit uncertain about her receiving it when she is 18! It wasn't available for older dds, so although I saved similar amounts for them the return hasn't been nearly as good.

No

My nearly 18 year old still has just £250 in theirs, whereas my 15 year old has £700.

we’ve not added to any of them.

Can't access my sons as I have changed the email it was registered to. Won't let me log in anymore sigh

I think you can still move them regardless of how long they have left to run.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/child-trust-fund-guidance-notes-for-providers/child-trust-fund-guidance-notes-for-providers#transferring-a-ctf

Well they both have additional needs and associated mental health difficulties so I’m realisitc. It’s not nice, but my youngest, like my eldest, is highly unlikely to go to uni or be thinking about house deposits at 18. Nor will they be able to go travelling or anything, so yes, the money would probably be wasted.