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Original poster

How much is your gov Child Trust Fund?

127 replies

Newtonianmechanics · 22/03/2024 18:12

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?

OP posts:
Timeforanewnam · 22/03/2024 21:25

My daughters just had a few hundred in it

absolutely no way was I going to add my money to that account

she does have other accounts for when she’s older for a house deposit that she doesn’t need to know about yet

the problem with the child trust fund one was all the kids in their year would get them , they would know about it and they will be desperate to spend it on shite the second they hit 18 .

I would be devastated if I had saved thousands that could be potentially pissed up a wall

Readyornot567 · 22/03/2024 21:29

Freshstarts249 · 22/03/2024 18:42

DD 18 didn’t have much, around £1300 and I’m glad because she is not at all sensible, has gone off the rails a bit and it would be wasted.
dd 10 has about £600 in an ISA and I’m really reluctant to save for them because I’m not rich by any means and I’d be devastated if I managed to save 10k or something and they got to 18 and wasted it, which I imagine they would.

Our DC are too young for child trust funds, but we are saving a token amount for them in junior ISAs. We did talk about upping the contribution, but then I read a thread on here, warning about giving them too much in an account in their name! So we're saving generally anyway, and we can (hopefully) give them money that way for something specific. Can you save the money anyway, but in your account then it's there for you to give them to help them out with something?

Rollonsummer1 · 22/03/2024 22:02

@pixiesaresmall

We've had quite a few threads about this.
Basically it seems some people had it in a normal interest paid account, eg 3% and they added little bits to it.
They may have about 5 grand.
Others didn't add anything and it was left in a low interest account and they have about 500 if that...

Some people put it into investments that were cautious and didn't add to it they may have lost money or have maybe 1500 ish...

Then you have the people who did it themselves, high risk stocks and shares isa, even without touching it their will have grown considerably over a decade plus.
. Those that added to stock and shares will be looking at 20 grand plus.

pixiesaresmall · 22/03/2024 22:03

Rollonsummer1 · 22/03/2024 22:02

@pixiesaresmall

We've had quite a few threads about this.
Basically it seems some people had it in a normal interest paid account, eg 3% and they added little bits to it.
They may have about 5 grand.
Others didn't add anything and it was left in a low interest account and they have about 500 if that...

Some people put it into investments that were cautious and didn't add to it they may have lost money or have maybe 1500 ish...

Then you have the people who did it themselves, high risk stocks and shares isa, even without touching it their will have grown considerably over a decade plus.
. Those that added to stock and shares will be looking at 20 grand plus.

No doubt I didn't choose stocks shares 😅

Rollonsummer1 · 22/03/2024 22:04

@pixiesaresmall well... There is the lesson...

Read about it, learn about it and make those pounds work hard.

Rollonsummer1 · 22/03/2024 22:09

@PontiacFirebird unfortunately it depends what it's invested in.

My dcs also went down but shot back up again as most shares do after shocks.

blueshoes · 22/03/2024 22:28

SabrinaThwaite · 22/03/2024 21:15

Show quote history

You can convert from a CTF to a JISA any time. As far as I know, there is no time restriction. The only restriction is that the CTF must be converted in full to the JISA. The child cannot hold a CTF and a JISA at the same time. I did this for dd.

Ask the CTF provider for how to do this.

itsallabitofamystery · 22/03/2024 22:36

Ours is with Foresters and I've tried many times to extract information from them to no avail. They said they send out statements annually but they've not sent any since I cancelled my direct debit during Covid. Pre Covid it had about £8K in it. Received a letter during Covid basically saying everything we had contributed monthly was gone. I then stopped my direct debit and set up an ISA instead, so now I've absolutely no idea how the trust fund stands.

OvertheChannel · 22/03/2024 22:52

@itsallabitofamystery surely you have a note of the account number from Foresters? Can’t you phone them, giving address, postcode etc as proof of identity? My son’s ISA information comes addressed to him but c/o me, so I can phone them and get information (although I have set it up now that I can log on and look at the account anytime).

Rollonsummer1 · 22/03/2024 23:00

@Timeforanewnam

My older dc has it the other never had it.

They don't know if it's existence. What child would? Many parents actually never bothered with it at all.

I'm trying to be proactive and teach dc about money first. Since a young age I've encouraged saving, an drilled them on investments.

Rollonsummer1 · 22/03/2024 23:01

@itsallabitofamystery

Financial conduct authority? Write to newspapers?

Ladyj84 · 22/03/2024 23:03

Oh gosh I forgot about that I need to find the papers for it

BertieBotts · 22/03/2024 23:12

I've just checked and I haven't had a statement in over 2 years and it's addressed to an old address, maybe 2 houses ago. I should contact them I suppose.

TooBigForMyBoots · 22/03/2024 23:16

The last time I checked, DS1's was worth more than £400. He'll be 18 next year. He's planning to spend it on a trip to Transnistria with his mates next year.Grin

Weirdo.Confused

PickAChew · 22/03/2024 23:19

Youngest is about to turn 18 and his, like his brother's has about 8000 in it. We didn't add to them for long. The irony is that I will probably need to go to court to get access to Ds2's for him as he doesn't have capacity.

mondaytosunday · 22/03/2024 23:23

About £3k. She's 18 but we haven't done anything about it yet. My son has about the same and plans to use it to buy a car. We only added in twice as it didn't seem to be a good investment.

Floopyfloop · 22/03/2024 23:25

My daughter was born a few weeks after this ended, she also missed out on ks1 free school meals, free childcare and then ks2 free meals.

Chatonette · 22/03/2024 23:30

We save for our DC elsewhere, so the CTF has never been topped up by us. 15 year-old’s is currently £460.

Minikievs · 22/03/2024 23:32

Timeforanewnam · 22/03/2024 21:25

My daughters just had a few hundred in it

absolutely no way was I going to add my money to that account

she does have other accounts for when she’s older for a house deposit that she doesn’t need to know about yet

the problem with the child trust fund one was all the kids in their year would get them , they would know about it and they will be desperate to spend it on shite the second they hit 18 .

I would be devastated if I had saved thousands that could be potentially pissed up a wall

This is exactly why I didn't add to my DC1one (DC2 missed out)
I've just been online and checked.
£550 in it. So it's gone up £50 in 13 years 😂
Free money for them though, there's to do with what they like. Any other savings are under my control, so this will just be a nice bonus.

Minikievs · 22/03/2024 23:32

*theirs!!! 🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️

RM2013 · 22/03/2024 23:36

My eldest cashed his in I need to look at the paperwork for DS2. We never added any extra to them as couldn’t afford to at the time but DH did start a pension for each of them

TooBigForMyBoots · 22/03/2024 23:40

DS2 hasn't got one.

coffeandtwav · 22/03/2024 23:40

This is exactly why I didn't add to my DC1one (DC2 missed out)
I've just been online and checked.
£550 in it. So it's gone up £50 in 13 years 😂
Free money for them though, there's to do with what they like. Any other savings are under my control, so this will just be a nice bonus.

How old is your dd? Mine is nearly 16 and got £250 before it ended.

Minikievs · 22/03/2024 23:45

@coffeandtwav My eldest is 13 so got one. I think it was £250 at birth but I've just dug the paperwork out and apparently it was also another £250 when they turned 7 (??) so £500 altogether. I've done nothing with it and it's £550 now.
My youngest is 10 so didn't get one.

familyissues12345 · 23/03/2024 07:01

DS1 received his a couple of years ago and it was worth 16k - grandparents added in £50 a month. He's just set up an LISA to move it into

DS1 (15) has about 14k I believe at the moment