To ask how much you have saved/aim to have saved for your child when they reach 18?

[Pringleeo]

We have 400 quid so far and dc is 2. Friends seem to already have 5-10k!! This is not possible for us. Is this the norm to save so much? I know housing etc will be crazy in future so I would try and save more but just can’t at the moment

This is very personal to each individual. You can only save what you can afford to and shouldn't compare with others. As a single parent since DD was 4, I couldn't save anything for her for years, as I had to prioritise the mortgage and bills etc. I now save £25 a month for her.

DD is 16 now. She has £3.5K in savings that she has accumulated since birth , from birth gifts, christening gifts , Christmas , birthdays etc. She has £600 in premium bonds and I pay £25 a month into there.

She also has the Child Trust Fund that started with the £250 voucher from the government. I paid around £600 in on top of that before my marriage ended. Kidstart has paid in around £500 over the years. It is now worth about £3K as it has grown so much.

So in total she might have around £7K when is she is 18.

As a single parent I intend to put 50% of my house in DD's name once she is done with education and the mortgage is paid off), in order that it doesn't all go in care home fees in the future .

I save £5 each per month for both

With the way student finance is in England if you can save a small amount over the years it can make the difference between being able to go away to uni or not.
Two parents on £30,000 each and you are expected to pay £5500 a year out of your net to bring loan up to full amount. Without getting into the max loan won’t even cover rent in some scenario. Threshold of household income under £25,000 to get full loan hasn’t changed for years.
unsurprisingly lots of parents of teens find themselves blindsided as they think dc can get a loan. Lots of why did no one say when they were small.
If teen doesn’t want uni then can use it for car/housing etc.

I put £50 a month away, they get £10 pcm from grandparents then some money for birthdays. It’s about £800 p/y. So I guess around £15k. They are young though so Christmas and birthday money is saved where I expect soon they’ll want to spend it.

I currently have 3k between the two of them in a savings account which is at 6.1%.

They are 6 and 8, so I'm really going to focus the next 6 months on plugging away at their pot. Life just gets in the way sometimes.

I am keeping it in my name, but I'm planning to open some premium bonds in their names.

I've not heard of a junior SIPP so I will look into that.

So glad this actually isn’t a thing!! 😅

Mine all got jobs at 16 and had considerable savings by 18 they did this while doing a levels. Kids need to work. It's not good for them to be handed everything on a plate

yes I send them all a charity donation tax relief receipt with the carefully hand written, family crest embossed thank you notes.

seriously, chill out

Nothing. I wouldn’t trust an 18 year old with a large sum of unearned money. I was working at weekends and school holidays and valued every penny.
However we are generous with our own (modest) savings for the kids as and when needed.

3k for DS 3.

He gets a decent interest on anything under 5k, so any savings over that will go into a different account & go towards uni savings. The 5k account can be for a car/insurance etc.

Were probably going to be expected to have at least 50k per kid per Uni course saved, so making a start on it now. We do have investments that could help toward a deposit, but as we didn’t need support for that from family, it’s not the biggest priority.

I saved more for DS when he was tiny and didn’t actually cost me that much. Now he’s 8 and I seem to spend several hundred pounds a month on extracurricular activities, shoes, clothes, sports equipment etc so there just isn’t as much leftover. I get an annual bonus and usually chuck a few hundred from that into his savings, but otherwise we prioritise our own savings and overpaying the mortgage. However this approach should mean the mortgage is paid off in around 8 years i.e. before he goes to uni, so we’ll be able to give him a lot of financial support then and/or save a lot more towards helping him onto the housing ladder.

With the cost of nursery fees at the minute, nothing. One nursery eases a bit, we plan to spend some money on the house, which will probably take us to when they start school. At that point, our plan is to overpay the mortgage and bring the term down and up our pension contributions. We don’t plan on giving her a savings account in her name.

DC will be an only child and the plan is to overpay the mortgage so by the time they go to university, we will be mortgage free and can help out. I don’t know if we’ll be able to pay fees but we should be able to help with rent and some living expenses. We also plan to sell our house, release some equity for a house deposit. I’m also hoping if we can contribute more to pension contributions, if they want children and live close to us, that we would be able to reduce our working hours and help out with childcare to save them a small fortune.

I had a small amount when I was 18 and I think if you’re in the position it’s great but a small amount should be spent on being 18 - travelling, having a first holiday with friends, buying a nicer car. I don’t want to save for it to be conditional or blown on something I don’t see as good enough. We would rather keep all money in our names and contribute to what we feel is worthy as we’re able to do at the time.

Everyone does the approach that is best for them based on how much spare money they have (if any), what they were like as teenagers and what they’ve seen other people be like as teens.

You use your child's birthday and Christmas money to pay off your mortgage? 😮😮
Do the people gifting your child the money, know that you are taking half of it?
That's outrageous!

I cannot believe somebody uses their child’s birthday money to overpay their mortgage 😂😂😱 - that’s so cheeky 😂

Ordinary people can save money too though. People with money aren't ordinary

Save what you can IF you can.

Your job is to love your kids, keep them safe, healthy, happy and support them within your means and capability to fulfill their potential.

It’s good if you can forward plan to see how you can make that happen in whatever way suits your life and means best.

Whether that be by saving a fund for them, preparing to support the Uni years, and / or doing what you can to build their confidence and self worth.

No point comparing sums of £££££

I hope she finds out and disowns you

We started bonds for ours when they were born. Gave them both 10K when they turned 18.

It should be about £20k when she's 18. It's in her name but it's not being given to her until she's mature to use it for something like a house deposit, uni, travelling etc etc.

It's not for pissing up the wall.

Yeah I’m sure she’ll be super cross in her early 20s to find out she owns a half a million dollar house instead of a full set of limited edition Ty teddies

What on earth @CultOfRamen that money was gifted to your child, not to you to overpay your mortgage. Why are you taking 50% of her money to pay your mortgage?

We started a child trust fund when the labour government introduced it (government paid £500 I think). Paid in £25 a month until she was 18. It was in stocks and shares and came to about £24,000. You may want to consider paying into an isa in your name instead of your child's. While my daughter hasn't gone and blown it all on drugs some might and it might be useful to be able to access it yourself if they needed money before the age of 18 (for an expensive school trip for example). I would only do it if you could afford it. Having money to do nice things as a family is important and parents shouldn't feel they have to scrip and save so their kids can get on the property ladder.

How will she own the house? You'll own it surely. Or are you going to transfer ownership to her.

This is just bizarre

My husband and I have savings but not in our children's names (one of whom is profoundly disabled and will never have capacity to manage his own money anyway). What would I ever spend money on if not my children anyway? To me it's all one. We would naturally give whatever we could sensibly afford to our able child if she had proved she's sensible etc at the point when she was thinking about buying a house, contribute whatever we could do uni fees etc, and my little lad will live with us as long as we're alive and it's in his best interests. I don't really see money as something for me v something for them.

I opened a SIPP for DS ..... provided you invest wisely, it's 'free' money from the government. If you put in the max 2.8k they'll top up to 3.6k. I self-select (I used to work in the industry) and so both the SIPP and ISA are doing very well. First stock I bought for it was Proctor & Gamble (makers of Pampers .... the world will always need nappies).

As a teen, my future was blighted by not having a source of cash. I'm making sure my DS has a healthy 'fuck off fund' which will give him options should the worst ever happen.