What is fair re:money to grandchildren

[lookinginsidemywindow]

I will start by saying that I am NOT thinking of saying or doing anything about this to my father before I start getting accused of being ungrateful or other stuff, but trying to work out in my head what is fair.

My father started a saving fund for his first granddaughter (my niece) when she first was born. I then had another girl and my father opened a fund for her too with the same amount of money.

My brother has then had 2 more girls and is keen for a boy so there is a chance they will have more. I am not able to have more for various reasons so we will only have her.

I am not sure my father would be able to afford the same amount for all the grandchildren.

Is it fair that he keeps the same amount for mine and divides the rest to cover all the grandchildren from my brother's side, or shall he reduce the money all the grandchildren receive?

I repeat, I will let my father decide what he wants to do and gracefully and gratefully accept his decision.

Surely the intention would be for each gc to have an equal amount?

All grandchildren should have equal amounts if that means the amount given to your dc reduces so be it
I have 1dc my sis has 3, if there was any inheritance from our parents id expect that split 4 ways between those individual children

I think it’s fairest that each grandchild receives an equal amount.

OP, no it’s not fair. Each grandchild is their own person, so if your father decides to give each of them the same amount, that’s not unreasonable even if it means that your children get a bit less.

Everyone equal amount

no exceptions

Equal regardless of how many children siblings have.

Absolutely - equal amount for each child.

Each grandchild is their own person, and the has the same relationship to him therefore equal amongst them all (rather than family group) is fairest. Although if we’re talking a one off financial gift rather than anything ongoing I wouldn’t expect anything to be taken away to share out.

Is it fair that he keeps the same amount for mine and divides the rest to cover all the grandchildren from my brother's side

No, surely you can’t actually think that’s the fair way?

I don't know why you would expect your dc to get more than the other dgc? They are individual people in their own right, and not extensions of you and your brother.

It’s nothing to do with how many children he has, all to do with how many grandchildren he has.

Difficult one.

If it was future inheritance I would say the fairest is for it to be equal among children to then divide themselves between grandchildren.

But for some reason I feel as if in savings it is more fair for it to be equal among grandchildren. I can’t really decide why I feel that way though.

That said, (lovely) inlaws started savings accounts for grandchildren but didn’t expect there to be so many, which means eldest grandchild ended up with about £7k and youngest about £500.

Yes, you are right, I hadn't thought about it that way.

Yep it gets divided by how many grandchildren there are, how many children is irrelevant.

All the grandchildren having equal amounts is fair.

If your DF decided for whatever reason that he was going to give you and your sibling a share of 50k of his savings would it be fair of him to give your sibling a larger proportion of it because he feels you may be better off than your sibling financially.

Surely you'd hope for an equal amount, which is what he's doing with his grandchildren savings.

It won't end up equal though will it? The first dgc will have been alive and saved for before the rest... When he dies the amounts wil differ...
When my relative died oldest dc got 4k..youngest got 1k. They didn't complain.. Were just grateful..

You are very entitled if you think that it should be more for your 1 child and less for each of your brothers

Your father has x grandchildren, any money that he wants to give should be split x ways. Regardless who their parents are/how many siblings they do or don’t have

His money - his choice

whether it’s ‘fair’ by anyone’s standard is neither here nor there. He does what he wants with his money and it is no one else’s business.

If you have zero intention of doing anything about it, why are you thinking about it or discussing it on here?

Genuinely OP I really wouldn’t worry about it, surely any amount that your father saves will be classed as extra and will come in handy when your little one is older? To my knowledge my child doesn’t have any savings accounts through his grandparents and it’s never crossed my mind, his dad and I are saving for his future and I didn’t have a penny saved for me when I was growing up! So anything that grandparents provide should be a bonus.

FWIW though if I have grandchildren I totally believe the fair thing to do will be to save for them equally, regardless which of my children’s children they are. Ultimately it’s the grandchildren who are benefiting who are all equal in their own right

My late FIL said he would be buying a set amount of Premium Bonds on the birth of my son (1992) - as he always did this on the birth of a grandchild. (This one was his 4th grandchild.) I was very surprised and grateful. However, time passed and we never received notification about Premium Bonds being purchased in son’s name.
It later transpired that he bought them IN HIS NAME with the ‘intention’ of splitting any winnings between all grandchildren. He later had 2 more, so 6 grandchildren in total. My son was never treated as favourably as the other grandchildren. And funnily enough, there was NEVER any mention of any winnings… 😡

My parents have done this and it's equal. I have two children and my brother has one. They will each get the same pot set aside for them to make sure they have the same opportunities. I'm pretty sure my brother has tried to argue that it should be different but my parents see the gardchildren as equals.

This is always a risk of saving for or passing down money to grandchildren: unlike your own children, you have no say in (or knowledge of) exactly how many GC you will have; even after you have died, you can still have further GC.

I'm reminded of a thread from a couple of years ago where the grandfather had two DDs: one of whom married and had two children, firmly mentioning that her family was now very much complete.

The other sister had continually and fervently stated how she would likely never marry and would definitely never, ever want any children of her own.

Grandfather started a trust fund for private school for his two GC, with enough to pay for them to go through the whole system.

Grandad died and then, a few years afterwards, the other sister had a huge change of heart and did indeed marry and went on to have two children of her own.

She approached her sister and asked how she could go about accessing 'the grandchildren's private school trust fund', as she needed to start planning and making arrangements for her children's private schooling.

First sister had to tell her that there was only ever enough for two children's full private schooling - and, even if they wanted to 'share it out' with all of the GC having some years private and some years state, the trust stated that the money could strictly only be used to pay for the private schooling of the two named older grandchildren.

No winners, really; I don't know if the sisters' relationship ever recovered.

To ask for opinions? Different views in the matter? To be able to explore other points of views and be able to change mine for the better?

Have you never had a situation in which you were wrong and corrected it?