Need to plan at to give at least £100k per child to set them up in early adulthood

[TulipLavender]

I have very young DCs and I'm currently nowhere near a high income but I've been thinking a lot about future financial planning.

What the impact of AI, unknown or insecure job market for younger generations, cost of living etc., I feel like I should prioritise saving to help provide some support for each of my DCs to help pay for uni costs and then support with later house deposit. I'm also expecting that they may need to live at home long into their 20s.

So I'm thinking i need to plan to be able to have £100k available for each child. Even this seems like it may not stratch the surface with unknown future uni costs and house prices but it will be a struggle to achieve this savings goal.

What are your thoughts around future financial planning for yoru children, do you have a target amount in mind? Would you prioritise this over paying a lot for things like holidays now?

YABU - its too much to give and need to reprioritise enjoying life more now

YANBU - with such unknown futures for our children, they will need at least this to ensure they have a safety net and support with getting on their feet

Concentrate on building your career, give them a good childhood free from significant worry about money, teach them to work hard and support their talents. That’s all your job is. The rest is up to them. I honestly don’t think it good for young adults to have everything figured out and paid for my their parents. Get them to uni and then basically I think it’s over to them.

As above

IMO, worth saving an affordable amount each month. Either for DC future or your own rainy day.
Better to buy DC less and save instead, but am not sure setting a target is a great plan as inflation, interest, life events will all get in the way.

How are you going to save multiples of £100k if you aren't high income?

With an initial deposit of £500, £130 a month into a S&S ISA should give just over 100k in 20 years, assuming 10% growth, which is the average for the stock market.

I agree with above too.

Lovely idea but:

You are nowhere near a high income

You haven't accounted for your own needs in retirement, old age, potentially care at home or in a care home

Young people given large sums of money have a tendency to spend it on cars/travel/fashion and not long term investments

This is mumsnet ,people's definitions of what is or isn't a high income vary massively.

Experiences over money. They will prosper from a wonderful childhood and could piss £100k up the wall at uni if they really wanted to.

My parents didn’t have anything saved for me or my siblings and we have needed to make our own way. We all have friends who have been given extremely generous sums of money by parents and they have no drive to better themselves and think they’re very hard done by. I can’t afford anything like that amount of savings for my children even if we went without everything. I do have some savings for them but I will focus on using it for things like driving lessons and a small car to practice in. My parents did this for us and I think it seemed to set us up for the reality of adult life far better than friends who had everything handed to them.

If saving £100k per child was easily achievable for me though I would do. But I wouldn’t tell them I had saved it for them and I would distribute it as and when I thought they needed it. I would also endeavour to equal with amounts given. Eg if I gave one child £10k towards their wedding I would do the same for all my children. Anything else just breeds resentment.

You should be prioritising your own pension before thinking of trying to save £100k each for your children.

you are much more likely to need that amount of money more urgently than they will.

Do you know how much you have in a pension? Have you ever done a pension calculator to see what you’d likely want / need in retirement?

if you’re not maximising your pension contributions to the fullest now, you’re likely missing out on a lot of money.

after you e sorted that out for monthly contributions then I’d look at saving some for your children but not above your pension or giving them a nice childhood.

I did pay my DC uni fees because I had a major tax free windfall - but I did it once they had finished and both got high quality degrees: 1st from RG. That is it from me, they have had jobs since they were 14 and saved all their bday and xmas money in Lisas. It is better to spend the time to fully educate them than give them money from what I have seen.

I have to agree, having £100k for each kid is extreme, especially if it means giving up fun childhood memories to facilitate it. By all means have a savings pot for them, give it to them when they're financially savvy enough to not spaff it up a wall but don't do everything for them.

My two will be lucky if I manage to put together 20k for each of them. It's there to start them off, if they want a car or as a boost to a house deposit but the majority should come from their own hard work. Otherwise they'll only learn that we'll be their bank and it keeps the pressure on us instead of them learning to be independent.

This. It doesn't make sense.

My DS GF is from an extremely wealthy family, multi millionaires, she is an absolute grafter and pays her own way. We are not that rich but DS also knows we could assist if needs be and her family are the same. but they have not just been given everything on a platter.

We were in top 5% of earners for many years, I encouraged him to get a paper round at 13, we have taught him how money works. By 15 he had saved 1k, that’s the most useful thing you can do for a child, make them money literate. Also teach them that whoever they let in to their lives romantically or as friends will have a big effect on their life outcome.

Concentrate on building your own earning power and ensure that you are putting as much as possible into your pension.

Aiming to save £100k each for your children - presuming you have more than one - is unrealistic when you should also be concentrating on looking after your own future (pension).

By all means save what is affordable for possible Uni or house deposits, but not at the expense of your pension. Give your DC as good a life as you can afford now - experiences, tutoring if needed at school, etc.

We have a Junior S&S ISA and a SIPP with Hargreaves Lansdown for DC, but also separate funds in our names for potential Uni fees and a house deposit. However, DH is a high earner and we can afford it, but the reason for the funds being in our name is to prevent ££££ having to be legally made available when he is 18 - he could fritter the lot away or have manipulative friends who encourage him to spend on them etc.

It’s all about balance, saving what you can afford while providing for your own future financial future. If our DC turn out to be a feckless idiot there is no way he will be able to get his hands on large sums of money while young.

I’ve been saving to support the kids through Uni - tuition fees only really, the rest is up to them. Then I am planning to release more through the house by moving somewhere cheaper so that I can support a house deposit each for them. I agree, I think its so hard for young people plus there is no point holding assets/money til you die.

It’s completely unrealistic for me to save that kind of money for my kids, so it’s not something I worry about. They’re growing with a good sense that they need to work for things they want, and that saving is important. I’ll help them where I can but I can’t cover every eventuality. If they choose to go to uni they’ll be supported to do so but I can’t cover house deposits etc. I also think there’s a point where adult children need to make their way and be independent adults, if I’ve done my job properly preparing them for adulthood I shouldn’t need to also fund their life choices.

It’s reasonable to want to save an amount that is affordable and realistic to you. If that’s £100k then it’s a good target, but equally if 75k, 50k or ‘just’ 25k are more realistic then they would still be sizeable amounts and of course if actually you could save more then £150k+ will set your children up even more. You don’t know what will happen in the future so on the one hand it is of course sensible to save what you can, but on the other hand don’t miss out on opportunities to enjoy life with your children now by feeling you have to put every spare penny into savings. I had a cousin die in childhood and my workaholic aunt & uncle always say they wish they’d spent more time enjoying life with him instead of focusing on their earning power and investments. Plus being stressed about money all of the time and constantly penny pinching to reach an arbitrary saving amount will be more detrimental to your children than not having a lump sum of cash in their early twenties. Save what you can, but don’t stress yourself out by thinking £100k each is the only useful amount.

We put an initial £500 and then £100 a month into an CTF/ISA which was £40k by the time ours were 18. The idea being they could use it for Uni/travel whatever they like.
With hindsight I wish we had started a pension for them too.
It’s worked well for our two, but they’re sensible. I never had any concerns they would go mad with it.

personally id love the safety net

Always consider yourself first. As it stands state pension is 67 by 2028, private pension is currently 55, about to rise to 57 and then will probably be even higher. What if you need to slow down your work? What if you need the money to fund yourself? When would your mortgage be paid off?

Why do you have to provide the future for your children and not them?

We saved in our name for the children for uni and not in their name which meant should we need it we could access it. It wasn't "their" money to begin with. Your world can come crashing down in a split second. An accident, a sick child who needs years of operations and treatments. Cover yourself first. If you can then assist your children later then do so but not at the sacrifice of yourself.

Re pensions for children, great, but again, when can they access that money? I think some money needs to be in accessible accounts. My friend died in her late 30s, so never got to see any pension. Both my Mum and Dh's Mum died within a year of retiring so all that planning, all that money they funnelled into their pension, neither of them really had the benefit of it. With that in mind Dh and I live for the now with a look to the future too.

I think it's worth considering that if you are obsessing about saving, this could have a negative impact on your relationship with your children from now until they are 21. Also, if you were able to give them £100k that could just make them feel guilty and put a loads of pressure on them to spend it how they think you'd like them to, rather than how they want or need to. Might it be better for both you and the relationships with your children to save say £50 a month for each of them instead.

Focus on giving them a good childhood and educational experiences. I came from a shithole and my parents couldn’t give me a penny, but they took me to museums, art galleries, any free event, and sometimes splurged on something. My mum beat into me the importance of education, I can always remember her saying “education is your ticket out of poverty” when I would whine about my homework. My dad isn’t academic at all, he is very practical, but he worked extra shifts to pay for a tutor in the run up to mine and my siblings exams. Money would have been nice, but I think the way they parented me set me up more than money ever could. I will be able to help my kids more financially, but I wouldn’t bank on it. Parenting over money anyway. Teach them resilience and hard work and it will take them far. I am one of six children and we are all pretty successful and it comes down to the way we were brought up.

100k per child is great if you can, but you probably can’t. Save what you can without making too many sacrifices (for you or for your kids). That being said - make the most of free things. Many theatres have pay what you can nights, museums are free, there’s opportunities to save money in lots of places.

This.
Except don't assume Uni is inevitable.
They may not be academically inclined, or they may choose a different path that better suits them, or it may be that in 15-20 years time it will be obvious that an apprenticeship or something else is far, far better value with better prospects.