Saving ideas for kids at age 18-21

[catflycat]

We've been saving money each month for the kids to help with uni costs or housing or whatever they may need at 18 or 21, which will be in the next 6-10 years. We have a stocks and shares isa (in our name, as not sure what the money will be needed for yet, and when). Everything has been auto investing in an index tracker UK fund on HL. Is this a reasonable plan? I was thinking of adding a global fund, maybe ex UK but struggling to find the right things or is there a better way to save?

What happens when we're within a couple of years of potentially needing some of the money (we're wondering about possibly paying tuition to avoid student loans, or if they don't go to uni helping with a house deposit), presumably we need to slowly withdraw it to cash, to reverse what we're doing now in slowly feeding it in?

Thank you

UK stocks are performing very poorly compared to the US and have for a long time. A full global fund would be better because you're not limited to a specific country and you won't miss out on US gains.

Don't pay for tuition. Unless they're going to be earning very high salaries, they're better off with the loans. A house is more important.

Thank you, a lot of the global funds are heavily weighted to the US, is this a reasonable bet given the utter madness going on there at the moment? Long term it shouldn't matter should it?
I'm working with a recent graduate om a good salary and the repayments are quite a lot and over a long period of time, but fair point that housing would be more immediately helpful.

@catflycat These are fair questions, but ultimately no one has a crystal ball.

Depending on the view you want to take:

• you could invest in an ETF tracking the MSCI World (an index of developed countries; the US is ca 70%)
• or you could have any combination of various funds to assign to the US the weight you prefer, eg you could mix an ETF on MSCI World excl US and one on the S&P500 (the US)

Are you familiar with justetf? it's a great site https://www.justetf.com/uk/how-to/msci-world-ex-usa-etfs.html
And if you don't know what ETFs are, do look into them.

My view is that with a 10-year horizon in mind, I wouldn't worry too much.
But I do not have a crystal ball and do not know your situation nor preferences.