Do you save for your children?

[ivykaty44]

After another thread I wondered if people save for their children?

Do you put money away each week or month for your dc to give to them when they are 18 or 21 or need a deposit on a house?

Or do you not have the money to save for you children and not put anything away - or you just choice not to save for them for another reason

No we don't have the money.

Yes, we can't afford to from our main wage so we take on extra odd jobs and that is put into savings for dd. It varies from month to month.

no, I save for myself.

If, in the future, they need help and I am able to give it - then I will, as my parents helped me with a deposit for a house, and their parents helped them.

Yes, definitely.

I save for dd's University education under a scheme (not in the UK) that gives significant tax advantages if funds are used for education purposes.

If dd chooses not to go to University, I am inclined to let her use the money for a 'big' purchase (house deposit).

I also give dd £4 every week that goes into her personal savings account at the bank. She is 'in charge' of this account, but knows the funds are not available to her at this point (she is 9). It gives her a sense of just how long it takes to save up for the things she wants.

my OH had an endownment from his early 20s which he's kept paying into and will be there for any higher education requirements, and i have savings, but this is all 'family money' and we'll use it in the way we think best for our children as we go along.

we want the best for them but that also includes ensuring we can pay for our own retirement and care in later life and not be a burden on them in our dottage.

tiptree - is this to pay for university or high education or for soemthing else - that seesm a lot to take on extra work to save?

It is for university if she needs it. We use the same method to ave for luxuries like furniture or holidays.

Yes, for DD.

It varies from month to month depending on how my hours are going at work - more hours = more put aside. A 'normal' month only sees £30 a month put away as I'm also saving to backfill the financial hole that will be left when I leave paid work for 2yrs to attend uni f/t. A better month (hours wise) sees anything between £50-£70 a month put aside. Sometimes a portion of DH's annual bonus gets put in there too.

The money is not for anything specific. Possibly to help with uni costs (although she will be encouraged to cover as many of those as possible herself), maybe for housing, maybe for her to keep as a nest-egg and build on as an adult, maybe a wedding, maybe something else entirely. Whatever. The fact that she will have a financial cushion is important to me as it's not something I had but it is something I would have benefitted greatly from (and I left home and bought my own house etc in an era where cost-wise things were much easier than they are now).

Even though they are her savings the money is being saved in a high interest account in my name (or as high as you can get these days without going high risk). DH and I will decide when she is emotionally mature and savvy enough to make the decision as to how the money is spent (unless it is to be spent on her university education, in which case obv DH and I will make that decision based on our own financial situation at the time).

(before anyone who 'knows me asks, I'm not being sexist toward my children - DS1 & 2 are my stepsons and DH & his exW didn't do anything similar for them.)

Just to clarify, month to month, DD's savings go from my salary alone, with the odd small annual top up from DH's bonus

We put £100 per month into accounts for both dd's. This is to pay for university and weddings. The amount will decrease if we have a 3rd dc.

To go to university now and come out without debt costs about £20,000 to £30,000 a year. Over 4 years that is around £100,000. Add a gap year at about £20,000 in today's money and you have £120,000. Chuck in a wedding at another £20,000 and a house deposit and you are near £200,000.

I fully appreciate that the vast majority of people cannot save that amount but if you worked on a mid range return of 7% on your investments, you would need to save around £400 a month.

However, add in inflation at 5% and the sum you need rises from £200,000 to around £480,000 and you'd have to save £10,000 every year for 18 years to cover it.

The simple fact is that most people cannot pay the expenses out of income and never will be able to do so. Add more than one child and you get to a massive amount. Yet we have no excuse not to save because we know today that no future government is going to fully fund education and it is unlikely that house prices are going to fall to levels where first time buyers can pick them up as they did decades ago.

I applaud all saving for kids but it is time the general public woke up and realised that £10 here and there is not going to make a dent in the amounts required. Go ask the Americans, who have sweated over college savings for decades because that is what we have now in the UK and people just have to get used to it.

Lol 3point14 £20,000 - £30,000 a year for uni?

DD will finish uni with just over £20,000 debt for 4 years. Nowhere near what you suggest. Even if you pay everything for you child - fees, rent and spending money so they borrowed no money, this would be about £9k max a year.

No one I know has had a £20k gap year and no parents I know have funded one at all.

Weddings don't need to cost £20k and most get married a lot later than at 18 - giving parents longer to save if they want to do that.

Plus £60k for a house deposit, jeeez - again who does that!?

I think you are slightly barking

Can't even save the child benefit..it goes on food and bills. Not to worry..this time next year we'll be millionaires!

agree with sockadoodlesdo - the amounts 3point14 is talking about are ridiculous.

And also I don't want to bring up a child who would expect a university education, expensive wedding and house deposit paid for completely by parents. I didn't expect these things and certainly didn't get them.

My DC's both have a savings account. My parents gave them £1000 each when they were born which we have invested and since cashed in.

They also get around £150 for birthdays / christmas's from the family which we pay in, if they dont want to buy anything.

Then we put money in as and when we can afford too. They have about £5000 each now, so have more money than us!

Dds have accounts where they putmoney from birthdays & Xmas. They spend the first £20 ish & excess goes in the bank. My Grandad also gives them money which goes in. We put in money occasionally but only £10 here & there

We are not saving a great deal at all right now- just £15 a month into DD's CTF. What we can save each month will be needed if/when we have another child so that is our priority atm.

When our finances get a bit easier we will save more, but I have no desire to try to save enough to fund the whole time at university, plus gap year, house deposit and weddings! Certainly not at £20,000 a year at Uni. I will try to help my DD (and any other children) as much as I can, but I wouldn't want to fund everything even if I could. They will need to learn to stand on their own two feet, prioritise their needs and work for them- just as I did.

We do save for the children

Just one cautionary note - I wonder if people actually know that if they put money in bank accounts for their children, the interest is taxable upon them as parents, rather than on the children.

Really makes a difference. Interest rates are pawky - can't get anywhere near the 7% quoted on this thread - and once you start paying 50% tax on it, it really is totally insignificant.

Yes we save £50 a month for each child. They also have their own accounts for birthday/christmas money.

We try to put £60 away for each DC (we have 2) each month which is the child benefit. At the moment we aren't able to do this as we've just completed on a house and haven't sold our old one yet. We also had to dip into it before when our car conked out and we needed to buy another 2nd hand.

So we haven't saved a huge amount but hopefully it will be enough to buy the DC's driving lessons and a car or something when they hit 18. I'm not too bothered about uni fees as they may decide not to go (which would be fine with us if they get an apprenticeship or something), and I would expect the DCs to pay for their own wedding as we had to do ours!! We had £500 off each set of parents towards our wedding which was more than generous!

The money we save just goes into a building society account. Both DCs CTF has just had the voucher invested and if it's worth something at 18 then good, but if not, we've not really lost anything.

Yes, both in dcs' name and as part of our own investments.

In dcs' name is essentially their child trust fund that we top up with their child benefit and from cash gifts from grandparents.

Any excess goes into a separate investment account in each child's name, though that is not tax-sheltered like CTFs.

Our investments are as far as possible within tax shelters like ISA.

Gosh my two will have to fund their own lives and weddings, deposit for a home will have to be saved for by themselves.

I havn't saved a bean for either of my dd's dd1 is now 18 and had geneorus amounts for her birthday but she works and will pay for her own driving lessons and travelling is soemthing she is thinking of doing and will have to fund her ticket and work for part of the time whilst she travlels.

i funded my own traveling and soemtimes worked to make life easier - I had soem weird and wonderful jobs aswell but that is all part of the fun and of you set of the deal of backpacking on a budget

The cb is saved for ds each month unless he needs shoes (large teenage feet), so not for August when I get his winter shoes. My pils have set up a trust fund for each of the grandkids and put lump sums and £50 per month in for each child. This have been going almost 15 years for ds now.

I won't fund his house deposit but will help with uni as neither dh or I had to pay, so don't see why ds should come out with debt.

I didnt save for my first child but saved for my second (not a massive amount - will be about 15k @ 18)
I do save for myself / the family @ £500 a month