How much saved for your kids?

[darada]

Could I get a sense check of how much money and where you have saved or invested for your kid(s)? I have a 7 year old and he has both a junior ISA and a junior SIPP.

Following as interested to know what other people have 🙂

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How much have you saved for them OP? It depends what your outgoings are, your income, and where you live. If you share those things people will be able to give you more specific advice.

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None - bit they can share the house value when we downsize - when they leave home.

Why do I need to save for them?

30-40K each. I expect to use it for uni fees though its still technically for them.

None. I didn't realise it was a thing - my parents didn't save for me either. They supported me living at home going to a local university until I was finished studying, and then I got a job and moved out and supported myself, and paid off my student loan and started saving for a house and car deposit.

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Wasn’t done for me or was thing known to do.
Wish I had known to do for mine. But then they stand to have huge inheritance down the line at some point

Baby is 5 months old, we put £250 in a junior ISA. We intend to put £100 a month in until he's 18.

We save what we can for DS to help with various things in the future. DH and I put away £100 each per month - this is intended to help with things like house deposit/wedding etc. We have a separate fund that we pay into that is to help him through university/apprenticeship etc if he decides to do anything like that.

My parents weren’t able to save anything for me - I worked from the age of 14 & paid myself through university (living independently). But it was hard. I missed out on a lot of socialising and fun at uni because I was working every hour under the sun around my studies. Everyone in my friend group and all my flat mates at uni had a significant amount of help from their parents (either still lived at home or had accommodation paid & monthly cash for food/books etc) which obviously made their lives a lot easier! Some still worked during uni but were able to save that and had a decent chunk to use as a house deposit when they got their first graduate job!

We also put away money that was given to “get him something” as a newborn and money given for birthdays/Christmas. We already had everything we needed for him as a newborn and he has plenty of gifts at bday/Christmas so I’d rather put it away until he needs something more significant when he’s older. This goes into an account in DSs name which we can access at any time. It’s not us contributing to this though so not sure if you’d include that 😊 it soon adds up - there’s roughly 7k in this account and he gets about £13pm interest at the moment!

I think DD 4 has something like 5k of cash gifts given by family in her account (one of ours really but it’s hers) but past that we don’t save for her. I would dread her having thousands in an account she can access as a teenager, you don’t have any idea what they’ll be like at that age.

Fuck all!!! If/when they go to uni we'll start saving a few years before.

They each have about £10k in their names. But we have large family investments which I expect to help them with, as I don’t think putting substantial amounts in their name is sensible.

My one year old has about £1500 set aside for him in investments so far (our monthly contribution and birthday/christmas money). This gets topped up by £50/month until 18. It’s in our name not his so we can decide what it goes to and make sure it isn’t squandered away. But we’ve set it aside for him to help with his future.

My DD is about to turn 18. The govt had a CTF scheme at the time where every child received £250 which could only go into a CTF. I added roughly £60pcm to it rising in line with the fund’s recommended % increase to around £130pcm in the last year. It is worth £27k now which is enough to pay uni tuition fees (she won’t be entitled to a maintenance loan tho so we’ll have to think about funding that).

My motivation to save was exactly the same as @Inyourwildestdreams - getting to uni to find other kids had money their parents had saved for them since they were little which made a massive difference to their ability to have study time.

I appreciate £60-130pcm is a lot of money for a lot of households tho, and in the early days when the money invested actively lost value, it would’ve been easy to justify stopping but I’m glad I didn’t. It’s also been useful to show DD first hand, the economics of compound interest.

No money is saved in an account that automatically becomes theirs at 18. I don't care how much it get topped up.

£12.5k in S&S ISA
£4.5k in S&S SIPP

He’s 6 years old and they get topped up by £100 and £50 per month respectively.

None. I don't even have enough to save for myself! But I do help dc18 with money at university when he starts running out, and I also don't charge ds23 board or rent, he commuted for university, so never left lol. So although I don't have a lump some to give them, I help out where I can.

None yet but oldest isn't even 2 yet

We have some fairly substantial funds for them but it is in our name and they don't really know about it. They are now late teens and early 20s. I know for sure that one of them would seriously upgrade his car had the money been in his name! It is basically to either use as a deposit in a house or getting married. Their choice but likely the house.

Nothing. I don't like the idea of something they would automatically have control of at 18.

This thread is wild. I can't imagine a life where people had given my child £5k of gifts by the time they were 4!

My eldest had a CTF cheque from the govt which due to shit int rates has earned around £75 in 16yrs so she will get around £325 at 18. They both have their own savings accounts that they choose to put some or all of their birthday/ Christmas money in which means they'll have probably around £7k at 18. It's their money to do with as they please.

This is interesting as I REALLY thought I'd save fairly aggressively and regularly.

In reality I hate the inflexibility of both and now isn't a period of my life where I want to "gift" my money.
there's some birthday and Christmas money in a JISA totalling a few hundred.
No regular contributions.

Anything we have leftover goes into our pensions or one of our own ISA allowances as rainy day.
Our rationale is we would rather have control of the cash and be able to see where we land and gift uni fees/flat deposit/initial lump sum sipp contributions at 18 or 21 as we see fit.