Saving for your childs furture???

[tryingtobemarrypoppins2]

What are you doing re saving for your little ones? How much/how often and where!

£15 each a month into a bond thingumy for when they turn 18, and £15 each a month into an instant access account (but that doesn't get touched).

It won't make them millionaires, but it is at least something for them.

£150 each a month. But then we raided their accounts to buy a house. That's the probem when your two year old has 3 grand he doesn't know about!

Keep promising myself I'll put it back but haven't yet managed to get around to it.....

At the moment we put away £100 each but I keep toying with the idea of using it to pay a chunk off our mortgage. It's earning no interest where it is and it really bugs me that the money isn't working hard IYKWIM.

I feel in the long run we'd be more use to them when they are older if we were mortgage free them giving them a wedge of money.

£30 each a month into a Child Trust Fund. They also have their own nationwide savings account which we pay any birthday/christmas money into. The money doesn't get touched as their pocket money from grandparents and us keeps them happy - they seem to make it go a long way at the local car boot!

£100 per month each here too - just into bog standard children's savings accounts. My parents also put something away for them every month too.

I think if you are anticipating the possibility of them going to university later on, it becomes a necessity to save something now.

£100 per month per child into CTF.

Is anyone concerned about their CTF now?? I was wondering if they would do as well now??

All the child benefit goes into an account for her, plus a small amount monthly into the ctf. Neither gets a good return at the mo. We avoided putting much into the ctf because we were worried about her spending all on crack cocaine when she turns 18. The main account for her is a stocks andshares ISA in dhs name so we can use it for uni fees etc

I have 3 DCs. DS has a child savings account, we pay £30 pcm into that. DD1 has £30 into CTF pcm. Now have 5 month old and have set up CTF but will not make contributions.

We are now going to set up 3 separate ISAs in our names, transfer the money from DS saving account into one ISA and stop monthly contributions into DD1 and start them in ISA. Put all contributions for DD2 into ISA and accept the government contributions to CTF if they continue.

Reason being is that only the child can access the money from child savings accounts and CTFs and they are able to access both at the age of 18. As parents we have absolutely no say whatsoever in how and on what they spend their money.

Seems very dangerous to me to let an 18yr old loose with thousands of pounds. Have a 19 yr old DSS - if we had done the same for him, it would have been spent in a matter of weeks on drugs and alcohol....

My DDs have their own accounts that hold the money that they have been given.
We dont pay anything into it on a regular basis. We felt that it was better to tackle the mortgage first, and then to (hopefully!) have more money to give them later on.

ummmmmmm this thread is making we think paying off our mortgage would be more helpful.....a £100 or more a month would make a big dent long term wouldn't it??