Child Benefit - how do you spend it?

[debster]

I've been wondering how people spend their child benefit. Do you spend it just on your children, save it or spend it any which way? Our child benefit is paid into a separate account but isn't actually spent on the children exclusively. They do have their own savings accounts but this is for birthday/Xmas money. The child benefit usually goes towards our household expenses.

Whilst I appreciate the extra money we get I do also feel uncomfortable about whether we should receive it all. I think child benefit should be means tested especially after seeing a programme a few years ago which featured a middle class woman who saved her child benefit to buy a new piece of art every year. I would rather those who really need it get more than everyone getting the same.

What do others think/do?

That is not fair Mammya!

FlorenceUk - I agree with Tallulah - don't claim OR donate it to the NSPCC

Tallulah - we are in the same boat as you - and it is the "both" issue that catches us out too!!

MMJ the point is we already have means testing - so we've already got all the negatives associated with means testing which people have mentioned, the question is whether it makes sense for a person earning £50,000 a year to get £800 from the govt for simply having one child.

I think arguing that if it were means tested people would get less is a bit cynical - after all the Govt has actually increased levels of support to people with children quite a lot in recent years and funded that with increases in NI. We have a government (or more to the point, a Chancellor) which clearly wants to spend money on children and support families, so why not assume that if we did free up some money it might go to a worthy cause.

CB is £9bn, all other child support is about the same, while JSA is only about £3.5 bn - universal benefits are hugely expensive. Why should Gavyn Davies' wife get CB, or Posh and Becks, or Liz Hurley? I think every child has a right not to live in poverty, but there's a big step from that to saying that every child deserves £16 a week from the taxpayer.

There may well be a good case for making the cut off point higher than it is at present for means tested benefits (and I don't mean to say that those who say they really need it aren't really "poor" enough) but that can't happen unless more money is put in the pot - and that has to come either from more taxation or from cutting back elsewhere. At least with means testing you end up making a conscious decision about how much redistribution you are willing to fund.

I agree that the current system is horrendously complicated and hard to negotiate and making this work is a priority - but at least the Govt has made some steps in the last budget to try to simplify the system (albeit also cutting back on admin at the DWP which won't help).

Anyway I know that universal CB is like a sacred cow in this country and no Govt will ever ever change it (like the NHS) - but I was truly shocked to work out how much it cost. Debster, come back and support me!!

Interesting thread. Our joint income isn't great so our CB is very useful for bills etc.

One thing that bugs me about the Child Benefit system is the fact that my twins aren't both classed as a "first child". My second born twin gets the lower rate of CB. Presumably they had this tiered payment for subsequent children believing that everyone had all the basic stuff such as puschairs, cots, clothes etc from the first child and wouldn't need so much but that's obviously not the case with twins, triplets or more.

I think the Multiple Birth Association as challenging this.

Sorry - a little rant there!

This discussion is raising some interesting points. I didn't realise the income threshold to receive other benefits is £25k. I appreciate that if your total household income is around this amount and you also have to pay for full time child care then the child benefit you get is essential. My concern is that there are those who earn considerably more than this who do not need it but still get it. Who, in such a family, is really benefiting from this? It may be that it is easier & cheaper to adminster a universal benefit, however, does this mean it is right?

I quite like the idea of the baby bond given to new babies. Maybe a solution could be that those who earn over a certain amount have to have the money paid into such an account so that only the children can benefit? Although to be honest I don't know what the threshold for receiving child benefit should be set at. I don't know enough about it.

Mammya - I am shocked child benefit is taken into account when calculating income support. That is so unfair. Why on earth should someone who earns £60k a year be allowed the extra money but those who do not earn anything in effect have it taken away? Do you know if this is the case with Working Families Tax Credit?

Florenceuk - in principle I agree with your point of view.
I just have a jaundiced view about DH and I paying high taxes and high child care costs and geting no tax breaks what so ever. Receiving CB makes me feel OK about that - (I equate it to a gesture from the governmnet towards the high cost of childcare I pay out of my post tax salary. )

Raggletaggle, get a form from the post office pronto!

Playing devils advocate here, boreded moment at work.....

The comment that should a person earning £50k be entitled to £800 from the government towards having one chile. Why not? If the repsonse is that they can afford to, should there be a point a earning point below which people should not be entitled to have children because they can't afford it? Before everyone screams...of course not.

Or of course the person who earns £50k actually contributes £12.5k in taxes and NI per year, whilst someone on benefits does not....again before people gasp in horror ...the person on benefits is no less a member of society than those contributing.

Fundamentally, the UK population is declining, we are entering into a period were they will be considerably more retired people than those working to pay tax etc into the system to pay for the services that everyone calls upon, from rubbish collection to heart operations. The UK needs children - if this is one minor way the government can support anyone who has to go through chilbirth, tantrums and puberty to raise a child so be it. We are doing the country a favour!!

9bn in the scheme of what the government raises in taxes and wastes on inefficent systems, practices and red tape is small fry. I know people at the national audit office and what they consider an acceptable error/ mistatements/ holes in a government departnments accounts could probably clear the debts of few third world countries

Free time over, boss staring to peer suspiciously at me...

Hear hear pollingfold

Get on with your work now...

If it were only a chile I gave birth to...excuse typing, spelling mistakes and grammer not really my strong point.....

Good post pollingfold.

Excellent post pollingfold - I am in teh lucky position of not "needing" my CB, hence saving it for dd, but I would actually like to see it increased and not means tested - in a way I se it as my "wage" for having kids. And looked at like that, I am as entitled to it as someone on benefits, and so is someone like posh.

Hello, what an interesting read! Like many, the CHB goes directly into our joint account & so gets spent on the monthly shop (nappies, clothes & toys all brought from here) Was planning to save it (still am really) but luckily ds has very kind grandparents who started a baby bond. As for means tested - very thorny subject - I don't think it should be, but think that maternity leave could be better paid - & I had a good deal!

I don't agree with it being means tested. But my other points to this is:

CB is to help provide for children. But in the current system there is now way of ensuring that that is what it is spent on? How do we know that it isn't being spent of cigerettes, alcohol, lottery tickets, gambling, etc? We don't. Means testing won't ensure that either. If we want to make sure that CB is used for it's right reason - then we need to look into that, not into income!

Top post Pollingfold. Agree that CB is an acknowledgement of the contribution parents make to society, the economy, etc., by just having children. And if Posh were taxed properly so that her role as a mother is acknowledged while her role as an unfeasibly rich person would require her to contribute more to society, there wouldn't be a problem.

hmmm
but folks who spend it on booze fags and betting or drugs would buy these things anyway.. CHB or not...
If say I spend £30.00 a week on alcohol or £20 pw on smoking as I used to, I bought these regardless of any CHB entitlement
Now am fortunate enough a) to have quit smoking and b) to be able to save CHB towards my kids education...
The fundamental assumption of people having children is that their needs would be put first, to assume this is different would put the government in an impossible place of judgement!

Quickly

LOL Charlie!

Ours goes into a separate savings account. We used it to put towards our new car - don't know if that's acceptable but I mostly use it to take DS to his many social activities!