If you don't use your child benefit for everyday parenting, where's best to put it?

[homemama]

Sorry if this isn't in the right place. Was going to post it under legal/money but all the threads seem very 'adult' IYKWIM.

We're fortunate in that we don't need to use DS's C.B for day to day parenting so we save it for him. ATM it just goes in to a young saver bank account earning not much interest. We're wondering if there's a better option as we don't intend to touch the money. Is there a better place to save it? Would it be better in premium bonds?
TIA

we put ours in a ISA and its been doing very nicely thankyou..

Thanks MT. We were thinking about adding it to the CTF but then last month he won £50 from the £100 worth of premium bonds he received as a gift when he was born so it got us thinking.

The only worry we had with PB was that they only allow one parent on the account so we weren't sure what would happen in the event of the other dying. Silly, I know, but we kind of like both of us to be able to access everything.

Yes MT, I've had some since I was little. Can't remember ever winning anything. Still, thinking it's the best idea now. Thanks

Oh, and will look into an ISA too, Bambi!

i understand a stakeholder pension is a good option, although it will be tied up for a long time.
somewhere like www.motleyfool.co.uk does good advice.

with an ISA isn't it the case that you don't benefit from the child's tax-free status as all the gains under an ISA are tax-free anyway?

Coventry B Soc will give you 7.25 % on your CB money for the 1st year. It's instant access too

I'd be buying a bottle of champagne every week with it I think!

mine goes into the annual family holiday fund

I spent last month's getting the cat sorted at the Vet's.

Childrens' Bonds are very good - you get a good rate of interest AND a bonus at the end. You get the booklet from the Post Office.

I second the Coventry Building Society - pays more than an ISA even after tax and if one of you doesn't pay tax - it is about 7.25%, if you want to add more to it they have an associated saver account which pays a little less interest.

I take your point, but it's not that I don't need it, it's just the most profitable way to save. I put the £159 straight into the savings (they only accept it directly) but use 'other' money for what I need the child ben for IYSWIM!

Ours just gets absorbed straight into the normal bank acocunt - nnot used for anything specifically. DD's investments come from there too, monthly, plus other places. We invest her money in Children's bonds.

Thanks, I'll have a look at children's bonds and The Coventry.
DH, a weekly bootle of champagne sounds nice but think I'd have to settle for Cava with £14pw!

A bottle of gin.

Halifax currently doing a 10% children's regular saver, so have to make sure you put away same amount each month, but seeing as their sabings are tax free it's a hard (safe) one to beat.

We just put ours against our mortgage as we have a current account mortgage/one account so all our money goes into it to reduce our interest and chip away at the loan.

In fact, all the kids' money is in our mortgage account and we just keep a record of any monetary gifts of theirs that we don't spend on them. However, the whole idea is that we'll have paid of our mortgage at a reasonable age and we'll be in a position to easily provide money for whatever they need as and when it arises.

I never had a bank account saved up as a child and a big lump sum handed to me on adulthood but I haven't suffered and my parents have always helped me out when I've needed it. They couldn't afford to save a penny when we were little and it's, er, um, rather different now - thankfully!

Putting the CB towards the whole family is not depriving the child of anything imo.

Oops, off on a tangent - sorry, wasn't really your question!

Homemama, if your ds can wait until he is 18, open a CTF account and use the CB to top up his CTF account. Ds then consumes his £1,200 tax-free CTF allowance a year.

Because the money is in there for 18 years, you can afford to take a bit of risk and go for equities. I would choose a stakeholder account with one of the tracker funds for low management charges. UK shares have generally been a nice quiet little earner since early 2003 so whilst I am not saying that the upward trend will continue and for how long (who knows!), I will mention not to write shares off either, esp if you can take a little risk with a longer investment horizon. Just my unexpert opinion.

I put it into DSs savings accounts - split equally between them.