What do you do with your child benefit?

[crocodial]

Unsure if I should put it in a separate account for DC or just to use it for his expenses such as baby classes, nappies etc? Financially we're ok so I don't rely on this payment to pay for his things so I see it as a bit of a bonus and think maybe I should set that aside for him?

Just went in the household pot but then we weren't "comfortable" financially.

It all just goes into the family pot, but I can't afford for it not to. That said, I do spend all of it on the DC anyway. Clothes, activities, days out, Christmas, birthdays etc. Cost a lot more than child benefit anyway

It’s just money that goes in the bank, it wouldn’t cover all the classes/activities/days out she does tho, thankfully we can afford to do those kinds of things anyway.

If you can afford to, putting it in a savings account for your little one sounds like a great idea!

Mine was saved for uniforms and school trips.
Was lucky to be able to do this from birth so it built up nicely by the time the expensive secondary school years came

Ours goes into a saving account for DD. If you can afford it that's never a bad idea. Otherwise it would just go into family pot.

Ours goes into the family pot.

Why not set up a standing order into premium bonds, then you can access it if necessary, especially with cost of living rises or transfer it to DC later. This is what I do, I keep a £1000 float in it and then transfer to PB in DDs name once it reaches the next £200. Sometimes I've needed to use it especially towards things like her residential school trips or expensive sports kit etc and has meant she's never missed out on things I might not be able to afford right then and there.

Saved it and now it is enough to cover 2 and half years of daughter's uni housing costs .

Inititally it went into DS junior ISA but now is it going towards nursery for DS2 as the price seems so much higher than 4 years ago. Now that DS2 is eligible for 30hrs free, the child benefit will be halved and go into each child's Junior ISA. DS1 ISA is far ahead of DS2 but hopefully at some point we can balance it out.

Pays for school dinners and pocket money. Before they were old enough for pocket money/not in school it just went in the general pot

We transfer ours to a JISA for our baby. This is the best place to put it if you're looking to save as its tax free.

We have ours in a saving account for him. Along with money he was given when he was born/Xmas.

Put it into the child trust fund….I’ve never spent any of it so it’s like I never had it.

Saving it in an account for DD - £84 ish a month for 18 years is about £18,000 so plan on saving it until she's 18 and then it'll be used for large things - car or uni if she goes or house deposit etc - what ever she needs help with.

It goes into a separate account and it's used to pay for things like rugby subs. We earn over the limit though so it gets paid back anyway.
We've always kept it separate, when our income was lower it was nice to know if we were having a tighter month that we still had money put aside for children's bits.

When we used to be able to receive it, it would go into savings and we would use it towards Christmas.

I'm in Ireland so I save it for my two
140 per child per month
My 6 yr old has approx 10k
8yr old has approx 13k.

We'll use it for university/house possibly

Goes in the family account. I'm sure we spend far more than £140pm on the kids so I don't see the need to ring-fence it specifically.

We do have a JISA for each child but it isn't a set amount each month, usually we put in extra Christmas money or if I sell any of their old things I put the money in there.

It’s meant to support you in the costs of raising a child, it’s not supposed to be a government funded savings pot!

@shabbalabba

I'm in Ireland so I save it for my two 140 per child per month My 6 yr old has approx 10k 8yr old has approx 13k.

We'll use it for university/house possibly

Surely the whole purpose of child benefit is so that no child goes hungry or without clothes etc.

If you can afford to save every penny of it, and still feed/clothe/entertain etc your kids, you obviously don't really need it.

I actually couldn't survive without my £140 a month for my two and tbh, most of it goes on food. It all goes into the bills account. Haven't managed to save even one penny of it. My kids won't be getting anything for buying a house or going to university.

Making me think the whole lunacy of the £50k cut off (per adult/per household debate) is causing this.

Those who can afford to save it shouldn't be getting it???!!
Into family pot here and needed for kids

Thank you @CoastalWave - we agree!

It just goes in the household pot. I do put a little aside in untouched savings these days but years ago we were not in great shape financially and relied on it to get by. We have always put £10 a month per child in their savings no matter how poor we felt.

@CoastalWave it's not means tested over here. A lot of ppl here save it and use it for university.