Let's talk saving and investments for your children with Columbia Threadneedle Investments - you could win £300 NOW CLOSED

[AnnMumsnet]

We have been asked by the team at Columbia Threadneedle Investments to find out your views and experience on saving and investing on behalf of your children.

They say "At Columbia Threadneedle Investments, our priority is the investment success of our customers. As a firm trusted with managing our customers' money, we understand that investors have different goals and aspirations and only by truly understanding these can we deliver a great service to you and your family.

With a busy family life we understand that saving and investing may not be top of your list of things to do. Whether you currently invest or not, we would like to find out your views and experiences of saving and investing on behalf of your children".

So please share on this thread your views and experience of investing for your children: is this something you do, if so what sort of savings and investments do you make? Is this something other members of your family do for your children? If you don't save or invest at present, do you think this is something you'd consider in the future?

Add your comment to this thread, and you'll be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 voucher for the store of their choice (from a list).

thanks and good luck
NB: a JISA (Junior Individual Savings Account) is a tax-efficient way of saving for children - you don’t pay tax on the interest you earn or any capital gains you make. The money is the child’s to spend as they will when they turn 18 (it can’t be accessed before then). JISAs were introduced in 2011 to replace Child Trust Funds (CTFs)

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It is such a tough one to know what to do - Obviously it would be great to save up a little nest egg for the kids for when they grow up. BUT there would have to be sacrifices to be made to be able to save and that means the kids would miss out on certain things now.

We have put a little away for them but don't regularly top it up. They tend to add their own christmas money and birthday money to it.

Once their uni is out the way in future and our mortgage is gone then there will be enough spare for regular savings for their futures.

We save the child benefit, along with money our daughter was given when she was born and other bits and pieces. It's just in a standard savings account so we have control.

I try to put away as much as I can - hoping for growth over the next 18 years so my son has a sizeable pot in the future. Mainly invested in several, diversified high risk equity funds.

We have some money in long term ISAs in my name and the children have Child Trust Funds where we pay the money from birthdays and special occasions. The DC also have their own saving account they manage as they want.

We are very lucky to have had a child trust fund for ds. Grandparents have paid more into it.
I started saving £1 a week when ds was 2 - I felt something was better than nothing and 16 years of £1 a week was still £800 for a room deposit. However we've been able to increase it, currently to £25 a month.
I'm not willing to take any risk with money where there's a fixed time to take it out.

I've opened a child's account for DD so that I can pay cheques/cash she gets as presents and she also has a CTF. Also conscious that I would like to save regularly for her but don't seem to have enough unfortunately.

Both my daughters have junior ISAs. My dad very generously gave us money when each of the girls was born and we decided this was the best way to make use of it. We usually put their birthday money in their ISAs, though I suspect this will end once they're old enough to have opinions on the matter!

From a very young age both children had savings accounts which were then transferred to junior ISA when those came in. We saved regular small amounts plus some birthday and Christmas money.

DS is now 18 so has the savings now, he seems sensible though and doesn't want to touch it despite being at uni now! He took a student loan and has a part time job which he has had for 18 months, that paid for a 3 week holiday this summer and he still has some savings from that. He is more carefully about spending since earning his own money!

He has had a current account for a few years to help educate him about money, my DD also has a current account - she is more of a spender though! I always talk to them about savings and debt when the chance arises. I wish I had saved more for them but we do have our own savings and our mortgage is paid off so would hope we could help with house deposits later.

Not clued up on this at all. Two DC, we deposit £20 a month each in a child savings account but I worry it won't really come to much

I was saving in child trust funds for both. Transferred to to jisa with Hargreaves landsdown. Have stopped saving in their names now as don't want them to have a too large sum to piss up the wall when they're 18 in case they turn into dropouts etc.

I'm pretty clueless about investments. I do on-line purchases through kidstart when I can and put 25 away each month for each of my children. I figure that it's better than nothing.

We don't save much specifically for the DC- only off £2 coins from the grandparents. Their kind uncle save £20 a month for them each in a JISA.

We are conscious of trying to improve our financial position as a family though and are trying to overpay the mortgage, which will free up money later to be able to help the DC.

We put £50 a month away for each child. It is a struggle. My parents also paid into pension fund for each grandchild until they were all 6 years old. I wish we could afford to do more. I worry about how difficult things we will be financially for the next generation.

We are currently struggling to save for our own home and business but hope our DCs will be able to benefit from this when the time comes.

We don't currently have any savings or investments for DD, but it is on the "to do" list. I think FIL has set something up but I don't know the details. I aware of possible huge future housing and education costs so need to do something!

I'm not in a position at present to put away anything substantial on a regular basis for my two - I am very aware though that I should be/need to be doing. I save what I can, when I can for them. I do put away anything they get given for birthday's and Christmas - and their Grandad saves up each year and shares out whatever he has saved between his 3 grandchildren.

Mine have savings accounts into which we place birthday/xmas money. I'm on a very low income but when I've got a few quid spare I pop a bit in their accounts by direct transfer from my phone - even just a pound here or there will add up. They have savings jars in their rooms and weekly pocket money/tooth fairy goes in there.

Actually the most frustrating thing for me is opening accounts for my children - even the old fail safe the Post Office has done away with a basic "junior saver" style account and my own banks keep asking for a myriad of ID. There seem to be very few piggy bank style accounts for children these days.

Same as a couple upthread we save in our names, but have shied away from the 'proper' kids accounts in case when they hit 18 they blow the lot on drink and drugs don't spend as wisely as we'd like.
It does add up though. Trouble is now we have a second DD we need to double our efforts to be fair to both. But it will be worth it I hope.

I have an ISA in my name that we pay into every month with the aim of being able to help DC with a deposit for a house, help through university or similar. It's in my name though - there's too much money there to risk it being blown as soon as DC hit 18.

We do have a CTF (that I keep meaning to change to a JISA) which will have a few thousand in it when they are 18. It's hopefully enough money to go travelling, pay for a holiday or a car etc.

And DC have their own savings accounts for birthday money etc. At the moment they are too young to be bothered about it but at some point it will be theirs to do what they want with (within reason).

we me not working there isn't much spare for savings, we save money goven by family. i also consider our house as an onvestment for the kids

We were lucky enough to get the government cash bond which I then chose to invest in a stocks and shares ISA, I have continued to make monthly investments for them so by the time they're 18 they have a nice little pot!

We put away each month and their grand parents put birthday and Xmas money into their accounts

With my eldest son we and his grandparents invested in some bonds which provided a decent lump sum towards his university fees. With my younger child we simply haven't had any spare cash so I buy £100 of premium bonds every so often. I also encourage all my children to save.

Would definitely like to save more for our children in the future.

But bills and everyday living costs are the priority.

I put money away if I have spare money. It goes into one account and I hope to split this and start a regular saving account again soon for them.