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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I always had hoped to be able to make investment for each of my children but in relity living expenses as they are prevent me from finding the funds to do this. My parent however have made investments for my children to recieve whrn they turn 18, but again they havent been able to save as uch as they would have liked due to the high cost of living,

We have never had anything left to save for the children. Once they leave home we will downsize our house and give them something that way

We've never really been in much of a position to save for our kids unfortunately. We did take out a savings/insurance policy when they were little and this matured just before our eldest two were eighteen. It produced more than we expected for only a small payment each month, so we have used this to help them with their accommodation costs at uni.

Apart from that, we won't be able to do much to help. I'd love to be able to help with house deposits, but we still have a huge mortgage of our own, so there's no chance. Hopefully they'll do well enough at uni to get good enough jobs to afford things for themselves.

I put £40 a month into a child trust fund stocks and shares account, but I don't think it is doing anything much. Should be enough to pay for 6 months of college by the time they are 18! Rubbish really.

we save a small regular amount into a managed account

We are trying to invest for the future for our children; we put a small amount by in an account but hope to increase this in the future when we are more financially stable. I'm definitely risk averse though.

We haven't started to invest as we had to sort out mortgage and house renovations but we are now thinking about doing so for the future.

Unfortunately I can't afford to save properly for my children at the moment. The only thing I can do, and I try to as much as I can, is put my spare change in money boxes for them. I would like to open accounts for them in the future as its ridiculously expensive for university/houses etc and I grew up with no savings and I am now I'm a position where I will never be able to buy my own house and I don't want that for them.

I opened an account for my son at a well known High St Bank, which I am Trustee. Tax free and a good interest rate. Every statement the balance has risen with the interest. It has a £2000 limit, so I'm now thinking about looking at other banks to see if they have similar kids accounts to open another one.

I put away £20 per month for both my DS & DD and encourage relatives to add to this if they want to give money rather than buy gifts for birthdays or christmas.

Once they are old enough to understand I'll be teaching them how important it is to save some money out of their pocket money, still leaving enough left to buy the things they want straight away.

We have a CTF for one child and a junior ISA for the other. We put a bit in each month and it's only us contributing. We have "lifestyle" features on each to allow us to make the most of the market returns without gambling towards the end of the term. Both are ethical investment funds which is important to us.

We also have savings accounts and regular savers for each child on deposit just in case and birthday money etc goes in there. I'm trustee for both and review them annually.

I would like it to be easier to access the info (the provider has a ridiculously complicated process to access the account) and I want to be able to get quick projections that are not based on 5% or 7%.

I think it's important to save for the future if you can. Tuition fees and property prices are potentially future issues and I want my children to have the best opportunities possible.

Although I don't have kids right now, we have given money on behalf of relatives - either premium bonds or money for savings accounts. I don't know enough about shares to go down that route.

I do think its important but its not something Ive been able to afford to do yet. I will be starting with a small amount for each child just to get it started up in the new year.

We save money each month

Quickie invested ds's ctf voucher and started putting money in too. Had to stop that. Have since swapped it to a junior isa and have gone for a risky fund to try and make it
Grow quickly.

Have always used Halifax regular savers for him and now Dd but ninet gets used for other expenses sadly.

Must try and show ds more of what we do in that regard as we don't use pocket money, and feel he needs two understand the value of money. Use kid start religiously when shopping online and that is quite lucrative.

i think its really important to put money away for your DC even if its not alot, a few pounds a week will all add up when there older

It's important to save for our children's future, not only does the money help when they want to go to uni, learn to drive, or get on the housing ladder. Saving money regularly also teaches children the importance of having a 'nest egg' to fall back on in times of emergency.

Unfortunately the derisory interest rates currently don't tempt us into saving regularly and we have been looking at trust funds for long term investment.

We now have young grandchildren and looking at ISAs and other investments to regularly save for them.

I wanted to set up a bank account similar to what I had as a child. We've tried a couple of high street banks and got the same disappointing option. No passbook, which I guess is old-fashioned but there is no ATM viewing or online viewing to replace it, so there is no instant way to see how much is in there (for child to see that her payments have made it bigger) and also no easy way to see if electronic payments have been successful. Also, only one parent can access (not both). We're probably going to just set up an extra adult bank account so we can use and see it normally. Not the money-saving educational tool I remember and wanted.

Whatever way you invest for your Children and for whatever reason, be very aware that if you simply open accounts in their names when they are young, as soon as they reach the age of 16 they can withdraw it if and when they want as they have sole control of the accounts at the banks/building societies. We had one son who drew it all out in the sum of hundreds of pounds without our knowledge. The other son kept his account intact and added to it and was able to go to New Zealand for 6 months when he was 20. So research how the money can be safeguarded if you want it to be spent on something specific when they are older.

I don't currently invest, but I do put savings aside as we never know when it might be needed. I do plan to increase the savings once I get a better paid job.

My parents pay money into a trust fund for my kids on their birthdays.

My DD is 7 and she has a Child Trust Fund. This has got the government contribution, plus a bit more in. I use Kidstart for shopping and any commission earned goes into that account.

She also has a savings account with Lloyds Bank that I control, and that earns her around 3% currently, although the rate is dropping next year. That has got all of the money she was given when born and Christened, and for birthdays/Christmas since then. If I sell any of her toys, I also put that money into there. She has got around £2K at the moment, and hopefully by the time she reaches 18, it will be enough to buy her a car or help her through university if she wants to go.

At the moment I am saving the CB towards a trip to Disneyland Paris. After that, I hope to be able to afford to keep saving it towards her future.

My little girl has a bank account and we put her money from Christmas and birthdays in there as well as saving £25 a month for her.

I hope she will have a nice little pot of savings to put towards a house deposit when she is older.

I wish I could have invested for our sons. It would have been good to have given them something to start their independent life off.
Our income never stretched to investing. It was a luxury we couldn't afford.

We save a set amount for our 2 granddaughters (we have custody of them) every month as we won't be around as long as their parents would be. We have been saved for them for several years and will carry on as long as we can to help them in the future