Saving for my son

hoxtonbabe

Hi,

I have a lump sum of around £1500 that i want to invest/save for my son who is 10, ideally I want to put this aside and just leave it for 6-8 years to grow.

At the moment it is in a Nationwides kiddies account with instant acess but not sure if this is best as when he gets older and has acess to it, I am pretty sure he will sudenly have lots of new clothes and games! :rolleyes:

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks

musclesza

Buy shares - there plenty of options but I good share will be worth plenty in 6 years (or nothing and he wont know the difference) something that pays a good dividend as well

Lokolo

You can open a CTF (child trust fund), more info here:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/child-trust-fund-vouchers

oki_2

Sorry for hijaking your thread hoxtonbabe - I have about 3.5k in a savings account with natwest for my daughter. I pay £100 into it each month and it has instant access. I have not gone down CTF route because I want to beable to have a say in what she spends it on if that makes sense! I was wondering where better to put this money. I already have the halifax 10% (i think and pay a seperate £100 in to that each month).

Basically the money will go some way towards a deposit on house or education when she is older..... Shes going to be 3 end of January. Any ideas welcome.....thanks for reading. Oki

chardir

Lokolo wrote: »

You can open a CTF (child trust fund), more info here:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/child-trust-fund-vouchers

If the OP's son is 10 then he's too old to be able to get a CTF.

robin_banks

agreed they can only be opened with the govt £250.00 voucher.

Lokolo

chardir wrote: »

If the OP's son is 10 then he's too old to be able to get a CTF.

Aw thats lame.

fullstop

robin_banks wrote: »

agreed they can only be opened with the govt £250.00 voucher.

A child gets another £250.00 when they reach 7 . Could have done with that when I was a lad.

SmileyG_2

Lokolo wrote: »

You can open a CTF (child trust fund), more info here:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/child-trust-fund-vouchers

Lokolo.

hoxtonbabe can't do a CTF. I have the same problem for my daughter who is 9. She was born before CTFs came into being and didn't qualify.

However, when she was 6, I put £2250 in a high interest savings account (now worth £2650) although the interest portion has almost disappeared. I also put about £1250 in an index tracker unit trust with the Nationwide (now worth £850).

I know the stock market is down at the moment but it wouldn't be a bad idea just to drip the money in to an index tracker trust, but keep some of it (maybe half) in cash.

However, if you have no appetite for risk, just look for the highest fixed interest account you can find. If it's in your name, you'll have to take the interest after tax. Unless you shelter it within an ISA.

You put it in a fixed rate ISA, but it'll probably mean you can't contribute to another ISA till the new tax year (April 6)

Hope this helps.

Smiley G

Lokolo

Or you can put it in the childs name and they get upto £100 interest free interest....

Theeeen use the ISA (which has to be in your name though, so you lose out on your own savings)

fullstop

A useful site for children's savings.

http://www.myeggnest.com/