Best place for kids savings

ozcab5

Can anyone help.

I'm looking for somewhere to put approx £5000 of my 5yr old childs savings. The money is currently in a Halifax Monthly Saver account where £50 goes in each money as well as a few cheques/gifts now and then.

He gets his interest paid each september, last year it earned £170. I've noticed the interest rate is quite poor and wondered what else there is out there for his money.

If it helps I am currently unemployed and have been since Dec 2007, so my tax benefit is quite high but I have saving of our own. My wife is employed and earns over £35K.

Thanks for reading. Your thoughts!!!!

supersavor

I dont know about other providers but if its just the normal monthly saver you could change and open a save4 it account which currently pays 2.55% variable and you could be trustee on this account .

the max you can put in it is 5000 so theres a few options regarding halifax.

with the 50 monthly deposit you could set up a standing order to go into a childrens reg saver which pays a fixed rate 8% theres no withdrawal in the year and the standing orders have to be between 10 and 100 pound .

you can link this to the save 4 it and every years the money from your childrens reg saver rolls into the the save4it.

another option ith regards to the 5 grand is you could open a guarantee reserve be trustee for your child and get a fixed rate of 3% for six months 2.7% for 1yr 2.75 2years and 3% for a 3 year term.

you can open this account with £500 but once you do its fixed for that period and theres no withdrawals.

hope this helps

rb10

With the Halifax Save4It, you cannot pay into it once the balance has exceeded £5000 (although interest will still be paid in, in full, and you will still earn interest on the full balance).

The limit of the number of differenct accounts you can have is one per account title. This means that if Mr & Mrs X have accounts for their child, you can have the following combinations of accounts
1) Mr & Mrs X, trustees for the child.
2) Mrs X, trustee for the child.
3) Mr X, trustee for the child.
4) And the child can have their own account once they turn 7.

As each account can have up to £5k in it, if you open two of these accounts, one with £5k (then just leave this one to earn interest) and one with whatever's left. Then, supersavor's idea of the Children's Regular Saver is a good one, this can be linked to the Save4It with 'whatever's left' in it.