Children's savings moral dilemma

PolishBigSpender

The thought of touching a child's savings just because of my own irresponsibility is absolutely horrific.

Anyone even considering using their children's money because they made bad decisions should be locked up, preferably for life.

Nanuq

Polishbigspender, you are nuts:rolleyes:

I'd say 'definite no' as a general rule, but life isn't always that straightforward, so my answer is 'no, except' in extreme cases, such as unexpected unemployment or serious illness.

Doesn't the government take childrens' savings into account when calculating entitlment to housing benefit, and so on, in which case the parent might have no choice but to borrow that money (in extreme circumstances).

BUT, if I did have to resort to 'borrowing' my childrens' savings to keep a roof over their heads, I would ensure it was paid back ASAP, whatever it took!

frivolous_fay

My parents dipped into some money that was somehow 'mine' (not sure if it was set aside, or what, but it was never in an account in my name and I have no clue how much was there, or how much was borrowed) to partially fund a fridge freezer. Mum made the mistake of being upfront with me about it (again, me not fully understanding where the cash was coming from anyway, or that there was any money full stop that was 'mine') and I mentioned it to my piano teacher in front of mum and she went ballistic at me :eek:

In my defense I was young and thoughtless...

Gingham_Ribbon

Money you have saved, with the intention of giving it to the children, is best used in whatever way best meets the needs of the children. If, for example, someone is made redundant and savings need to be dipped into then that's preferable to keeping the money you hoped would be a college fund but not being able to heat their home NOW.

Any money that other people have given the child or that you have given the child to save is theirs and it would have to be a very dark day for that to even be a consideration.

How desperate would I have to be to do the first? My own personal savings would have to be empty before I dipped into college funds, but if that's what it took to stay afloat, then so be it. How desperate would I be before I did the second? We'd have to be starving first.

Krystaltips

childrens savings are taken into account for means tested benefits but I think the threshold is something like £7,000.

In a perfect world your childrens savings are their money for when they're older... But if it was a choice of living in a B&B because the house has been repossessed or not quite having enough for a car when they are old enough then I'm sure the children would prefer to sacrifice their savings...

I personally wouldn't like to find myself in this position. The mortgage is the first thing I pay, utilities secondary... Everything else comes after...

bestpud

I think not in general.

But if things were so bad we literally were about to lose our home, then of course I would.

DD2 has savings (although nothing like £5k!) and some of it (£300) was given by my parents, specifically to pay for her activities.

I haven't used it for this, but I would not hesitate if I really could not afford to pay for them myself.

If I can afford it then I'd rather leave it there in case there is ever a trip or something she may want to go on at some point when we are short of money.

Felicity

I will answer your question by putting myself into you shoes.

We have built up a similar pot of money for my son and we are fortunate that we are managing well at the moment compared to a lot of people.

If that was to change, and I appreciate it could well do in this climate, I would do everything to cut back and go without, if we still need money to pay the mortgage or other essential bills, I wouldn't hesitate to 'borrow' the money from his account for this very reason I made sure it was set up in my name.

I would ensure I had a method of repaying the money back in full by the time I intended him to have it with any interest lost. I would also ensure that an official note was made of my wishes in case anything was to happen to us.

If you can be sure you can pay it back then the money should be used to best help your family at this point. Plus bear in mind that the money will be earning relatively little interest at this point.

Good luck! It is a difficult decision but your family comes first, if borrowing this money can stop your child feeling your stresses and thus make you a better parent to him at this stage then it is being put to the best use.

square_bear

Hello
Thanks for the replies.
I must state that my job is safe, for the rest of this year at least.

Last week we had a meeting at work to discuss the current situation and sorry to say that three people lost their jobs (out of 30) and three were asked to work shorter hours.
Before this meeting took place I wondered about my situation and thought about all sorts of possibles that could happen.

To be honest I would not dream of touching the child savings, but thought that many people probably have this particular dilemma and wondered what they would be prepared to do.

No one would like to see their children suffer because of their parents' worries, so it is up to the parents to sort their troubles out first and let the children live their lives as happy and carefree as possible

Dealwithit

Nothing is more important than keeping the roof over your kids heads.

jackomdj

We are in a slightly different position in that we are fortunate enough to have some savings etc. We do have an offset mortgage & our childrens money in used in our savings to offset the mortgage, we do however have a spreadsheet & it is allocated to the children on here - & they will get it when they need it.

Nicky