CTF discussion area

evilwitch

Have been looking around for CTF and noticed that by going through boots and Mothercare you can be rewarded by opening and agreeing to direct debit £10 pm with £20 worth of vouchers which are paid after first dd payment. Both accounts are opened through either Boots or Mothercare but are held with The Childrens Mutual.

The question is, hypothetically, if I were to open an account through Boots do the £10 dd, get the vouchers, cancel the dd then open the account through Mothercare, again agreeing and doing the £10 dd as the ultimate provider is the same would I get the benefits (ie vouchers) from both Mothercare and Boots? Or would I need to, say, transfer the money to a savings CTF then open the account as to give my dealings with the Childrens Mutual a 'break'?

Any ideas? If its the former then it culd be an easy way of getting double the vouchers for the money (and I would use them with tha amount of Boots-ing I do) however if its the latter then it seems like way too much hard work

interested_2

Does anyone know if there are any high dividend CTF or anything similar. Where the money is invested in shares. And has a chance of capital growth?

cloud_dog

interested wrote:

Does anyone know if there are any high dividend CTF or anything similar. Where the money is invested in shares. And has a chance of capital growth?

You're talking about a stocks and shares based CTF and you've got three routes to acheive this:

1) Go with a provider who offers a 'high yeild' type fund
2) Go with a self select provider (broker) and invest the money in high yeird stocks (United Utilities for example - not a recommendation just that their yeild is normally quite good).
3) Go with a self selct provider and invest in any one of the 100's of high yeild funds / ETF's available.

Forgot option 4 - go with a stocks and shares stakeholder and in the early years the majority of the money is likely to be invested in stocks and shares (plus bonds, etc, etc) and they can (tend to be??) heavilly biased towards FTSE which does offer a reasonable yeild over all.

cloud_dog

thor

cloud_dog wrote:

Forgot option 4 - go with a stocks and shares stakeholder and in the early years the majority of the money is likely to be invested in stocks and shares (plus bonds, etc, etc) and they can (tend to be??) heavilly biased towards FTSE which does offer a reasonable yeild over all.

cloud_dog

or loss. The ftse may have risen over the last century but that does not mean it will continue to do so in the future.

mountlake

Does anyone know can I fund my child's CTF with pre-tax income ???
or is it a post-tax income vehicle

I've been looking for the most effective way of managing the share dealing and it looks like Selftrade is the cheapest one with the most efficient charge
structure and easy-to-use site

They are owned by SocGen (big french bank)
(i compared F&C, Killik, Redmayne, Walker Crips and Selftrade)

cloud_dog

thor wrote:

or loss. The ftse may have risen over the last century but that does not mean it will continue to do so in the future.

Sorry thor but I find your post a bit pointless.

The OP had asked

interested wrote:

Does anyone know if there are any high dividend CTF or anything similar. Where the money is invested in shares. And has a chance of capital growth?[\QUOTE]

Specific questions were asked and specific responses (opinions) were given - notice the use of the words "chance of capital growth". Had the OP made any risk adverse comments / statements, or had not mentioned investmenting then my responses would have been different.

cloud_dog

jake63

If you need extra guidance, I actually found this Money Guide from the company with whom we invested our son's voucher (Children's Mutual) pretty useful; it has general advice regarding parental finance as well as Child Trust Fund related info.

mountlake

are contributions pre-tax or post-tax to the CTF ??
ie can you pay in with gross salary money to reduce tax bill

toshkininny

Hi,

I'm sorry if the following question has already been covered, but as anybody will know who has had a 6 week old, it's hard to find the time to trawl through lots of replies.

Can I start the CTF account with one company, and then swap to a different company if I see a better interest rate? Could I then go back to the original one, if - let's say in a year or so's time - their rate has improved or would I be penalised for leaving them? Also, I couldn't see the % rate on the HSBC website to compare, I've only looked at theirs, where do I find all the interest rates to compare?

Thank you everybody, and apologies if it is a silly question, but I suppose I am a bit of a thicky when it comes to finding the best place for my children's money.

ReportInvestor

You can switch as much as you like - providers have to offer this facility.

Pre-interest rise rates (i.e. mid-August rates) the competition was as follows:

Abbey 4.00%
Britannia BS 5.75%
Chorley BS 5.10%
Furness BS 5.00%
Ipswich BS 5.25%
Leeds BS 4.75%
Monmouthshire BS 4.50%
Nationwide BS 4.75%
Skipton BS 5.05%
Yorkshire BS 6.00% (includes 12 month 0.70% bonus)

Click here to apply for a YBS CTF

Does HSBC do a Cash CTF? I wasn't aware that they did. Perhaps it was a Stakeholder or share CTF you were looking at?