children of different ages - how to make it fair?

abitrubbish

OK, here is my situation. I have 3 children, aged 18m, 3y and 9y. Up to now, I have not been in a position to put anything away in savings for them at all. I have now returned to work with a good salary, and we are considering saving in the region of £200-£300 a month combined, plus occaisional lump sums as and when they become available. We have around £500 to start off with now.

Both myself and my husband have completely available ISA allowances, which we are not likely to be needing for the next few years, so I am thinking that this might be a good place to start, to avoid the £100 interest tax problem.

I would like to put at least half, into shares/funds with a reasonable risk profile due to the long term period involved. I would welcome suggestions as to suitable funds/providers

Now my problem is with any part of this which is put into cash. There are some pretty good children's regular saver accounts available which it seems sensible to use. However, I am having problems over how to make this fair for all the children. If I open an account for each child and save the same amount in each, then they will have very different values when they each reach 18/21 whenever, especially for the 9yo who will get substantially less. The obvious answer is to keep the cash all together, and just give them each the same amount when appropriate. However, this will prevent us from using the children's saver accounts. Should I just use a cash ISA with the best rate I can find and be done with it?

The two little ones have CTFs which I am considering not funding as I'd rather keep control of the funds rather than letting them loose with it at 18 :rolleyes:

Any suggestions most welcome!

TheWaltons_3

I asked similar yesterday - I would sooner save for them until 21/25 and just let them get what the CTF gives them when that is up - I read about this yesterday.

Perhaps you could invest a thousand more into your 9yr olds account, which would help greatly.. but perhaps top it up in a few years to make it fair?

I also have three and was going to invest in stocks and shares with the last babies CTF BUT then I thought this was unfair as my first just had a basic savings account!

InMyDreams

I'm going to be interested in replies. But I would not worry too much about being 'fair' in the sense that each child should end up with exactly the same amount. You could tie yourself up in knots. I know my father was always terribly concerned about this. For example, one out of four of us went to a private school (the third child). I think my father still feels uncomfortable with how that looks. But to us, it was plain to see that his circumstances and needs were different. Three of us thrived and did very well in state schools and my brother didn't. Sending all of us was neither an option nor necessary, but I'd hate to think that our brother would have been forced to spend his school years in misery to keep things 'fair' and the thought of expecting my dad to cough up the difference in cash to each us us is absurd. What if one of us had been ill or disabled and that had required extra money? Would we have resented our parents for not treating us all the same? Each to his needs.

We currently have three small(ish) children (only the youngest having a CTF), and I like to think that we will have been able to save enough to see each through university (if that's what they want to do and as far as they want to go) via whatever form of education suits each child. I'd also like to be able to substantially contribute to each wedding (whatever they want within reason, should they want one one at all). After that I guess we'll see what (if anything) is left and to be honest, maybe that's when we get to spend a little on ourselves!

As for the 'unfairness' of only one having a CTF, well we're also not paying extra into that for the same reasons as you. We'll take it all into consideration when she gets it by which time hopefully we will already be paying/have paid for her siblings' uni courses. I know in theory it will be hers to use as she wishes, but if she wants us to top up her uni fees like her older siblings, she'll not have much choice over what it gets spent on ;-) However that's all a long way away and of course by that time I will have brought up model MSE citizens who understand my logic and copletely agree with everything I suggest ;-)

I think the key is to be able to remain flexible. I'm just using weddings and uni as examples. If in 10 years time one of them was maimed in a car accident for example, priorities may change!