Advice please

SEK_2

Q1.
My husband's little brother has just turned 15yrs. Unfortunatly their Mum died 3yrs ago. His Dad (not my husbands dad) has no money so we help out buying clothes ect. We would also like to save a bit for him.

We would like to save £50 each birthday & xmas and £10 a month. We don't want either him or his father to have access to it until we feel he is able to use it wisely. He's currently in alot of trouble with police (that's another story). His father couldn't be trusted with it.

Can anybody recommend somewhere to put this money.

Q2.
We have 2 small children ourselves. We are looking at saving £40 a month each for them. What would be the best account for them.

Q3.
CTF- My youngest has his voucher of £277. Where is the best CTF to but it. Also with the £40 a month i am going to save for him, is it better to put it into the CTF or into a saving account.

Q4.
ISA's- I am looking at saving £70-£80 a month for myself. Can anybody recommend a mini ISA.

As you can see i'm spring cleaning my finances so any advice would be useful.
Thanks

Bun

Hello SEK,

You are probably best having a rake through the savings and child trust fund articles by Martin, together with the chat threads but I would maybe take advice on the savings for your nephew. I seem to remember a lady in the same situation for her grandchildren on the marriage and families board, and she had problems in that she could not produce documents for the grandchildren concerned (to prove she was not abusing the tax free status of the children) and was not (I think) able to sign a R85 tax exempt form on their behalf, not being the parent.

However, there is nothing to stop you from just putting this money in a separate account to give him later. I presume you don't want him to know about it. Or maybe it could be put in trust for him? I don't know much about that I'm afraid so perhaps you could start another thread or search the forum under this.

In terms of your other questions, again the forums and articles are good, but here is what I do if this helps.

Q2 - for kids. I have a Halifax Monthly Saver for my little boy, rather than the children's one, with a R85 tax exempt form. We are trustees for it, so he can't get the money out himself, and it lasts until he is much older - many of the child accounts go to the child when they are 7. If you are happy for them to access the money they do a Save4it account (which we will open for him later so he can access his own pennies). The Nationwide are very good too I believe. The Alliance and Leicester one has just reduced it's rate dramatically so I'd avoid that.

Q3. Child trust fund. As Martin says, a good savings vehicle as long as you remember the money is not controlled by you when the account matures. IMHO, handy if you are happy to finance something popular or useful like a car or year off, rather than three years at university which may or may not happen. I have opened the Brittania Non-Stakeholder CTF, which has an interest rate of 4.75%,boosted to 6% for two years. After this time you can stay there or move it. We are only putting in enough so that he has a little nest egg that we are happy for him to spend. The stakeholder ones are a bit over my head so best to check the forums!

Q4 - ISA. I have the First Direct 6.25, but as this is for a short time I believe from reading the forums that the Abbey Postal at 5.35% is tops at the moment.Alliance and Leicester at 5.4% is good if you are not interested in transferring (they charge £25 to transfer)

Alternatively if you are unlikely to use your whole ISA allowance this year, you could put everything in there to maximise the tax free status, and have a spreadsheet allocating particular amounts to each party until you do find the right accounts for you.

Hope this helps.

Bun