Comparing the value of child trust funds

rdansie

My three eldest children have child trust fund accounts with various amounts in based on the grants available from the government when each of them were born, and my two youngest don't have one so I have just opened JISA accounts for them.

I want to start contributing money to them but first I want to deposit amounts in such a way as to even them out so they have relatively the same value each.

Im thinking the best way to compare their value is to work out an estimated value at age 18 when they will get access to the account.

The variables I can think of to consider are investment growth, inflation, account fees and number of years until 18th birthday.

So for example with estimated growth of 5%, inflation 2% and fees of 1.5% would mean an increase in value of 1.5% per year. Does that sound like a reasonable way of calculating value? Is there anything I've overlooked?

AnotherJoe

Do you mean relatively the same value now so that, all things being equal*, they will be the same at age 18 for each ?
Seems reasonable. Don't forget to add inflation to your contributions. Eg if they are 10 years apart and you are adding £25 a month to each, then ten years after the first stopped you should be saving £30.47p a month.
Or I suppose if you don't add inflation to your contributions you can simply increase the starting amounts by more to compensate for that. Might be easier.
Time for you to fire up the spreadsheet


*(Which of course they will never be because if one ends say two years after another you cannot retrospectively fix what happens such as stock market massive rises or crashes. )