Buying shares for 2 year old son ???

Dumb_Blonde_3

My son has more toys than Toys R Us and Argos put together - so we have thought that for every birthday and christmas we would like to buy him - how would we go about doing this and how would we find a broker.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Is there a minimum number of shares you have to buy or minimum amount in £'s ?

Thanks

steve-o_3

Obviously this is your choice, but please make sure you're well informed of your investment before you go buying shares.

You can use online brokers such as www.selftrade.co.uk, they're quite reasonable and charge £12.50 for each deal and if you get introduced by an existing member (LIKE ME!!! lol), you also get £50 when you make your first trade over £500.

Stocks can have various limits on what you can buy, but they're usually well within what you intent to invest!

Steve.

dipsomaniac

has he got a stocks and shares CTF account? If yes, are you paying the maximum (£1200 pa) into this? If yes again, i would then look at unit trusts before individual shares as you need to invest at least £1000 into each share to reduce the impact of dealing charges. You would then need to diversify with at least 10 holdings as you could lose everything on one share - northern rock being a recent example.

purch

Or Investment Trusts

Many of the larger Investment Trusts have a Child Savings option

Baille Gifford http://www.bailliegifford.com/pages/UKPersonalInvestors/Children/InvestingforChildren.aspx

Witan
http://www.jumpsavings.com/index.asp?pageid=1

Aberdeen
http://www.invtrusts.co.uk/aam.nsf/investmenttrusts/investchildren

Foreign and Colonial
http://www.fandc.com/new/it/Default.aspx?id=78401&gclid=CNjbj8Dh6I8CFQeKMAodDwypYA

are just a few

jonesMUFCforever

You can't buy shares in your son's name direct as he is under 18.
However you can buy them in your name and annotate the childs name on it.

You would then have control of the shares until such time as you legally transfer them on to him.

You need to check out the tax situation as any income will count as your income.

Shoey1610

We use Baille Gifford's child savngs account and put £30 a month into it for our 18 month old. It hasn't stopped the toy buying though :rolleyes:

Dumb_Blonde_3

Shoey1610 wrote: »

We use Baille Gifford's child savngs account and put £30 a month into it for our 18 month old. It hasn't stopped the toy buying though :rolleyes:

I like this ............... I have just brought another addition to his Thomas railway set.

Dumb_Blonde_3

dipsomaniac wrote: »

has he got a stocks and shares CTF account? If yes, are you paying the maximum (£1200 pa) into this? If yes again, i would then look at unit trusts before individual shares as you need to invest at least £1000 into each share to reduce the impact of dealing charges. You would then need to diversify with at least 10 holdings as you could lose everything on one share - northern rock being a recent example.

We are paying into the CTF for him - but it is 'cash' as opposed to stocks and shares.

The only thing that worries me is that when he turns 18 on the 7th of September 2023 that then legally becomes his and with all the goodness in the world my son at that age my be an unruly little thing and think - hey mum and dad - thanks for the best party ever and there would be nothing we could do about it - so although he will have a smallish amount of money then we also want something 'tucked away' that we can present to him at a time we think he needs it - i.e University should he decide to go or perhaps a deposit on a house - that sort of thing. We do also have another high interest savings account for him with Saffron Walden and Herts B.S that we drop money into every now and again ............... he's probably got more savings than we have !!!!!!!!

Dumb_Blonde_3

Thanks so much everyone - its given me a bit to think about.

I was kinda thinking of buying individual shares originally - does anyone remember back in 'the olden days' when companies like BT, Eurotunnel etc went public - anyone could just phone up and say 'yeah I'll have a 100' - I was kind of hoping to do something like that - get him an assortment of shares - I wouldn't want to put all our eggs in one basket.

Can I still do that or not really?

jonesMUFCforever

Dumb_Blonde wrote: »

Thanks so much everyone - its given me a bit to think about.

I was kinda thinking of buying individual shares originally - does anyone remember back in 'the olden days' when companies like BT, Eurotunnel etc went public - anyone could just phone up and say 'yeah I'll have a 100' - I was kind of hoping to do something like that - get him an assortment of shares - I wouldn't want to put all our eggs in one basket.

Can I still do that or not really?

Yes you can.
Internet companies are the cheapest but you may have difficulty in getting the name right on them by using this method.
Most banks have a telephone based sharedealing system - you register - they won't give advice (it's execution only) and will deal for you.
They should be able to do it as I suggested in yesterday's post.