saving for childrens future- advice please

dontwannabeindebt

Hi just wondering if anyone has any advice...

I have 2 children ages 12 and almost 16, I have wanted to save for their future for many years but haven't really been in the position to do so financially, anyway things are now looking up slightly and I think now is the time to start-if I'm not too late.

I would have liked to start a trust fund for when they are say 21, but think I might be too late for that,

Does anyone have any ideas of how best I can save for when they are 21, at the moment I can probably only save around £10 a month for each child, but that should hopefully be at least double in the next couple of months, (and at least it's a start eh?)

would it be better if each child opened a bank account of their own and I just use each one to save, or would I be able to open some type of account bearing in mind the ages of the children?

Thank you in advance for any help/suggestions.

Liz_the_Whizz

hi,

Everyone must have made a new year's resolution to save for their children, there have been a few threads about this recently.

One frequent recommendation is the Halifax Children's Regular Saver as it has a good interest rate of 10% gross fixed for 1 year. You can open one for each of your children, but will need to fill in an R85 for each account to make sure no tax is deducted from the interest.

You can pay in £10 min- £100 max per month.

Details here:

http://www.halifax.co.uk/savings/childregularsaver.asp

It's a good way to get started. We have one running for our son aged 7, and although the money gets dumped each year into a save4it account, it is building up quite nicely.

baby_boomer

The charges for setting up anything in trust beyond 18 are out of your reach.

You can set up bank/building society accounts with you as trustee until they are 18.

If you want to invest in the stock market - worth considering for the 12 year old - then several Investment Trust houses will set up a bare trust for no charge. Your child would have access to the money at 18. However you would probably need £25+ pm to get this going.

And Halifax is paying 10% gross. Not to be sniffed at.