savings accounts for children/toddlers. Will they affect my own total savings/rights?

Midnight_Tboy

Hi there,

ok so I was thinking of setting up a savings account for my 3yr old son and newly born daughter to try and save for them in the distant future, such as a wedding for example.

I was thinking of starting by just putting something like £25 or so per month into each of these accounts, although maybe starting it off with a couple of hundred or so. Also their grandparents are going to look at putting some into the account for them. Ideally though I'd rather it being a savings account in case it has to be accessed in an extreme emergency so better than having it accessable where wouldnt be penalised if withdrew from (else would have possibly looked at putting it in the child trust fund).

My main concern however, is ...up untill the point that they become of age, is this classed as savings of my own?

Reason being is I tend to do a lot of contract work in IT. By doing this work it often means that after every several months I may have a period of a few weeks where I'm out of work and would look at claiming JSA (tho hopefully wont happen for a long time with my current contract going so well).

Now when it comes to needing to claim for JSA and similar things (or even when receiving housing benefit while I'm working for example) the forms generally always require me to list how much in savings I have, be it in ISAs, current accounts, etc. If I have above I believe its about 2k or so in savings (rarely happens) then it affects what I can receive or even means I can receive nothing at all.

I looked at a bit of details at the nationwide savers account for under 16s, and it says something along the lines of (not to hand as at work at mo) about if the child under 9 then has to be signed in the parent/guardians name. Does this mean these are MY savings until mykids turn of age, but just have my kids names slapped on them in effect for no reason then? As I am worried, that if I set this up for my kids, and my contract does come to an end, that if I have only a fairly small amount in personal savings...but if they insist on factoring what my children have received both from myself and their grandparents, that alone could mean that they expect me to "have too much money" and that I should use their money to live on instead?

I'd set one up immediately so I can start saving for them, but if it means it could mess up our situation when comes to needing to claim then I'm worried about doing it, as my own parents are looking at putting a few hundred in for them straight away, so that would already contribute high toward my "allowed" savings.

I hope you guys/ladies can advise me on how it works for child savings....at first I thought it wouldnt be a problem, but after reading that has to be down in myname, and then thinking that they prob do things like this to stop people commiting fraud etc got me thinking if its going to be a problem, as over a period of time their savingswill build up between the 2 of them.

thanks for the help,
Tuck