Saving for my kids future - what are u doing?

[nellnell]

DH and I have been talking about putting money away for our kids to mature at 21 yrs of age. We started talking about it after DD was born more than 2 yrs ago and haven't got around to it. Now we have DS as well and really want to leave them something to get them started when they are young adults.

What I really want to ask is

1. Do you put money away?
2. If so...how much?
3. What type of fund do you put it into?

Thanks in advance

[~Kim~]

sorta, we started by putting Darcy's baby bonus into a term deposit. She has a nice little sum there now and I have opened an account for Nate's to go into to.
Problem with the term deposit I couldn't just add to it when I wanted so I have moved it to a high interest account.
Our families often give them money as gifts and if they don't need anything at the time I put it into their accounts (ie chirstenings and birthdays).

[Kailani]

DS has a "youth saver" account that rewards with a high rate of interest each quarter if you make at least one deposit of any amount and no withdrawals in a month. We opened it pretty much when he was born and $20 a fortnight gets debited automatically from our account into his. Plus all our loose change/coins go into his money box and when it's full goes into his account. His grandparents deposit some pocket money into it as well.

Doesn't seem like a lot but it will all add up to a nice amount by the time we're ready to give it to him (maybe when he's 30!)

[Astrid]

We have set-up a couple of high interest accounts for the girls. The type where they get bonus interest so long as there is a deposit each month and no withdrawals. All birthday/Christmas money goes into the accounts and we deposit $10 per girl per month. When we sold our last house we owed MIL some money from the initial deposit and wanted that put into the girls account rather than returned to her.

DH wants me to put more per month into their accounts, but we don't really have that money, well we would but that would mean less off the mortgage. I see setting ourselves up and paying off the mortgage quicker is also helping the girls. The more disposable income we have later, the more we will be able to help them out at that time. Not much point in the girls having great bank accounts when we can't pay the bills iykwim.

[maz]

We opened dollarmite accounts for the kids when they were born. We thought ahead with getting commonwealth accounts as we wanted to teach our children the responsability of saving and handling their money when they were older.....and by having a comm account they are able to take their bank books to school and deposit through the school. Our eldest now loves saving and is understand what things are worth in the world already.

For the record..each of our children have recieved $10 a fortnight since they were born and any money they wish goes on top

[mzcatieboo]

we put $100 a month into an account for DS but that will change once this baby is born.. i will give them $50 each a month

[Butterfly Child]

Wen DD was born my bestfriend opened a trustfund account for DD as she works in the ANZ bank it was so beautiful of her and she has put some money in their ,i put the cs money from xp every fortnight in there not much about 26 dollars and i put abit in too wen i can afford it

[nellnell]

DH wants me to put more per month into their accounts, but we don't really have that money, well we would but that would mean less off the mortgage. I see setting ourselves up and paying off the mortgage quicker is also helping the girls. The more disposable income we have later, the more we will be able to help them out at that time. Not much point in the girls having great bank accounts when we can't pay the bills iykwim.

That's where we are at now Astrid, we see the benefit of putting money away for the kids but know that the more money we put into our mortgage, the better off we will be in the long run and therefore be able to provide for our blossoms later on.

[Jaycee]

DS has a dollarmite account too and we put $40 a month into it and MIL also puts around $20 a month in there too, it'll add up to a nice sum when he's 21!

[Bathsheba]

My 5yo DS has his own Passbook account which he takes to school and they bank it for him as an educational process... only a few dollars goes in each week, and his birthday money. He is saving up for a particular train.

14yo DD has a trust account that the Centerlink payments go into. This pays for all her extra-curricular activities: Little Athletics, Maths/French tutoring etc and some of her school fees.

We have yet to set up an account for our 3yo... he might have to wait until he starts school and joins the Passbook account program.

DH and I don't believe in giving large sums to kids in their early 20's. From personal experience this money is often wasted. Instead we are investing in their education while they are young. DD has already benefited from over a 100Ks worth of schooling and extra curricular activities. This should place her in a good position to succeed in life.

If DH and I were given large sums in our early 20's we would have wasted it. We both wish that we ad had a better education when we were young. Our parents didn't educate us very well OR give us anything other than very small infrequent sums when we were at uni... we both had to pay our own way the day we left home. We both worked from age 17.

[DoubleK]

i tend to agree, if i had been given a large sum of money when i turned 18.. not sure what i would have done! howevere i was 10wks pg at my 21st, and we had just moved into our first place together, so.. a couple of thousand dollars would have helped a lot then!

MIL has an account for DD1, and i have asked her to set up one for DD2 (her having control means we cant use the money!) at the moment our finances are all over the place, so i just deposit some money here and there. when we start saving for a house next year, i will also place a small amount into the girls account weekly/fortnightly.

[Bathsheba]

The thing is if you keep telling a child that they will get a certain amount when they turn a certain age they will develop a sense of entitlement. And when the time comes you won't have much say about how the money is spent. What if they choose to spend it on something that you don't endorse? I personally don't agree with giving an amount of money with stipulations at that age... if you feel ok about not having any control then I guess go ahead. From my experience large sums are better handled from about the mid twenties onward.... but then some people never handle money very well, especially if they haven't earned it themselves. This is just my thoughts on the issue... not a prescription for everyone to follow. DH as a personal banker has seem many problems arise with large sums given to children pre 25.

[~ Zarava Flutterby ~]

Against DP's wishes i opened a dollarmite account for DD when she was born.
A lot of family and friends give cash for easter etc as she was so young and the money went in there.
Also FIL didn't know what to buy her as a birth gift so he gave us $500 at x-mas to set aside for anything she needs, we bought her highchair etc out of this and also used some of it towards pixi fotos.
If we are ever short of cash and she NEEDS new clothes etc then i take some money out of her account but it's not touched otherwise.
I transfer money from her child payment every fortnight, normally about $10 and then a little from DP's pay each week, normally about $5 plus whenever we cash in our coin jar we use the commonwealths coin counter and to cash it without being charged you need to deposit money into a commonwealth account, so we put a rounded figure in for her out of that.
As an example we had $687 in the tub to go towards her birthday, i put in $17.

It's nice knowing there is something there for her, and i will be doing the same when #2 comes along aswell.