Best savings account?

bigmike20vt said:
so i may be stating the obvious here but i was chatting last night with friends. i currently, along with my wife and my inlaws put £100 a month into my lads saving account and have done since he was born. so that is £3600 a year (+interest). on top of that my parents filled his isa allowance for the year he was born. All of this pays out at 18 and i am a little worried that that is a lot of money to give to an 18 year old kid!! (i hope we bring him up well and he spends it wisely but i had a few mates go off the rails once they left school).

a mate of mine suggested opening a pension for him instead...... he will still get a tidy lump sum at 18 (i mean he is 7 now so already a chunk of change in his account). and the more i think about it the better an idea this seems. just wondering if i am missing any downside to doing this.....
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You don’t need to tell him, or rather, only let him know it’s existence if he needs it for university fees or mortgage.
 
djcj said:
I considered this very thing when opening a savings account for my son. I considered opening an account in his name that would mature when he turned 18 or 21, but had the same thought as you, in that i thought about myself when I was 18-21 along with all my mates, and every one of us would have wasted the lot on a few lads holidays etc. For that reason we have just opened a savings account in my name and when we feel he is sensible enough, we will transfer the money over to him.
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Why not hedge your bets and do both? 50% into savings, 50% in pension.

I've got a similar dilemma with my kids. Currently it's just in a savings account.

Although a pension would be the biggest financial reward, I'm not sure that's the most useful time in your life to receive money. I think being able to send them to uni or help with a deposit on a house would set them up for a better life than getting a lump sum later in life to blow on a cruise/care home.

Like another poster has said, I'd probably hold onto it until I think they're sensible enough to spend the it on something more useful than coke and hookers. Could always give them a bit at 18/21 and see what they do with it, then gauge whether they are sensible enough for the rest!
 
dLockers said:
Alright but in the real world, the parent has full control ("until they're 18" < if that makes you feel better).
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hmmm interesting thought (or not) if when our lad was 17 and 10 months and i was worried he was in no way mature enough to handle 1000s going his way........ i presume i could open a 5 year atom account in his name and put it all in there? (sure he could take a massive penalty taking it out but IF he was foolish enough to do that i would tell him he is (financially) on his own from then on.
 
bigmike20vt said:
hmmm interesting thought (or not) if when our lad was 17 and 10 months and i was worried he was in no way mature enough to handle 1000s going his way........ i presume i could open a 5 year atom account in his name and put it all in there? (sure he could take a massive penalty taking it out but IF he was foolish enough to do that i would tell him he is (financially) on his own from then on.
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I don't see why not. But OCUK is full of law abiding folk who declare magic trees to their insurance providers.
 
bigmike20vt said:
hmmm interesting thought (or not) if when our lad was 17 and 10 months and i was worried he was in no way mature enough to handle 1000s going his way........ i presume i could open a 5 year atom account in his name and put it all in there? (sure he could take a massive penalty taking it out but IF he was foolish enough to do that i would tell him he is (financially) on his own from then on.
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You can't do that, mate. Not unless you want to impersonate him and forge his signature etc

In actual fact, when he turns 16 he could move the funds anywhere he likes without your consent.
 
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dLockers said:
??? What??
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I wasn't speaking to you and would appreciate if you could butt out and stop trolling.

@bigmike20vt for info, my boy has just turned 16 and has 5 figures in his junior ISA. He's left school without a single qualification and I'm literally going through what you're concerned about.

Trust me, when he's 16 he can take full control of the funds and when he's 18 the cash gets transferred to an account in his name, automatically without any input from you
 
bigmike20vt said:
please don't fall out over my questions. I appreciate both of your replies.
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It's not really a question of falling out. Unfortunately, they aren't just trolling - they're giving you awful advice by claiming that you can access the cash as you like; anyone who's dealt with a junior ISA can tell you that's not the case.

By the way, I don't regret a penny I've put away for him and I'm hopeful that when he's 18 we can sit down and agree the best way to deploy what is a very significant amount of money. I just want you to know that a few quid over the years can turn into a lot of cash in one of these accounts, and not one penny of it will be yours when it matures.

However, you'll have given your boy the best financial start to his adulthood therefore personally I would make the exact same decision if I had to choose again. :)
 
In all fairness Dirk is totally right - I had been given a false impression when I moved my daughters JISA money from Hargreaves Landsdown to Fidelity. I've just had a click onto Fidelity and it says I cannot withdraw.

I think my confusion arose from the fact that when I initiated the transfer from HL to Fidelity, it landed in Fidelity as "cash" in the account. It gave the illusion I could, from that point, decide to withdraw/re-invest.
 
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