Are You Saving For Your Kids?

New research suggests that nearly 40% of parents are saving for their kids to help them get on the property ladder. This equals over 4 million parents who will pay out, with 75% saying they don’t expect their money back. It’s not a surprising fact when you look at the state of the property market and what lenders are asking as deposits. Whether you have older kids or little ones, helping them out financially in the future is probably on your mind. I often worry about how I’m going to help my kids through university and to get a house and they’re only 5 and 2 years old. The key say financial experts is to think about saving now as a small bit can go a long way in the future. One option to consider a Junior ISA. These new individual savings accounts for children, which were launched last November. The accounts offer parents a tax-free way to save for children who don’t have a Child Trust Fund. Each child under 18 years can have one cash and one ‘stocks and shares’ Junior ISA at any one time and anybody can put money into the account with the total limit for payments into Junior ISAs being£3,600 in each tax year. The money in a Junior ISA belongs to the child, but they can’t take the money out until they are 18.  If the child chooses not to take the money out, the Junior ISA will automatically become an ISA. However, just like the Child Trust Fund what you have to remember is from the day the cash goes in a Junior ISA it is your child’s money, not yours’ Which means while you may think of it as a nest egg for a future house or a university fund, at age 18 the money is entirely your child’s, and they can do what they want with it. So while your sweet 6 year old might not do something silly there’s no guarantee that at 18 he won’t hot foot it off with your cash on a round the world trip (thinking about how foolish I was at 18 here). As a result I’m not putting all my kids nest eggs in one basket but I’m wondering how other parents are doing it. Are you saving for your kids future? Let me know.