Best children's savings products

Someone asks this question in another forum and I'd responded with the following: Hope this is useful to someone.

"Please forgive me if this is not following the same vein but I'm new My in-laws have £5,000 to invest for both of my teenage kids, the questions is where to put it? The kids want it tied up until they are 20 which is 3 and 5 years respectivley. We may also like to add to it along the way. Any suggestions?"

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There are lots of options that you can do with the money and it depends on how much risk you want to take.

If its for their education, most parents would take a less riskier route and put it in a high interest tax-free savings vehicles like Children's Account (don't forget to fill out an R85), NS&I has some tax free high interest accounts and also premium bonds (with an opportunity to win a bigger prize without risking the capital), most friendly societies offers TESPS (Debbie explained that earlier re.£100), and you always set up an ISA for yourself (if you haven’t used up your allowance) for £5,000 (£3,000 cash and £2,000 stakeholder). For more in depth explanation of these savings products, take a look at this website. http://www.myeggnest.com. It has everything you will need to know to get you started.

If you are looking for something riskier than high interest savings, then you will need to look for an investment fund. Most offer low, medium and high risk funds. Again its upto you decide. If you need some basic low down on what these are, speak to an IFA (most will offer 30-60mins free of charge).

Below are some funds for children to look out for:

http://www.henderson.com/home/uk/per...ices/children/
http://www.bailliegifford.com/pages/...rChildren.aspx
http://www.engagemutual.com/child-savings.asp

Hope this helps.

I think premium bonds are a great idea I hadnt ever considered them until now But I have some too and I think it may be worth getting some for my sisters child thanks op for giving me this idea!

I have around 4K in Premium bonds but as yet nothing won.

My old neighbour had 30K which i believe is the maximum allowed and he told me he averaged about 10 wins a year normally £50 but occasionally bigger. Not sure if this the average but he had no reason not to tell the truth.

some crude maths - there are 23 billiion premium bonds held and the esimate for August is 1,467,366 prizes from £50 to £1 million. on this basis if you have 1 bond you have a 1 in 15674 chance of winning. Not sure how this figure changes by the number of bonds you hold though. Still if you buy some then this time next year rodney..........

If you're looking for an account for young savers, then the Halifax's Save4It account is great. It comes with a moneybox that sorts the various coins into tubes. The kids love feeding their money into it, and you need a key to open up the box, so they can't raid it every 5 minutes!

Kevin

Am just in the process of thinking about where to put money my son receives as gifts etc. I am not keen to place it all in his CTF as I would like to have some say in the way that the money is used in the future, ie I would prefer it to be used for something worthwhile and not squandered in the pub lol. These child savings accounts, eg the halifax that you mention, do they give you any control over the money or would I be best opening an ISA in my name (I dont use my allowance) and controlling it this way.

Please dont get me wrong, I am not trying to be overly controlling, I just want to save for my son's future in the best way possible. He is a little angel now at four months but who knows how he will behave at 16??

Thankyou for any suggestions, all replys welcome.

I would go for the premium bond's.