Creating a savings pot for my 2 year old son

[mdianuk]

Never too early to save for his future right! I wanted to start building a savings pot for him now, ideally one that does better than just offer a low interest rate, not sure if investment accounts are available at that age? I assume within an ISA would be best? Or alternative? Suggestions from those that have done the same appreciated.

[C0ffin D0dger]

I'm assuming you've maxed out your and if you have one your partner's ISA limits. Better to save the money where you have control over it for two reasons. Firstly if for some reason you need to use it for an emergency (e.g. healthcare) it's easily accessible, secondly when your son comes of age you have control over how it gets spent.

Any ISA type investment in your son's name is theirs to do what they like with when they're 18. In a perfect world there'd be a sensible, well adjusted adult and use the money to help with their education or use it to buy their first house etc. Alternatively they might just piss it away.

[fat80b]

C0ffin D0dger said:

I'm assuming you've maxed out your and if you have one your partner's ISA limits. Better to save the money where you have control over it for two reasons. Firstly if for some reason you need to use it for an emergency (e.g. healthcare) it's easily accessible, secondly when your son comes of age you have control over how it gets spent.

Any ISA type investment in your son's name is theirs to do what they like with when they're 18. In a perfect world there'd be a sensible, well adjusted adult and use the money to help with their education or use it to buy their first house etc. Alternatively they might just piss it away.

Exactly this - we looked at Child accounts, funds, ISAs etc and in all cases, the child has control at 18 which may or may not be what you want.

In our case, I opted to open an ISA in the Wife's name and put the money in there for the kids as well as having a Lloyds child saver account for everyday savings / money (@2% interest).

This way, grandparents etc can pay money into the kids accounts and we can sweep it into the ISA and put it in the stock market a few times a year.

If the worst happens, we have access to the money as opposed to it being inaccessible. The only reason I would have done differently would have been if we had both maxed out our ISAs last year.

Bob