I’m guessing there are plenty of parents in the forum’s (I may be wrong) I was just wondering where you currently hold savings for your children?
I’ve currently got a Junior ISA with Nationwide however they have pulled the product and won’t let me transfer in an ISA that I was unaware my son had (his come from care so it was opened by the adoption services) and they are trying to get me to transfer into a new Junior Savings account they offer that is not an ISA
I’m reluctant to swap to the product as it doesn’t lock the money away till my son’s 18th like the current product and I don’t like that due to family history that I won’t go into!
I hate multiple providers as well so I need to transfer this other ISA into something I just don’t know where too now just wondering what other people are doing really?
Both of mine have Child Trust Funds so I’m going to convert them to junior ISAs at some stage. ISAs as far as I’m aware become the child at 16, unlike Trust Funds which is 18
Edit: actually it’s that they can take ownership of the account at 16 but not withdraw money
I’m thinking of NS&I (2.5%) as it’s online only so no faffing with branches which might end up closing anyway. And I’m also considering of a Junior Stocks and Shares ISA as well but haven’t looked into that yet
I’ve found Coventry Building Society are doing a Cash Junuor ISA rate of 3.6% ATM and can do it all via post or online if you’re a member (I’m not haha)
My son’s ISA I want to transfer in is a stock and shares ISA and in 3 years has made £2.08 and his Cash ISA has made £7 in a year on the same equivalent amount when I work it out.
Just querying - I didn’t think you can have multiple JISAs anyway, unlike full ISAs.
For small amounts in the course of the year, I would open something like the Halifax Kids Regular Saver and transfer to a JISA when the regular saver matures each year. A lot easier too if you have to go into a Coventry branch to pay in.
You are allowed a JISA of each kind so one is Cash ISA and one is Stocks and Shares ISA so fortunately we have that…however probably would have got away with it for a while since we weren’t informed about it and the city council were the ones who failed to inform us of it (despite me specifically asking as well!)
Coventry Building society would still allow me to pay in via a Standing Order/Bank transfer
Both my children have an investment JISA with Hargreaves Lansdown. My D aged 8 started with a pesky trust fund but was converted at first opportunity. My S aged 5 isa since under 1.
I decided on investment isa due to timeframes involved.
We have seen massive differences in performance- D is up 15% in 3 years (better than interest rates), S is up 89% in same period.
My wife thinks I’m stupid - you may agree…
I explained to them both about their savings account - imagine what my D thinks of her brother beating her!!
My eldest knows his got a savings account and I top it up every month (not loads but it’ll amount to something!) But youngest has no concept of accounts and money ATM being 20 months haha
My S was at 115% a few months ago. There is an old saying sell in May buy in October- unfortunately I haven’t done that.
I think it’s a little luck involved really. I picked 4 different companies of which 3 have had really good returns (over 100%) and one that has lost over 50%.
I did a lot of research into stocks & shares and was wary of ongoing management charges (any fund don’t pay over 1% in ongoing charges) there are so many companies offering JISAs. I chose Hargreaves Lansdown as they provided easy reading tips & advice but they are not the cheapest around.
My tip would be if your child is under 8 then look at stocks or shares as the returns will generally outweigh interest rates. There are so many options to look at & im always thinking if there is a fallout from Brexit am I best investing in the US? Although we do have Trump & you can’t predict his next move.
Both my kids are under 8 so yer makes sense. There website did come up in the Google search as I was looking for providers I may do I bit more digging. Maybe split them up so I’ve got a guaranteed and a risk pot lol
Yer I’m not sure what’s worse trump or Brexit that’s a tough answer haha
I’ve gone with a Stocks&Shares JISA using https://www.charles-stanley-direct.co.uk/ . I believe they have the lowest platform fees. Then I went with a basic US tracker fund which also has very low charges. This is likely to be more consistent and out-perform any human making active buy and sell choices on stocks.
Putting the max in each year for 18 years should hopefully let D afford University and maybe even a sizeable deposit on her first home.
Just from the link prodied Sendu abouve check that and had a quick look online and seen the Scottishfriendly, our current CTFs are with Forresters as above which we can change to their JISA which is managed by Schroders no idea who they are and no incentice to move it to the JISA, aslo not really sure what I am looking for ;
Ok so https://www.scottishfriendly.co.uk/isas/junior-isa
Will give you £50 for joining after adding a minimum of £50 over 12 months
If you are looking to transfer a CTF you need to open an account 1st then request CTF transfer
Please note that I was wrong about Charles Stanley’s fees: certainly not the lowest.
I’ve now switched my JISA to Vanguard, who do actually have the lowest platform fee that I could find amongst S&S JISA providers. A fixed fee would be better in the long term, but I couldn’t find a fixed fee provider that does JISAs.
Vanguard only offer their own funds to invest in, but there are good, solid choices with low fees to go for. I’ve gone for their US total market tracker.
I had a very quick look at scrottishfriendly, and people should be sure that the £50 “gift” is meaningful. Looking at one of the funds they offer, there is a £50 exit fee, along with very high yearly charges, so it seems like an aweful deal to me.
Also, their funds all seem to be UK-centric; typical advice for investing is to not pick any one company or sector or market, but to just pick the “entire” stock market (eg. by going with a global stock index tracker). Picking a country like the UK may be a bad idea, since the UK represents a relatively small proportion of the global market.
(I picked a US tracker, but since the US is the majority of the global market, and most of the top companies in the index are international, it’s a good proxy.)
If we’re talking about scottishfriendly, yes, it’s somewhat concerning that they don’t have a clear fees page that I can find, so I don’t know what their overall platform fee is.
But one of the funds that I looked at has an OFC of 1.5%.
In their illustration of £10,000 over 5 years they charge you £1550.
Vanguard, by comparison, would charge you something more like £75 (the 0.15% yearly platform fee, but I haven’t accounted for growth each year).
