Amy & Aron's

With the ever-soaring prices of the housing market or the steep rates of inflation, it’s no wonder that many parents are worrying now more than ever about their kids’ futures. It’s never too late to start saving for your child’s future. Here are just a few ideas that will help ease your concerns around your children’s future finances!

Set up an ISA or savings account

Start by making a trip to the bank with your children to set up savings accounts or junior ISAs for them – for them it will be exciting to go and do something a little different, and banks will often make a fuss over young savers. Junior ISAs are a tax-efficient way for you to save up to £4,368 each year for your child.

Once you’ve been and set up the account, you can then put more emphasis on saving, and any pennies that they amass can be collected and then deposited at the bank on a regular basis – which they will also likely enjoy, especially if it involves dropping everything into the big coin counters at the bank.

Not only is this great for your children to save for themselves, but you can also use it to deposit a little lump sum here and there to give it an extra boost.

Ask relatives for money rather than gifts for birthdays and Christmas

This will likely go against every polite one in your body! Every birthday and Christmas you’ll joke with your partner or family that you “don’t know where you’re going to put all these toys!” – but there’s definitely some truth in the jest. Children get so much on these two big days of the year – so much that they often don’t get time to play with everything to its best ability. Why not ask family and close friends to give them money for their savings rather than toys upon toys?

Your children will eventually get much more benefit from all that saved birthday and Christmas money than they would from toys, and they probably won’t even notice the difference – they will appreciate it when they are older.

Teach your children the value of money

Whilst it may seem a deep topic to delve into with your kids, there are so many benefits to them knowing the value of money when they are young. Any parent will know the constant sound of “can I have, can I have” any time you go to a shop or supermarket, but instead of just saying no, have you ever considered explaining why?

A small amount of pocket money each week or month can help children learn how to budget from a young age. Even just 1 or 2 pounds per week will teach them that they need to save up for a few weeks in order to buy something bigger, rather than just spending it straight away on sweets! (although they may do that for the first couple of weeks…)