The Kids Are Alright
As the global credit crunch continues to affect everybody in the UK in some form or other, many individuals and families are being forced to cut back on the amount of money they spend on the luxuries in life in order to be able to meet their regular monthly financial commitments.
For the majority of families, the number one priority is maintaining the repayments on their mortgage or homeowner loan, followed by credit card payments and personal loan repayments. But once these major bills have been paid, the next priority for many is to keep up saving for their children’s future, according to a new survey from Family Investments.
The research from the Child Trust Fund and savings provider has revealed that parents are prepared to cut back on what they spend on themselves, in order to put money to one side for their children and more than 80 per cent of those parents interviewed said that they had reduced the amount they spent on things like make up and clothing for themselves to be able to do this. In addition to this, almost half said that they would be cutting back on holidays over the coming year. Only 6 per cent claimed that they were not making any changes to their spending habits.
Clearly it is a good idea to save for your child’s future and long term savings can go a long way to providing a deposit for a house, or paying for University and college fees, particularly now that first time buyers are unable to get high loan to value mortgages and the typical student leaves university with an average debt of around £20,000 on student loans, credit cards and overdrafts.
A spokesman for Family Investments said “In our experience saving for a child’s future is a parental obligation, so when things are getting tough this is the last area that parents are willing to cut back on. Despite the strain on the current economic climate, 85 per cent of parents will be continuing to top up their child’s trust funds by the same amount, it’s just a matter of cutting back on little luxuries when things are tight to ensure their children’s savings don’t suffer.”
