Yesterday we finally opened a savings account for DD. We put a good chunk in right off the bat, and have it set to be added to weekly. We will also put any money that she gets for holidays/etc into the account.
How are you saving for your LO? Can I ask how much you are setting aside?
Re: Savings for baby?
In BC (I'm assuming across Canada) we receive two monthly government cheques per child. One is $100 for childcare until they turn 5 and the other is a child benefit tax cheque ranging from $100-200 depending on income until they are 18. DH and I have been putting both of R's monthly cheques in to savings since he was born. We plan on doing that for all of our children.
Yeah, we are on a tight budget too with me SAH. We put 500 into her account now, and are putting 10 bucks in a week until we pay off our car which will probably be in 2 years.. then we can definitely do more (car payment is $500/month for our nissan xterra).
RayT, that is a pretty sweet deal!
Haha. Yeah... it was definitely a mistake. We got it when I was still working, and before we were expecting DD, so we really didn't have many expenses at the time.
We set up an account when DS was born, we put his Christmas, Baptism and all other gifts he has received in there.
I only put in $5 per paycheck, it's not much but it's something. When we get a few bills paid off we will bump that amount up.
No set amount, but it's online with our other two accounts so we'll add to it whenever we can/want.
As far as birthdays, until she's old enough to realize about money, it will all go into her savings account. Then when she's older, she will be allowed to spend half and must save half of whatever she gets. That was my rule growing up, and I think it's fair and helped me learn to spend wisely and save.
That is a good idea.... we were trying to decide what to do. We were thinking of taking all the money and putting it in her savings, and then just letting her get something small with our money.