Dave Thorp's Blog

Well it’s that time of year again when people detonate small yield explosives for no major reason. Of course this time of year has other memories for us as two years ago Yvonne was in hospital about to give birth to Stuart.

Both our children’s births have be marked by some event. In Stuart’s case it was fireworks and in Alex’s it was an earthquake. Does that make them special?

They’ll always be special to us!

Alex and Stuart got a new pram yesterday and are now side by side rather than Alex sitting behind Stuart

Those with kids (or those in the know) will know the Government launched a new scheme a few years ago called the Child Trust Fund which gave a Government contribution and then allowed money to be saved into it

Both Stuart and Alex have these funds with the same provider with Stuart having £500 invested by the Government and Alex having £250 (so far… should get another £250 as well). The problem…..

The money is invested in a stakeholder fund. There are two types of fund stakeholder which is based on stocks and shares and a savings fund which is simply a savings account.

Due to the credit crunch and the various problems the economy is currently having unfortunately this means that both Stuart and Alex have lost money (Stuart has lost £90 so far and Alex in the four months of his life has lost £34).

So I guess what I’m asking is if anyone in the know could advise on whether to either

a) Keep the money where it is in hope the economy stabalises and the stakeholder funds actually start performing

b) Cut the losses and transfer the money into a savings based trust fund

Advise, or failing that stories on how other parents funds are performing appreciated