I feel like this is such a silly and first world question but I'm not sure if it's just us or a common thing. Our older son has always received actual gifts from friends and family for birthdays and Christmas which is awesome and so generous of them. In fact we have so much and two boys close in age that our younger boy mostly receives money as a gift. They each have their own bank accounts which we opened with the same amount of money and our younger boy already has more money than his brother. I assume this must be common so just wondering what, if anything, you do about it? Is having more money what you get to make up for being younger and not being center of attention all the time? Should we make up the difference so they are at least equal? I know this is a ridiculous "problem" but I don't want it to become an issue when they are older.
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Our kids don't have bank accounts! I would maybe move all the money into a joint education fund?
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We started a baby savings account well before we even started TTC. We're expecting #2 and don't have a separate account for him/her, but we're thinking of when we do, we'll just split the current account in half and starting them off that way.
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@mrbee: They each have 529 plans as well. These accounts are not big but intended for spending money when they are older I guess.
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@Alivoo01: That is a good idea! We had money gifted to us when my first was born and we got checks in his name so we opened an account for him. Then same thing when our second was born. I don't think we can change it now but I wish we had done something like that instead.
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I wouldn't really worry about it. Over the years things will likely even out, or go back and forth between them. If one day you feel like there's a huge discrepancy between them, you could always add to one the accounts, or redistribute between them. Or buy them something they would both get a lot of value out of from the account with more money.
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I just move gifts into their 529s!
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Each of our kids have their own accounts (every qtr we move it into mutual funds) and they have different amounts of money. I would never take money from one and give it to the other - not fair in my book.
eta: my younger child has less money than her older brother
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@ShootingStar: You are probably right. Especially when they get older and are into different things.
@Mamaof2: I agree I would not give one child's money to the other. I felt guilt using birthday money to pay for activities, which the money was intended to pay for! -
We have one joint account that is actually in mine and my husband's name but ear marked for the kids. My husband and I are the only ones who contribute to that account. Any gifts from others go in to 529s in the kids individual names. We've also been contributing aggressively to our older LO's 529 so younger LO definitely won't ever pass her.
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We split the money in half and each have saving's account, when we put money in we usually do 50/50 because it took us awhile to set up DD1's and well we used the money...so we took some money and just started of each with a set amount.
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They each have a college savings account, ds1 has a "fun" savings account. We haven't opened one up yet for ds2, we'll probably just add him on to ds1's fun account!
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We a have registered education savings plan for our first and will be setting one up for our second soon, so far our sons has grown dramatically since we started it 2 years ago so baby girl's will trail behind it I'm sure. She won't need it until at least 2 years after LO1 which will help her catch up. We plan to have them be the same amount or top up with our own funds once they're needing it for post secondary education. They don't have spending money accounts and probably won't until they get jobs. Unless someone gives them cash directly when they are old enough to understand, then we will allow them to use a portion as they wish and the rest to go in to savings.
Our second is a girl though so most people have given her gifts rather than money. She's also only 2 weeks old so, no events (Christmas, birthday, baptism...) have gone by yet.
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@skipra: Are you talking about a lot of money? Or like $20 here and there with the intention that you'll buy something for the kid?
If it's a small-ish gift with the intention that he pick his own toy or something, I wouldn't worry about it. If he's getting the benefit of playing with all his brother's toys AND getting big cash gifts his brother isn't getting, then I would probably put some extra in the older's account because that strikes me as unfair.
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We have one family education savings account, everything goes into that. I haven't really worried about splitting it up any time soon, but since we are covering undergrad, it doesn't really matter who has more gifted to them.
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It sounds like maybe I could put any extra in the 529 plan if the difference starts getting to be too much. We already have regular deposits to the 529 and I want to have spending money available in case they need something or want to do activities and it's not in our budget at that time. Also so they have spending money too when they are older and need it more. It is very interesting to hear how everyone else handles this! I didn't realize most put everything in education funds.
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@My Only Sunshine: Yes it's $20-$50 at a time but it adds up! I thought it was unfair that he gets money and brother's stuff too but I don't want to take his gifts away either. He has more in his savings account than I have in my personal account!
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