We have a fairly large sum of savings bonds for our daughter which were gifts when she was a baby and growing up. She is 19 now and some are still not at full maturity.
Basically, from an investment standpoint.. they are not that good. Also, the banks no longer sell them and the last we heard, there will be fees associated with cashing them in as well.
I double checked with our bank (BOA) and they will still take them in with no fees but the only place you can purchase them now is from the government. www.treasury.gov has a lot of info related to the bonds, how to purchase, calculating value, etc.
I typically run a report each year with treasury.gov with all of daughter's bonds to check the maturity, etc. We plan to give them to her next December when she turns 20 to use at her discretion. She is like us.... debt free and delayed gratification so I don't have a concern with her blowing it.
We have a standard saving account attached to our accounts that we keep any extra funds in for daughter.... ex: if I get a refund check, $$ for a gift, etc, I just put that in her savings account. This past year, when we purchased a condo for her, she took some funds from that savings account to furnish her condo.
We do have her funded for college through a 529 plan. Some ppl are against this because they don't like it being limited to further education. At our house, there is no question on further education.... we each went to college and more and it is just in our blood, therefore, daughter is very appreciative that she is not paying for her college education with loans. We strongly believe it is our parental obligation to get her out of college and started on her own debt free.
You can adjust the 529 to be as conservative or risky as you prefer. Of course, at this point, we are on a more conservative level since she has started college. In the beginning, we did take more risks. The way we have it set up now, she is fully funded through grad school.
I don't know how old your child is but we started saving when I found out I was pregnant and her account was set up when she was born with strict discipline within ourselves to fund it. You don't "have" to have a 529 account if you are concerned about it's use being educational. You can set up a traditional account with your advisor that will be more lenient with the use for your child later on as well.
The next thing ppl will say is that you should be worried about your own retirement vs your child's education and that "your kid can borrow $$ for education and you can't borrow $$ for retirement". Yes, that statement is true but a responsible person makes sure BOTH are fully funded or at least puts forth effort to make both doable.
Best wishes! They grow up WAY too fast!