Is there a place you can put money where it cannot be reached even by penalty until a certain date?

IANAL:

In theory, you could set up a trust, with a trustee who is under contract to not give you the money until a certain date.

The trustee could, in theory, take the money out prior to the date, breaching the contract, but in practice would be unlikely.

There are lots of ways and products available for what you require. Would you require any investment risk or are we talking about a pure cash holding with zero growth?

As @grumpyfish, trusts are the best method to do this. Spendthrift trusts have been the most common and least assailable versions of it. For instance, a person who was the beneficiary of a spendthrift trust was able to hold onto the entire principle (corpus) of the trust even though they were the subject of a suit for negligence resulting in harm from a car accident. This was because the trustee was only allowed to pay out for basic needs, and payments for a judgment of negligence was not such a payment.

I’ve wondered this recently myself, @ltryptophan. ...are you trying to protect the money from yourself, if that makes sense?

No. At the end of the day it is your money. There will be a lloophole available for you to get it. If you want it.

The only way to do it is to give that money to someone else. Removing all ownership of it. And, hope they will hold if from you and/or give it back.

You could always put it in a time locked safe.

@ChazMaz – that’s pretty much what a trust does – if you completely hand over responsibility to the trustee. It also allows you legal recourse against them if they mess with your money as the beneficiary of the trust.

Yes a trust is the best way of doing it. But you can still pull the money out if you want to.
Be it penalty or a legal battle.

You will get it.

What about something like Treasury bonds?

@ChazMaz – there are certain trusts where you are completely unable to do so. Those are the ones taht are most protected.

@janbb – Treasury bonds are still “currency” of a sort, and therefore can be reached by you or your creditors under certain circumstances.

@iamthemob – Aren’t you talking about a trust that was put together with someone else’s money. They having control over the trust.
I can make a trust for you with my money. Tell you it is yours and you wont get it for 20 years. There will be no way for you to get that. It falling back on me, the actual owner of the trust till it matures and then transfers to you officially.

@ChazMaz – you can alienate yourself from your own money in a trust. If you name a beneficiary after you (e.g., like a will) then there are multiple beneficiaries. If you say that you are not allowed to invade the principle until x time or for whatever reason, and that the trust passes to y if you die before that point, you have alienated yourself from your own money.

There is a way to do it – but you’re right that it’s difficult. Most often courts will get around it. But it can be done if you’re really, really strict in the wording.

Could you continue to add money to a trust once it exists? low growth and risk is what I’m looking for, and a way to keep the money locked up away from me, with the ability to add to it whenever I want, and for it to be untouchable until a certain date.

Every once in a while I would like to send a check to that “trust” and even if I desperately need it, not be able to get it until a certain date, maybe 10 years down the road.

An irrevocable trust

how long are you talking? there are CDs that can’t be redeemed early. And certain hedge funds don’t allow withdrawals for extended periods of time. But who are you keeping the access from, and for how long?

Keeping the access from me so it doesn’t get spent. Ideally a little here a little there, no touchig, and some growth. If I can access the money, I will…lol

@janbb It’s possible to sell a t-bill to someone else, thereby liquidating it.

@Ltryptophan sounds like what you need is a pension plan

@RareDenver – the problem is that pension funds can be withdrawn with certain penalties.

@iamthemob I’m not clued up on USA pension regulations to be honest, I work in the UK Financial Industry

@RareDenver – Interesting – I have worked in employee benefits and exec comp in the U.S., and I don’t know that there’s anything preventing a pension beneficiary from withdrawing funds…are there provisions in UK pension law? (complete inability to remove funds that are voluntarily invested, as opposed to an ability to pull funds early with penalty).

@iamthemob UK pension law used to be highly complex with loads of sets of rules for loads of different types of pension, they simplified the rules a few years ago and are currently in the process of changing legislation yet again. From April this year the minimum age you can access your company or personal pension increased from 50 to 55. There can be no access before this age. When you do access it there are specific rules on how you access it too. You can only get the whole lot as a lumps sum in the case of what is known as ‘pension triviality’. This is in affect where all your pensions combined come to a very small amount (1% of the Standard Lifetime Allowance) which currently works out at £18,000. You have to be between 60 and 75 to do this and you get 25% as a tax free lump sum and the remaining 75% is treated as taxable income in the tax year you take it.

There can be no access before this age. When you do access it there are specific rules on how you access it too.

I think that defeats much of what the OP wants to do (put the money outside control completely) BUT might cover most of what the OP can legally do.

@iamthemob well it does put it out of reach until a certain date

@RareDenver – Yup. So it does indeed come close.