I’ve mentioned on this blog before that *shock horror* I am not that great a saver. I used to be but then real life came and hit me in the face with multiple bills and debts.
Now that we are finally seeing our way clear of our debts, we are starting to save but we wanted to make sure our son started saving as early as possible. He is often given money by his grandparents and other family members, family friends too. Most other children would want to go straight to the shops and spend it on the latest magazine or sweet. Not my son. He would much prefer to go home and put it in his money box.
At almost three years old, he loves seeing his money box fill up and when we finally opened his bank account at the Metro Bank the other week, he adored pouring his coins into the ‘magic money machine’ and seeing it counted out and put into his bank account. In fact, he asks to go back to the ‘M Shop’ to put his money in most days and we recently took another trip to deposit some money!
The great thing about this account is that it encourages children to save even more. If your child deposits any amount of money once a month, they will get a stamp for that month. Keep that up for five months and they get an extra £5 added to their account. Add to that the interest they receive and it really helps them to save more. They also offer a number of different incentives too – if you can guess how much money goes into the money machine from your money box and are right or very close, your child wins a prize. This makes them think that saving more and more money may lead to more prizes in the future.
Since emptying his money box two days ago, he is already close to £10 again – the money coming from a mixture of places: his Nan, all of my coppers and just money he’s found around the house (that has fallen out of Daddy’s work trousers but ssh!). If he continues to save like this into his teens, he will be rolling in it. I don’t see that happening in all reality but I will encourage him to save for as long as possible so he can reap the rewards in the future.
Do your children save? Do they do it without any encouragement or do they need a bit of a push?
