Save, spend and give jars
Stephanie from Little Birds posted this photo of her son Miles’ allowance jars on Flickr. They are marked “Save”, “Spend” and “Give”. The idea is that $1 goes in to each jar, each week.
“spend: use it as you like
save: stays in the jar!
give: for charity. we encourage them to save it up for one cause.” – Stephanie
AJ, who likes to wash her money, only has the one piggy bank at the moment for all her savings but I like this idea so much I think we will be changing to the three-jar system soon.
**Photograph reproduced with Stephanie’s permission**
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Great idea! I can’t wait for my 1-year-old to start doing this!
crashbandit January 31st, 2007 17:58
I was just looking at a fancy store bought “piggy bank” that encourage the same thing. I didn’t like the look of it but liked the idea. This idea is a winner. I love it. Easy & Simple. Thnaks.
Nina January 31st, 2007 21:18
Such a charming photo of Mile’s lovely scrawl. One of these days I will do this with my girls. If only I were more organized….
bellablue January 31st, 2007 23:47
Dave Ramsey has a great book/kit for helping kids learn how to save/spend/give their money. There’s also some games online and picture books to go with it. I haven’t tried the games yet, my kids are too young. But, my husband and I use the grownup version of his materials, and love it!
http://www.daveramsey.com/etc/cms/kids_teens_money_5195.htmlc
Ticia February 1st, 2007 00:43
I have 9 and 10 year old daughters, for the past year we have using Mead Bright Wallets (found at office Max) they get $10 every two weeks and have to choose how to divide up their funds. We use 5 Wallets 1- Savings 2-Charity 3 and 4 a goal set by them to buy and 5- Mad Money. There are 3 rules. 1- At least .50 must go to a charity of their choosing. 2- $2 must go into savings. 3-No more than $5 can be in Mad Money at a time. My girls have really understood what it takes to get what they want. Even money they get for holidays and birthdays get divided in these wallets. Last year they both saved over $200 for a family vacation, donated $50 to a local homeless shelter and $80 to the local no kill animal shelter. I am so proud of the way they have taken to this!
Kim February 1st, 2007 01:24
My daughter started getting an allowance last May when she turned five and we have been doing this – but we put 10% of her allowance for Long Term Savings (college), 10% or more to Short Term Savings (for that toy or whatever she wants), and 10% to charity. It has worked out well for us.
laeroport February 1st, 2007 03:45
I also had a little bit of pocket money when I was a kid, and we were also encouraged to save. However my parents went wrong as we were allowed to save our money to buy big ticket items (I remember my sister bought a stereo, I bought a contiki tour of Europe). I wish they had have pointed out that save means save. I wish they’d encouraged us to invest this money when we were older (house deposit, shares etc) rather than spending it.
Candice February 2nd, 2007 22:12
[...] Thanks to Kiddley for pointing out this great photograph by Stephanie that depicts a great way to teach kids about money. [...]
Little Legends Blog » Blog Archive » Save, Spend, Give February 3rd, 2007 03:25
Great idea. I’ll start it today!
cw February 6th, 2007 10:04
I love this idea! I think if more children were taught this from the beginning, we would have a lot less children in debt when they got older! Great concept- thank you!
Amy February 10th, 2007 06:03
I gave each of my kids four pringles canisters. They decorated each one, then labeled them “give, grow, save, spend.” We took a huge rubber band and wrapped it around the four canisters to make “one” piggy bank. Give and spend are self-explanatory. Save goes towards that special “whatever” that they want to save up for. Grow gets invested for their future. Give gets 5% of all incoming money. Grow gets 15%. They can divide up the save and grow however they want, as long as some money goes in each.
Christine April 27th, 2008 13:29