The Importance of Piggy Banks: Your Child's Savings

Just about every parents wants better for their children than what they had. It's one of the biggest ways to one-up someone. That, and we just straight up love our children. But there are so many different types of savings accounts and programs, it's overwhelming. Where should I put my child's money? Well I'm not going to tell you. What I am going to share though, is how we save for our baby.

We started with the baby shower. Many people, I'm sure, use what money they get from their shower to buy things that they need that they didn't get. Luckily for us, we either received all the big ticket items as gifts, or as hand-me-downs so there wasn't much that we needed to buy for our bundle-to-be. Because of this, we took every penny given to us and stashed it away.

When he was born, we opened him a savings account. We didn't want to wait. He already had money sitting at the house, but it would be much better served collecting interest, right? Adam's friend works at Citizen's Bank and showed us a wide variety of savings accounts we could use for the baby. We went with a College Saver Account and I personally would recommend this to anyone who has Citizen's nearby. This account requires a minimum deposit of $25/mo (forgivable by one month per year I believe) and has a $1000 incentive for saving until he is 18. The savings is not required to go towards education (though we all hope it will)

By depositing $25/mo for 18 years, that's $5400. Not bad, huh? Though if you read the previous article on budgeting you will see we actually give him $40/mo on 4 week months, and $50 on 5 week months and that's almost double!

Next we decided to do something that my parents did for me and paid off big time. Any money from Baptism, Communion, and Confirmation is all savings. Alongside that, any (and I mean any. My parents were strict with this and I intend to be as well) money received from a member of the family (Birthdays, Christmas..) is savings money. Money from friends is for spending.

When I was a kid, this was the most evil thing my parents could come up with, in my opinion. When all my friends' birthdays came 'round, they went on a Toys R Us spree with their money, while I watched my mom adjust my bank book.

Then I grew up and realized that they were right, because they always are. I didn't use my money to pay for college. I bought a car. A brand new (at the time) 2008 Toyota Yaris. A hefty down payment cut my monthly bill quite nicely.

Then I moved out!

Then I went to Disney World!

Then I moved into a nicer area to start a family!

And none of that would have been possible without that savings. Now I think back to my friends and I can say, "when you spend your birthday money on a Gameboy Color, I used mine to go to Disney." It makes me feel cool.

On top of family money though, my parents found another way to take my money! My job! Yes. They took my hard earned, sweat and tears (literally) and put it away. Not all of it, just half. From my very first job until I moved out, half of my paycheck went into the bank. But really, living at home with a prepaid cellphone, my only bills were gas, my car payment, and car insurance. I didn't really need to have full pockets, and once again, I'm thankful for it and hopefully, Nikolai will be as well.

The last way we save for his future is the simplest, most basic way. A piggy bank. All of our spare change goes into his piggy bank and at the end of the month, we roll it up and deposit it into his savings. Every little bit counts.

Happy Savings, Happy Children!

:: Celeste