Father's Day Memories of the Great Piggy Bank Robbery

When I was 8 I embarked on a life of crime. It was a summer afternoon and the ice cream truck was tinkling its music outside like the pied piper. With my younger siblings looking up at me with hopeful eyes, I unplugged our joint piggy bank and dispersed the loot. We returned home twenty minutes later looking perfectly innocent but for the traces of melted ice cream around our mouths. It was then that my father, who was a great man, opened our eyes to interesting financial lessons.

Don't Buy It Just Because You Can Afford It

When you're not used to it, a lot of coins jingling in your pocket can make you drunk with your own purchasing power. We had spent every penny of our savings on ice cream, and my father saw the nausea starting to crop up in our faces. Of course, he offered us to sit and chat over a bowl of ice cream. We couldn't incriminate ourselves by refusing.

Crime Doesn't Pay

Helping our parents with chores around the house, we had filled our piggy bank with almost enough to buy the dream toy of the moment, a huge electronic Simon Says. Now my father put one on the table. He was planning to give it to us once we had saved enough, he explained, but since we were doing such a great job he and Mom decided to make up the difference. All we had to do was bring our piggy bank and pay our share. Oh! Never were there such sad criminals in the world.

The Truth Will Set You Free

We intended to lie, of course. But the little leather purses strung around our necks raised a few unanswerable questions. And then when the truth came out, so did an unexpected financial twist. Learning from us that the neighborhood kids had an allowance, which they used for buying ice cream, my father asked how much a Popsicle costs. To our amazement, he then set an allowance for each of us at the rate of 2.5 Popsicles a week.

Untidy Sums Can Lead to Tidy Savings

That half Popsicle complicated matters. It forced us to save the half Popsicle money until next week. But after we put the coins in our piggy bank, we started to wonder if we really needed to have that extra Popsicle next time. And so it was that we ended our piggy bank robbing days and started saving again.

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