Making Saving Money Cool for Kids

It seems that a large portion of young kids are interested in money, but in many cases that interest fades with time. I know that as a child, I was interested in money, as was my half brother and my own four-year-old son today. It may not be so much an interest, but a curiosity or intrigue. Kids see that money is important to their parents, and that it somehow has the magical power to get us many of the things that we desire, but they don't have much more of a comprehension than that of how money and personal finances work.

In order to maintain their interest in money and the saving of that money, it's often our job as adults to make the subject interesting, informative, and somehow try to make saving money cool. In an effort to get my own son involved in saving money, here are some of the things that I found cool about money as a child and that I try to practice with my son as well.

Cool Piggy Banks

I had some pretty cool piggy banks growing up. I had one that would roll coins down several ramps and sort them into their various denominations and another that was shaped like a miniature wooden barrel, the end of which had a combination lock to open and take out the money. My mother (who is an artist) even fashioned me a child-sized ceramic "treasure chest."

While these banks were neat at the time, they really don't hold a candle to the electronic banks that are out there now. Though I started my son off with a see-through red piggy bank as a toddler (pigs are kind of cool to two-year-olds), now he's big into cars. Therefore, he now has a SUV bank that digitally tracks the coins and the amounts placed inside, honks its horn and spins its wheels when coins are put into it, and even opens the cargo hatch to allow for removal of the money.

By playing to my son's interests when it comes to money, it makes saving money fun and cool, and it increases his willingness to save rather than want to run outside and make a donation to the local ice cream man each afternoon.

Various Forms

As a child, I always found various forms of money pretty neat. From silver dollars and cool foreign coins that my grandparents used to give me, to ounces of silver from my uncle, there were just so many different and interesting looking forms of money out there. And owning real silver was like owning treasure to a young child.

By changing it up and exposing children to a variety of saving forms, currencies, or even precious metals, it can turn saving money into something that is pretty cool in a child's eyes. It could even be as simple as getting them to collect all the various state quarters or gold presidential dollars.

Chip in With Goals

While my son doesn't fully appreciate the value of setting and achieving goals just yet, he is starting to comprehend their relationship to money. I have set up a savings account for him that rewards him with interest bonuses for reaching certain savings goals. The amounts don't really hit home with him, but the fact that we met a goal and daddy is happy for him is good enough at this point.

Once he gets the whole idea, I plan to match the bank's bonus payment with a cash payout of my own to make the reward a bit more satisfying (especially in this time of low interest rates), and make the process a little cooler than just seeing some numbers on a savings account passbook.

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Disclaimer:

The author is not a licensed financial professional. The information provided in this article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or financial advice. For financial advice, readers should consult a licensed financial advisor. Any action taken by the reader due to the information provided in this article is solely at the reader's discretion.