Money Jar Savings Method for Children

To teach the children about the concept of savings is like to ask them to eat vegetable or chillies. It's almost impossible! I believe most parents will agree with me that children nowadays are very tempted with all the toys and gadgets in the market today. The children will probably bugged you everyday for the toy they like, until you give in.

So, how do you solve this problem? You can either give in and buy them the toys, but for the parents, it's a losing battle for them. Once the children get their ways, they will smartly use the same method again for the things they want. Alternatively, you can teach them the concept of savings and delayed gratification. Sounds tough huh?

Here's how i do it. It's called Money Jar Savings Method. There are a few variables of Money Jar Savings method, like 3-jar system or 5-jar system. What i preach to my children is the 3-jar system. Basically, you have to prepare 3 piggy bank/jars (preferably transparent) to start the savings.

For the first jar, I will tell my children that this is for them to save for their own goodies, such as sweets, toys and gadgets. When you tell them this, I'm sure you will get them excited already! But to teach them delayed gratification, this jar will receive the smallest savings portion so that it will take a while longer to save enough for them to buy goodies. For me, I will save 20 cents a day for them.

The second jar is for them to buy their school necessities, like school bags, pencil cases, books, shoes and etc. This normally excites them as well since most of them fancies the latest bags/shoes/pencil cases to show off to other kids. For the second jar, I saved 50 cents a day for them.

And now for the third and final jar, i will tell them this savings jar is for them when they grow up. This jar is meant for long term savings for the kids. From my experience, the children will be disappointed with this third jar since they cannot visualize what's there for them and they dont understand the meaning long term savings. But, it's ok. They dont have to understand about the usefulness of the third jar. For this third jar, I saved 1 dollar for them a day.

So now you have the 3-jar savings system. The idea of having transparent jars is that the children will get to see the money grows inside the jars and this will get them excited to save more. Will this work for your children? Why don't you try it? I'm quite sure it works wonders. Of course, we as the parent should have the discipline to do the savings part.

Once you have enough savings and the jars are full, it's time for you to keep the money in the bank. One option is to keep these money in the junior savings account where you can potentially earn more interests than the normal savings accounts. To find out more about junior savings account, go here.