This is an awesome product. If gets kids to THINK about money and the choices you have when spending it. Seems a rather great thing, doesn’t it?

The pig, or jars, or a piece of paper, can help parents teach children. Teaching is not “forcing” and parents should teach children about spending, saving (including investing when age appropriate) and certainly giving. Giving to a church is certainly religious but giving in general is not. Atheist can give too you know!

Sheesh. You people are as negative as they come. If you don’t like the pig, just say so, but don’t manufacture bull about the pig.

Then I blew it all on college and ended up with student loan debt and a minimum wage job.

That’s a lot more cash than I could afford, but I do kip in from my excess with the stuff the bank is more likely to recognize.

From my point of view, willing public service (including monetary & service donations) are an important part of being a human and working my way through life. Ayn Rand was right about those who will simply ‘take’ as though it were some sort of right and this might be he source of MG’s disdain … but Roark DID give where it made sense to him to do so. He wasn’t a heartless and stingy man … he had a balanced view of money.

FWIW, my religion does not have a paid priesthood and makes very little use of any sort of paid professionals. The money goes where it should and doesn’t disappear down some administrative black hole. My $1,200 ‘donation’ is the result of not hiring a landscape company. We also don’t hire janitors but quickly clean our own houses of worship ourselves after each meeting and heavily once a month. My congregation, one of roughly 60,000 worldwide, recently built our own building using 100% volunteer labor, renting only the heavy equipment needed for excavating. Even Bill Wilson, founder of AA said that there is one place where money and religion mix … and that is ‘in the hat’.

I agree with that.

I think it’s a great idea, the only problem I’m having is trying to explain to them that it’s not a toy. Since they were both infants they’ve been allowed to play with Daddy’s change bucket. They were each given other banks which made different electronical (very technical term there sounds. They get a big kick out of putting the money in to make the sounds, then taking it all out and starting over again.

One is just barely old enough to start earning an allowance, the other is too young. So I’m now trying to figure out how to help them understand the concept of saving without thinking it’s a game.

I’d like to see a fifth compartment added to the piggy bank. Something like “money acquired from my peers”. As it stands the pig doesn’t teach children anything about how money is acquired in the first place. Sure, investment is a sound strategy with today’s tax regime — but with democrats in control in congress it’s important that we teach our children a broad array of business skills to ensure that the growth rate of their assets doesn’t falter.

I was always taught to keep 10% for yourself first (thats my tithing) - nevermind the govenment gets their cut before you do! I liked the ideas above that you could have some money set aside to donate when you find a good cause or to be spent on gifts for others.

They just asked me how much of my money I wanted split between a savings account and immediate spending. Immediate spending they would give to me. The rest they invested for me. It took a while, but I grew to recognize the fact the money saved does not mean money lost. It means even more money later!

Gal

It’s great that you are able to teach your children about finance in a more “real-world” way. I wish my parents had been able to do that for me. The closest I got was a savings account, which had a hold put on it by some creditor or another, since it was in my Mom’s name as well as mine, and she had an outstanding student loan. Yikes! Talk about learning the hard way…

I think my boyfriend needs one…

I think the pig would be most likely to appeal to quite small children - probably at least under 8 (dolls and so on are aimed at the under 8 crowd only these days)

I think that for VERY YOUNG kids, it is an OK concept.

I taught financial planning & investing to my kids by showing them how to read the financial pages (stocks & mutual funds) of the Wall Street Journal. I also took them on to Vanguard & Fidelity’s websites where I showed them how to choose mutual funds. On Fidelity’s site, one of my kids chose a mutual fund and transferred some of his assets into that.

Then I took them to treasurydirect.com (bonds) (Netscape only) and my oldest son opened his own account himself as I guided him along. All this was free of course. Treasury Direct has an authorization form that needs to be signed & stamped by a bank officer and then sent in to the Treasury, so it takes several weeks to actually get account approval and an account number to buy securities.

Then on to TDAmeritrade and opened a direct deposit account with them.

So, its NOT complicated, but it is time consuming. We found that it takes more than “10 minutes” to open an account, mainly because of choosing a password or PIN that is acceptable to the system and has not been chosen by someone else. Also, choosing which security questions to answer - that takes time too. And, printing pages out as we went - takes more time. About 30 mins, I’d say.

My kids have the excitement of doing the real deal. Makes them feel very grown-up and decisive.

The donation portion shown in the above-photo will probably appeal to a certain political/religious segment. Whatever.