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For months, Nano kept telling me that he had a fifty dollar bill in his piggy bank. Obviously, I didn't believe him because where in the world would a 7-year-old have gotten that kind of money? I figured that he had mistaken a five dollar bill for a fifty and was a little overly optimistic about his financial state.
After months of hearing him brag about his riches, I was getting tired of it.
"Mom, I have a fifty dollar bill in my bank! I'm rich!"
That was the final straw on the donkey's back. I asked him to show it to me to prove that he was wrong. Nano ran to his room, and I could hear him dumping out his money on the floor. A minute later, he came running back into the room and handed me a fifty dollar bill. I was stunned.
"Where did you get this?!?!"
"I found it! It was laying on the ground outside of the dollar store," he said proudly.
I was appalled. When I was that age, I found a five dollar bill laying on the ground outside of the post office and went around asking everybody I saw if it was theirs before some sweet old lady told me that I should just take it home. I felt guilty for weeks.
My kid found ten times that much money, and all he could think was finders keepers.
We had a long heart-to-heart talk about the right way to handle that situation would have been and then I mentioned that he needed to bring some of that money to church to put in the offering plate and then put the rest in his savings account.
He was not happy with that suggestion as he had big plans to spend his riches, and I realized that it was time to have another talk about practicing good stewardship with money.
At the time, the kids' piggy banks were mason jars with coin slot lids that I had put together for them a few years ago. I decided that I wanted to switch them over to the Save-Spend-Share style of banks instead. I checked Amazon and found some cute ones there, but ultimately decided to try making my own instead.
After mulling over the best way to make the banks for about a week, I was cleaning out the cupboard above the stove (you know, the one that ends up crammed with random water bottles and ice trays) and pulled out an empty eight ounce parmesan cheese container. Inspiration stuck, and I had a plan.
I wrapped three empty and clean parmesan cheese containers in fun duct tape and then duct taped all three of them together. Using a permanent marker, I wrote the category and the percentage on each one of the lids.
For our categories and percentages, I chose:
Savings: 50%
Spend: 40%
Tithe: 10%
When the kids got home from school that day, I showed them their new banks and explained how to divide their money up into each category. They were pretty excited to try out the new system with the money they already had.
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How to make DIY save/spend/share banks: http://bit.ly/2CYGSis
Just six more empty parmesan containers, and I'll be able to make banks for the two younger kids too! On a completed unrelated note, if you know of any recipes that call for LOTS of parmesan cheese, send them my way...
Other things that would work great for these banks are...
3 ring pencil pouch
Plastic frozen concentrated juice containers
Pringle containers
Mason jars
Deli food containers
Water bottles
Empty spice containers
Or if you want to buy one instead of making your own, here's a bunch of really neat ones!
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Is it easy to get the money out of the jars when you need it?
ReplyDeleteYes, it is! Just unscrew the lid. Way easier than traditional piggy banks.
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