The Money Savvy Pig

Teaching children the value of money and the importance of saving and planning for the future is not exactly easy.

It’s always tough to figure out the how and when of it. Are they old enough yet? Should we open a savings account for her? Do we keep the money he gets for his birthday and put it away ourselves?

Plus, many of us never got these all important lessons from our parents when we were growing up. We figured it out the hard way, on our own and may have wasted a lot of money before really understanding how to go about it.

But money management skills are truly important (as this latest recession has made clear) and kids as young as four can learn the basics of financial planning with the help of this awesome piggy bank we discovered.

What’s particularly cool about the award winning Money Savvy Pig is that it is separated into four chambers — one for saving, one for spending, one for donating and one for investing. It holds up to $300.00 in coins and each chamber empties out of one of the pigs four feet.

We love it because it’s such an easy way to introduce the idea of money management. Kids can learn how to make choices and set goals for the money they receive. In doing so they practice learning how to delay the immediate pleasure that comes with spending it all now for the great feeling that comes from setting and meeting a longer-term goal like saving for a new bike.

If you want to get really serious you can get the whole package which has a complete educational program with a four chapter CD-ROM set that parents and children can read together plus workbooks and other goodies all designed to help you teach the responsible way to think about and deal with money.

With the holidays around the corner we thought you might like to keep this one on your radar.