The Bank

Peanut has entered the era of toddler money management. She has a piggy bank that she got during Christmas, and we randomly give her coins to put in there. Well, that thing was getting pretty full, and we have been talking for a few weeks about taking the change to the bank. The original plan was to cash the money in through my account and help her use it to do her shopping at the farmers market. That would be great if there was a few dollars in there, but we could tell it was a decent amount of money. I'd been reading some Simple Parenting books - living simply with kids and avoiding the consumer pull that goes along with being the parent of a very young and usually naive consumer - and the subject of learning about managing money as a young child, understanding and deciding on spending, saving and charity was intriguing to me. So, yesterday was a big day. We went to the bank and Peanut opened her own account. She had $43 in that little pig! She put most in the bank and took out $10. We went to the grocery store, where she wanted to spend some money but then decided there was nothing she wanted to buy that was not already in the cart. So now she has 10 bucks in her wallet. We started talking a bit about how to decide what you want to spend your money on and about charity in general. Clearly this is the start of an ongoing process. So far she really enjoys her "cash" and has been telling people she "opened a count" at the bank. Super cute. Here she is on her big day!