I have been a change saver since I was a waitress. Now when I spend cash for items, I round the total to the nearest dollar and just save the change. While I was pregnant I saved up my change to put towards my sons college fund every month. I wasn’t able to save the full $150.00 (save $25.00/month), but did save about $100.00 of it. Was able to fund the last $50.00 by selling my old prom dress!

For the last two months I have just been putting most of it in my son’s piggy bank. Now that we are going to be letting my fiancé’s daughter earn a little money, the first $3.00 that I save every two weeks will be put aside for her when she completes a “chore” and then I will probably just throw the rest in my son’s piggy bank.

All pennies go into a cute monkey jar that my sister made for him. I have saved several dollars in change for my son the past two months, which has been put into a Humpty Dumpty piggy bank…that I can’t open! For his baptism, he got a Cross piggy bank with $13.00 in quarters in it and then a $20.00 bill from his grandparents. I have been putting the change/money in the piggy bank that I can actually open ever since he got it. So he already has $33+.

When we were getting ready to start the spend, save, give system with my fiancé’s daughter, I counted the money in her piggy bank just to see how much was there. There was about $28.00 in change and $6.00 in cash – more than I expected there to be. I took $6.00 out in change and split it up throughout the three jars. I did that just to help her get the concept as to what is going into the jars. Maybe I should take that out and put it back in her piggy bank so that she can be the first one to deposit money in those jars? Hmm..

So this is what we have…
the monkey jar – holds all of the pennies (I don’t get excited about pennies, but we will cash them in at the bank when it is full)
son’s Cross piggy bank – has about $33.00 in it
son’s Humpty Dumpty piggy bank – has a lot of quarters, but not sure how much ($5.00 give or take)
daughter has a big pink piggy bank – has $28.00 in it ($34.00 if I put that money back in it)
daughter has a small blue see through piggy bank – it’s pretty empty

What would you guys do with the piggy banks? They each have two. If I want to teach them to work for their money and do the save, spend, give system, I’m not sure that I should just put change in there and one day say “Here’s $200.00 for you!”

These are the options I have come up with so far:

1. Just throwing extra change in one piggy bank for each of them and see how much is in there someday when they become interested or request to go cash it in.
2. Use one piggy bank for extra money towards college and one towards their cars someday.

That’s really all I’ve come up with so far. I know you all probably think that I’m thinking into this a little much – I mean, it is just cents, but I have always been able to save a LOT of change. I LOVE change!

I feel like we are saving too little for their college, which is probably where the money should go. We are using a 529 to help fund their college and only contribute $25.00/month/child, but we don’t want to save too much. My fiance’s family has always been good about going to college and getting a degree – although he did not. He had a scholarship for academics to a University, but messed around too much. Most of my family on the other hand has not gotten college degrees – I would say 30% of us have not. I will completely encourage college, but also realize that college isn’t for everyone. Therefore, we will get taxed if we end up not using that money for college and taking it out, so we don’t want to save too much in case they end up not using it/needing it. They will also have to maintain a certain GPA if we are going to help pay for it.