Teaching my boys about Savings Accounts
By Randell Tiongson on July 13th, 2012I recently wrote about a blog about what I need to teach my children at the Act Like a Man blog site. Check out the post here. I was encouraged by the positive response to that blog and how many people found it helpful and enlightening. In essence, I mention 3 things I felt I needed to strongly teach my children about: 1) Making Money 2) Handling Money and 3) Loving God above everyone else.
Today, our family had a milestone in the area where we felt my wife and I needed to empower our younger boys on — that of savings. We have encouraged our boys to keep all the coins they have (mostly from me) and place it in their coin banks. Getting kids to save using coins is the first step and it is a very important step. I hear many parents complain about their kids not seeing the value of money. We believe that for kids (or adults) to see the value of money, they must first value the smallest amounts — coins! My kids have been dutiful in putting their coins in their coin banks and we felt they are ready to do the next step.
So what is the next step? Get them to open their own Savings Accounts! Many parents 
open accounts for their children but my wife and I felt that the experience of opening accounts themselves will leave a positive imprint. I also found out that BDO’s Junior Savings Program only has a minimum initial deposit of P100 which was really encouraging.
Here’s my son Riggs filling up the forms
Now it’s Chino’s turn to sign his name in the forms
BDO had some give-away for kids opening their accounts. In the 70’s I remember Banco Filipino and BPI would give piggy banks for their kiddie accounts. I would have been more cool if they got piggy banks like we did before eh?
Opening an account themselves is a cool experience. The branch staff were so thrilled seeing young kids pumped up about opening accounts. It was also an opportunity for me to talk to them about the virtues of teaching the next generation on proper money management. The new accounts staff had a difficulty counting all those coins my boys carefully sorted and taped themselves but was very elated to see that kids were experiencing their first real banking transaction.
I also took the opportunity of teaching them on subsequent depositing after they received their first passbooks (no ATM for them yet!). I gave them P100 each and told them they can now add on to their accounts by making a deposit. Their older sisters (they insisted to witness this milestone) were on hand to assist the boys in filling up their deposit slips.
It’s now Riggs turn to make his first deposit over the counter, he had to fall in line just like all of us.
Then it’s Chino’s turn to make his deposit.
A trip to the bank will not really be a complete experience without the waiting and the reading of the newspaper while waiting, haha!
As we left the bank, the Branch Manager gave my boys a good hand shake and welcome them as the bank’s newest depositors. We wish to thank the very helpful, cheerful and accommodating staff of BDO Pasig-Pioneer Branch. What an experience for all of us!
Train a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not turn from it. – Proverbs 22:5, NIV
This is really great! Best way to teach children to save is to ask them be the one to open the accounts and experience it first hand. Great move Randell.
Being a personal financial strategist, I strongly advocate savings. SAVE WHILE YOU CAN, AS MUCH AS YOU CAN.
If your are too concerned of lifestyle and wants NOW, i guess you must be very worried to you find yourself lacking financially for your most basic neccessities when you get older.
My salute to you for teaching your kids to save. Help them learn and understand how money works, and how money can work to their advantage. They are kids (and young) still and that gives them the advantage if TIME to make their money compound multiple times. I hope their initial savings will help them be a BILLIONAIRE in the coming years.
May we all be financially richer and wealthier into the future!
Our kid’s BDO account is in the mall nearest our house, where we frequently go for errands. My 7-yr old boy already knows that BDO is “his” bank and reminds his mom and me every so often to deposit his money there. In about a year, I’ll have him start filling out the forms himself.
“Many parents open accounts for their children but my wife and I felt that the experience of opening accounts themselves will leave a positive imprint.” – Nice! My 13 year old opened a bank account and started saving when he was 10, we’re glad that he has developed the habit of saving. But after seeing this post, I think I’m even bringing my 6-year old son to the bank! Thank you for this encouraging post Randell!
Randell,
I’m glad you wrote this blog. I, to this date and age, maintain a piggy bank. You will be surprised at how much coins one can save by dropping a few everyday. But of course, there we all should be disciplined not to be tempted to draw from it no matter how “urgent” the need is.
I have encourage my children ( both adults now) to keep and maintain one. In fact, I now have a piggy bank ( shaped like an ice cream cone, though) for my grand daughter, Sadie. When full, I would give it as a gift for her birthday or if there is no occasion, I would just turn it over to my daughter, to deposit in Sadie’s savings account.
I’d like to share that Bern started Sadie’s first piggy bank savings when she was still in her tummy. It was not a conventional “piggy bank” because it was just a big can which my son-in-law, Ed, put slots on using a knife, so they could drop coins in. He taped the lids so that it would take some effort to open, in case, one of them get temted to pick coins from it.
After 9 months of pregnancy, the can was so heavily filled with only 5 and 10 peso coins. There was no more space for more coins to be dropped which was an indication that it was time for a trip to the bank.
Of course, it was an SOP to wrap these coins in plastic bags prior to depositing. After all the sorting and bagging, to their surprise, the total amount of the coins dropped in the “so called” piggy bank was Php 13,000 +.
We were all surprised about how much can be saved just by merely dropping unwanted coins in our pockets.
Bernice opened Sadie’s first bank savings account ( under her name at first) with Sadie being less than a year old. When Sadie turned 1 year old, I turned over the ice cream cone-shaped piggy bank which I had been saving for Sadie as my 1st birthday offering. Its far in size from Bern and Ed’s cylindrical- shaped can piggy bank but I was able to save almost Php4000 for my precious apo.
Since many gifted Sadie with money on her first birthday, all monies including my 1st birthday offering, found itself to a second trip to the bank. This time, Bern had put in Sadie’s name as the account holder and at 1 year old, Sadie had her first official savings bank account.
I have not been a consistent “piggy bank” saver until about 10 years ago. My lolo used to do this for me but when I was about 10 years old, he had turned over all he had saved for me with the hopes that I was going to be responsible enough to maintain it. Now that I am 50 yrs. old, can you imagine how much savings that would have been?
Hopefully, this “piggy bank savings legacy” I had passed on to Bern and Sadie will be passed on to their childrens’ children.
By the way, I would like to give credit to my husband, Jed, because I used to get his 5 & 10 peso coins from his “needed to be laundried pants” or coins lying around the house which he just neglected. All went to a good purpose. 😉
Just a suggestion, it would be good to give out piggy banks to anyone as presents. I did this one Christmas to my staff in the office. In fact, I still ask them and check if they still maintain it. One was able to save up and used it as part of his down-payment for a condo unit. I was so proud of him!! I was proud of myself, too, when he told me about it.
Guia
Great! This should serve as an inspiration to all fathers. Starting the kids young is the way to teach them responsible money management…
Great write up about starting early on saving up. A lot of families will benefit if they learn this. Parents really play a big role and task and responsibility on making sure their kids grow up taking the right path. And this is one of the major aspects that should be taught early.
Great article! I too believe in teaching kids how to properly manage money. Hopefully I can be successful too:)