Savings Account

Opening a savings account for your children may still be one of the best ways of teaching them about the value of money, as the author of this article explains ...

Many people in our society are struggling financially. The values I learned from my parents are considered old fashioned today. During our childhood our parents stressed that if you wanted something you needed to save for it and if you did not have the money you did not buy it. A portion of any money that we had as children was placed in a savings account. This type of philosophy is not popular today.

When I was growing up there were many times that I complained about having the forced savings account. I would baby sit and worked for a local store helping to stock shelves after school. I did not think it was fair when my parents made me place a part of my earnings into the savings account. I remember my sister lying about how much she was paid for babysitting so that she could keep more of the cash. When my parents found out about the lying she had to place all of her next babysitting wage in the savings account. We also had to put part of the money we received for birthdays into the account. When I graduated from high school my parents gave me a beautiful watch as well as the passbook to my savings account. I could not believe the amount of money I had in the account. I did not understand that I was gaining interest on the money and I had no idea how much I had saved over the eighteen years. I was able to buy a used car to take along to college.

Most adults do not discipline themselves to have a savings account, let alone their children. Instead of valuing money in the bank, people value how high your credit limit is. Even the banks encourage the trend of placing things on credit. My parents would most likely have a poor credit score by today’s standards because they bought items with cash rather than on credit. Having money in a savings account was very important to them. They would go without before borrowing money for an item they wanted. As a result they truly appreciated everything they had because they waited until they could afford to buy it with cash. Today people seem suspicious of people that pay for things with cash.

I still have my savings account passbook from when I was a child. When I look back on the amount of money I had at graduation it does not seem to be that great, yet the lesson I learned will be part of how I operate my business affairs for the rest of my life. I also have an active savings account that I put money into every pay check. Some months the amounts are smaller than others, but they still add up.

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