Treasure Chests of GOLD!

Kim thinks I'm pretty silly about this, but I don't think it's silly at all more... unconventional.

Here's the plan: get a pirate treasure chest and put a lock on it and cut a small hole in the top so you can drop coins into it. Gold coins. Gold dollar coins.

And then you could go to the bank every week or so and turn in five dollars and get five golden dollar coins and into the chest it goes. This saves you money, is fun to do, and when it's full you can pry the lock off (because by then you probably would have lost the key and besides, it's more fun to pry), open up the chest and see all that gold!

GOLD!

Then if you wanted to you could roll them all up, deposit them in a bank account, or just go out and spend them. I'm even thinking of maybe making one for Annie and the other kids too. A pirate chest for their gold coins that they cannot get into until they graduate high school. It would be for their college tuition. I know, about $4,320.00 isn't really all that much but it would be $4,320.00 more than they had previously! And maybe they wouldn't need it for college and they can keep adding to it over time with gold or silver dollars.

I don't know, I thought it was a good idea. It would be a fun way to inspire saving for the kids and it would make for an impressive reveal once the lid finally gets opened (can't deny that!).

Perhaps when they start getting allowance I could say to them "I will give you 20.00 a week but you have to put half of it away for your savings (and your savings will go to either college, emergencies, or retirement)." And then we can all go down to the bank and they can get their coins (or they could use bills, just so long as they are saving) and bring it home and put it in their box. Maybe when they turn 18 they can invest it if they like. That would be a direct thing that can take part in and see their money grow or shrink.

I think it's important for them to have their own box at home where they can grab it too. Maybe they can even have it unlocked so they could count it or just look at it (I'm a big fan of doing that). When I was a kid I had a savings account through the school and it didn't really teach me anything other than how to fill out a deposit slip. The money was, for all intensive purposes, not available to me so there was no draw, no temptation to remove the money and spend it and it's that temptation that needs to be dealt with at an early age that is going to end up benefiting them later on in life.

I know I could take that ten bucks from each of them and without telling them dump it into three savings accounts for whenever I think it's right to use it, or to put it in the stock market and hope to see it grow but I'm not trying to make them rich here, I'm trying to tech them monetary responsibility and from a very early age, saving needs to be emphasized. That's what is going to let them retire.

I figure if I can teach those kids to save and to not use credit cards in stupid ways, then they'll be set for life money-wise.