I have decided that I want to teach my son about money, and how to save it. To me, the earlier the better, right? Well, at four years old, I figured the best way to do that would be with a toy.

I found this awesome ATM Bank that will count money that you put into it, keep track of withdraws and deposits, etc.  It comes with an ATM card and PIN so that your children can “secretly” access the money.  Catch is, I’m going to keep the PIN so that my child cannot rob his savings, until I want him to.

I haven’t gotten it yet, but when I do, I’ll come back and let you all know how it goes.  I think it will be a good thing, because it’s piggy bank 2.0.  No more having to bust the bank open, and no more having to count it!  I mean, yeah, we’ll have to count it and roll it to take it to the bank, but we’ll always have a running tab of what’s going into it.

We’re hoping to show Joe how much things cost, and how much work it takes to get the toys he wants.  He’s in that stage where he asks for everything he sees, and the things he is fortunate enough to get, he does not respect and appreciate.  His birthday and Christmas are 3 weeks apart, so he thinks that time of year is gift central, and we want to show him that Mom and Dad have to work for the things we give him.

What we’re doing is giving him a little bit of money for each thing he does around the house, and then saving it to put in this bank toy when I get it.  Then, when it gets here, we’ll put the money in together, and every time after that. When it reaches $100 we’ll let him use the card to withdraw the money, and take him shopping.  But, we’ve got a list of things he “wants” that we are keeping so we can tell him what he’s got money for.  When he goes shopping, we’re not going to add our money so he can get everything he wants… if he doesn’t have enough, oh well.  He’s going to decide between one big toy, and a few small ones himself.

Is this a good plan?  What have you done to teach your children about money?

Picture is courtesy of Amazon.com/Discovery Channel Store and reflects the toy I am talking about.