Children and Savings

When I was a young girl, I liked selling things and making money. I would be out with a typical lemonade stand, pushing a cart around and selling candy to the neighborhood kids, selling different beverages which parents thought was coffee (it wasn't)...anything to make money. The problem is...I never saved it. Most likely it was spent on penny candy from the corner market! Oh, which by the way, I always counted the pieces I received...if I paid 50 cents, I wanted 50 pieces, or whatever it came to before tax.

Seems like I always knew I wanted to make and save money but didn't have any teachers or role models to follow or look up to in this regard. However, when I was about 10 years old, I asked my mom to take me to the bank because I wanted my own savings account. She took me, and I got one. Unfortunately I never had more than about $10 in it and eventually closed it.

If I had proper direction, I could have had a LOT more saved! My mom is not a saver, and my dad isn't either although I thought he was. I wanted it, I craved it, but didn't know how.

When I was 15 years old I went out and looked for a job because of wanting to buy my own things, and got hired making $4.25/hr. Unfortunately I didn't save money then either, but I sure did have the coolest clothes I could afford!

The savings only started a few years ago and I emptied it when I did the Dave Ramsey thing and got out of debt. It was around $1k. So, now, I start again.

All this brings me to the reason I even posted this. Today I visited a branch of a bank I have an account with, not my primary credit union. While there I heard a lady behind me ask who to talk to about setting up a savings account. The teller told her where to go, and shortly after I heard someone ask how old he was, and a boy's voice said, "Twelve."

This made me remember wanting to set up an account when I was so young. It made me smile and feel really good that this boy was getting a savings account at a young age. My only hope is that someone teaches him how to save and it benefits him in the future.

Hindsight is 20/20