'Saving is a very fine thing. Especially when your parents have done it for you, but it's also a good idea to encourage children to save for themselves at an early age. Getting them to put money aside, either as a lump sum or in a regular savings plan in the Post offices & Banks, but the parents must help instill the saving habit for their children

Many Bank's & postoffices will use marketing gimmicks to attract youngsters. One of the most successful is, pig piggy House banks.

Many National Savings ,children's saving Scheme's, are available to those who are interested, although they must be opened on their behalf by adults. Banks & Post offices pay a fixed rate of interest and can be held until the child reaches certain age after which they have to operate on their own these accounts.

Concept of early saving.,

Children must be introduced to the concept of saving very early. Saving means keeping aside some amount of money earned at present for future use. Parents should be gift a 'piggy bank' to their children and encourage them to put money in the piggy bank whenever they get some money. This way of collection of money will help children learn about saving in a passive way. Parents can even create a goal in the child's mind for the amount of money collected and if the child manages to collect that much amount, parents promise to contribute the same amount of sum to the piggy bank. Hence the money will double up and will work as a great incentive for the child. This money can in turn be used to buy a gift for the child.

The concept of saving goes hand-in-hand with the concept of spending in a planned manner. Rather than giving adhoc sum of amounts to children for their random expense like candies, ice-cream at school, parents should give a fixed amount of money for a week or a month and inform the child that this money needs to be spent over the fixed period of time. And in case, the child finishes his/her allocated amount of money earlier, then he/she will have to stay without money for the remaining period of time. This planning will lead to responsible expenditure by the child and the child will not end up spending the entire sum of money is the 1st few days. Most likely, such planned spending will induce some savings.

Parents should always encourage & praise children's' efforts of saving. For eg: if your son wants to gift his younger sister a small cake on her birthday, you should encourage him to collect money for the same rather than financing it from your side. This is a two-fold benefit: one, it will give your son a goal to save for and second, it will be a matter of great affection and pride for the siblings and you as parents when your son gives the birthday cake to his sister from ' his own money'!

So what are you waiting for, start teaching your children to save from this very moment.

Regard's

Francis Daniel (Bahrain).