Piggy Banks For Kids: 4 Under $25 That We Love
Why are Piggy Banks so wise? Because they Are Educational Toys That Can Teach Financial Literacy To Children
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“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”
-George Bernard Shaw
Several organizations in the United States including Scholastic have pointed to the everyday life benefits of kids learning through play. Educational toys can sharpen focus, reinforce learning lessons, and create quality family time all in a fun way. Sometimes our children need to feel and see the concepts for themselves -- educational toys are a great way to help them do this.
If you are looking for a way to teach your children about money and financial literacy, one of the ways to start is with a piggy bank or coin bank. Piggy banks can be a fun and educational way to help kids learn about saving or investing money as well as harness the power of deferred gratification, one of life’s most important money lessons. They come in all shapes and colors and in this blog post we will discuss some of the best piggy banks for kids.
Now, when it comes to choosing a piggy bank for your child, there are a few things you should take into consideration.
First, think about what material the piggy bank is made from. Some are made from ceramic or plastic, while others are made from wood.
Second, consider the size of the piggy bank. You want to make sure it is big enough for your child to put their coins in, but not so big that it becomes a nuisance.
Third, think about the design of the piggy bank. Some are very basic, while others have fun and colorful designs. fourth, you may want to consider getting a piggy bank that has a slot for bills as well as coins. This way, your child can learn to save both types of money.
After having tried, tested, and researched (maybe also broken!) several piggy banks, we found a few that we really liked and thought could best start to teach some of the principles talked about above. While there were a lot of great finds out there, we set out with the guardrails of trying to find great piggy banks for a few different age groups as well as capping our research around products at $25 or under in an effort to try to find something more affordable and accessible.
Listed below in more detail are four piggy banks that we loved and would recommend for teaching financial literacy:
Laugh & Learn Smart Stages Piggy Bank
Age Range: 6 Months to 3 years
Manufacturer: Fisher Price
Product Details: The piggy bank measures 6.69 x 6.1 x 6.3 inches with an open and closable door and 10 colorful coins. There is a on / off switch at the top which allows the ability to play songs and phrases; you can also push the pigs nose and activate the sounds.
When you insert coins the toy pig will also count the coins you put in so our kids can start to learn math right from the start. The coins are labeled clearly with numbers on them allowing for discussion about what they mean.
Our Take: What we like about this piggy bank is the creative way it caters to a young children offering the ability to start to become financially literate in a fun and playful way (we always say the earlier the better for teaching financial literacy!).
While we would think much older than three this piggy bank would have less appeal for most kids and money conversations strictly using this are likely no going to get in a ton of depth (we tried), we found this piggy bank to be a great tool for parents who are looking to start get their kids curious about money.
Lastly, the material is also durable (was hard for us to break) and the coins were too big for a young child to really put in their mouth making it something we didn’t have to worry about from a safety standpoint which we also liked.
Moonjar Tin Toy Bank
Age Range: 3+
Manufacturer: Moonjar
Product details: The Moonjar Three-Part Money box measures 5 x 5 x 5.25 inches and comes in wrapped packaging with a paper base and rubber band holding the three boxes together (the boxes are tin with an acrylic top).
There are also two books that come along with this piggy bank, one that gives detailed instructions on how to use the jars and how to encourage money conversations with our kids, and another little booklet that lets kids keep track of the amount they deposit as well as what percentage they decide to put in the “Spend,” “Share”, or “Save” buckets.
One product feature we found helpful was the slots at the top of the jars are 1.5” long so it allows for both coins and folded bills to be inserted in each of the jars vs. some other banks we have seen that are not big enough to hold bills. The tops of the jars can also come off so you can easily take out bills or coins (we did find that if slammed off however, they did tend to break easily so be careful).
Our take: From a learning standpoint, we thought this piggy bank did a great job of helping kids start to learn about money and be financially responsible. The age range says 3+, and while 3 may be a bit early to grasp the full concepts here of Save, Spend, and Share, the product can be built upon and still used as kids get older and gain more financial knowledge around the meaning around each of the categories.
When combined with chores or some other form of having kids earn money, it can be a great tool discuss with them how to think about either spending, sharing, or saving their money.
If you also wanted to introduce the concept of investing (we talk about in our inaugural course how we feel saving and investing should always be linked in our minds), as a parent you can play a simple game. Have your kid “invest” his or her money with you for a period of time (day, week, month, etc) and tell them they will get back more money at the end. This can be a simple way of starting the discussion of how investing (is supposed to) work.
Lefree Digital Counting Money Jar
Age Range: 3+
Manufacturer: Lefree
Product Details: The Lefree Digital Counting Money Jar is is 4.33 x 4.33 x 7.87 inches and has a digital display at the top that will count each coin you put in along with displaying the total for what is inside (US coins only). You can also unscrew the lid and then manually add any money you take in or out to the digital display by adjusting it yourself.
Be aware that you will need a set of AAA batteries at home to start the digital display but the piggy bank comes with a handy little screwdriver to undo the compartment where the batteries go.
The jar itself can hold ~800-1000 coins and will count even half dollar and full dollar coins. The downside is the display will not count bills, but you can get around this by taking off the lid and adding them to the jar and then just manually increasing the amount on the display.
One final note on the product is that we found several of these clear savings jars out there and they are not all the same, so to get the Lefree one be sure to click the link below or find it in our toys library.
Our take: From a learning standpoint, we think this piggy bank does a great job of encouraging and teaching saving (we love the clear jar approach so that kids can literally see their money grow). In addition, should you as a parent choose, we think the jar can also be used to introduce the concept of investing by using a simple exercise like the one mentioned above.
Lastly, being a savings jar, this is a great tool for really focusing on teaching deferred gratification where our kids can learn the behavior of waiting for what they want (something that we feel is an incredibly important skill to learn). In order to do this, have them pick a reasonable goal and start saving for it. As they work towards it, they will learn this incredible skill and the ultimate success of achieving their goal!
Smart Piggy Trio Bank
Age: 4+
Manufacturer: Giantsuper
Price: $19.99
Product details: The Smart Piggy Trio 3:1 piggy bank measures 7 x 4 x 7 inches and is made of plastic-coated cardboard, complete with magnets to hold them closed (you receive the package flat and have to shape the boxes yourself-this is easy to do).
The size allows you to insert coins but also to fold bills comfortably into the top of each box as well as easily open them. The base band also includes a “kids guide” that explains the purpose of each box and how to think about deciding where and how much money to put in each (it is a great conversation starter for parents).
Similar to the concept with the moonjar above, this piggy bank contains three boxes for spending, saving, and sharing that can be held together by a magnetic band.
There is some assembly required but there are also helpful instructions helping kids think about each of the three boxes (they promote a 50/25/25 rule for spend/save/share which is fine although we think you can decide for yourself what works) as well as helpful tracking or goal sheets inside each of the boxes to help kids keep track of their money.
Our take: This piggy bank is another one of our favorites for getting kids started making smart money decisions. From a learning perspective, we love the added guides that come with the boxes and can potentially prompt a lot of great money conversations with our kids (for our helpful guides, including one on how parents can answer common money questions from their kids click here).
The boxes are easily portable and have a playful feel to them and can slot right in on a bookshelf or in a drawer. The manufacturer age says 4+ (we found it more helpful for kids ~5-10 as it was able to prompt more insightful money conversations) although we leave it to you to decide if that may or may not be too young to get started learning.
