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According to a recent survey, 30% to 50% of parents routinely borrow money from their kid’s piggy bank. Here’s a snippet from Time.com: Between 30% and 50% of parents steal money from their kids piggy bank or savings account, surveys show. Is this anyway to set an example? Have you ever taken money from your kids' piggy bank or savings account? Lots of parents have, and many do it without guilt. Yet this practice may breed mistrust, rob your children of valuable practice managing their own money, and imply approval of what most would describe as bad behavior. Nearly one in three parents admit to "borrowing" from their kids' piggy bank, according to the latest T. Rowe Price Parents, Kids and Money survey. A different survey last year from money website CouponCodes4u found that half of parents occasionally raid their kids bank account, and that half of those who do feel no guilt. Half also said they never paid back the ‘loan.’ Read the full article here. When a media source contacted me and asked me for my thoughts on this statistic a few days ago, I have to admit that at first I was appalled. I mean, really?!? Isn’t that lame and juvenile. But then I quickly remembered a time a few weeks after our recent move to TN when we were short on physical cash because hadn’t gotten a bank account set up here in TN and we hadn’t been able to withdraw our usual monthly cash envelope money yet. So I was having trouble scrounging up enough actual cash in my wallet and elsewhere in our house to pay our babysitter. 9-year-old Kathrynne stepped in and said, “Mom, you can borrow some of my cash.” And I almost took her up on it until I found enough cash at the last-minute. So yes, I probably shouldn’t be criticizing other parents!  
What Are the Root Causes of This Behavior? However, while the article sort of vilified parents who take money from their child’s piggy bank, I think we need to step back and think about the root causes that would prompt a parent to raid a child’s piggy bank. My take is that, in most cases, I think it stems from a lack of discipline or lack of preparation. Lack of Discipline If a parent is legitimately borrowing from a child’s because they don’t have money in the bank, it might indicate that said parent needs to work on their spending and saving habits… maybe cutting back on their grocery spending to help shore up their savings account or delaying larger purchases until they have enough to pay cash for it. Lack of Preparation As in the case of our babysitter money, it wasn’t a lack of funds (I had money available in the bank — I just didn’t have access to it that moment), it was a lack of foresight. Had I thought ahead, I could have made sure I had stopped by the ATM to withdraw some money out of our bank account so I had plenty of cash to pay the babysitter. But in our busy, go-go-go life, we can forget to plan ahead and end up short on cash and considering borrowing from Junior’s piggy bank. Ask Yourself Why? So if you are regularly borrowing from a child’s piggy bank, I’d encourage you to consider why. Is it because you aren’t disciplined with your own money? Is it because you aren’t planning ahead and regularly in a cash bind?Consider what kind of example you’re setting before your kids and ask if this is what you want your children to do to your future grandchildren. This might be all the motivation you need to start developing better long-term habits.
What Do You Think? So that’s my take on this article and statistic. I’d love to hear your thoughts — whether you agree or disagree with me or the article. photo credit; photo credit 
Target Shopping Trip 2 Wish Bone Salad Dressing – $1.92 each, used 2 $1/1 printable AND $0.75/2 Target printable - $0.54 each after coupons 3 Bayer Aspirin – $2.19 each, used $2/1 coupon from the 6/15 RedPlum AND $4/2 coupon from the 6/15 RedPlum insert – $0.19 each after coupons 1 Market Pantry Frozen Peas – $0.99 – used $0.75/1 Target mobile coupon (Text OFFERS to 827-438) AND 10% OFF Cartwheel coupon - $0.21 after coupons 2 Up&Up Baby Body Wash – $1.67 each, used $2/2 Target printable - $0.67 each after coupon 2 Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain Bars – $2.50 each, used 2 $1.50/1 printable AND 20% OFF Cartwheel coupon - $0.50 each after coupons Total before coupons and sales: $20.56 Total after coupons and sales: $4.21 
So I told you that we were going to try to mostly eat from the pantry this past week since we’d gone over-budget on groceries the week before. Well, we ended up stretching what we already had on hand to last all of last week. So that means we’re now almost back on track with our budget — yay! My husband swung by ALDI with a list and got the above items. I forgot to ask him to save the receipt, though, and we’ve been unable to figure out where it went off to (ever have that happen??). The beauty of using cash is that you don’t have to worry so much about exactly how much you spent so long as you stuck with the cash budget. So I’m not sure on the exact, exact total, but the above shown groceries were just under $49 based upon the cash he spent. He also bought a bag of tortilla chips that I failed to get in the picture. The tub of Tide Pods was purchased from Amazon using Swagbucks. I’ve not tried these before and splurged on them because I wanted to see how they worked compared to regular detergent. We also used the 2 FREE Malt-O-Meal coupons to get cereal and the 2 FREE Hillshire Farms coupons to get two tubs of deli turkey. And I failed to get a picture of those, too, before they were opened and partially eaten. Because clearly, I’m super on top of things today. Ahem. Wondering what we’re eating this week? See our weekly menu here. 
Breakfasts Oatmeal, Scrambled Eggs, Bacon, Granola, Cereal, and/or Fruit Lunches Turkey Sandwiches x 2
Snack-y lunch {veggies, cheese, fruit, crackers, etc.}
PB&J, carrot sticks, apples
Leftovers x 3 Snacks Fruit/veggies
Boiled eggs
Homemade Energy Bites 
One-Hour Freezer Cooking Plan Whole-Wheat Pancakes (I’ll make some with chocolate chips, some without.)
Homemade Energy Bites (my kids ate every last one of these I made last week & requested that I make more!)
Peanut Butter Skinny Chocolate (Mom needs her chocolate fix, too! :)) Dinners Peanut Butter Protein Pancakes, eggs, fruit
Slow Cooker Cowboy Beans, Tortilla chips, shredded cheese, salsa, carrots
Shredded chicken, green beans
Turkey sandwiches, carrot sticks, fruit
Pancakes, bacon, eggs
Baked potatoes, Slow Cooker Cowboy Beans, corn on the cob, fruit
Dinner Out
What's on your menu this week? Tell us in the comments or leave a link to your menu plan post. | | |
