Most savings schemes for children and the untrained are really gift gathering into your account. You are not really learning how to save. Saving starts small. It then builds big. This scheme allows the learner saver to save from the smallest unit of their currency – most banks like you to have a bigger sum to start an account with them before they will let you open one.
When you are little you like to buy sweets, usually a very small quantity in a small bag.
When I was little I was given 10p for sweets 0.10 GBP chocolate bars were 11p so I tended to only have chocolate at Easter and Christmas or whenever a grown-up gave me some. There wasn’t a system to save that I understood at that age – saving was for when you were older, so when grown-ups gave you big sums of present money it went into your investment account for then. You never experienced the benefit in your childhood.
The sweets I could buy cost 1p some 2 for 1p and even 4 for 1p there was a half penny coin at the time, but I didn’t think of saving even that.
Saving is a life skill.
You may have heard of savings stamps, here is an example grown-ups used to use when I was a child – we asked, as children do, if we could stick the sticker in the book or the card. Children like stickers. Look it is Green!
Green shield savings stamps and books:
https://brandnewretro.ie/2015/07/28/green-shield-stamps-in-ireland-1960s70s/
The stamps were used as a way of saving for items to be bought.
This scheme is simply saving. We are not aiming to spend but to invest, for the future.
For this scheme children would buy stamps of all values and all colours and stick them on postcards. The postcards would be stamped on with a hand stamper and the amount they are worth added up and put into their account. The reason I thought of postcards is that we all sent them to each other at the time of my first thinking of this idea. Now people send fewer cards but it could be a good pleasure if children asked people to send them some, then they could reuse them licking and sticking stamps on them. I want the lick and stick stamp types used as then later on in their lives when those people have gone to the airport for destination Heaven they can carefully remove the stamps to remember them, this can be an inheritance of love for them then.
Postcards have other purposes in this educational experience as post is usually bills, okay a lot comes electronically but historically this was not the case and children are at a lower stage of development so this might aid their understanding of bills coming through. Postcards are also a positive thing in that they symbolise Holidays, which you have to save for. Also travel and trade requires travel.
Businesses might start to invite young people to request that they send them a postcard at their home – something to look forward to too.
It will also help shops and kiosks in holiday destinations to be able to sell these again, what with digital cameras and mobile phones, the market is virtually non-existent now. Also selling stamps from other countries which is an education in currency trading. This scheme could go international with being able to save stamps in different currency denominations and for these to be added and translated into your currency. We would obviously have to recognise them one by one to only use legitimate currency so we can derive the funds, say in ¥ € $ that looks like the word YES which is very positive!
For the postcards to be stamped and an account opened 10p or your lowest currency denominator x 10 e.g. 10c worth of stamps needs to be stuck onto one postcard.
You would then get a Savings Record Book with 10p as what you have saved in it. Then the next 9 times, unless you have put more 1p stamps you will have 9 more entries in it of 10p which will mean that you have saved £1 or 100p.
You can then go to the next stage where you can get certificates for your achievements. This is an historic Savings Certificate which gives you an idea of what I mean.
But what I was thinking was more of a sports award certificate like these:
Congratulations You (your name) have saved…
£1 for 1 Week
£2 for a Fortnight
£5 for a Month
£10 for 2 Months
£20 for 3 Months
£50 for 6 Months
£75 for 9 Months
£100 for 1 Year
£200 for 2 Years
£500 for 3 Years
£1000 for 4 Years
You will have to have £50 in your account for a complete 6 months. This is not I have saved £50 you know that as that is in your Savings Record Book. So the minimum time to get all of these is 7 weeks plus 20 months plus 10 years if you achieve these one at a time.
Once you have achieved certain Savings Certificates you will also be rewarded with Interest.
But not this type of interest where more money is added on, more like what is of interest to you. You will get these interesting things once a month.
At £10 for 2 Months:
The first interest you will be rewarded with are colouring sheets based on what you are interested in. At the place where you get your stamps stamped you will go and pick these up. You will have decided before you go online – a first introduction to online banking in a way that is understood simply. If you like dinosaurs this could be a colour-in-able fact sheet on dinosaurs. If you like dressing up your dolls you could choose one of those old-fashioned cut out paper doll to dress with clothes with tabs on them. These will be printed out in black and white like a statement is printed out in black and white
too.
At £100 for 1 Year:
The next level will allow you to have a monthly mini book in colour sent to you, with this you will learn the value of research and knowledge for investments. Again this will be material in a chosen subject. This will be accompanied by an exercise foldout for financial education to learn from. People always say that they should teach this in schools but owing to various reasons this never happens. It will include maths puzzles of real life financial scenarios so you are prepared for life in these matters. Shopping around – doing the maths to work out which product is the cheapest, is one example. Saving for a mortgage for a house and paying it off, the comparisons between renting and buying, all sorts of ways to convey what it is best to do. All these will be suited to the child’s age and abilities – the parents can select suitable worksheets for their child to learn from mentally actively.
At £200 for 2 Years
£500 for 3 Years
And £1000 for 4 Years
Stage three of rewards, in 3 stages, 3 levels, you will see the value of your savings in actual physical items. This will work with you entering in a monthly draw – a bit like a lottery but without money rewards, which an adult could take anyway from you, so to gain something you want, this will be visible and will be known by your peers that you get stuff if you save for it. The prizes you could get become better depending on your Savings Certificates. These will be little toys or items you are interested in which you will bid for on an online catalogue, sometimes you will win big, sometimes you won’t, you will get a little gift which you can pick up at the Stamping Point – like an online delivery, and as such this will be in brown paper packaging – it may or may not be tied up with string – but hopefully it will be a favourite thing! This will inspire an understanding of investments – sometimes they do well and sometimes not so well. As they are children at a fragile stage so you do not want them to perceive investments as bad things or losses, a poor return (a bit rubbish toy gift – as the wooden spoon) will be a more positive start I feel.
At 5 Years – so 1 Year after they have got the £1000 for 4 Years Savings Certificate – this period length could be different, the time length is geared at when they may feel ready to move on to the next stage – the child could be rewarded by joining a Savings Club – they will have their own Account – with very favourable interest rates – they will know the value of this. The stamps will turn into App icons. This will include an online forum where they can discuss financial things of interest to them, for example crypto currency, investing in art, could be anything. This is the adolescent stage of saving. They will need to bring their A game to the field. They will have access to financial advisors to learn from. They could be referred to as Apprentices, a young worker term, which will make them feel like they are being treated like adults which they will respect. They will have Access to All Areas in this Club. The Aim is to make their savings Ascend to even higher levels, so one thing we all aim for, owning our own home, can be Achieved.
For e.g.s:
But ours will be more fun, more interactive, a bit like eToro where I have invested in Bitcoins and other Crypto etc.
I did feel and think that when I first thought of this idea that this could also be an Introduction to Savings Scheme for adults too, as I have experience with helping poor people with basics, and one of the things that crops up is the lack of basic financial education. The interests for adults would be skills training from cooking from scratch to workplace training – maybe we could negotiate to allow these savings saved here to be discounted by benefits agencies to help people permanently out of their own particular ruts – along with a locked Savings Scheme with the same Forum and Free Financial Advice as in the Adolescent Scheme part. The locked element can be unlocked only with an investment in your own home – this is because that is the way out to Firm Financial Freedom – and then we could get investment from the Government to Aid the higher than normal interest rates, which will Save them in the long term too, as mortgage interest payments on unemployment in the long term tend to be lower than rent payments, saving the taxpayer from paying out, which I’m sure they will declare an interest in and owning your own home is far more interesting than the bland monochrome décor of a home you do not own, you can colour it in as you like.
Halifax Building Society House Money Box
https://www.etsy.com/dk-en/listing/161972579/royal-rainbow-50-vintage-great-britain