Piggy Banks

Oops - would help if I clicked Publish! This is the post I wrote for you yesterday!

This might seem like a random topic, but it's become a secret obsession of mine since about August last year and after finding a great website with 'The 15 Coolest Piggy Banks' I felt it was time to wite a blog about it. Piggy Banking can be as simple or as complicated as you like - ranging from a physical piggy bank in the bedroom for your loose change, to having multiple accounts set aside for different things. To read about the more complicated forms of piggy banking visit the moneysavingexpert website here, because they can explain it far better than I can!

As for the simple side of it, never underestimate the power of the piggy bank! Pick which coins you'll be saving (you can go for just coppers, anything under 50p, £2 coins..) and then whenever you get those coins in change at the shops, you put them in your piggy bank. It doesn't sound too thrilling, but I genuinely get excited when I have pennies to put in the pot. It's something to do with the little *clink* noise of the coins hitting together. It's also fun counting up the money you've saved when the pig (or other shaped receptacle) gets full - make sure you have some money bags handy to swap in at the bank.
It's best to have a purpose in mind before you start saving, as it's then much easier not to raid it whenever you want a takeaway or a trip to the cinema. Unless that's what your fund is for - then it becomes perfect!

To give you an example of the different things you can use it for, I'll give you an overview of what I've used mine for in the past:

I have two banks; one is a Paint Your Own Cow (affectionately known as the 'Cow-y Bank') given to me by a friend while I was at school and the other is a pink rhinestoned pig that was given to me for christmas by another friend. The Cow-y bank is for coppers and the Pig is for 50p or smaller silvers. We also collect £2 coins but we don't have a special pot for those.

The first purpose of the piggies was to save up for christmas presents and we started in August when Tom moved in with me. By the time we finished our christmas shopping the piggies had provided us with over £70 in change and £2 coins. (We did swap it at the bank - not carry £70 worth of coppers!)

Their next purpose was to provide us with a 'Fun Fund'. Money was tight and only stretched to food and rent, so the piggies were in charge of keeping us entertained. They did their job once more, providing up with many takeaways and trips to the cinema.

Our piggies are currently in charge of helping us travel the world and they've so far supplied us with £50 to go in the savings account. We only started our current venture about a month or two ago so I'm pretty pleased with our progress. :)


I'd like to finish with the website I mentioned earlier: 15 Coolest Piggy Banks

I want either the His/Her Piggy Bank or the Coin Factory one. The first is amusing, the second just looks awesome!

So will you be trying out a piggy bank? If you get addicted like me you'll be rich in no time!