I think all of our generation must remember the Natwest pigs, their adverts and the tremendous desire to collect them they provoked, I don’t think it can just have been me anyway, I know I was devastated that my parents wouldn’t move my (paltry) savings to Natwest so that I too could have a family of pigs to own of my own. I’m prepared to bet there is still a large number of 30-40 year olds in the country with a box of precious piggies tucked under the bed, probably without their pennies these days, a hoard of porcelain piggy ness that will never be carbooted. If you managed to collect all of them, I salute you. Even if I had had the required bank account, I don’t think I would ever have achieved such dizzy heights of savings. I was firmly a ‘burn a hole in your pocket’ sort of girl and my 50p a week was spent in the Jolly Giant toy shop on My Little Ponies. (I do still have them… See, I was meant for collecting things).
Pig in Planning
I’ve talked before about Josie and her determination to save up for a farm when she is 21. She is the only one of mine to have a government savings bond and she hoards the paper jealously under her bed. It went up by £50 this year and she was gleeful about her statement. I’ve not done a particularly good job of teaching my kids to save, though they don’t crave money much either. Pocket money has only been done sporadically in this house and Fran tends to save for big things. Maddy can save, but a trinket shop is a big draw to her (she came home with 6 hamster rubbers from Cambridge this week!) Amelie is truly hopeless; if she has it, she has to spend it, leading to many disastrous purchases she has regretted deeply. But Josie can really save. Last year all her birthday money, and this year half of it, went into her savings account. She really is determined to have that farm and for an 8 year old, she is remarkably mature in her reasoning. If she starts saving now, she says, she thinks the bank manager will see she means it and will lend her any extra she needs when she is old enough.
That seems perfectly logical to me. I think it also shows what having a sold base to work on can give you. Her £250 bond means she feels she has real money of her own, a sizable sum, and it encourages her to add to it. I can fritter away money with the best of them, but if I have some in a savings account, I like to keep it there (especially if it is a round number!)
Well. The Natwest piggies are back. They have a competition to design a new piggy who will become part of the Natwest savings for kids scheme, the piggy face of Natwest! All you have to do is design a pig, submit it to the website along with its story and why you think it would be a good ambassador for Natwest and you might see your pig turned into a real piggy bank!
This content is sponsored by NatWest. We’ll be entering though, cos it looks fun 🙂
I have all 5 and they are on my bedroom windowsill out of the reach of small hands until I bring some order to the house. One of them is in lieu of actually starting a proper bank account for baby 3 so still has money in it , and one has my little collection of half pennies that I gathered just before they disappeared.