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South Florida Babies
What do you do with gift money?
As the holidays pass relatives have sent $5 or $10 for Madison and I keep putting it aside. What do you do with this money?
I wanted to open a bank account in a few years for her so she starts to understand saving but should I do this now? Can I evne do a joint account since she is so young.
So, what do you do with money for DC?
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Re: What do you do with gift money?
we have had a piggy bank for mady since before she was born (it was actually a gift from day)....any monetary gift she has ever rec'd goes inside the piggy bank. once we can no longer fill it up anymore (which is almost getting to that level, and its a pretty big piggy bank) we will open a money mkt acct and hopefully int rates for that will be better than a regular savings acct.
our concept with the piggy bank as she gets older is to teach her to save her money and be wise with spending/saving, an actual piggy bank can show her this visually, a bank acct will not.
lauren - im curious about ING....
1. how much int does it incur?
2. how do you deposit/withdrawal money from it if its online?
3. do you get a fee for early withdrawal (like a money mkt acct) or is this like a savings acct?
so I can have an account in her name even though she is under 1 with ing?
We did this just this past weekend with Bank of America.
I meant to say ours is with Bank of America too!
us, too. we haven't gotten huge monetary gifts from anyone that could actually make it's way into any sort of savings acct! lol poor abby
we will probably open one for her 1st birthday, since we've been saving up and maybe the grandparents will give money, but no idea...
We also opened up a joint custodial ccount for him. Any money he gets (even if its just $5 or so) goes in there. He has a pretty good amount so far.
-j
We buy him toys for the cash he gets! We are going to do a college savings on our own so I don't feel guilty spoiling him with gifts with his gift money. I figure the money is for him and if he could talk he'd probably ask for toys anyways
Though putting it in savings is also an excellent idea!
My blog
I also opened a JOINT CUSTIODIAL ACCT's for my boys the moment they had SS#'s numbers
Every check they get goes in there, and trust me starting at the 1st bday people that are older tend to give cash or checks since they dont know sizes or what toys they alredy have.
I actually prefer $$$ for their gifts because they are going to get so many toys from friends anyways. This way I can save them a nest egg and if we need it for something along the way for them, i.e. (any type of lessons), camps, tutoring, activities, vacations, field trips, cars(things that maybe out of our league) but they truly want.Then they make the decision to use their "own" money
~thinking behind this their college is paid for, so this money is for them to fund their "youth" if they choose to use then by all means.
I also add any little checks I get made out to me or my dh, i.e. rebate, refund, checks or dividend checks from my 401k, etc..to help their money grow without actually having me stick to a specific saving schedule for them.
I do make sure to even it out the balances and deposits~so for example when nicolas was born whatever mario had in his I divided into 2 and just add to them equally. When they are old enough to realize the value and difference then I will allow them to grow at separate rates.
I do plan on buying cd's for them and stagger them so that they will grow and mature and different rates and dates once they have more funds.
I do know that they ONLY person able to cashout the acct would be the one on the acct with them, i.e. MARIO AND NICOLAS are custodian with me...so I am the only one that can withdraw or makes changes until they are 18, EVEN if I were to pass away.(my will wouldn't override it)
FYI~So I always think worsecase scenario due to my childhood, so for those of you thinking like i do if something were to happen to you or your dh(and you only have one custodian) than you would not have access to the acct unless your name is on it even in the event of death.
We went with bankatlantic since they are 7 days a week easier for me to make deposits upon rcpt.
p.s. we use ING direct and love it but for personal savings
HTH
ditto lauren
We added a separate savings account in our bank but I don't think we officially have his name on it. I don't remember that part.I think I'm going to find out about the other options, like a CD or the ING account.
We received a few checks for his baptism and that's what we used to open the account. We haven't received actual cash; I think if we got bills or coins, we'd put those in the piggy bank. I think Evelyn - I think it was Evelyn that wrote this- is right on the money (no pun intended lol) when she says that the piggy bank offers a tangible concept of money whereas the bank account doesn't. That's why I want to do both. The bank account for future BIG things (like, maybe, opening a college fund? we still haven't done that...), but his piggy bank will be his immediate savings lessons.