As you may know we began a new thing in our home a few weeks ago.  The girls all started working with chore charts.  The deal was if they came home from school and completed their chores they will get an allowance.  This past Friday was payday for them.  So I got to thinking that we should take this lesson a little further and open each of the girls a kid bank account.  They were each told that they have to deposit half of this weeks pay into the bank.  This child savings account would offer them the opportunity save some of their money and spend some.  I reminded them that the holidays were coming.  I told them that I will not be giving them money for holiday shopping this year.  They would have to use the money out of their child bank account!

So on Friday I called Grandma and ran the idea past her.  I thought that it would be nice for her to take them and open their first kids bank account with them.  She agreed that it was a great idea and I began my research of which bank is best!  This is where the land of child bank accounts got weird!  Most banks did not offer kids bank accounts.  The ones that did had minimum balances ranging from $100- $500.  If your CHILD did not have the minimum balance they would be charged a $3-$4 monthly service fee.

Now I was MAD!  How could none of these banks have a basic kids savings account?  You know the ones with the passbooks!  How did they expect my child to pay $4 per month when they would only be depositing $10 a month?  I was trying to teach my children the lesson of saving their money.  I was trying to teach them that it is good to put some of your money into the bank.  It seems to me that the greed of the banks continues and now they need to make money off of my kids allowance!  I continued to call each bank in our town.  For a small town we are lucky enough to have 4 banks.  I called Orange County Trust thinking that they would have a kids savings account.  They were after all a “local” bank.  I was sure that they would care that I was trying to teach my children the importance of saving.  I was WRONG.  They wanted a minimum balance of $500!  Were they kidding me?  Without the minimum balance there was a $4 monthly maintenance fee.

Without becoming too discouraged with the kids savings process I forged on.  I assumed that perhaps it was because they were a small bank.  I tried TD Bank next.  I was sure that they had a child savings account.   Their deal was a little better.  They have a $250 minimum balance for a $4 service fee.  Throught a lot of investigation I learned that they will waive the fee if the child is under 18.  I will admit that this was not disclosed to me when I called my local branch.  I was told that I may want to consider a 529 account.  So here I was trying to teach my children the importance of a bank account and all they can do is up-sell.  This really annoyed me!

The next bank I called was Provident Bank.  Over the phone the woman, who had a heavy accent told me that they did not offer young saver accounts.  I hung up beyond annoyed!  I then did some research online only to find that they do have kid savings accounts.  They do not even have a minimum balance.  I wish that the person who answered the phone would have told me all of this.  All in all it seems as if their child savings account is one of the better ones out there.  You do need a minimum initial deposit of $25 to open the account.

I then called Key Bank and was excited to hear that they offered a kid savings account called Key 4 Kids.  There was a $10 minimum deposit needed to open the account.  Since Grandma was matching their initial deposit this worked out well.  The went on Saturday morning to Key Bank and opened up their first accounts.  They were a little excited but having to wait for an hour at the bank is never a good thing for children.

The morale of the story is check all of your local banks before you bring your child to open their account.  Many banks are looking for our children to pay them allowance from their allowance.  I think that all banks should have youth bank accounts.  Kids saving money is a lesson that pays not only for our kids future but also for the banks future.  Thank you to Key Bank and Provident Bank for still offering these youth savings accounts.

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