When is the right age to open a bank account for your kids?
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No Credit Needed is taking his oldest daughter (ten years old) to open her first savings account. He and his family have been free of consumer debt for over three and a half years now and this is a milestone in how he’s educating his children in wise money management. Trips to the bank will be regular occurrences, and (hopefully) his daughter will become accustomed early to how this system works.
My daughter is four — “and a half,” as she likes to add — and we opened up a savings account before she could even say “money.” We’ve put in the birthday checks that we didn’t spend on gifts for her in there, and she really doesn’t even know about it yet. So, in a sense, she won’t get the experience of opening her “first” savings account, because we’ve already done that, but what’s hers is hers: it’s in her name now.
If you’ve been there, which route did you take? Did you set up an account early, or did you wait until your kids “got it?”
7 Responses to “When is the right age to open a bank account for your kids?”
By traineeinvestor on Oct 14, 2009 | Reply
I hadn’t thought about that one yet. Our girls (6 and 4) still think pocket money is whatever money happens to be in Daddy’s pocket.
Assuming, I can get an account with no bank fees other than transactional fees (which I can do at the moment if I append it to my own), I’d guess as soon as she has some money to bank which will probably be when the oldest turns 10 (when we plan to start handing out pocket money).
By mbhunter on Oct 14, 2009 | Reply
Right traineeinvestor, our daughter doesn’t get it either. Ten isn’t a bad age … that’s the same age NCN’s daughter is.
By PeterM on Oct 14, 2009 | Reply
We have actually opened a savings account for our son shortly after he was born. The question is, when we decide to give him access to it…
By First Step on Oct 14, 2009 | Reply
Although my daughters (13 & 11) have had savings accounts since they were born, I’m about to open a checking account with my 13-year-old. Our credit union has a special account for ages 13-18. She’ll be able to get checks and a debit card, and this will give her practice paying for more of her own way as she gets older. She’ll begin earning more money now through babysitting, and she’ll be responsible for half of her cell phone (gradually we’ll shift to her paying for the whole bill).
I hope it will help her to be more responsible with the money she receives. Right now, she’s more like her dad and I am with cash–if it’s in my wallet, I can spend it, right? We do much better with credit and debit cards. We’ll see how it works with my daughter.
By Amber on Oct 15, 2009 | Reply
Our daughter is five and we opened a savings account a few weeks after she was born. Any Birthday or Christmas where she receives money it goes straight into her account for when she needs it. I don’t think there is a right age, but if they do have money that can be saved that’s a good time to open an account.
By Robert on Oct 16, 2009 | Reply
As soon as they understand what’s going on, it’s probably a good time to open a savings account with them.
By Bobby on Oct 16, 2009 | Reply
Once she starts earning an allowance for chores done around the house. Seems like the two would go hand-in-hand as far as learning fiscal responsibility goes.