Today we allowed Elizabeth to cash in her money box and go on a spending spree.
We were heading into town anyway to do a few bits of shopping ( we all needed warmer pyjamas to save us putting the heating on for a while) and thought it would be an ideal time for her to see just what she could buy for her pennies.
The first thing we had to do was to take all of the change to our local coinstar machine at our nearest Morrisons (to find your nearest Coinstar kiosk visit www.coinstar.co.uk/coinmachine). Elizabeth loves using these machines (and I have to say I do too) and is always shocked when she realises just how much she had saved.
We cashed in our family jar last month just before we headed off to Kos as we needed to get a few last minute holiday bits that were not in our budget and we had over £50. We would have normally waited until early December to cash it in but needs must. We usually cash in our change jar twice a year, the other time being at the beginning of the summer holidays, the money we save is for extra treats whether ice creams and days out in the summer or chocolates and trips to see Santa in the winter.
Elizabeth has been asking to cash in her change since she helped us do ours and we kept putting her off. She didn’t need it to go on holiday as she had been given euros for her birthday ready for Disneyland so we wanted her to wait until she could enjoy spending it on a special trip.
To maximise her spending ability we took her to one of my favourite cheap shops, Quality Save. It is a great place to pick up low cost toys, games and sweets as well as most other things you want for a house. She ended up with £15.15 and promised to buy something for her sister too.
In the end she chose a Cadburys chocolate machine for £5.99, a miniture huggle buddy hideaway unicorn for £1.99 and two Electric toothbrushes one Barbie for her and one Spiderman for Alison each £3.33. She had 51p change and was very proud to put it back into her money box. This time she used her new Cadburys chocolate machine money box so she could get a chocolate for each time she saved too. I can see her saving even more now.
I wonder if giving me chocolate each time I saved would work?