Thank you but no more toys for my kid, please!
I woke up in a sweat a few days ago because I was having a nightmare that my family was drowning in “stuff.”
My husband and I have always tried to be minimalists as much as possible since we got married. I must admit, sometimes, it’s hard. I grew up in a family where money is often given to solve problems. Whenever we stress over something, we usually would go and spend money to ease our internal tensions. We’re definitely a family of consumers. Luckily, I met my husband and he changed the way I view consumption.
Since our daughter was born, we have been showered with lovely gifts: toys and clothes that will last her for years. At first, everything was adorable and I would imagine my daughter playing with every toy and wearing the beautiful clothes our family and friends have gifted to her.
And now, at the age of 9 months, my daughter has enough “stuff” to fill our entire living room. Her closet has several storage containers of clothes that she can no longer fit in, and clothes that will take her at least 2 years to wear. I almost had a panic attack looking in her closet the other day. I knew something had to change. We will certainly donate a lot of her toys and clothes. But then I realized, well, the gifts will keep coming. For every birthday she has.
So the gifts need to stop.
We often tell our friends and family not to buy our daughter gifts when they visit. But they always do. Because, well, it’s the social norm. I, myself, could not imagine going to one of our friend’s child’s birthday party without a gift. Even though I know that every single one of them is also drowning in toys and clothes for their kids. Why do we do this to each other?
If we are going to give a gift to the kids, how about we make a pact and give a gift that’s meaningful to both the parents and the kids. I mean, we could spend days and days researching the perfect gift. But let’s admit, very few of us are good at picking out gifts, nor do we have time to figure it out. We often end up googling or searching on Amazon for the “best gifts” for “X” age “boy” or “girl.” Imagine the likelihood a kid will receive the same gift? Extremely high!
The pact I propose is to give the kids cash gifts instead. My husband and I had genuinely asked our friends and family to NOT give our daughter anything, but that had never worked. I do understand how uncomfortable to show up at a kid’s birthday party empty-handed. Therefore, this is the way out! This will allow the parents to not be surrounded by “stuff” and gives them the freedom to save the money for their kids or spend it how they see fit. I know, it may sound like a social faux pas to “ask” for money, but I believe the majority of parents agree this is the best method of gifting.
Hence why I decided to take the matter into my own hands and build a virtual piggy bank app which I decided to call, you got it, PyggyBank. Did you know that “piggy bank” actually derived from the word “Pygg” which was an orange colored clay that was commonly used back in the Middle Ages to make jars to store money. I thought to share this interesting piece of history. Anyway, I digress.
So the idea behind PyggyBank is to allow the parents to open a virtual PyggyBank account which will have a unique code/URL to be shared with their friends and family to directly transfer money to. The app will also allow the parents and/or the kids to set a goal for the PyggyBank. Whether it’s saving up for a cool bike, a ridiculously fun robot, donate to a charity or save up for the future. My goal for the app is to help the parents teach their kids financial literacy. I hear this from parents all the time. That their kids do not have any concept of money and how hard it is to earn and save money. This is a scary thing to me. I don’t want my daughter to grow up being completely ignorant that the cool bike she wanted did not fall from the sky. I also believe that the reason why our generation does not have the habit of saving because instead of learning the virtue of saving, we were brainwashed by capitalist ideologies, and mass consumerism.
To steal a quote from the oracle of investing, Warren Buffett:
Do not save what is left after spending; instead spend what is left after saving.
What a brilliant concept. Yes, that! And I truly believe the only way our future generation will learn to have that mentality is to teach them the virtue of saving at a young age.
I’m hoping the app will be ready for my daughter’s 1-year-old birthday as I would love for my friends and family to use the app to gift my daughter the virtue of saving and also gifting. And that we do not need to be surrounded by “stuff” to be happy. How awesome will it be if my daughter could gift her own money to a charity. I truly believe that in the pursuit of happiness, that it’s actually the pursuit of others’ happiness that makes one’s life more fulfilled.
This creation of this app was a selfish goal of mine to have a platform to educate my daughter financial literacy. But I do hope that the result is that all parents will use PyggyBank to help their kids save for whatever goal they choose.
