Safe Saving with Virtual Piggy #virtualpiggy

As a parent, teaching financial responsibility can sometimes take a back seat to other daily routines and let’s face it, chaos. I’ll admit that I likely don’t think about it enough for myself let alone for my daughter. We’ve been faced with some huge medical bills this year and that stress has forced our family to look at things a bit differently. Unfortunately we’ve carried debt for longer than we care to admit and need to work on our own budgeting goals a bit closer in these times. So how do we help our children learn from our own mistakes?

Nora has an adorable ceramic piggy bank where she proudly stores the coins and cash she gets as gifts. She started out well as it was filled up with coins from everyone attending the baby shower before she was born. We hope to have more conversations about saving when she gets a little older.

Regardless of our debt to income ratio our family chooses to tithe to the church. When the offering plate comes to us each Sunday we drop in our check and in the last year I’ve also given my daughter a few shiny coins to drop in the plate (I’m sure the accountant loves that). This is something I grew up doing and it helped me realize what that plate was for. Right now the coins come from my wallet but in the future I hope for them to come from my daughter’s piggy bank instead. Her allowance might be minimal but we want her to understand tithing from the start.

We also chose to give back to our community and those less fortunate. We pack boxes for Operation Christmas Child every year and the kids are part of every step of that process. Nora helps me buy the items that we send and everyone in our church group gathers to pack the boxes with a variety of necessities for those in need.

There are countless local and international ways to give back with our blessings regardless of our own struggles and I hope that our daughter sees those acts and can include them in her own financial goals some day. In the world of technology and virtual giving it’s amazing to consider the ways in which she’ll be able to give back in the future. You’ll remember a recent World Vision post I shared where with the click of a button you can send goats or chickens to those in need! How cool is that?!

With those same choices our children could also make some pretty poor choices and get into financial trouble even easier than we did starting out. So how do we help them now? Consider online options such as Virtual Piggy. My daughter’s not old enough to consider this right now but I do have several nieces and nephews that I think would be the prime age to consider using these tools with all of their fancy smart tablets and toys. Although I still see value in children (and adults for that matter) seeing money in terms of paper and coin versus the temptation of sliding plastic through a machine, I also realize the world is quickly transitioning everything to a virtual electronic form. Virtual Piggy allows parents to provide a safe opportunity to set up an online allowance where kids can spend online and even set up wish lists for holidays and birthdays.

What is Virtual Piggy?

Virtual Piggy is the safest way for children to save, spend, and give online.

How Does it Work?

•  A parent registers their account, providing information such as their preferred credit card for future purchases, and a shipping address.
•  Then, the parent can create accounts for each of their children and establish detailed parental controls (such as approved merchants, transaction limits, levels of transaction approvals).
•  Because financial and shipping information is stored in the parent account, the child never has access to it.
•  The child is then able to check out at Virtual Piggy merchants, using only their username and password.

Virtual Piggy has also offered a Member Value Program which is available until January 15th. If you act fast you can have access to hundreds of dollars in discount promo codes when you sign up!

What is the Member Value Program?

Through our relationships with family friendly merchants, we are offering hundreds of dollars in discount holiday promo codes to families when they sign up for Virtual Piggy. Starting November 12^th, you can see all our offers on www.virtualpiggy.com/mvp. Once you log in with your Virtual Piggy username and password, you’ll be able to see all the promo codes. This page will be updated regularly throughout the holidays, so keep checking back!

 Note: The Member Value Program starts on November 12^th, ending January 15^th (though some offers will start or end sooner). 

How Can I Learn More?

Visit Virtual Piggy and be sure to follow them on social media including Facebook and Twitter!

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post from Splash Creative Media on behalf of Virtual Piggy. All opinions are my own.