Teach Children To Save Day Highlights Importance of Saving to Louisville Students

According to the Economic Letter of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (2002), Americans seem to have lost much of their propensity to save. A lack of savings makes families vulnerable to financial failure, which can result from the loss of a job, an illness in the family or the failure of a necessary but expensive asset such as a car, a roof or a furnace. In the long run, Americans who don’t save for their old age may not be able to retire.

On Sept. 26, 2007, the Louisville Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, in partnership with Kentucky Bankers Association, sponsored Teach Children To Save Day. As part of Louisville Mayor Jerry E. Abramson’s DollarWise Week, volunteers from 12 local banks conducted lessons with 1,500 first-grade students on how to save money.

Volunteers attracted students’ attention by reading Alexander, Who Used to Be Rich Last Sunday, a story about a boy who receives a dollar and spends it on various unimportant items, instead of saving it for something he really wants.

As part of the lesson, each volunteer brought a strip of 100 pennies. Students removed the pennies Alexander spent on each item until all the pennies were gone. As the pennies disappeared, students realized that Alexander didn’t save for what he truly wanted.

At the end of the lesson, each student received a green plastic piggy bank, made partly from recycled U.S. currency, to help them on their way with saving.

Research has shown that as little as 10 hours of personal financial education positively affects students’ spending and saving habits. Teach Children To Save Day's purpose is to provide the building blocks of financial education for students at an early age.