Berna Cox writes that children who, until now, have been reaping the benefits of their parents’ Celtic Tiger lifestyles will have to learn how to squirrel away some savings for a rainy day.
Sometimes, when I indulge in a bit of navel-gazing and take to pondering life’s great questions, I think I’d like to be a squirrel. I reckon squirrels have it good. Their lifestyle appeals to me. When winter hits, they hole up in a nice comfy tree and totally opt out.
A whole season of a laid-back Sunday morning. A three-month-long duvet day. I have a mental image of Mr and Mrs Squirrel tucked up in their cosy little drey, just lazing the winter away.
Every so often, Mrs Squirrel will give Mr Squirrel a nudge and tell him it’s his turn to get the nuts. He’ll swear he went last time, but she’ll persist and she’ll win. He’ll eventually wrap his little squirrel duvet around him, shuffle his way to the squirrel larder and come back with a little feast.
h4. Squirrel radio
They’ll turn on their squirrel radio when they’re having their little banquet and they’ll be totally unconcerned about the weather forecast. It can do what it likes out there. They don’t care. They have nowhere to go in the morning. When they’ve had their fill of nuts and brushed all the crumbs out of the squirrel bed, they’ll snuggle up again and sleep for another while. I know it all sounds a bit Beatrix Potter-ish and Disney-fied, but wouldn’t it be lovely? Doesn’t it sound a bit appealing? But I could never be a squirrel in any incarnation.
I’m missing one very important squirrel trait in my make-up. There’s a particular squirrel quality that enables this laid-back lifestyle they lead and I just don’t have it.
h4. Forward planners
Squirrels have an innate ability to save. They’re forward planners. For the portion of the year that they’re out and about and working, they plan for the winter. They gather up a goodly supply of nuts, stash them away and then live off their savings. I would, therefore, be a very unsuccessful squirrel. I’m not a good saver.
But squirrels don’t always have it easy, it seems. Take Cyril. Cyril the Squirrel is the cute little face of An Post’s savings stamps scheme for children and, for a while there, Cyril was living on his wits.
In the Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), poor Cyril gets it in the nuts, so to speak. The CAG is required to audit the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) and they are not at all happy with Cyril.
The NTMA pays fees to An Post for managing various saving accounts including the Post Office Savings Bank and the fee it pays in relation to Cyril’s stamps is, it would seem, deemed to be a bit hefty.
Cyril operates by selling savings stamps to children that they can buy at school, as part of a group scheme, or at the post office as individual savers. The stamps are affixed to savings cards, which are eventually used to open Post Office Savings Bank accounts or are added to existing accounts.
Since 2004, the NTMA has paid €4 million to An Post to manage the scheme. Average sales of stamps in that period amounted to between €4 million and €4.5 million per year. They consider Cyril to be a needy little beast.
They want him out. They suggested turfing him out before, but he was spared. It was argued that his true value was that he encouraged children to develop a saving habit. He had several reprieves using that argument.
Last year, the squirrel-unfriendly agency pushed again and sought ministerial approval to abolish the saving stamps scheme. But the bold and hardy Cyril survives. And is, indeed, going from strength to strength. Never was it more important for us all to know the value of cultivating a squirrel-like savings habit and where better to start than with the children?
Children who, up to now, have no experience of penny-pinching, have been used to extravagance and have seldom heard the word ‘no’.
h4. Financially prudent
Cyril is reinvigorated and is gung-ho to get busy helping these youngsters to get savvy with their dosh. He’s gone online at www.savingwithcyril.ie and is hell bent on educating the upcoming generation to be financially prudent and to understand the value of a buck.
And, according to the experts, he’s going about it in just the right way. Greg R. Smith is a best-selling author and children’s money guru in Australia, who founded the children’s website www.kidsmoney.com.au.
Smith is Australia’s answer to Eddie Hobbs, but he has a particular interest in educating children about money. As an economist and financial planner, he deplores the lack of education among adults on financial matters.
A survey he conducted revealed that 72 per cent of financially-strapped adults said they weren’t educated about money when they were children and 68 per cent said they were afraid of passing on bad money habits to the next generation. Smith, therefore, is on a mission to make children financially aware.
Top of his list of tips for educating the 7–12 age group about money is to ‘encourage them to participate in the school banking programme’. This, he says, will give them a sense of regular commitment to savings.
h4. Bank paperwork
They should also be encouraged to examine the statements of the account, follow the lodgments and keep track of the balance. This will get them used to scanning bank paperwork, he says. He cautions, though, that parents shouldn’t rely solely on school programmes to educate children about money. Parents need to take part, too.
He suggests that parents should show their children the family bills and explain in a positive way that bills have to be paid to keep the family show on the road. In addition, therefore, to Cyril’s efforts, parents need to reinforce the financial lessons by including children in the household budgeting process and conveying the message that saving is a good thing to do.
Smith suggests that parents will benefit from engaging in this type of financial relationship with their children – it will help to keep them financially grounded as well.
So that’s an expert endorsement of Cyril’s squirrelly activities. The inexpert endorsement comes from me. The only time in my life that I have ever successfully saved money was when I was a small child buying savings stamps in the post office. They were 6d in old money. (And ‘old money’ here is pre-decimal. Back in the day when there were 20 shillings in a pound and 12 pennies in a shilling… dinosaur stuff).
h4. A pure fortune
The sixpenny stamps were a bright orange colour and the saving book was green. A full page in the book represented five shillings. A pure fortune. Whatever it was about it, it worked for me. I always had a few bob in the book.
There was no cute Cyril at that time to offer me encouragement or incentives but there was a nice man in the post office who always praised me when I bought my stamps and told me I was a wise child. I glowed with the praise. I felt all grown up and responsible.
Coming up to Christmas every year, though, I’d clean the account out and blow it. But that’s what saving is about, surely. Being able to have a blowout – but without debt and the associated guilt.
Unfortunately, I outgrew the stamps at some point and probably considered myself much too sophisticated for such childish habits.
The truth of it is, I’ve never had a spare bob in my life since. It goes out as quick as it comes in. Since I relinquished that little green book, I’ve never had that comfortable feeling of knowing there’s a little bit ‘put by’. No spare nuts in my larder.
I think I’ll head for the post office and sign up with Cyril. I’ll tell lies and say it’s for my grandniece and nephew. But it will be for me. I need to rediscover that wise inner child. And I want the blowout – without the guilt.
And nuts to the National Treasury Management Agency. Cyril rocks.
About Gary Culliton
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