best bank accts for kids?

[lauren grier]

Do any of your kids have saving accounts? Kiddo has expressed interest in opening an account and I'm supportive of him starting to save money. My banks basic savings acct waives the $5 monthly charge for minors- which is awesome.. but the interest rate is only .01% and I'm hoping to find something a little better for him. I've read a bit about internet banks and they seem to have higher interest rates but they scare me

[luckyme]

My 7 year old has a kids saving account. It has low interest, but that's not why we have the account. (We use a separate government registered education savings plan for higher interest returns for her education). I like that her account has statements that are easy to read "This is how much money you put in the bank this month... This is how much money you took out... This is how much money you have..." It's really easy to explain to her.

...Adding that I'm in Canada so the banking options are probably a bit different than in the US.

[MamaBee]

I miss the days where there were actual kid banking accounts where you were encouraged to save your money... I remember the Homer the Lion Club... after you saved XXX you got toys or stuffed animals... the good ol' days...

We just have a basic account for kiddo to put the money from the great grandparents in... but it's through the Postal Credit Union - my mom set up accounts for us before she retired.

[jk703]

I was just talking about this with my oldest. I'm keepin and eye on this thread!

[clearskies]

We bank online with USAA and our kiddos each have a savings account. Sometimes I feel bad that they're missing the experience of taking their cash to the bank, but moving three accounts every 2-3 years when we move is a hassle I don't need...

[MissKim]

My kids all have accounts through our bank. That allows me to set it up so a certain amount (not much) is transferred to their savings accounts every time my DH gets a paycheck. And then when we're somewhere and they want to buy something, I can transfer from their savings to our checking without issues, too. It works best for us.

[DawnMarch]

We use wells fargo. They used to have "bucks" (fake wells fargo dollars) you could collect for prizes but I don't think they do that anymore. The interest is basically negligible but at least they don't charge a fee. They do have some (hokey) kids savings resources online.

https://www.wellsfargo.com/savings-cds/kids/

[Nettio]

If you just want to get him in the habit of saving up for things, you might check out Smarty Pig. It's a savings account from BBVA Compass built around goal-setting (it shows your little piggy bank filling up, haha) and it has a 1% APY.

https://www.smartypig.com

[mariewilcox]

Cheyanne has an account at the credit union where my accounts are, that way I'm able to transfer between accounts if I need to.

[bestcee]

My brothers have credit union accounts. The interest is still pretty measly, but they don't incur bank fees. Plus, they can take money out at the majority of Credit Unions across the country (at least in the US).

It is not at my parents bank, because when there was a banking mistake made with their account and mine was the one connected it became a huge mess. My account was drained to cover their account, and then because I didn't have enough money to cover the deficit I incurred fees (This was Royal Bank in Canada). It took about 5 weeks to fix an employees mistake (wrong account by 1 number) because of the two accounts.

[adi&co.]

We have 3 savings accounts attached to our account that we save money for our kids in. they don't have much in them though, lol!

[rach3975]

Each of my kids has a small savings account at our local bank where DH and I have some of our accounts. I'm not thrilled with how our bank handles minor's accounts. It's nice that they waive all the fees, but there are no ATM cards and only 1 parent's name can be on the account with the child. In other words, depositing or taking out $ is a pain in the patootie (as DD would say) since only my DH can do it and he's at work during most of the bank's open hours. It works for now since my kids' real savings is all in their college accounts, but once they're a little older and actually using a bank account for more than the occasional birthday check deposit we'll be finding something else.

[Sherri Tierney]

We have accounts set up for our kids through our bank. We set them each up an account when they turned 3. They made a big deal of the kids bringing their $5 in change to start their accounts. LOL

Their accounts are attached to our checking account, meaning we can transfer funds back and forth, etc. Over the years their accounts have been tapped into a time or two (or ten) when times got tough or when the kids needed something that wasn't in the budget but had money in their savings. Right now their savings accounts are acting as our emergency fund for baby step #1 on the Dave Ramsey program. Rather than open a separate savings account for ourselves we just use theirs as it is all family money at this point (my kids are 8 and 11). Each week 1% of DH's check goes into each of the kids' accounts automatically. When he has weeks with a lot of overtime, that's a decent chunk. Oddly, since saying that their accounts are our emergency fund, we haven't had to touch them and they have started to grow quite nicely. Crazy how that works! Right now each child has the exact same amount in savings. At some point we will sit down and figure out how much extra we need to add to our daughter's account since she will be off to college 4 years before the boy will be.

[kim21673]

Our boys have savings accounts in my hometown. It's not ideal but my parents add money every now and then and they don't charge a monthly fee or need to keep a certain amount it. I am able to keep track online through my account and can transfer/add money as needed....IF I have money in my account (which I don't use that often)

We are going to set them up with a savings account up where we live now too...through Chase. It will just be easier for us to deposit money since it is two minutes from the house.