It’s been really hard trying to find the perfect gift for a 6-month-old, especially since this is our second and another girl. Jovie’s has a lot of stuff since we kept everything that I used for M that I thought was worth keeping.
We did though decide on one thing: a piggy bank.
When I was pregnant with M I got this huge piggy bank as a shower gift. All the gifts I got were very nice but this piggy and the set of Beatrice Potter books were the two best things. The books we still read and the piggy… that thing is full and it’s still going.
Tomorrow I should get a piggy in the mail. The one I ordered was a Mud Pie piggy bank. I actually forgot which I ordered. I just remember that it’s suppose to be 7×8 inches. The same size as M’s. I’ll take a snapshot of it after Christmas! But, check out one of Mud’s cuteness:
Go ahead and Google “Mud Pie Piggy Bank” and you’ll find all sorts f them!
Babies don’t understand gifts and I think this is the perfect time to get them money gifts from all. I’m no financial expert but to you mommies/daddies who has a bit of extra money, start a college fund if you haven’t done so or if you did do that and have a little more cash in hand start a wedding/house fund. We’re lucky that hubby’s in the military and his G.I. Bill is now transferable (and I do hope to still be working for a university with family tuition benefits) but we still have college funds for the girls and what I call a wedding fund. What’s this wedding fund? It’s what it’s called. It’s a fund to help pay for the girls’ wedding. Just like most parents we hope that the girls will grow up to be great individuals, get some higher education, meet nice boys, pick one, get married, and build a family of their own. Kids uses up a lot of money and the biggest lump sums are education and weddings.
How much to put in? The college fund should be discussed with your financial advisor. There are different options and of course it all depends on where you’d like your child to one day go to. The wedding fund… well we put $30/mo per child (two separate accounts – ours are in the form of mutual funds) since they were born and in 25-yrs we should have enough saved for half or most or even all of their wedding day needs (8% interest with 3.8 inflation rate based on this saving’s calculator). We don’t have cable/satellite subscription because we think it’s better for the kids to not be exposed to a lot of TV watching and commercials and so that’s where our $60/mo comes from.
According to The Knot, the average wedding cost about $27,800. To me that’s a bunch. I think a nice wedding should consist of very close family and friends, a great photographer, a nice (natural) location, ambiance, and good food. If done right the biggest cost would be the photographer and food, $15,000 tops. I’m hoping by then we would have raise our daughters right (be reasonable, help out a bit financially and work together to make pretty hand made pieces together) but if they want something more, they either need to have a good job or got lucky and found a nice high earning husband/future in-laws.
There might be a time when we can’t keep this account up but while we can the idea of not having to figure out how to raise $10,000-$20,000 in 3-12 months (hopefully our kids have long engagements… just to make sure he’s the one) for a one day event is nice. If the money doesn’t get used on their big days (or they went low key and there are leftovers) the kids can use it for down payment on a house or if we get lucky and they’re both able to afford everything on their own, us parents can use the money for an African safari {::SMILE}.
