The Story of the Save Spend Share Moneyboxes...
The Save Spend Share moneyboxes have been, by far, the most popular item I’ve made. They started out from very humble beginnings and they were an idea that I can’t take any credit for. My better half is an avid subscriber to The Barefoot Investor program online. It was during her reading of their many publications that the idea emerged.
The idea of a Spend Share Share moneybox is not unique, commonly known as a ‘moon jar’, you can buy plastic versions of them anyway. These are used to teach kids how to manage their pocket money, to think about savings, what they spend and how they can share some of the money with the less fortunate. What we made unique, was turning them into heirloom quality moneyboxes that kids can keep forever.
The moneyboxes started out as a gift for a nephew. We wanted him to start his journey into financial understanding as he started to get pocket money, and why not do that with something uniquely handmade?
Originally my wife had planned to buy him a mass produced one, but being a maker, the famous last words of ‘I can make that’ burst from my mouth. So I set about designing my own concept of what it could look like.
Now as Jimmy Diresta would say, ‘you go to school on the first one’. There were lots of learnings and mistakes along the way with this first iteration (like don’t use glass, use plex instead!). But the product turned out to be something I was genuinely proud of, and most importantly it went to a happy customer.
The very first Save Spend Share Moneybox with handpainted writing. Later I discovered ironing on laser printed transfers to speed up the process.
From this early beginning, one nephew grew to two nieces with moneyboxes, but what really accelerated the journey was a post on The Barefoot Investor Facebook page. This simple post immediately seemed to gather momentum. People started commenting and asking where they could buy or order similar Spend Save Share moneyboxes. Fast forward a month or two and I’d sold over 30 money boxes to kids around Australia. I’d become a moneybox making factory! Most of these were in hardwood, stringbark mainly, but we even had some requests for custom colours like hot pink!
Factory line…boxes in stages of completion not long after the post on the
A custom hot pink. A special request from a customer.
18 months later, we got a request for a baby blue version for her son.
I’m proud to say that somewhere in the order of 50 kids now have a customised Save Spend Share moneybox in their possession and by far they attract the most attention when I have a stand at markets. Altruistically I hope it helps kids who own them to have a better appreciation for their money as they grow into adults and how to use it wisely.
Cheers Tony.