Lets take a trip down memory lane ! Do you remember during your school days when the nice people from the Commonwealth bank used to visit and urge you to save your pocket money - not spend it ? They used slogans such as " put some aside for a rainy day " and " Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves " - and then they handed out nice, shiny tin money boxes that looked like a Commonwealth bank building !
Of course they didn't give you much interest when you put money in the bank - but years later when you grew up and wanted a house loan they soaked you with a heap of establishment fees and a high interest rate.
It seems the days of money boxes are long gone. If you happen to have an old one and you take it to a bank, credit union or a building society you will find most refuse to accept it. They don't count money anymore and require that you roll each denomination in paper envelopes to be acceptable.
Strangely, there are places where your loose change will be welcome. Go into any club or pub with poker machines and - provided you have sorted the coin into each denomination - they will gladly toss it on the scales and exchange it for banknotes - and hope you will use it for poker machine fodder !
One thing that hasn't changed is the abysmal amount of interest offered by money institutions. Many simply give no interest for savings from 0 to $ 499, whilst others grudgingly offer a return of half of one percent.
But it's a different matter if you go and ask for a loan. Most likely they will issue you with a credit card - and hit you with an interest rate of about seventeen percent - and impose a raft of penalties for missing repayment day or exceeding your limit.
We live in a changing world - and the days of teaching kids good money habits have long gone !
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