ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the distinction between personal/private saving in a piggy bank or money box and institutionalised/public saving with banks and building societies. It explains how children's styles of consumption relate to their growing ability to save. The chapter describes the extent to which the account of the development of functional saving presented so far can be said to characterise developments in "real world" saving. It provides information that allowed the children to construct a "play economy reality" and so gave them the opportunity to tell about the significance, function and meaning of saving their day to day lives. The chapter aims to disambiguate the relationship between money box saving and institutionalised saving. The comparatively short time the game took meant that it was not sensible to perceive the money box as a saving aid, although they are used as such in home, whereas the bank did appear real to the children and was a helpful saving device.
