My eight-year old daughter decided she wanted a new MP3 player that was more sophisticated than the Disney version she'd gotten a few years ago that basically just has a play button. At first she had her mind set on an Ipod touch. We told her she had almost enough money and would just need to save for a little while longer.
We talk to our kids about how much money they have in their savings accounts, so her response to save for a few more weeks was, "I don't need to, I'll just take the money out of my savings account." When I explained to her that she couldn't use her savings account that way, she was pretty disgruntled. It was her money and she wanted it.
It's a bit abstract to explain to a child who's still 10 years away from it, that she can't use her money now because she'll need it for college. But we did have the discussion and she eventually resigned herself to the fact that she'd have to wait until she had saved up a bit more allowance. Although after further digging, we realized that a much less expensive MP3 player would meet her needs and she was able to purchase the player right away. So although the savings account discussion turned out to be unneccesary, I'm still glad we had it. I'm sure it will be first of many times and I imagine it'll become harder to convince her to leave that money alone as she gets older!
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