SAVING THREEPENNY BITS.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17936, 3 December 1923, Page 2

SAVING THREEPENNY BITS.

THRIFTY SYDNEY FATHERS. Many men iri Sydney arte doing the sarii© as the thrifty husbands of London, who, by saving every sixpence, have caused a shortage of church money. In Sydney, however, they are only Half as thrifty;, few men .who have taken up thi3 form of saving collect anything larger than threepences. Several bank managers who were interviewed on the subject said that there were always some men who collected small coins, but there was no danger of a shortage as long as they paid them into thß banks periodically, and so released tbem for circulation.

There is a. fascination in the collection of threepences, and the amount that can "be saved in this way is startling. One man. who is saving threepences for his boy, says that ho banks £3O a year. By the time the boy is 20 years of age, compound interest lit the rate of 4 per cent., will have brought his bank balance to very nearly. the father never misses the threepences. Another collector of threepences saved enough during part of this year to pay most ,of his wife's expenses for a trip to Melbourne to see the Cup. He estimates that next year his accumulated threepences will pay the whole of her expenses for the return trip. The manager of the Government Savings Bank sai<J that the "threepenny thrift" scheme had no effect on the circulation of the coins. Saving in the home was to be encouraged, but he knew some people who overdid it. "I know quits* a number of people •who Saved sovereigns during the war," he said. "Only the other.day I met a lady who had 100 sovereigns stored up. She had had tbem nine years, and had lost between £-50 and _ £6O, wliicli would have been paid in interest if the money had been in the bank for that period. There is no reason now why people should not bank their sovereigns. They are safer in the bank, and the wise person would want to make them make more money."