Spring cleaning highlights why saving outshines spending

Kevin Brown | Supplied

For anyone with children, that will often involve sifting through a mountain of toys to see which they have outgrown. If the outgrown toys are in good enough condition they can be sold or given away to a good cause.

The rest usually ends up in landfill. And that is a cause of growing concern for parents according to new statistics. Research conducted by 3Gem on behalf of mutual Scottish Friendly shows six out of 10 parents are worried about the environmental impact on their child’s future of waste such as toys going to landfill.

And the majority of parents would rather address the issue at source by reducing the number of disposable gifts their children receive each year. Seven out of 10 parents believe saving for your child’s future is better than spending money on material things now.

Scottish Friendly savings specialist, Kevin Brown, said: “Look along the shelves of any toy store and you can see how plastic intensive toy manufacturing is. Responsible manufacturers provide recycling solutions for their products but there is a way to go yet. Meanwhile, most local recycling depots won’t accept plastic toys and larger plastics can’t be put out with the household recycling.

“Charities like Toys4Life do a great job in keeping as many recyclable toys as they can from ending up as waste. Although this is a great charity initiative, it remains a drop in the ocean. As a dad of two, I completely understand the dilemma for parents – you want your child to have the things that make them happy, but that shouldn’t literally cost them the earth.”

Brown added: “Our goal is to help families achieve financial well-being, setting kids on track to greater financial resilience through investing in Junior ISAs.

“The gifts we give children have a lasting legacy, it would be great if there could also be a shift towards considering a financial gift to help kick-start a child’s nest egg.”