Parents swipe £50 a year out of children’s piggy banks

PIGGY bank raiding parents are plundering nearly £50 a year from their children’s savings, a survey shows.

Some 60 per cent of mothers and fathers admitted to taking cash from their youngster’s money box, Nationwide found.

The average amount taken a year is £46.50, for reasons such as paying for school dinners, parking and school trips.

Some 34 per cent of parents are particularly naughty, as they don’t always pay their children back. And 25 per cent owe £25 or more, while 5 per cent are at least £100 in arrears.

Fathers tend to take more than mothers and they are less likely to repay the cash, the survey of 2,000 parents found.

Some 20 per cent said they took £60 or more a year. And the plundering does not always go unnoticed, with 39 per cent saying their child had realised they were out of pocket.

Larry Banda, of Nationwide, said: ‘At a time when fewer people carry cash, we can often get caught short when scrabbling around for change.

‘And quite often it’s children who have more loose change than anyone, as it’s often nicely tucked away in a money box.’