Save money in a DIY piggy bank

Those pink ceramic piggy banks we all know and love are, well, a little cliché. They're also unnecessary. If you have any crafting skills in you at all (and believe me, I have remarkably few), you can make a cheap coin bank out of materials you have at home. You don't have to spend money to save it.

The simplest (and un-craftiest) bank in the lot is in the image you see above. It may not the prettiest, but it's functional. We're using that canister to save change to put toward a vacation. It was made from an oatmeal canister, scrapbook paper and glue. I also glued the lid to the top of the canister because reaching in to grab change would be too easy otherwise – and too tempting.

For those that love Handy Hamm from Toy Story, Disney Family designed a craft to help you make one of your own using an old plastic mayonnaise jar. The project requires a plastic jar and lid, plaster cloth, scissors, craft paint, an egg carton, felt, a glue gun and more. It is designed so that the lid still screws off, though, so there's no need to destroy all your hard work to empty it when it's full.

The Queen of Crafts, Martha Stewart, came up with a much simpler, and still cute, version using an empty bottle. The elements required here are a bottle, double-sided tape, hot glue gun, pipe cleaner and some construction or craft paper. I'm not sure what was used on the feet, but you could use many things including halves of plastic Easter eggs, erasers, or Lincoln logs to make the legs.

Other containers you may want to consider upcycling to make piggy banks are formula cans, jars, jugs, baby wipes containers and tissue boxes. Have you made a homemade piggy bank? If so, tell me what you used.

Photo courtesy of author.