I ' ve done something similar for my nephews , but instead of putting the entire monetary gift into the deferred account , I split it in half . Half goes into the account , half is cash straight to them . In the example of $ 200 , I tell them that the $ 100 in savings will grow to X , Y , and Z . Yet the $ 100 they have in hand will never be more than $ 100 . They still spend the $ 100 on whatever they want , but I ' m going for the long lesson . I want them to enjoy the monetary gift both now and later . When they get older and the invested savings are there , I want them to remember spending half of the original gift and knowing its gone , and only now having the other half which is now considerably larger . My grand hope is that they themselves realize that had they invested BOTH halves of the gift , the deferred account would be double in size !