Where does the piggy bank originate from? Why do we store our money in it?

Question

I was just wondering where exactly it came from and why we store our money and why is it a pig and not some other animal?

Answer 1

someone made a mistake. During The Middle Ages, in about the fifteenth century, metal was expensive and seldom used for household wares. Instead, dishes and pots were made of an economical clay called pygg. Whenever housewives could save an extra coin, they dropped it into one of their clay jars.They called this their pygg bank or their piggy bank.
Over the next two hundred to three hundred years, people forgot that "pygg" referred to the earthenware material. In the nineteenth century when English potters received requests for piggy banks, they produced banks shaped like a pig. Of course, the pigs appealed to the customers and delighted the children.

Wiki:
"In Middle English, "pygg" referred to a type of clay used for making various household objects such as jars. People often saved money in kitchen pots and jars made of pygg, called "pygg jars". By the 18th Century, the spelling of "pygg" had changed and the term "pygg jar" had evolved to "pig bank."

Answer 2

Although not popular today (who saves?) on the collectables market you can find hundreds of designs for banks - containers with slots in them for dropping in coins with the intention of not taking them out very often. Just a few coins a day mount up and since they are out of sight, we are less tempted to spend them. I am not sure about those pygg stories - I thought it was because they were fat little pigs as in greedy and would hold on to our money.