Saving the Pennies: Cash Machine Piggy Bank

This is one of the weirdest homeware items I've ever seen, and I can't decide if it's insanely ugly or sheer genius. Although it might look like an eighties nightmare or something from Back to the Future, it's actually a hi-tech, battery-operated piggy bank. It takes both coins and notes, you get your own fake credit card to operate it, and it makes all the lights and sounds of a real ATM. And, in a slightly surreal twist which I'm sure would make everyone happier about their overdrafts if real cash machines adopted it, you get special songs from it if you use it on Christmas or your birthday.

It's made by the Science Museum, and it's available from Amazon for £27. And it looks trickier to raid than a jam-jar of 5ps next to the front door. But if, like me, you usually ransack the piggy bank to collect enough change for a midnight quest to the off-licence for tequila and crisps, that could be a good thing...