Piggy Bank

A stock symbol of saving money for a rainy day (or just saving money in general) is the good ol' ceramic Piggy Bank. It seems every child has one to store the leftovers from their allowance in ... and whenever there's something they really want to buy with their money, the child will always, always fetch a hammer and proceed to, well, 'break the bank'. Despite that there should be a safer (not to mention less violent) way to get their money out.

Piggy Banks often symbolize wealth and something a thief would go after in a cartoon.

The monetary storage item can also be in the shape of other animals.

Examples of Piggy Bank include:

Film

Hamm is one in Toy Story.

Literature

The Jolly Postman series of children's books has a story within a story about a piggy bank. The more money is put into him, the greedier he gets, eventually trying to run off with the little girl's money. She switches to a bank account instead, so the piggy bank gets better.

Live Action TV

The old Nickelodeon show Don't Just Sit There had a segment where a girl showed viewers how to break their piggy banks if they were too sentimental to do it the regular way. Methods included leaving it on a high shelf and waiting for a cat to knock it over, and simply gritting your teeth and breaking it yourself. Subverted at the end, when her co-host walks by emptying his piggy bank the proper way.
In Monty Python's Flying Circus, an animated link had two characters hunting piggy banks.
LazyTown: A character properly known as 'Stingy' has a piggy he carries around wherever he goes.

Newspaper Comics

Dennis the Menace often uses this to show he needs money.

Real Life

In the 1980s, the NatWest bank issued china piggy banks to encourage children to save—one when they opened an account, and four more when their balance reached £25, £50, £75 and £100. They're now quite collectible.

Video Games

In Adventure Quest Worlds, when Gravelyn sends you to collect on her father's Unlife Insurance policy following the Chaos incident at Swordhaven Castle, the King's greedy pig of a tax collector has you thrown in prison rather than cough up the cash. After fighting through the guards, you then have to fight the Piggy Drake, which is basically one of these in boss form, in order to get through to the vault.
Olimar from Pikmin has one as one of the ship parts. It contains all his savings.
Van (from Home) has one of these in Chrono Cross. Adding money to it will increase the attack power of his special attack 'Piggyboink', in which he sends it ramming into the enemy.
Picking these up in Blitter Boy grants a nice points-bonus.

Web Comics

The CERAMIC PORKHOLLOW from Homestuck.
In the Touhou doujin Life of Maid, after losing her DS in the beach arc, Patchy breaks open her Patchy Bank (basically a piggy bank shaped like Patchy's head) to try to find enough money to get the new DSi. Unfotunately for Patchy, it isn't enough.
Gabe has a piggy bank that he affectionately calls Tonkatsu (after the Cardboard Tube Samurai's random pig). It contains a great deal of cash money.

Western Animation

The Great Piggy Bank Robbery starring Daffy Duck as "Duck Twacy". A group of gangsters steals many piggy banks (including Twacy's) and he hunts them down.
Bart Simpson has done this several times. Not always his own pig either.
- In one of those episodes where Homer loses his job, he stole Bart's piggy bank and broke it for beer money. Soon after he did it, Homer started showing remorse for having stolen his own son's money and even then not having enough for a beer. Then he stopped to check if it really was enough or not. Upon verifying it was not, he resumed moaning.
- In another episode, Homer broke a piggy bank and Marge told how he could get the money without doing it. Homer replied it was too late for the warning. The Brazilian dubbing changed it to have Homer stating the piggy wouldn't have liked it.
In one Doug cartoon where the title character was looking for some extra money saw him break open a piggy bank and only find a note inside which read, "I owe myself five dollars."
One episode of Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy had a Fictional Holiday where the kids would break their piggy banks and use the money to buy stuff.
SpongeBob SquarePants breaks a bunch of them so he can buy a new spatula in one episode.
The Donald Duck cartoon "Donald's Crime" has him stealing money from his own nephews' piggy bank for a date with Daisy.
Honker has one in Darkwing Duck episode 'Easy Come, Easy Grows'. Part of the episode involves them trying to stop it from running away.
The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat episode "Felix Breaks the Bank" had one episode where Felix tried to break his piggy bank to have money for Candy's birthday present. The piggy then took the hammer and knocked Felix into a Dream Sequence. When he woke up, Candy was there and assumed the piggy was her gift. She like it so much she hugged it to the point a coin came out of it.
DuckTales (1987) had an episode where Scrooge went back to Scotland and took his nephews with him. He then showed them a piggy bank he made by himself of wood and nails.
Phineas and Ferb had one that released coins from behind as Phineas inserted bills through its mouth.
Dexter's Laboratory had one episode where Dee Dee won 200 million dollars and kept the check inside a piggy bank. Needing the money to pay a debt to N.A.S.A., Dexter tried to steal the money but was caught red-handed. Dee Dee loaned him the money anyway but took over almost all the laboratory as collateral, leaving Dex with barely enough space for himself.
An episode of The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy had Irwin arriving at the police station with a piggy bank in order to bail out Grim. Grim is relieved to see him, but the police man forcefully grabs the piggy bank and chucks it into the wall, screaming at Irwin that the amount of money in his piggy bank can't possibly be enough.