This article presents a critical study of advertisements mainly from banks in Swedish daily newspapers over a period from 1870 to the 1970s. The advertisements aim for the general public and promote savings and loans services and products. The questions of the study include what is pro- moted to whom and how in the advertisements? Also, how is individual money management framed and presented over time in these marketing texts? Besides a presentation of the main results from the study, its critical aim is continuously discussed from three different perspectives of analysis: the textual, practice-oriented and institutional levels. The analysis shows a development from non-addressing of an advertisement reader in the period from 1870 to the 1920s to direct addressing of the reader and also increased mentioning of specific reader groups in the later 20th century period. The advertisements also show a change from simply stating the banks' services and products to actively arguing and invoking direct strategies of persuasion by the use of both verbal and graphic text elements. The critical discussion of the article states the relevance of focusing on the intermingled relations between the textual, practice-oriented and institutional levels in order to relate the results to the socio-economic contexts of the advertisements in their time periods.