Do your kids do chores and do they get paid for doing said chores? If you answered yes to either of these two questions this post is for you! About eight months ago, Patrick and I buckled down and set managable chores for Regan and Ava. We sat down with the girls and went over their daily responsibilities and agreed on an appropriate allowance we would pay them at the end of each week if all chores were completed. They were happy with the terms and I was ecstatic at the thought their bathroom might remain clean-ish during the week and that their laundry no longer fell to me to wash!
The first few weeks went really well; the girls completed their chores with minimal eye rolls and grunts and Patrick and I remembered to get cash out of the ATM to pay them. Win, win. But with each passing week it became harder and harder for Patrick and I to remember to have cash on hand to pay Regan and Ava. We kept having to write the girls IOU’s and they became less and less motivated to complete their chores. Not wanting to erase the progress we had made, I started researching kid friendly savings/banking accounts. I wanted options that would allow us to instantly transfer money from our account to theirs and a way for Regan and Ava to easily track & access their funds BUT with lots of parental oversight. After a little digging, I stumbled across a family friendly option called Greenlight. #ad
The Greenlight card and app were built with a suite of tools to help families, like mine, manage daily finances and encourage kids to explore lessons in earning, saving, spending and giving back. In a nutshell, Greenlight is a safe and heavily monitored debit card for kids. The cards are FDIC insured up to $250,000 and come with Mastercard’s Zero Liability Protection. Greenlight debit card is just that – a debit card, NOT a credit card.
How does it work? With one click of a “button” Patrick and I can easily load money onto the girl’s cards from the Greenlight app that’s connected to our bank account. At the beginning of every month I move “X” from my banking account to our Greenlight account and then every Sunday the girl’s chore money is automatically deposited into their individual accounts. Let me type that again – the girls get paid every Sunday like clockwork without me having to do a thing! When setting up their accounts, both Regan and Ava made decisions about how much of their chore money they would put into savings and how much into spending. The Greenlight app puts the set amounts into their respective “savings” and “spending” accounts which they can check via the app daily to see how their dollars are adding up.
Greenlight also gives me a plethora of parental controls not available with most banks; I receive alerts when Regan and Ava use their cards, can set store limit amounts, choose which stores the girls are allowed to use their debit cards and I can turn the card off at any given time right from the app.
Now that Regan and Ava are in middle school I find they are in situations where they need access to cash more often – movies, pool snacks etc. As long as the girls have their debit cards on them I can instantly send them money AND make sure they are spending it as intended via the Green light app. The app is super user friendly and easy to use plus it gives Regan and Ava real life lessons in earning, saving and spending which they need in order to be fiscally responsible adults.
Greenlight plans start at only $4.99 a month and include debit cards for up to five kids. Your first month is free using my custom link below and you cancel at any time. If you are looking for a safe and convenient debit card that allows parents to set flexible controls and gives kids the ability to monitor their balances, set goals and learn how to manage thier money then Greenlight is THE debit card for you!! Click below to begin your free trial month!!
To take advantage of your first month free with Greenlight click HERE
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