Allowance s/: Green Light or similar?

[nicolewi]

I know someone on the previous thread said they use Green Light, and one of my friends in real life told me this as well. It sounded really great from what she was saying. If you use a tool like this or something similar to help kids manage money, please tell me about it! Thank you.

[hazelden]

We use Capital One teen checking. My kids also have linked savings accounts through Capital One. We've had the accounts for 5+ years now. I think I remember other options, like Greenlight, having fees back when I was trying to decide on a bank. Capital One is totally free.

www.capitalone.com/bank/kid-teen-bank-accounts/

[nicolewi]

Yeah, looks like Green Light is $5/month. But it might be worth it b/c it covers up to five accounts, and I need four. But still...$60 over a year...so it does add up.

[ssmjlm]

Never pay for a bank or credit card to manage money like that. I’m honestly surprised so many are ok with their fees.

We also use a capital teen checking acct. it’s only been a few months, but I’m looking forward to her managing it and her budget.

[mainelyfoolish]

My DS11 gets his allowance in cash. He likes to have money to spend at the snack bars at school events (cash only). If he wants to buy stuff on Amazon, he pays me cash and I buy it on my account. He has enough trouble constantly losing his wallet *inside* our house, I don’t need him losing a debit card now.

My DC16 has a youth checking and savings account at the bank I use. They have a debit card, they can use the app on their phone to check their balances, and I can easily transfer money to them. No fees.

[gretchenindisguise]

We use Greenlight and absolutely love it.

We all have adhd, and I have never been able to keep up on allowances prior to this and the kids could never save their money. I have it set to auto give allowance on Friday and it splits percentages between general spending, saving and giving (70%, 15% and 5% I think, but don't quote me).

We also set them up with investing. We gave them like $20 or something and they chose what they wanted to buy. I like that they are learning about the stock market because it's not something I had learned before adulthood. They both see their stocks raise and fall and get the why of it.

It's also been nice now that L is babysitting. One family pays cash and I cash it out and load it onto her car. Another family sends me her payment via venmo and then I transfer to my bank and then front to greenlight.

It also has mobile protection, so we were able to cancel that for her phone from our carrier.

They both transfer often to savings so they can hit various goals.

Overall it's been great for our family.

re: the fee - it is worth it to me for the automation, control and features.

L has her card loaded onto applepay so never actually has her card out of the house. A has his in his wallet that lives in a particular drawer in our house so he doesn't lose them. 

[suzubell]

We like Greenlight at the $10 level because it allows for the kids to buy and sell stocks and provides insurance on their phones. It’s cheaper than Apple Care.

[countthestars]

We use Greenlight for the reasons gretchenindisguise & suzubell lay out!

[gerberdaisy]

I was looking into the different options after that thread also. I just can't stomach paying $5 in fees a month, she'd rather have that go towards her allowance. We're going to try Capitol One teen checking and a savings account. My only concern is depositing cash as we don't have a branch, but looks like you can deposit at CVS now? The app looks to have all the features we'd need and is free. DD doesn't have a cell phone, so not worried about cellphone coverage.

[karinothing]

Honestly we did Greenlight despite the fees because 1) i didn't like the options at BoA (our current bank) and I didn't want to open a new checking account somewhere and 2) I could do it all on-line and didn't have to go somewhere in person lol.

[minniemouse]

We use Busy Kids cards. When we signed up it had similar features to Greenlight with a cheaper annual fee. When our current year expires in January we might switch to Step cards. They have a no fee option and I know a few people IRL that love them.

[expectantsteelerfan]

Jun 24, 2024 6:19:56 GMT -5 gerberdaisy said:

I was looking into the different options after that thread also. I just can't stomach paying $5 in fees a month, she'd rather have that go towards her allowance. We're going to try Capitol One teen checking and a savings account. My only concern is depositing cash as we don't have a branch, but looks like you can deposit at CVS now? The app looks to have all the features we'd need and is free. DD doesn't have a cell phone, so not worried about cellphone coverage.

When we need to do this, we just deposit the cash into our own (parent) checking accts (that are not with Capital One) and transfer to their accts electronically.  Or we as parents keep the cash and just send them the amount we owe them if we want cash on hand for something.  It hasn't been a problem, and we love the Capital One accts.  We were recently at an amusement park that was cashless and my DD and her friend went off on their own and immediately went crazy playing games and wracked up $40 in charges.  We got alerts to the charges right away and locked her card until she called us (we were afraid someone took it or something, they were all in $2-5 increments), and once she explained and we said NO MORE GAMES we unlocked the card.  It was simple and took no time to do either.  

[simpsongal]

I have a capital one kid account for DS- hope I can "covert" it to teen eventually....like that has to be the logical progression right?

[gerberdaisy]

Following up on my post from earlier. Opened capital one savings accounts for both kids, and a teen checking account for DD. It was so easy! Took 2 minutes, and they are funded and ready to go. Now working on how to handle allowance but love the idea of just having it transferred in vs needing cash. DD has had a Key kids savings account forever and its been awful, no interest and hard to manage the online access, she loves that she's actually earning interest now and can see everything.

[hbomdiggity]

We use GoHenry.

[jg183]

we have chase kids cards