- Parents are constantly looking for different ways
that they can help their kids
just be more physically responsible
with their personal finances.
So in this video,
we're going to be talking about a debit card
called Greenlight,
and how it can help you as a parent manage money
with your kids and teach them good money saving habits.
Stick around.
(calm music)
Hey guys, it's Justine
with the College Investor, investing and personal finance
for millennials.
there are a lot of different ways
that you can help your child with their finances,
and Greenlight is a really great tool
that you can utilize to track not only their savings,
but also your kid's spending habits.
What's cool about this is the account is actually connected
to your primary bank.
You can simply open up an account,
and then you fund the parent wallet inside of Greenlight.
Then, you can set up specific accounts
for each one of your children.
So if you have multiple children,
you can manage all of their accounts within one app,
which is really cool.
You can also transfer money from your parent wallet
into your children's wallets,
and then you can set up different spending categories
inside of each child's account.
So let's say that you want to give them a $10 allotment
for going shopping or buying stuff at the grocery store.
You can do so by dumping it into
that particular spending category.
You can also set up different types of online stores
or physical stores in which they can shop at
and set spending limits for that as well.
Another cool feature about Greenlight
is that it boasts a 1 to 2% savings rate,
which is really incredible
given that savings rates constantly fluctuate up and down.
With traditional banks, it's so much lower than that.
Also, you can do a parent-lead interest savings
on top of that.
So it encourages your children to save even more
because you can incentify them
with an additional interest that you, as the parent,
would fund and cover.
Now, the app does have some costs associated with it.
It's 4.99 per month,
but you can add multiple children under one umbrella.
So the more children that you have,
that $5 cost is actually going to stretch a lot further.
Okay, so the Greenlight card also comes
with a physical debit card for each child
that you have set up under your account.
And because it's a debit card,
it makes it a little bit more challenging for somebody,
if they were to steal this card, to make a purchase with it
because each card has an associated four digit passcode
that goes with it.
So whenever your child makes a purchase at the store,
they'll swipe the card, enter in their four digit code,
make the purchase.
Now, if somebody were to steal it,
they'd have to know that four digit code
in addition to having the physical card.
Also, as a parent,
you can easily toggle on and off the card.
So if your child were to lose the card,
you can close the card very quickly on the app,
so it reduces the risk of somebody actually using that card
for something else.
You can also teach your child some responsibility
in this case, because if they were to lose the card,
they'd have to pay for a replacement card,
which is very reasonable and understandable.
And you can do that through the app.
Get the replacement card
and then show your kid responsibility that,
hey, you lost the card.
Now you have to pay for the replacement card.
What I like about this app too,
is that there are no arguments
about whether or not you paid your children
for different chores or household things
that you want to pay them for.
If they come back to you and say,
"Hey, well, you never paid me for mowing the lawn."
There's actually a transaction history
that shows you when exactly you transferred that money
to their account.
So it makes it so much easier for you
to avoid those types of arguments
because you know exactly when and how your child got paid.
So I think the biggest pros with this type of app
is you can manage your children's spending
all within one app,
especially for multiple children.
You can see everything in one view.
You get to see the transaction history.
There's a really high savings rate involved,
and you can do a parent lead interest rate as well
on top of that to encourage them to save.
Now, of course, the cons are,
there is a monthly fee of $5 per month.
And I didn't mention this,
but there are actually other levels to the app
on top of the basic $5 a month fee.
The Greenlight + Invest package actually allows
for investing with no trade fees,
which could be a really cool benefit,
especially for older kids as they learn more about savings,
interest, growth, and investing.
This would be a really awesome way for your children
to get involved in that conversation
and surround some education around the topic of investing.
And that's included through the Greenlight app
using the invest feature.
Now, that package is about $8 per month.
You can then upgrade to Greenlight Max,
which will get you again,
no trading fees for investing through the app.
You also get a 1% cash back feature,
which is kind of cool so that you can continue
to build up the savings rate even more.
That package is $10 per month.
And so if you really want to take advantage
of all the features and maximize your benefits,
that's the option to go with.
So this is a great app for day-to-day money management,
helping kids see that there's actually a value placed
on money and they can't just willy nilly spend $50
because it sounds like a good idea in the moment.
They can actually see with their app
how much money they have left in their account.
So it makes them make better spending choices
and saving opportunities for them.
And if you're thinking, yeah, well,
$5 is pretty steep for something that I could just get
for free with a traditional bank, true.
But this app allows for so much more
hands-on money management with your child,
teaching them good money habits,
and seeing how things work between you as the parent,
them as a child, and funding those accounts for them.
So if you would like to test out the Greenlight app
for you and your family,
you can sign up using the link below.
Let us know how you like it,
as it can be a great tool for money management
for your family.
We'll catch you in the next video.