Educating children about cash requires much more than giving them an allowance.
Dad and mom who need their youngsters to develop as much as be financially accountable adults know that children who be taught the fundamentals of saving, spending, and curiosity are those who’ll be arrange for a financially steady future.
It’d shock you to be taught that analysis reveals that solely 23% of youngsters say they discuss to their dad and mom about cash, and children who don’t obtain monetary schooling usually tend to find yourself in debt and to default on scholar loans.
No dad or mum desires that for his or her youngsters!
Greenlight is a monetary literacy app for youths that makes it a snap for fogeys to pay their children an allowance, tie the allowance to chores and financial savings objectives, and extra.
Youngsters additionally get a Greenlight debit card. Dad and mom who wish to prioritize monetary literacy could ponder whether Greenlight is the suitable app to make use of. Right here’s our take.
What’s Greenlight?
Greenlight is a household banking app whose mission is to educate children easy methods to handle their cash.
Dad and mom can arrange a household account and reap the benefits of an array of options to show their children to be financially educated and accountable.
Greenlight is obtainable for each Apple and Android cellular gadgets. It has a user-friendly interface (extra on that beneath) and a ton of helpful options that each educate and shield children.
You may select a pay as you go Greenlight debit card and should you do, your cash will likely be deposited and held at Neighborhood Federal Financial savings Financial institution, an FDIC-insured monetary establishment.
Greenlight has some terrific assets on their web site, together with monetary schooling video games, a weblog, and their podcast.
You may handle your child’s Greenlight account your self or add one other dad or mum or grownup to assist out.
Professional Tip:
Greenlight is a household finance app that provides instruments like chore administration, financial institution accounts and playing cards, investing, and even security options for teenagers. Whenever you join Greenlight and refer your pals, you’ll be able to earn as much as $600 a yr in referral bonuses!
What Options Does Greenlight Supply?
Greenlight provides options for each dad and mom and children. Right here’s an summary of crucial bells and whistles.
Chores & Allowance
One of many issues that oldsters love about Greenlight is that it permits them to schedule children’ chores and tie their allowance to chores and monetary objectives.
It’s simple to arrange chores for a number of children.
You may set the frequency of every chore, specifying whether or not it must be carried out each day, weekly, or month-to-month. There are preset chores so that you can select from.
One other cool factor about Greenlight is that if dad and mom wish to enable children to earn cash for doing additional jobs round the home, there’s an choice to set that up and pay children as you approve their work.
Money Again & Saving
Youngsters with a Greenlight debit or bank card can earn bonuses on financial savings and money again on spending.
Financial savings rewards depend upon which tier you select, as follows:
- 1% for the Greenlight Core Plan
- 2% for the Greenlight Max Plan
- 5% for the Greenlight Infinity Plan
Youngsters may earn 1% money again on purchases with the Max and Infinity Plans.
Investing
Greenlight provides funding choices for fogeys and children with the highest two subscription tiers.
The dad or mum funding possibility can be included within the Core plan, however with “Lite” options.
With Greenlight Max and Greenlight Infinity, dad and mom can ship their children cash to take a position.
Greenlight has tons of economic schooling round investing, too, so dad and mom can assessment fundamental funding ideas with their children.
As you’ll be able to see, you and your children can try detailed inventory and ETF evaluation and you can begin your children off with as little as $1.
Security
Greenlight takes children’ security critically and supplies dad and mom with a number of choices to shield their youngsters.
First, there’s the choice to set spending limits for youths and prohibit sure transactions or require parental approval.
That’s one thing that may be extraordinarily helpful should you don’t need your youngster to rack up tons of of {dollars} of spending on video games like Roblox.
For older children, the highest tier of Greenlight provides extra security options together with Crash Detection, SOS, and drive monitoring.
Dad and mom can have the peace of thoughts of realizing the place their children are once they’re on the highway and that they’ll attain emergency providers rapidly if they should.
For Youngsters & Teenagers
Among the best issues about Greenlight is that with any plan, you and your children will get entry to a ton of monetary schooling assets masking the whole lot from saving to investing to charitable donations.
The sooner children begin studying about cash administration and core monetary rules, the extra possible they’re to develop into financially steady adults who received’t find yourself dwelling in your sofa!
Professional Tip:
Greenlight is a household finance app that provides instruments like chore administration, financial institution accounts and playing cards, investing, and even security options for teenagers. Whenever you join Greenlight and refer your pals, you’ll be able to earn as much as $600 a yr in referral bonuses!
How A lot Does Greenlight Value?
Greenlight is a subscription service with three totally different tiers.
The bottom tier comes with fundamental options, and the 2 greater tiers supply elevated performance and banking options. Right here’s how the price breaks down.
Greenlight Core
Greenlight Core is the fundamental plan, which prices $4.99 per 30 days. The fundamental plan comes with these options:
- Greenlight debit playing cards for as much as 5 children
- Core monetary instruments for youths
- Parental controls
- Monetary schooling app
- Greenlight Financial savings Reward of 1%
- Greenlight Stage Up (monetary video games)
- Investing for Dad and mom (Lite model)
This plan is good if you wish to do a trial run of Greenlight to see if it’s the suitable possibility for your loved ones.
Greenlight Max
The center tier of Greenlight is known as Greenlight Max, and the price of a subscription is $9.98 per 30 days. It comes with all of the options of the Core plan, plus:
- Investing for Dad and mom (full model)
- Investing for Youngsters
- Greenlight Financial savings Reward of two%
- 1% money again on purchases
- Identification theft, cellphone, and buy safety
- Precedence buyer assist
In order for you to have the ability to make investments on behalf of your children and educate your children how investing works, this plan is likely to be proper for your loved ones.
Greenlight Infinity
The prime tier is known as Greenlight Infinity, and the subscription price is $14.99 per 30 days. You’ll get the whole lot that comes with Greenlight Max, plus:
- Greenlight Financial savings Reward of 5%
- Household location sharing
- Crash detection (the Greenlight app will contact 911 in case your teen will get in an accident)
- SOS alerts
- Driving reviews
- Actual-time journey alerts
Households with youngsters could wish to go for Greenlight Infinity due to its enhanced security options to shield teen drivers.
How Does Greenlight Examine to Different Banking Apps for Youngsters?
Along with Greenlight, there are lots of different monetary apps for youths. Listed here are a few comparisons that could be useful.
Greenlight vs BusyKid
BusyKid has lots of the similar options as Greenlight, together with debit playing cards, financial savings incentives, and funding choices, plus instructional content material.
One characteristic that BusyKid has that Greenlight doesn’t is a bonus possibility, which permits dad and mom to reward their children primarily based on no matter standards they select.
The largest distinction between Greenlight and BusyKid is the price.
Greenlight’s costs begin at $4.99 and prime out at $14.99 for the very best tier. BusyKid prices $4 per 30 days or $48 per yr for as much as 5 youngsters, making it considerably inexpensive than Greenlight.
It’s value noting that there are not any tiers for BusyKid options, that means all subscribers get entry to all options.
One other key distinction is that BusyKid makes it simple to cancel your subscription the place some customers have complained concerning the issue of canceling Greenlight.
Lastly, grandparents and different kinfolk can contribute to children’ accounts utilizing a QR code.
Greenlight vs GoHenry
GoHenry is one other fashionable monetary app for youths. It has two pricing tiers at $4.99 and $9.98, each of that are good for households with as much as 4 youngsters.
Each apps embody instructional content material to assist children study cash. Each supply parental controls to provide dad and mom peace of thoughts round their children’ spending.
Like BusyKid, GoHenry makes it potential for kinfolk and household mates to deposit cash into children’ accounts. In contrast to the opposite apps we’ve reviewed, it additionally permits for cash transfers from contained in the app.
Professional Tip:
Greenlight is a household finance app that provides instruments like chore administration, financial institution accounts and playing cards, investing, and even security options for teenagers. Whenever you join Greenlight and refer your pals, you’ll be able to earn as much as $600 a yr in referral bonuses!
Professionals and Cons of Greenlight
Earlier than you select Greenlight to show your children about finance, listed here are some professionals and cons to think about.
Professionals
- Youngsters get a Greenlight debit card to assist them discover ways to spend responsibly
- Dad and mom can set spending limits for youths and monitor their spending historical past
- Cash transfers could also be linked to chores and objectives
- Youngsters earn money again and financial savings rewards once they use their Greenlight debit card
- Entry to monetary schooling and cash instruments
- Sure transactions could also be blocked to guard children
Cons
- Money deposits aren’t an possibility
- The fundamental Greenlight account has restricted options
- Greenlight doesn’t work with P2P fee apps like PayPal and Venmo
- Youngsters’ accounts have to be linked to a dad or mum account, so it could be tough for fogeys with out a joint account to share monitoring obligations
- Greenlight isn’t free; month-to-month charges vary from $4.99 to $14.98
What Do Reviewers Say About Greenlight?
On-line reviewers have loads of constructive suggestions and feedback about Greenlight.
- Dad and mom recognize the parental management options, together with spending limits and automated spending notifications that enable them to monitor children’ monetary conduct.
- Dad and mom love the location monitoring and different security options that present peace of thoughts for teen drivers.
- Greenlight earns excessive marks for its monetary assets, which oldsters and children can assessment collectively to instill wholesome monetary habits.
- Greenlight’s 24/7 customer support earns a variety of reward from customers.
There’s no such factor as a product with out adverse evaluations. Listed here are a couple of not-so-complimentary issues customers have mentioned about Greenlight.
- There’s no free model, so that you’ll must pay to strive Greenlight out.
- Canceling Greenlight isn’t simple from contained in the Greenlight app; you’ll in all probability must name the corporate if you wish to terminate your subscription.
- For Greenlight to assist children, dad and mom have to be ready to monitor the Greenlight app.
On the entire, we predict the positives far outweigh the negatives. Each dad and mom and children can profit from utilizing Greenlight.
Closing Ideas
Our takeaway is that Greenlight is an excellent app for households the place dad and mom need their children to study cash from an early age.
Its instructional content material and sensible options make it simple for youths to economize, spend responsibly, and discover ways to make investments.
The largest potential draw back is Greenlight’s price, which is excessive in comparison with different apps—notably for the highest tier, which is the one possibility the place you will get entry to all of Greenlight’s options.
To study one other platform with monetary schooling instruments, try our Looking for Alpha assessment.