Instructing youngsters about cash requires much more than giving them an allowance.
Dad and mom who need their kids 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 secure future.
It’d shock you to be taught that analysis reveals that solely 23% of children say they discuss to their dad and mom about cash, and children who don’t obtain monetary training usually tend to find yourself in debt and to default on pupil loans.
No mum or dad needs that for his or her kids!
Greenlight is a monetary literacy app for youths that makes it a snap for folks to pay their youngsters an allowance, tie the allowance to chores and financial savings targets, and extra.
Youngsters additionally get a Greenlight-branded debit card. Dad and mom who need to prioritize monetary literacy might wonder if Greenlight is the proper app to make use of. Right here’s our take.
What’s Greenlight?
Greenlight is a household banking app whose mission is to show youngsters find out how to handle their cash.
Dad and mom can arrange a household account and reap the benefits of an array of options to show their youngsters to be financially educated and accountable.
Greenlight is offered for each Apple and Android cellular units. It has a user-friendly interface (extra on that under) and a ton of helpful options that each educate and shield youngsters.
You may select a pay as you go card and in case 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 training video games, a weblog, and their podcast.
You may handle your child’s account your self or add one other mum or dad 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. While you join Greenlight and refer your folks, you possibly can earn as much as $600 a 12 months in referral bonuses!
What Options Does Greenlight Provide?
Greenlight affords 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 folks love about Greenlight is that it permits them to schedule youngsters’ chores and tie their allowance to chores and monetary targets.
It’s straightforward to arrange chores for a number of youngsters.
You may set the frequency of every chore, specifying whether or not it must be performed every 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 need to enable youngsters to earn cash for doing additional jobs round the home, there’s an choice to set that up and pay youngsters 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 affords funding choices for folks and children with the highest two subscription tiers.
The mum or dad 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 youngsters cash to speculate.
Greenlight has tons of economic training round investing, too, so dad and mom can evaluate primary funding ideas with their youngsters.
As you possibly can see, you and your youngsters can try detailed inventory and ETF evaluation and you can begin your youngsters off with as little as $1.
Security
Greenlight takes youngsters’ security critically and gives dad and mom with a number of choices to guard their kids.
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 in case you don’t need your little one to rack up tons of of {dollars} of spending on video games like Roblox.
For older youngsters, the highest tier of Greenlight affords 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 youngsters are once they’re on the highway and that they’ll attain emergency providers shortly if they should.
For Youngsters & Teenagers
Top-of-the-line issues about Greenlight is that with any plan, you and your youngsters will get entry to a ton of economic training assets overlaying every thing from saving to investing to charitable donations.
The sooner youngsters begin studying about cash administration and core monetary ideas, the extra possible they’re to develop into financially secure adults who received’t find yourself residing 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. While you join Greenlight and refer your folks, you possibly can earn as much as $600 a 12 months in referral bonuses!
How A lot Does Greenlight Value?
Greenlight is a subscription service with three totally different tiers.
The bottom tier comes with primary options, and the 2 larger tiers provide elevated performance and banking options. Right here’s how the associated fee breaks down.
Greenlight Core
Greenlight Core is the fundamental plan, which prices $4.99 monthly. The fundamental plan comes with these options:
Debit playing cards for as much as 5 youngsters
Core monetary instruments for youths
Parental controls
Monetary training app
Greenlight Financial savings Reward of 1%
Greenlight Degree 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 proper possibility for your loved ones.
Greenlight Max
The center tier of Greenlight is named Greenlight Max, and the price of a subscription is $9.98 monthly. 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
Id theft, telephone, and buy safety
Precedence buyer help
If you would like to have the ability to make investments on behalf of your youngsters and educate your youngsters how investing works, this plan may be proper for your loved ones.
Greenlight Infinity
The highest tier is named Greenlight Infinity, and the subscription price is $14.99 monthly. You’ll get every thing that comes with Greenlight Max, plus:
Greenlight Financial savings Reward of 5%
Household location sharing
Crash detection (the app will contact 911 in case your teen will get in an accident)
SOS alerts
Driving stories
Actual-time journey alerts
Households with youngsters might need to go for Greenlight Infinity due to its enhanced security options to guard teen drivers.
How Does Greenlight Evaluate 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 identical options as Greenlight, together with debit playing cards, financial savings incentives, and funding choices, plus instructional content material.
One function that BusyKid has that Greenlight doesn’t is a bonus possibility, which permits dad and mom to reward their youngsters primarily based on no matter standards they select.
The most important distinction between Greenlight and BusyKid is the associated fee.
Greenlight’s costs begin at $4.99 and high out at $14.99 for the very best tier. BusyKid expenses $4 monthly or $48 per 12 months for as much as 5 kids, making it considerably cheaper than Greenlight.
It’s value noting that there aren’t any tiers for BusyKid options, which means all subscribers get entry to all options.
One other key distinction is that BusyKid makes it straightforward to cancel your subscription the place some customers have complained in regards to the problem of canceling Greenlight.
Lastly, grandparents and different kin can contribute to youngsters’ accounts utilizing a QR code.
Greenlight vs GoHenry
GoHenry is one other widespread 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 kids.
Each apps embody instructional content material to assist youngsters study cash. Each provide parental controls to present dad and mom peace of thoughts round their youngsters’ spending.
Like BusyKid, GoHenry makes it potential for kin and household buddies to deposit cash into youngsters’ accounts. Not like 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. While you join Greenlight and refer your folks, you possibly can earn as much as $600 a 12 months in referral bonuses!
Professionals and Cons of Greenlight
Earlier than you select Greenlight to show your youngsters about finance, listed here are some execs and cons to think about.
Professionals
Youngsters get a 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 targets
Youngsters earn money again and financial savings rewards once they use their card
Entry to monetary training and cash instruments
Sure transactions could also be blocked to guard youngsters
Cons
Money deposits should not an possibility
The fundamental account has restricted options
Greenlight doesn’t work with P2P cost apps like PayPal and Venmo
Youngsters’ accounts should be linked to a mum or dad account, so it might be tough for folks with no joint account to share monitoring duties
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 optimistic suggestions and feedback about Greenlight.
Dad and mom recognize the parental management options, together with spending limits and computerized spending notifications that enable them to watch youngsters’ monetary habits.
Dad and mom love the situation 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 evaluate collectively to instill wholesome monetary habits.
Greenlight’s 24/7 customer support earns quite a lot of reward from customers.
There’s no such factor as a product with out damaging critiques. Listed here are just a few not-so-complimentary issues customers have stated about Greenlight.
There’s no free model, so that you’ll need to pay to strive Greenlight out.
Canceling Greenlight isn’t straightforward from contained in the app; you’ll in all probability need to name the corporate if you wish to terminate your subscription.
For Greenlight to assist youngsters, dad and mom should be ready to watch the app.
On the entire, we expect the positives far outweigh the negatives. Each dad and mom and children can profit from utilizing Greenlight.
Last Ideas
Our takeaway is that Greenlight is an excellent app for households the place dad and mom need their youngsters to study cash from an early age.
Its instructional content material and sensible options make it straightforward for youths to save cash, spend responsibly, and discover ways to make investments.
The most important 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 training instruments, try our Looking for Alpha evaluate.
