FollowingFaye

An excerpt from the New York Times -

How Parents Teach Smart Spending With Apps, Not Cash
By Ann Carrns

Jonathan and Erin Kraftchick started out by paying their two children’s allowance the old-fashioned way, using paper money.

“I tried the cash thing,” said Mr. Kraftchick, an accountant and financial-literacy advocate in Raleigh, N.C. First, they used glass jars, then switched to a system that involved slipping money for different purposes into separate paper envelopes, for each child.

But keeping up with multiple envelopes became unwieldy.

“It’s a lot of hassle,” Ms. Kraftchick, an artist, said with a laugh.

So when Mr. Kraftchick read about a “smart” debit card called goHenry earlier this year, he quickly signed the family up for an account.

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“We got tired of having a drawer full of dollars,” said Brandi Tzonev, a sales manager and personal trainer in Lawrenceville, Ga., who uses goHenry with her 15-year-old son, Alex, and 10-year-old daughter, Gabriella.

Some banks have long had accounts aimed at children and teenagers, and many families use prepaid debit cards — rather than traditional debit cards, linked to a checking account — as a way to help children manage money. But the newest generation of “smart” debit cards are managed by advanced mobile apps that give parents detailed control over how much the young people spend — and even where they spend — with a few taps on a phone.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/15/business/children-allowance-apps.html?action=click&module=Discovery&pgtype=Homepage