Financial literacy at an early age can set your children up for success. As the parent of four kids, I started having money talks when they were old enough to understand that buying food, toys, and other items costs money.
Like many parents, my wife and I set up piggybanks for our children and established weekly allowances. Still, in a connected world where purchases are a swipe or password away, I wanted to ensure they had other tools to develop their financial literacy in a connected world.
In my searches, I found a handful of money apps for kids. These apps offer their unique take on financial education, from earning money with chores to investing in the stock market. Here are my favorite apps and why I love them.
Greenlight: The Ultimate Debit Card for Kids
Greenlight offers a kid-friendly debit card that allows parents to control spending, set savings goals, and pay interest on savings. This app allows your child to spend while you monitor their spending habits.
Greenlight also includes features like real-time notifications, flexible spending limits, and the ability to lock and unlock the card from the app.
Greenlight plans start at $5.99 monthly and go up to $14.98 per month.
BusyKid: Earn, Save, Spend, and Invest
BusyKid is a comprehensive app where kids can earn money through chores, save, spend, and even invest. It’s a perfect tool for teaching the value of hard work and intelligent financial management from a young age.
With BusyKid, children can learn to manage their allowances, donate to charities, and invest in real stocks. Parents can set up automatic weekly allowance transfers and approve or deny spending requests.
At just $48 per year for the whole family, BusyKid is one of the most affordable financial apps for kids.
GoHenry: Personalized Debit Cards with Educational Perks
GoHenry provides personalized debit cards and financial education for kids. The app allows parents to set spending limits and helps children learn financial responsibility through real-life experiences.
GoHenry includes features like chore assignments, instant money transfers, and real-time spending notifications. The app’s educational tools help kids understand the value of money and develop budgeting skills.
You’ll pay $4.99 per kid, which includes access to the GoHenry financial app and a customized card featuring your child’s name. The card also includes all of the features we’ve come to expect from credit and debit cards today, including tap-to-pay technology.
FamZoo: A Virtual Family Bank
FamZoo is a virtual family bank, offering prepaid cards and financial education for kids. Parents can teach their children about earning, saving, and responsible spending in a safe environment.
FamZoo’s features include customizable accounts, automatic allowance payments, and a shared family dashboard. It also offers IOU tracking for money borrowed and lent between family members, making it a comprehensive tool for family financial management.
FamZoo has a scaled payment system. You can pay $5.99 per month or if you sign up for 25 months upfront the cost is just $2.50 per month for each child.
iAllowance App for iOS Users
iAllowance is a simple app based around your kids completing their chores.
Parents can link their child’s bank account to the app and transfer money to those accounts when chores are completed. As you can see in the photo, every allowance transaction is tracked along with incoming cash from other sources and outgoing funds that your children have used to purchase items or services with their money.
The app costs just $2.99 to download, and you can sync it to all of your children’s bank accounts. The app shows a photo of each child, so you can quickly access all of their accounts from a single portal.
iAllowance is only available on iOS at this time.
HomeyApp: A Dynamic Chores And Money App For Kids
HomeyApp is a dynamic and engaging tool designed to make household chores fun and educational for kids. By transforming daily tasks into interactive and rewarding activities, HomeyApp helps children learn responsibility, time management, and the value of teamwork.
Parents can easily assign chores, track progress, and even set up an allowance system to incentivize completion. With its user-friendly interface and customizable features, HomeyApp turns routine chores into opportunities for growth and family bonding, making it an invaluable resource for fostering a sense of accomplishment and independence in children.
With a simple $4.99 monthly cost, this is another affordable and worthwhile financial app for children.
Step Banking Helps Your Teens Build Credit
Step is a banking app created to help teens build credit early and develop financial literacy. Unlike traditional banking apps, Step offers a unique opportunity for teens to start building a credit history from a young age without the risk of overspending. The app provides a secure, no-fee Visa card linked to their Step account, allowing teens to purchase while learning about money management.
Parents can monitor their child’s spending, set up allowances, and offer guidance through the app, ensuring a safe and educational financial experience. With Step, teens can track their spending, set savings goals, and understand the fundamentals of budgeting. The app also includes educational resources to teach teens about the importance of credit scores and how responsible credit use can impact their future.
By using Step, teens can establish a strong financial foundation, making it easier to secure loans, get better interest rates, and achieve financial independence as they grow.
You can learn more on the official Step website.
At the end of the day, any of these financial apps for kids will help your children learn a little about financial literacy, and that could go a long way to ensuring they take a healthy approach to money and their overall finances when they’re finally living on their own.
