Educating youngsters 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 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 dad or mum needs that for his or her youngsters!
Greenlight is a monetary literacy app for teenagers 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 wish to prioritize monetary literacy might ponder whether Greenlight is the precise app to make use of. Right here’s our take.
What’s Greenlight?
Greenlight is a household banking app whose mission is to train youngsters how one can 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 cell 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 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 training video games, a weblog, and their podcast.
You may handle your child’s 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. Once you join Greenlight and refer your mates, 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 outline of an important 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 simple to arrange chores for a number of youngsters.
You may set the frequency of every chore, specifying whether or not it must be accomplished day by 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 permit youngsters to earn cash for doing further 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 rely on 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 also can 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 dad or mum funding possibility can also 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 take a position.
Greenlight has tons of economic training round investing, too, so dad and mom can evaluation fundamental funding ideas with their youngsters.
As you possibly can see, you and your youngsters can take a look at detailed inventory and ETF evaluation and you can begin your youngsters off with as little as $1.
Security
Greenlight takes youngsters’ security critically and offers dad and mom with a number of choices to shield their youngsters.
First, there’s the choice to set spending limits for teenagers and prohibit sure transactions or require parental approval.
That’s one thing that may be extraordinarily helpful should you don’t need your little one to rack up lots 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 understanding the place their youngsters are after they’re on the highway and that they’ll attain emergency companies rapidly if they should.
For Youngsters & Teenagers
Among the finest issues about Greenlight is that with any plan, you and your youngsters will get entry to a ton of monetary training assets masking 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 gained’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. Once you join Greenlight and refer your mates, 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 completely different tiers.
The bottom tier comes with fundamental options, and the 2 increased tiers supply elevated performance and banking options. Right here’s how the fee breaks down.
Greenlight Core
Greenlight Core is the fundamental plan, which prices $4.99 monthly. The essential plan comes with these options:
- Debit playing cards for as much as 5 youngsters
- Core monetary instruments for teenagers
- Parental controls
- Monetary training app
- Greenlight Financial savings Reward of 1%
- Greenlight Stage Up (monetary video games)
- Investing for Dad and mom (Lite model)
This plan is right if you wish to do a trial run of Greenlight to see if it’s the precise 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 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, cellphone, and buy safety
- Precedence buyer assist
In order for you to have the ability to make investments on behalf of your youngsters and train your youngsters 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 value 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 reviews
- Actual-time journey alerts
Households with youngsters might 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 a lot of different monetary apps for teenagers. 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 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 fee.
Greenlight’s costs begin at $4.99 and prime out at $14.99 for the best tier. BusyKid fees $4 monthly or $48 per 12 months for as much as 5 youngsters, 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 simple to cancel your subscription the place some customers have complained in regards to the issue of canceling Greenlight.
Lastly, grandparents and different relations can contribute to youngsters’ accounts utilizing a QR code.
Greenlight vs GoHenry
GoHenry is one other in style monetary app for teenagers. 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 youngsters study cash. Each supply parental controls to offer dad and mom peace of thoughts round their youngsters’ spending.
Like BusyKid, GoHenry makes it attainable for relations and household associates 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. Once you join Greenlight and refer your mates, you possibly can earn as much as $600 a 12 months in referral bonuses!
Execs and Cons of Greenlight
Earlier than you select Greenlight to show your youngsters about finance, listed below are some execs and cons to think about.
Execs
- Youngsters get a debit card to assist them discover ways to spend responsibly
- Dad and mom can set spending limits for teenagers and observe their spending historical past
- Cash transfers could also be linked to chores and targets
- Youngsters earn money again and financial savings rewards after they use their card
- Entry to monetary training and cash instruments
- Sure transactions could also be blocked to guard youngsters
Cons
- Money deposits aren’t an possibility
- The essential account has restricted options
- Greenlight doesn’t work with P2P cost apps like PayPal and Venmo
- Youngsters’ accounts should be linked to a dad or mum account, so it could be tough for folks and not using a joint account to share monitoring tasks
- 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 admire the parental management options, together with spending limits and computerized spending notifications that permit them to monitor youngsters’ monetary habits.
- 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 folks and children can evaluation collectively to instill wholesome monetary habits.
- Greenlight’s 24/7 customer support earns plenty of reward from customers.
There’s no such factor as a product with out detrimental 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 need to pay to attempt Greenlight out.
- Canceling Greenlight isn’t simple from contained in the app; you’ll most likely need to name the corporate if you wish to terminate your subscription.
- For Greenlight to assist youngsters, dad and mom should be ready to monitor 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 simple for teenagers to economize, spend responsibly, and discover ways to make investments.
The most important potential draw back is Greenlight’s value, which is excessive in comparison with different apps—significantly for the highest tier, which is the one possibility the place you may get entry to all of Greenlight’s options.
To study one other platform with monetary training instruments, take a look at our Searching for Alpha evaluation.
