Greenlight Product Review - Managing Kids Money and Chores

Drea Nunez
Jun 28, 2022
4 min read

Updated: Apr 28, 2023

I alluded to this in my last blog post about kids and chores and using an app. Our family uses Greenlight to manage the kid's finances, and now their chore list. The way that I got started on this was when my son received a $100 bill for his birthday and immediately thought he lost it. It's terrifying when you lose it yourself, but watching your child, who doesn't have a lot of money, lose something that's so valuable can be heartbreaking. It was that day that I started looking for a financial tool that could be used to hold my kids money and provide them with a debit or credit card that they could use to make purchases.

The clear winner to me is Greenlight, because the cost is a small amount each month, and it's a cost to the parent, not the child. Opening up a checking account for your kid can incur lots of fees that end up depleting all the money that your kids had. This program will help to reduce the frustration of fees at such a young age, and prevent kids from not trusting financial institutes or not wanting to learn about finances.

Parents and kids can only access the account on a phone or tablet app; not on a desktop computer website. Why is this so important? This app does not work on Kindle Fire tablets! I completely understand why Greenlight doesn't want to QA and submit to a third app store, but when Kindle Fires are such a hot seller at a low price point, it's a bit of a pain for consumers. Not a big deal for my family, as we just ditched our Kindle Fire for a iPad, and my other child has an Android. (we are not Kindle Fire fans!!)

The app is also great at setting up chore lists for the kids; both weekly and one-off chores. When you set up the chore you can choose if it's paid or unpaid, and if it is recurring, what days of the week it needs to be completed. I LOVE being able to tell my kids, "Go check your Greenlight" when they as me what else they need to get done! I also love that if it is a paid chore, the parent gets notified that the chore is complete, and you can verify that it is done before any payment is made. Perfect for kids with Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD)! The only thing I wish they had was recurring monthly chores. There are a few things that I don't need every week, but I hate having to create new chores all the time.

So you might be asking, how do you fund this app? You set it up with access to an account that you transfer money from. This can be a recurring transfer or as you need it. I prefer as I need the cash to transfer, because it is instant; but, if you have recurring payments going out to your kids I can see where the auto-transfer would be helpful.

If you are interested in finding out what your kids spend their money on, or if they are spending money, Greenlight shows each transaction that is made. There are options to set limits for stores, but I have not personally tried that yet. My kids only spend money when they are with me or my husband, so I just haven't had the need to set up those controls yet. But, I do like the fact that when my kids get older, I can set up those controls. If you are interested in spend controls, check out this article from Greenlight on how to set them up: https://help.greenlight.com/hc/en-us/articles/216593448-What-are-Spend-Controls-and-how-do-they-work-#:~:text=Spend%20Controls%20are%20permission%2Dbased,within%20a%20particular%20spending%20category.

The savings section of the app is really nice for the kids to help them learn how to save for what they want. The app allows the kids to set up their own goals for things that they want, and associate a price with it. I absolutely love how it teaches the kids the mindset that not everything is instant gratification, and that you need to save for things you want. It's important to get this in their heads early before the world shows they how much stuff they can buy with a credit card and not having to pay for things right away.

Subscriptions

There are a couple different levels of green light that you can purchase as a subscription. My family is currently on the lowest plan, which just includes the banking and savings part. They also offer an expansion into investing, which I think when my kids get a bit older would be very interesting to see the kind of courses that they offer. Here are the current options and their prices:

Greenlight, $4.99 a month:

Chore list (paid or unpaid)
Savings goals
Splitting savings, spending and charity
Parent alerts
Interest rate from Greenlight 1%
Interest rate from parent (custom set)
Basic debit card
Custom card (at cost)

Greenlight + Invest, $7.98 a month:

Everything in Greenlight
Investing for kids
Investing for adults

Greenlight Max, $9.98 a month:

Everything in Greenlight + Invest
Interest rate from Greenlight increases to 2%
1% cash back on purchases
Debit card in black
Better customer support
Identity theft protection
Cell phone protection
Purchase protection

Let's recap with a quick review of the pros and cons. I think the pros outweigh the cons, so long as you do not have an Amazon tablet. If you have only Amazon tablets, I recommend that you find another solution, or purchase this option when you have switched.