Greenlight Evaluate: Monetary Instruments for Households
Educating 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 would shock you to be taught that analysis reveals that solely 23% of children say they discuss to their dad and mom about cash, and youngsters who don’t obtain monetary training usually tend to find yourself in debt and to default on scholar loans.
No father or mother needs that for his or her kids!
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.
Children additionally get a Greenlight-branded debit card. Dad and mom who wish to prioritize monetary literacy could ponder whether Greenlight is the fitting app to make use of. Right here’s our take.
What’s Greenlight?
Greenlight is a household banking app whose mission is to educate youngsters tips on how to handle their cash.
Dad and mom can arrange a household account and make the most of an array of options to show their youngsters to be financially educated and accountable.
Greenlight is on the market 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 for those who do, your cash shall be deposited and held at Group 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 father or mother or grownup to assist out.
Professional Tip:
Greenlight is a household finance app that gives instruments like chore administration, financial institution accounts and playing cards, investing, and even security options for teenagers. Once you join Greenlight and refer your folks, you may earn as much as $600 a 12 months in referral bonuses!
What Options Does Greenlight Provide?
Greenlight presents options for each dad and mom and youngsters. Right here’s an outline of an important bells and whistles.
Chores & Allowance
One of many issues that oldsters 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 each 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 enable 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
Children with a Greenlight debit or bank card can earn bonuses on financial savings and money again on spending.
Financial savings rewards rely 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
Children may also earn 1% money again on purchases with the Max and Infinity Plans.
Investing
Greenlight presents funding choices for folks and youngsters with the highest two subscription tiers.
The father or mother funding choice 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 take a position.
Greenlight has tons of economic training round investing, too, so dad and mom can evaluate primary funding ideas with their youngsters.
As you may 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 gives dad and mom with a number of choices to shield their kids.
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 for those who don’t need your youngster to rack up a whole bunch of {dollars} of spending on video games like Roblox.
For older youngsters, the highest tier of Greenlight presents 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 street and that they’ll attain emergency companies rapidly if they should.
For Children & Teenagers
Among the best issues about Greenlight is that with any plan, you and your youngsters will get entry to a ton of monetary training assets protecting every part from saving to investing to charitable donations.
The sooner youngsters begin studying about cash administration and core monetary ideas, the extra doubtless 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 gives instruments like chore administration, financial institution accounts and playing cards, investing, and even security options for teenagers. Once you join Greenlight and refer your folks, you may earn as much as $600 a 12 months in referral bonuses!
How A lot Does Greenlight Price?
Greenlight is a subscription service with three completely different tiers.
The bottom tier comes with primary options, and the 2 greater tiers supply elevated performance and banking options. Right here’s how the price breaks down.
Greenlight Core
Greenlight Core is the primary plan, which prices $4.99 per thirty days. 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 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 fitting choice for your loved ones.
Greenlight Max
The center tier of Greenlight known as Greenlight Max, and the price of a subscription is $9.98 per thirty days. It comes with all of the options of the Core plan, plus:
- Investing for Dad and mom (full model)
- Investing for Children
- Greenlight Financial savings Reward of two%
- 1% money again on purchases
- Identification theft, telephone, and buy safety
- Precedence buyer help
In order for you to have the ability to make investments on behalf of your youngsters and educate your youngsters how investing works, this plan is perhaps proper for your loved ones.
Greenlight Infinity
The prime tier known as Greenlight Infinity, and the subscription price is $14.99 per thirty days. You’ll get every part 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 experiences
- Actual-time journey alerts
Households with youngsters could wish to go for Greenlight Infinity due to its enhanced security options to shield teen drivers.
How Does Greenlight Evaluate to Different Banking Apps for Children?
Along with Greenlight, there are numerous different monetary apps for teenagers. Listed below are a few comparisons that could be useful.
Greenlight vs BusyKid
BusyKid has most of the identical options as Greenlight, together with debit playing cards, financial savings incentives, and funding choices, plus academic content material.
One function that BusyKid has that Greenlight doesn’t is a bonus choice, 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 price.
Greenlight’s costs begin at $4.99 and prime out at $14.99 for the best tier. BusyKid fees $4 per thirty days or $48 per 12 months for as much as 5 kids, making it considerably inexpensive than Greenlight.
It’s value noting that there are not any tiers for BusyKid options, that 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 concerning the issue of canceling Greenlight.
Lastly, grandparents and different family can contribute to youngsters’ accounts utilizing a QR code.
Greenlight vs GoHenry
GoHenry is one other fashionable 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 kids.
Each apps embody academic content material to assist youngsters study cash. Each supply parental controls to present dad and mom peace of thoughts round their youngsters’ spending.
Like BusyKid, GoHenry makes it doable for family and household associates to deposit cash into youngsters’ accounts. In contrast to 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 gives instruments like chore administration, financial institution accounts and playing cards, investing, and even security options for teenagers. Once you join Greenlight and refer your folks, you may 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 here are some professionals and cons to think about.
Execs
- Children 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
- Children 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 should not an choice
- The essential account has restricted options
- Greenlight doesn’t work with P2P cost apps like PayPal and Venmo
- Children’ accounts have to be linked to a father or mother account, so it could be troublesome for folks with no joint account to share monitoring obligations
- 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 admire the parental management options, together with spending limits and computerized spending notifications that enable 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 youngsters can evaluate collectively to instill wholesome monetary habits.
- Greenlight’s 24/7 customer support earns loads of reward from customers.
There’s no such factor as a product with out destructive opinions. Listed below 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 have to be ready to monitor the app.
On the entire, we predict the positives far outweigh the negatives. Each dad and mom and youngsters can profit from utilizing Greenlight.
Remaining 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 academic content material and sensible options make it straightforward for teenagers 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 choice 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 Looking for Alpha evaluate.
