An Allowance System That Works [Greenlight Review]

Have you wanted to set up an allowance system for your kids but struggle with consistency? It’s so easy to forget to take out cash or to miss a weekly allowance. Or even mix up those money jars.

Cash allowances can also be problematic when you’re at the store, and your kids want to buy something but have no idea how much money they have saved up at home. Or “forget” they spent their $20 already on a Lego set.

Enter Greenlight

Greenlight is an app that helps parents automate allowance-paying in the digital age and it’s fairly seamless.

With Greenlight, you, the parent, become the bank. And you control funding onto prepaid debit cards your kids can spend anywhere. The Greenlight app is your online bank interface (and Greenlight accounts are FDIC insured).

Greenlight was founded in 2017 with the mission to “help parents raise financially-smart kids.”

Through the Greenlight app and debit cards, kids can get real-world experience in managing their money. And parents can automate and oversee kids’ spending with security features built-in.

Greenlight allows you to set up “accounts” for up to five children, which you can control from the app.