Greenlight Review: Financial Tools for Families

Educating children about cash requires much more than giving them an allowance.

Mother and father who need their youngsters to develop as much as be financially accountable adults know that children who study the fundamentals of saving, spending, and curiosity are those who’ll be arrange for a financially secure future. 

It would shock you to study that analysis reveals that solely 23% of youngsters say they speak to their mother and father about cash, and children who don’t obtain monetary schooling usually tend to find yourself in debt and to default on scholar loans.

No guardian needs that for his or her youngsters!

Greenlight is a monetary literacy app for teenagers that makes it a snap for fogeys to pay their children an allowance, tie the allowance to chores and financial savings targets, and extra. 

Youngsters additionally get a Greenlight-branded debit card. Mother and father who wish to prioritize monetary literacy might wonder if Greenlight is the suitable app to make use of. Right here’s our take.

What’s Greenlight?

Greenlight is a household banking app whose mission is to show children methods to handle their cash.

Mother and father can arrange a household account and benefit from an array of options to show their children to be financially educated and accountable.

Greenlight is on the market for each Apple and Android cellular units. It has a user-friendly interface (extra on that under) and a ton of helpful options that each educate and shield children.

You’ll be able to select a pay as you go card and in the event you do, your cash might 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 schooling video games, a weblog, and their podcast.

You’ll be able to handle your child’s account your self or add one other guardian 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. Whenever you join Greenlight and refer your folks, you possibly can earn as much as $600 a yr in referral bonuses!

What Options Does Greenlight Supply?

Greenlight affords options for each mother and father and children. Right here’s an summary of a very powerful bells and whistles.

Chores & Allowance

One of many issues that folks love about Greenlight is that it permits them to schedule children’ chores and tie their allowance to chores and monetary targets.

It’s simple to arrange chores for a number of children.

You’ll be able to set the frequency of every chore, specifying whether or not it must be executed 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 mother and father wish to permit children to earn cash for doing additional jobs round the home, there’s an choice to set that up and pay children 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 depend 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

Youngsters can even earn 1% money again on purchases with the Max and Infinity Plans.

Investing 

Greenlight affords funding choices for fogeys and children with the highest two subscription tiers.

The guardian funding possibility can be included within the Core plan, however with “Lite” options. 

With Greenlight Max and Greenlight Infinity, mother and father can ship their children cash to take a position.

Greenlight has tons of economic schooling round investing, too, so mother and father can assessment primary funding ideas with their children.

As you possibly can see, you and your children can take a look at detailed inventory and ETF evaluation and you can begin your children off with as little as $1.

Security

Greenlight takes children’ security severely and gives mother and father with a number of choices to guard 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 in the event you don’t need your youngster to rack up lots of of {dollars} of spending on video games like Roblox.

For older children, the highest tier of Greenlight affords extra security options together with Crash Detection, SOS, and drive monitoring.

Mother and father can have the peace of thoughts of realizing the place their children are once they’re on the street and that they’ll attain emergency providers shortly if they should.

For Youngsters & Teenagers

Probably the greatest issues about Greenlight is that with any plan, you and your children will get entry to a ton of economic schooling assets overlaying every part from saving to investing to charitable donations. 

The sooner children begin studying about cash administration and core monetary rules, 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. Whenever you join Greenlight and refer your folks, you possibly can earn as much as $600 a yr 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 larger tiers supply elevated performance and banking options. Right here’s how the price breaks down.

Greenlight Core

Greenlight Core is the essential plan, which prices $4.99 per 30 days. The essential plan comes with these options:

Debit playing cards for as much as 5 children

Core monetary instruments for teenagers

Parental controls

Monetary schooling app

Greenlight Financial savings Reward of 1%

Greenlight Degree Up (monetary video games)

Investing for Mother and father (Lite model)

This plan is good if you wish to do a trial run of Greenlight to see if it’s the suitable possibility 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 30 days. It comes with all of the options of the Core plan, plus:

Investing for Mother and father (full model)

Investing for Youngsters

Greenlight Financial savings Reward of two%

1% money again on purchases

Id theft, telephone, and buy safety

Precedence buyer assist

If you would like to have the ability to make investments on behalf of your children and educate your children how investing works, this plan could be proper for your loved ones.

Greenlight Infinity

The highest tier known as Greenlight Infinity, and the subscription price is $14.99 per 30 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 stories

Actual-time journey alerts

Households with youngsters might wish to go for Greenlight Infinity due to its enhanced security options to guard teen drivers.

How Does Greenlight Evaluate to Different Banking Apps for Youngsters?

Along with Greenlight, there are lots of different monetary apps for teenagers. Listed below are a few comparisons which may be useful.

Greenlight vs BusyKid

BusyKid has most of the similar options as Greenlight, together with debit playing cards, financial savings incentives, and funding choices, plus instructional content material.

One characteristic that BusyKid has that Greenlight doesn’t is a bonus possibility, which permits mother and father to reward their children based mostly 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 prices $4 per 30 days or $48 per yr for as much as 5 youngsters, making it considerably cheaper than Greenlight.

It’s value noting that there are not 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 problem of canceling Greenlight.

Lastly, grandparents and different family members can contribute to children’ accounts utilizing a QR code.

Greenlight vs GoHenry

GoHenry is one other widespread 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 embrace instructional content material to assist children find out about cash. Each supply parental controls to offer mother and father peace of thoughts round their children’ spending.

Like BusyKid, GoHenry makes it potential for family members and household pals to deposit cash into children’ 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 gives instruments like chore administration, financial institution accounts and playing cards, investing, and even security options for teenagers. Whenever you join Greenlight and refer your folks, you possibly can earn as much as $600 a yr in referral bonuses!

Execs and Cons of Greenlight 

Earlier than you select Greenlight to show your children about finance, listed here are some execs and cons to contemplate.

Execs

Youngsters get a debit card to assist them discover ways to spend responsibly

Mother and father 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 once they use their card

Entry to monetary schooling and cash instruments

Sure transactions could also be blocked to guard children

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 guardian account, so it might be troublesome for fogeys 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.

Mother and father respect the parental management options, together with spending limits and automated spending notifications that permit them to observe children’ monetary habits.

Mother and father love the placement monitoring and different security options that present peace of thoughts for teen drivers.

Greenlight earns excessive marks for its monetary assets, which oldsters and children can assessment collectively to instill wholesome monetary habits.

Greenlight’s 24/7 customer support earns numerous reward from customers.

There’s no such factor as a product with out destructive critiques. Listed below are a number of not-so-complimentary issues customers have mentioned about Greenlight.

There’s no free model, so that you’ll should pay to strive Greenlight out.

Canceling Greenlight isn’t simple from contained in the app; you’ll most likely should name the corporate if you wish to terminate your subscription.

For Greenlight to assist children, mother and father should be ready to observe the app.

On the entire, we predict the positives far outweigh the negatives. Each mother and father and children can profit from utilizing Greenlight.

Ultimate Ideas

Our takeaway is that Greenlight is an excellent app for households the place mother and father need their children to find out about cash from an early age.

Its instructional content material and sensible options make it simple 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 possibility the place you will get entry to all of Greenlight’s options.

To find out about one other platform with monetary schooling instruments, take a look at our Searching for Alpha assessment.