Greenlight Review: Financial Tools for Families

Educating youngsters 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’d shock you to study that analysis exhibits that solely 23% of children say they speak to their mother and father about cash, and youngsters who don’t obtain monetary training usually tend to find yourself in debt and to default on pupil loans.

No father or mother desires that for his or her youngsters!

Greenlight is a monetary literacy app for youths that makes it a snap for folks to pay their youngsters an allowance, tie the allowance to chores and financial savings objectives, and extra. 

Children additionally get a Greenlight-branded debit card. Mother and father who wish to prioritize monetary literacy could ponder whether 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 youngsters the best way to handle their cash.

Mother and father 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 obtainable 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’ll be able to select a pay as you go card and if you happen to do, your cash can 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’ll be able to 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 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 pals, you possibly can earn as much as $600 a yr in referral bonuses!

What Options Does Greenlight Provide?

Greenlight presents options for each mother and father and youngsters. Right here’s an outline of crucial 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 objectives.

It’s straightforward to arrange chores for a number of youngsters.

You’ll be able to 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 mother and father wish to permit youngsters to earn cash for doing additional 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 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

Children can even 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 possibility can be included within the Core plan, however with “Lite” options. 

With Greenlight Max and Greenlight Infinity, mother and father can ship their youngsters cash to speculate.

Greenlight has tons of economic training round investing, too, so mother and father can evaluate 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 significantly and supplies mother and father with a number of choices to guard their youngsters.

First, there’s the choice to set spending limits for youths and prohibit sure transactions or require parental approval.

That’s one thing that may be extraordinarily helpful if you happen to don’t need your youngster to rack up tons of 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.

Mother and father 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 shortly if they should.

For Children & Teenagers

The most effective issues about Greenlight is that with any plan, you and your youngsters will get entry to a ton of economic training assets overlaying 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 received’t find yourself dwelling 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 pals, 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 totally different tiers.

The bottom tier comes with fundamental 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 fundamental plan comes with these options:

Debit playing cards for as much as 5 youngsters

Core monetary instruments for youths

Parental controls

Monetary training app

Greenlight Financial savings Reward of 1%

Greenlight Stage 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 Children

Greenlight Financial savings Reward of two%

1% money again on purchases

Identification theft, cellphone, and buy safety

Precedence buyer help

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 perhaps 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 studies

Actual-time journey alerts

Households with youngsters could 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 Children?

Along with Greenlight, there are a lot of different monetary apps for youths. Listed below are a few comparisons that could 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 academic content material.

One characteristic that BusyKid has that Greenlight doesn’t is a bonus possibility, which permits mother and father to reward their youngsters primarily based on no matter standards they select.

The largest distinction between Greenlight and BusyKid is the price.

Greenlight’s costs begin at $4.99 and prime out at $14.99 for the very best tier. BusyKid expenses $4 per 30 days or $48 per yr for as much as 5 youngsters, 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 in regards to 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 youths. 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 academic content material to assist youngsters study cash. Each supply parental controls to provide mother and father peace of thoughts round their youngsters’ spending.

Like BusyKid, GoHenry makes it potential for family and household mates 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 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 pals, you possibly can earn as much as $600 a yr in referral bonuses!

Professionals and Cons of Greenlight 

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

Professionals

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

Mother and father can set spending limits for youths and monitor their spending historical past

Cash transfers could also be linked to chores and objectives

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 will not be an possibility

The fundamental account has restricted options

Greenlight doesn’t work with P2P fee apps like PayPal and Venmo

Children’ accounts should be linked to a father or mother account, so it might be troublesome for folks and not using a joint account to share monitoring duties

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 recognize the parental management options, together with spending limits and computerized spending notifications that permit them to observe youngsters’ monetary conduct.

Mother and father love the situation 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 damaging evaluations. Listed below are a couple of 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 most likely need to name the corporate if you wish to terminate your subscription.

For Greenlight to assist youngsters, 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 youngsters can profit from utilizing Greenlight.

Remaining Ideas

Our takeaway is that Greenlight is an excellent app for households the place mother and father need their youngsters to study cash from an early age.

Its academic content material and sensible options make it straightforward for youths to economize, spend responsibly, and discover ways to make investments.

The largest 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 may get entry to all of Greenlight’s options.

To study one other platform with monetary training instruments, take a look at our In search of Alpha evaluate.