How And Why To Keep A Close Eye On What Kids Buy

FamZoo comes with several builtin tools to help parents pay close attention to card activity within the family.

1. Transaction History — when signed into FamZoo, family members can browse the full history of all transactions on a card. Just click or tap on the balance of the desired card to see its history.

   The scope of visibility depends upon the family member’s role. Kids just see the transactions on their own cards, while parents can see all transactions on all cards in the family.

   The entries are sorted from newest to oldest. The history includes completed transactions, pending transactions, and even declined transactions. Having visibility on all declined transactions is unique to FamZoo and very powerful. Why? Because we believe every failed transaction is a potential learning opportunity. Select the red DECLINED lozenge next to an unsuccessful transaction, and you’ll see why it failed (insufficient funds, incorrect PIN, invalid security code, blocked merchant, etc.). Beneath the reason, you’ll find a suggestion on how to remedy the situation.

2. Weekly Activity Reports — each week, family members receive an email from FamZoo that summarizes transaction activity for the previous 7 days. Kids just see their own activity, while parents see activity for the whole family. The reports are a handy way to quickly detect interesting patterns or unexpected transactions that bear further discussion — like too many trips to Starbucks or 20 declined iTunes transactions in a row! 🤔
3. Activity Alerts — FamZoo can send real-time activity alerts to family members via text or email for all transaction attempts on a card — including failed ones. The alert includes the amount, the last 4 of the card, the merchant description, and the remaining balance. When a transaction is declined, the alert includes a brief description of the reason. Alerts can be directed to the parents, the child, or both (recommended).

   👉 If there is one monitoring tool to use to maximize awareness, this is the one!

Bonus Kids for Brown Bagging Lunch

I just calculated the average purchase amount at Chipotle in the last 30 days across all FamZoo cards. It came to $15.05. That’s a solid chunk of change for a meal. On a sobering inflationary side note, it was only around $7 when I made the same calculation back in May, 2016.

Here are the average purchase amounts for some of the most popular fast food destinations among FamZoo cardholders (sorted by decreasing popularity):

Start a Spend Now, Spend Later System for Smarter, Safer Spending

Impulse spending, peer pressure, phishing attacks, sketchy sites, dark patterns. There's no shortage of scary things lurking out there in the financial jungle conspiring to consume the funds on your child's card.

How can you minimize the risk?

Get your child a second spending card!

Question: How in the world can two spending cards be safer than one?

Answer: when they’re part of a Spend Now, Spend Later System.

• One card is a Spend Now card used for purchases. Normally, it’s empty.
• The other card is a Spend Later card that is never used in the wild. It’s a safe holding tank for future spending.
• Transfer the appropriate amount from the Spend Later card to the Spend Now card just in time for purchases.

As long as the Spend Later card never sees the light of day, its funds will be fully protected from impulse purchases, card skimmers, merchant data breaches, phishing attacks, and other bad habits or nefarious actors.

If bad actors do get a hold of the Spend Now card or its numbers, they’ll be disappointed to find its balance sitting at zero. You'll see their futile attempts as harmless declines in the transaction history. Lock the card and order a replacement at the first sign of any shenanigans.

Setting Up The System

Here’s how to get your Spend Now, Spend Later System up and running quickly:

How to Give Your Child an Allowance Advance, Responsibly.

Will you let your child practice paying the piper?

A mom recently wrote in:

“I frequently loan my kids some money against their weekly allowance or chore money for the following week. Can I use [FamZoo] to keep track of what they owe me?”

You might be thinking: “Wait, what? Payday loans for kids? Never!”

Not me. I think loans can be a valuable educational experience for kids to get under their belt.

Of course, it’s your call. Do what feels right for your family.

But, if you do grant Junior an advance, make sure you track it. Nothing good is learned when parental loans go unpaid. Fortunately, FamZoo's IOU accounts are perfect for tracking them and enforcing accountability.

The Setup

Here’s how to set up an IOU account to track any outstanding advances to Junior’s spending card:

Three Things Cardholders Need to Know Before Calling In

There are a few essential things you and your family members need to know before calling in to address issues with your FamZoo cards. Not knowing them could lead to unnecessary frustration and even unexpected card account blocks. Knowing them ensures a smoother customer service experience.

Family members need to know:

1. Who the cardholder is. It may not be who you think it is.
2. How to prove their identity. Many teens don’t know this.
3. Who they’re calling. It may not be who you think it is.

FamZoo Money Management 101: Start Here With Kids and Teens

“Be prepared.” ~ Scout Motto

Before your child ventures out into the financial woods with their new FamZoo card, be sure to cover these money management basics together.

This guide assumes you have activated your cards and set up your reload option(s) of choice.

Debit Card 101

Let’s start with the card itself: a reloadable prepaid debit card with a secure EMV chip.

How to Track Your Teen's Family 401(k)

The “Family 401(k)” is my all-time favorite family finance hack for parents seeking to help teens grow their wealth and investing IQ over decades. I’ve written and talked about the technique many times since 2011, and I’ve put it into practice with all 5 of my kids.

The Family 401(k) is a homespun version of the workplace 401(k) program commonly offered to employees. With a workplace 401(k), an employer kicks in extra money to help the employee build wealth in a tax-advantaged company sponsored retirement account. With a Family 401(k), parents kick in extra money to help their child grow wealth in a tax-advantaged individual retirement account known as a Roth IRA.

For the uninitiated, the quick recipe for the Family 401(k) is:

6 Reasons To Review 529 Statements With Your Teen

How much does your teen know about the 529 account you opened for college savings?

Nothing?

That’s the norm. Pretty dry stuff for a teenager.

Here’s a radical suggestion.

👉 Review your 529 statements with your teen.

And do it every quarter.

Yes, your initial sessions will be greeted with eyeball rolls, yawns, or worse. But keep up the good fight.

Through your consistent and repetitive efforts, your teen will gradually learn the following:

How To Decipher Purchase Locations In The Digital Era

“This Uber Eats charge must be fraud — we don’t live in SF!”

Have you coached your child on what to expect when it comes to reviewing card transaction descriptions?

If not, they might think a transaction is fraudulent when it isn’t.

A classic point of confusion: as more purchasing moves online or in-app, the city or state mentioned in a transaction description is increasingly unlikely to reflect the physical location where the purchase occurred. Instead, it often maps to the business headquarters of the merchant far away from the point of sale. That’s why, no matter where you use Uber Eats, you’ll see the following in your transaction history: