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: