Who Is Struggling With Their Cards?

FamZoo family members often struggle with their cards. Not surprising. Young kids are just learning the financial ropes and discovering the 11 important numbers they need to know. Teenagers inadvertently sign up for subscription services they can’t afford. Elderly family members have senior moments.

Are your family members struggling with their cards? When? Why? Where?

Unless you have activity alerts enabled, you may not know for sure. Even if you do, you may want to collect a handy summary report for a family finance meeting.

Here’s how to capture a quick struggle snapshot across the whole family:

3 Clever Ways To Use Transfer Requests

Who holds the purse strings in a FamZoo family?

Short answer: parents (with lots of lobbying from the kids).

When it comes to money oversight, family members in the parent role are “all powerful”. They can see all of the cards in the family, manage all of the automated money movement rules, and transfer funds instantly between any of the cards.

On the other hand, family members in the child role have restricted powers. They can only see their own cards and can’t move money between cards without parental approval.

Children can seek money movement approval by launching a money transfer request. Here’s how a typical exchange works between a family member in the child role, “Junior”, and a family member in the parent role, “Mom”:

6 Traits of a Well-Tuned Allowance

Do allowances spoil kids?

No, parents do. Allowances are just the misused vehicle of choice.

Applied correctly, allowances don’t spoil. They teach kids to be responsible and thoughtful with money.

If you’re seeing otherwise, your allowance approach needs a tune-up.

A well-tuned allowance:

4 Ways To Deliver A Spot Bonus

Have you ever received a spot bonus at work?

Boy, does that feel awesome to get some bottom line recognition for a job well done!

No doubt, your kid would love that feeling too.

In fact, I see spot bonus transactions all the time on FamZoo cards.

Check out this sampling of spot bonus reasons pulled from anonymous transaction data:

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? We believe every failed transaction is a potential learning opportunity. Select the red DECLINED lozenge next to an unsuccessful transaction to reveal the Transaction Details screen. You’ll see why the transaction 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.

   You’ll also see the “card entry mode” which indicates how the payment was attempted. Learn more about card entry modes here.

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!

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:

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:

How To Set Up The Ideal Teen Budget

You’re looking for just the right financial setup for your teen.

Not too simplistic: learning is the goal. You want your teen to master critical money management skills before leaving the nest.

Not too sophisticated: no need to boil the ocean here. Don’t create a monster your teen hates and you can’t manage. You’re a busy parent. Having helped raise 5 teens, I get it.

For the sweet spot, I recommend a 4 bucket system with card accounts for:

1. Everyday expenses
2. Saving
3. Charitable giving
4. Clothing expenses

(Note: if your teen could care less about clothing, pick some other budget category that they really care about: sports, music, art, gaming, whatever.)

When ordering cards, click/tap Add Card next to your teen’s entry to add each of the four cards. Fill in the custom label line with the corresponding short description above (or similar) and select the appropriate spend / save / give category for each.

When the cards arrive:

1. Activate the cards.
2. Set a memorable but secure PIN for each.
3. Create a modest weekly allowancethat splits the amount between the first three accounts.

   I recommend discussing the split percentages with your teen to come up with a reasonable allocation, but 80% / 10% / 10% is a good place to start. You can always adjust the ratios later.

   How much is a modest amount? That varies by family, but America&rquo;s favorite formula is age-in-years times a dollar. You can tune this as you go too, so a little trial and error is fine. If your teen can buy whatever they want, whenever they want, it&rquo;s too much. If it takes “forever” (teen-speak for a few weeks) to accumulate enough to go to Chipotle or Whataburger with friends every once in a while, it’s too little.

4. Add an aggressive parent-paid weekly interest rate to the savings card. FamZoo parents are paying an average weekly rate of 1.5% right now. Cha-ching! Note that you can cap the total amount paid out each time — for example, never more than $3. That way, the rewards don’t get out of control once your teen finally figures out what an insane deal you’re offering.
5. Create a monthly or annual clothing allowance that goes 100% to the clothing expense account. You can use a FamZoo budget worksheet to negotiate the appropriate amount with your teen.
6. Set up activity alerts on all cards. Let your teen know you’ll be getting a text for every transaction too. That’s a great way to head off potential shenanigans at the pass. It’s also an easy way for your teen to stay on budget since the notifications include the resulting balance.
7. Review this article with your teen: 11 Numbers Kids With Prepaid Cards Need To Know.
8. Review this article with your teen: 6 Ways To Guard Your Kid’s Prepaid Card.
9. If your teen will be pumping gas, review this FAQ entry: What’s the best way to pay for gas?
10. Decide what expenses you are willing to pick up on your teen’s behalf (books, half the gas expenses, school day lunches, etc.). Then, show your teen how reimbursement requests work.

Your teen will learn many critical money lessons with this setup over the years. Here’s a lucky seven sampling off the top of my head:

1. How to handle a card responsibly. If things go south, you can always impose a little “financial timeout” by locking the everyday expense card.
2. How to monitor for unexpected or unauthorized charges using card alerts.
3. How to give every dollar a mission by splitting incoming funds between multiple purpose-driven accounts.
4. How to pay themselves first by saving before spending.
5. How to harness the power of compound interest.Your teen will eventually realize that money — if left alone in the right place — can make more money through compounding. You’ll know your teen has figured it out when you start seeing transfer requests from spending to savings.
6. How to create and manage a budget over a relatively long timeframe. Your teen is also likely to learn how to handle the consequences of blowing through a budget right out of the gates — just like my daughter did with her clothing account.
7. How to appreciate the value of a dollar and the humbling cost of everyday items.

That sounds just about right for flying the financial coop.🐥

How To Find Out Why Your Kid's Card Isn't Working

Declines on kids’ cards are embarrassing, frustrating, inconvenient, and ... most of the time, easily avoided.

How do I know?

I just looked at our decline data for the last week.

The overwhelming majority of declines — 62% — are due to insufficient balance on the card. The fix?

Help Children With Cognitive Disabilities Learn To Manage Money Safely

Earlier this year, I received a wonderful email from Ned, a father of a child with Williams syndrome.

Ned wrote: “Hi Bill, FYI — I wanted to let you know what I posted to the Facebook group for the disability my daughter has regarding FamZoo. The card has been very important for us personally for the past few years, and many other parents of young adults with my daughter’s disability have issues with financial management. This post was long overdue, but hopefully it will help others learn more about the benefits of FamZoo.”

I was blown away by Ned’s Facebook post. With his permission, I am reproducing it here verbatim. I’d rather you read the authentic message word-for-word from Ned than have me dilute its authenticity in any way through adaptation.

Here it is:

4 Ways to Reload FamZoo Cards Instantly

“I need to get more money on my FamZoo card. Right. Now.”

I hear that often from panicked parents.

Good news on that front! Apple just joined the instant reload party.

On August 5th, Apple added instant transfer support for MasterCard debit cards — like ours. I tested it myself the following weekend. Worked like a charm. 99 bucks to my Bank of Dad card instantly for a $1 fee. (Apple has since bumped up the fee from 1% to 1.5%.)

That brings the digital wallet instant transfer support count to three: Apple, PayPal, and Venmo. So, if you have money sitting in any one of those digital wallets, you can move it over to FamZoo within minutes.

All three digital wallets charge a fee for instant transfers: typically 1.5% to 1.75% of the amount, with a minimum fee of 25 cents and a maximum fee of $15 to $25.

Unfortunately, CashApp is the one remaining instant transfer hold out. CashApp doesn’t support linking the FamZoo card as a debit card yet. So, only the slower 1 to 3 business day transfer option is available there.

Here’s a summary of the FamZoo reload support for the major digital wallets:

11 Numbers Kids With Prepaid Cards Need To Know

As parents, it’s hard to remember what it was like to make that first debit card purchase way back when. What’s routine for us seasoned veterans can be a complete mystery to the uninitiated. There are actually quite a few numbers on (and off) the card that your child must understand to transact successfully and safely.

What are those critical numbers? When do you need them? Where do you find them? How do you take care of them?

Here’s a handy list. Take a moment to quiz your kid (and yourself).

How To Let Kids Compete for Odd Jobs With Secret Bids

Recently, Coralee asked the Parent Community:

“Is there an option for kids to ‘bid’ on chores in FamZoo? My kids have decided we should do this (based on the show, ‘No Good Nick’). I was thinking it would be great if there was a way for the kids to electronically (secretly) send their bids to the parents, and then the parent could select and award the chore to the lowest bidder.”

Cool idea! My suggestion: use a chore checklist coupled with money requests.

Here’s how...

How To Reload Your FamZoo Prepaid Card Instantly From Venmo

Typically, reloading your FamZoo card electronically takes 1 to 3 business days via ACH transfer. There is, however, an electronic instant reload option that many of our Zoomer cardholders have been using heavily: Venmo Instant Transfers. It’s an excellent alternative to instant cash reloads which must be done in person at a local retailer.

I tested it myself a few weeks ago. Here’s how it works:

Reloading Your FamZoo Card: A Little Tricky, Very Secure!

I hear it all the time:

“Bill, I like to think I’m intelligent but... for the life of me, I can’t figure out how to reload this darn card!!!”

“Why don’t you just pull money from my debit card?”

Short response: You are intelligent. The setup is a bit tricky. We do it this way for your safety...and ours.

Longer answer...

As bad as I feel hearing about reload setup struggles, here’s a dialog I’d hate to have even more:

“Bill, my kid (or some random fraudster) just drained my main checking account from your darn app!”

Well, you (and I) can rest easy knowing we will never have that more painful conversation.

Why?

Introducing Default Accounts: Perfect for First-Dibs Chore Charts

Suppose you’re setting up a checklist item that delivers a reward. (Think chore charts for the kids.) You need to specify where that reward should be delivered when the item is completed. Should it be credited to Johnny’s spending account? Should it be credited to Suzy’s spending, saving, and giving accounts using her spend/save/give split?

Choosing an explicit target account is fine when you know up front who should receive the reward. But what if the opportunity is first come, first serve? You want the kid who checks off the item first to earn the credit. Families often call this a “First Dibs” Chore Chart.

In the past, we had a clunky workaround for first dibs chore charts. The parent had to create separate items for each of the kids and then trust that only one kid — the deserving kid — would check off the right item. What could go wrong? 😬

Now we have a more elegant solution. We introduced a new target destination for rewards and penalties on checklist items. It’s called the Default Account. If you want a chore reward to go to the first child who completes it, set the target account to the Default Account entry. Later, when the first child checks off the item, we’ll look up that child’s default account setting and apply the reward to it.

Here’s how to set it up step-by-step.

How To Track an Xbox Loan To Your Kid With Payments Every Fortnite

John recently wrote in:

I told my kids I would float their repayment of a Xbox Live subscription since it came due before any of us realized they should have been saving for it. At any rate, they owe us $21 each, and I want them to pay $7 every other week. What’s the best way to track this, preferably in a way that they can see it — I guess it’s basically a loan.

Here’s my suggestion:

Ordering Prepaid Cards For Your Kids

Watch this video to learn everything you need to know about ordering FamZoo prepaid cards for your kids. It’s the perfect way to give your kids safe, hands-on experience managing money. You’ll learn about family registration, subscription plans, additional fees (or lack thereof!), how the cards work, age requirements, online verification, custom card labels, how we securely handle your personal info, shipping, and online activation upon delivery.

How to Offer Extra Job Opportunities to Your Kids

Diane, a FamZoo mom, sent us the following question:

I would like to just supply a list of chores (with an associated value) that my kids can do whenever they want and do them multiple times. So, I would put ‘one load of laundry=$2.00’ and each time they do a load of laundry they would get $2.00 deposited. They might do two loads one day, none the next, one the day after, etc. Is there a way to accommodate this?

Setting up a checklist of optional extra jobs that kids can knock off from time to time to earn some extra bucks is a popular technique among FamZoo families. Parents pull it off using the rewards, repeat frequency, and expiration options of FamZoo checklist items.

Here’s how you can set up Diane’s laundry job opportunities: