I am declaring a mom win for team mama! My daughter recently purchased her first “big (not really) deal” purchase using her Green Light Card with money she earned. She was so excited that she was able to make her first online purchase. Needless to say that she has been stalking the mailman and seeing imaginary packages for the past 3 days. I am so proud of her accomplishment.
What is a Green Light Card?
Woo-wee, where do I begin? This card is designed for kids and is backed with an app that allows parents to manage and control every aspect of their child’s spending. Through the parent dashboard you can transfer money, set budgets and limit where and how your child spends their money. You can also set up chores that they can check off to earn their allowance or set their allowance on auto-pilot.
How I use the Green Light Card?
My daughter is 11 but when we first got her card she wasn’t able to use her tablet so we did things a little differently. We sat down and set a goal whether it was to save X amount of dollars or to save and purchase something she really wanted. Once she identified her goal I set out a list of chores and potential earnings ranging from 25 cents to $2. She would then sign up for the chores she wanted keeping her goal in mind. At the end of the week I told her how much she earned the percentage that went into savings, giving and spending with the option to roll any amount of spending into her saving. I also did something really sneaky and used the Green Light round up feature. The round up feature rounds to the nearest dollar when they spend money and places that into saving. I eventually told her what I did and she was totally cool with it.
What was Olivia’s first online purchase?
Okay, keep in mind she is 11 – her first “big (not really) deal” purchase was LED lights to put around her entire room. She looked up different lights and prices and decided which one she wanted. Once she saved enough we sat down together and made the purchase. I will update this post with pics of her room with the LED lights. I wanted the white lights but as the purchaser she had final say and went with colored lights. It will probably throw my whole angels, unicorns and ballerina theme out the window but we’re going with it.