Kids are ditching piggy banks for financial apps  

RIP, piggy banks — the ceramic cash containers of our youths are on their way to becoming relics of an analog era. 

Doing them in: a host of new, parent-favored financial apps that have emerged in recent years to teach today’s kids how to budget, save, and invest their money, per The Washington Post

How they work 

These apps help minors learn about financial literacy through educational videos and gamified lessons, and by giving them debit cards and access to manage their own funds. Teens with jobs can receive direct deposits through their accounts. 

Parents, meanwhile, can automate allowances, pay their kids for completing chores, receive real-time notifications about transactions, set spending limits, and block certain vendors. 

Most offer a free tier, with monthly subscriptions usually starting at ~$5 and increasing from there, depending on add-ons, like cash back rewards. 

One popular family money app… 

… is Greenlight, which boasts 6.5m+ users, 4m+ of whom have joined in the last five years. 

In 2024, kids and teens managed a record $2B through its app, according to the company’s annual report, which also found:

• The average allowance across age groups was $13.42.
• Their monthly spend hovered at $126, with much of it going to companies like Amazon and DoorDash.
• Collectively, they stashed away $259m, with most saving toward cars, college, and their futures, and invested $43m into stocks like Apple and Nvidia.  

Other platforms include Acorns Early (3.3m global users), as well as Jassby, Kachinga, FamZoo, and Modak.

Bank or bust?

While it frankly feels wrong for a child to know anything about a corporation like Nvidia, these apps set them up with key skills that many of us missed out on.

• The financial literacy rate is just 57% in the US, and even lower globally (33%).

Mixing minors with sensitive personal information does, however, raise obvious privacy concerns, like media-illiterate tots’ vulnerability to scams and hacks, and what the companies might do with their data.

Despite the risks, parents who spoke to The Post said the apps have helped their kids learn important lessons about money and, in some cases, even give them a sense of financial empowerment.  

One Acorns user reportedly told her mother, “Spending your own money feels so much better than when somebody buys it for you.”

Yeah, that’ll change.