Eleven-year-old Danielle and her Dad, Etay Gafni of Menlo Park developed an application that enables parents to help children manage the spending and saving of their money. This new children’s money management tool, bankaroo, is in beta use and will be open to the public Feb. 1.
According to Daneille, the bankaroo application works much better than her piggy bank.
“We needed an easy way for me to keep track of how much money I had available to spend today and in savings for things I wanted to purchase,” Danielle said.
Marie Hall is the founder of BeMoneySmartUSA, a Carmichael non-profit that teaches financial literacy to youth and parents.
“Today, you don’t see too many ten and eleven-year-olds without a cell phone anymore, so why not give them an application they will actually put to good use?” Hall said, “There are several websites that offer registers, tracking and goal setting templates and devices, but are not user friendly, are not all in one place and frankly not really usable unless you are walking around with a laptop. The mobile bankaroo program gives young people easy access to a tool that they can begin to use right away on their phone!”
The bankaroo application allows parents to create accounts for their children, upload virtual money (representing what the child has in the actual bank account), remove money and set goals. Kids have the ability to remove the money to reflect spending decisions and set goals (such as saving for particular activities or purchases). When parent and child are on the go, it is possible to document the decision to make a purchase, such as an ice cream cone, tickets to a movie, etc.
The application also provides for parents to match funds for savings goals and spending decisions.
Right now, Danielle has a savings goal of $200 for a Nintendo 3DS. Through bankaroo, she is able to direct her allowance into that particular savings bucket. Any changes or other decisions about how to spend the money would be adjusted to her bankaroo account.
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