It’s been a long time since I carried cash. And more importantly, regretted that decision. Recently, with iPay introduction, perhaps even carrying a piece of plastic in one’s pocket will go the way of the Dodo. What hasn’t kept up with the times, at least to my knowledge, is the allowance economy between parents and kids. Kids still receive mostly cash for helping with chores or when they’re remitted tooth credits from fairies, etc. Why isn’t there, or perhaps I should ask, is there an easy payment system, which resembles credit cards, which parents could and would want to issue to their kids?
Wouldn’t it be great to have an Allowance Card, which would act like a secured credit card? Parents could easily add funds, kids could only use them with parental consent and perhaps there could be a way to restrict/control which merchants kids could shop from. This way, at an early age, we start teaching our kids how to manage a credit card account, which is not at all similar to the cash they’re first exposed to.
There are many issues here that I’m choosing to ignore, like privacy, security, accessibility, fees – the list goes on. But, I know that my daughter will likely use cash far less than I do, which is rare already, and that I lack a solid teaching tool to prepare her for the real economy.