GoHenry: The Card Teaching Children Financial Responsibility

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When raising kids, you want them to be smart with money. After all, isn’t part of your responsibilities as a parent gearing your child up to be a responsible adult who can make good financial decisions later on in life? However, it can be difficult to actually realize this goal.

The concept of a cash allowance seems a little outdated, and you’ve likely heard your child come home from school with stories of friends or classmates who have their own debit cards. How do you teach your child fiscal responsibility, without just giving them free access to extra cash whenever they want it? How do you strike a good balance?

GoHenry can help.

What is GoHenry?

Research shows that children as young as seven years old pick up on their parents’ financial habits and start forming opinions about money by watching how their parents feel about money. Just as you aim to teach your children good money management skills, GoHenry focuses on providing parents like you with the tools needed to teach kids how to have a healthy money mindset.

Take it from Jake Hill, CEO of DebtHammer! In his words, “GoHenry is sort of like a mock-debit card for kids, except there is actual money involved. It is an app that allows kids to work on their budgeting, saving, and spending habits, and it issues them Visa prepaid debit cards to use when they earn money by completing tasks like chores. Parents are able to view the child’s account and money habits, and they can put in parental controls to limit where the child can spend their money. There is a $3.99 monthly fee.”

The brand makes it extra convenient to educate children about money through a wealth of tools and various educational options. With GoHenry, your children will be exposed to insight about how to make the right decisions with pocket money or how to set up household money rules.

GoHenry was founded in 2012. Since then, it has helped more than two million members. Founded and funded by parents themselves, GoHenry was designed to operate just like a subscription service. For only $4 per month after the first 30 days free, you’ll receive a debit card for your child as well as access to an app and educational Money Missions.

And to top it all off, you can cancel at any time. GoHenry has been steadily growing over the years, and in late 2020, GoHenry raised $40 million in growth funding, which was anticipated to expand the business throughout both the United States and the United Kingdom. In the United Kingdom, GoHenry was so popular in 2019 that parents paid £98 million to their children, with £2.2 million of that being earned just by completing household chores. From there, children in the United Kingdom who were using GoHenry spent £100 million in total.

In conjunction with the additional growth, GoHenry released a statement from Alex Zivoder, CEO, back in 2020, in which he said, “For too long, kids have been locked out of the digital economy and parents lacked the tools to help their children gain confidence with money and finances.

“GoHenry was the first to respond to these needs in 2012 when we launched a groundbreaking financial education app and prepaid debit card that truly empowered children. In 2020, we’ve achieved three key milestones: becoming profitable which many B2C fintechs seek, raising $40m during COVID, and partnering with world leading funds. All three will help us fuel our U.S. expansion.”

So, How Does GoHenry Work?

After you sign up for GoHenry, your child will receive a debit card that has been personalized to their tastes and equipped with a cool design. As the parent, you’ll all get access to the app as well. The app can be shared with the entire family, as the app features can be tailored to each child user’s age and money management skills. Speaking of age, GoHenry is suitable for kids between the ages of six and eighteen.

With GoHenry, parents can enjoy a high level of control over their children’s spending and monitor how their child spends money in real-time. Parents can also set up tasks for their children, like doing their chores. When the children complete their chores, parents can then automatically pay their child through the app by adding spending money to their cards. Similarly, parents can set up weekly transfers for an allowance as well.

Parents can also set spending controls that will only allow their children to use their cards at certain places or for predetermined amounts. Additionally, parents can set up savings goals for their kids as a way of teaching their children about the importance of building a robust savings account. There’s even a feature that allows kids to easily and conveniently give to charity!

Parenting from two different households? Not a problem! GoHenry offers a co-parenting feature that allows parents to set boundaries, receive notifications and manage child card usage together even when living separately.

Does your child need money ASAP? No worries! The GoHenry app allows you to not only send money for tasks as they are completed and set up weekly transfers, but you can also send money in the moment during those situations where something pops up out of nowhere.

Relatives and friends alike can send direct gifts to your child’s account as well. Whether it’s for birthdays and holidays or just because, setting up transfers from people you trust is an easy process. If you have an older child who has a job already, the card also features a direct deposit function, so they can get their paycheck sent directly to their GoHenry account. Additionally, older children can transfer funds to friends using an in-app transfer system similar to Venmo.

Dean Brauer, Co-Founder and President of GoHenry, adds, “At GoHenry, we believe that early financial education is the cornerstone of personal financial health and well-being.”

“By providing kids and teens with fun, hands-on experiences through our debit card and in-app learning games, we’re teaching them to earn, save, spend, and invest responsibly so they can grow into adults who are smart and confident with money,” Brauer continues.

GoHenry Money Missions

Image of GoHenry opened up on a phone with a credit card nearby

One unique feature that makes GoHenry stand out from the typical debit card? The brand now offers in-app Money Missions, which were introduced in the later months of 2021. Basically, Money Missions are like educational games that teach your child how to spend and save money. They also teach kids how to better understand financial terms, such as interest, investing and borrowing.

The videos and quizzes offered by Money Missions are designed to increase your child’s money-related knowledge, allowing them to earn points and badges as they expand their understanding of money. And while you may think that basic financial skills are taught in school, think again. According to the National Endowment for Financial Education, over 90% of teens failed to demonstrate adequate financial literacy to make long-term money decisions because schools don’t educate children about money.

In addition to teaching basic financial literacy, GoHenry also introduces children to more complex money matters, like the finances of becoming an entrepreneur or the future of money. The Money Missions were developed in tandem with educational and financial experts. Plus, they adhere to the national standards in K–12 personal finance education, so the information will be presented in a way that kids can easily understand.

Even if your child isn’t too keen on the Money Missions part of the app, you can still sign up for the family finance weekly newsletter to get handy tips delivered straight to your inbox. There’s also the convenient GoHenry blog, which covers the latest in family spending news. From discussing money with your children and what not to tell your children about money to everything else in between, GoHenry has so many tips for parents.

FAQs About GoHenry

Need more? Here are a few key things to know about GoHenry before you sign up for an account.

How Many Children Can Use GoHenry At Once?

If you have more than one child, you may be wondering if GoHenry is the right fit for your family. Luckily, each parent can have up to four children linked to their GoHenry account. Each child will receive their own individual GoHenry card that will be paired with their own GoHenry child count.

Even though the children will all have their own individual accounts, you’ll be able to manage all of the accounts from your singular parental account. Have more than four kids? Don’t worry! You can have the person you co-parent with or another legal guardian whom you trust set up their own GoHenry account, and you can then add the other kids onto that account.

How Do the Chores or Task Features Work on GoHenry?

The task feature on GoHenry is pretty flexible and easy to customize for your individual needs. You can set up one-off tasks, daily tasks, repeat tasks and duplicate tasks, so that you can manage your child’s chore responsibilities no matter if it’s taking out the trash once per week or unloading and loading the dishwasher daily.

Then, you can choose to either mark tasks as complete on your own or allow your child to mark their tasks complete once they finish them. As time goes on and more tasks are completed, your child will get paid in correspondence with the task they completed.

What Kind of Parental Controls Does GoHenry Allow?

One of the nice things about GoHenry is that the card already blocks transactions at certain retailers that aren’t considered child-friendly. These locations include places like casinos, betting shops, betting websites, bars, nightclubs, certain restaurants, dating websites, in-bound teleservices, automated fuel dispensers, off-licenses, wine stores, beer wholesalers, tobacconists and adult entertainment venues.

But don’t worry! If your teen needs to pay for gas, they can do so inside the gas station. The card just blocks gas purchases directly at the pump.

From there, you can set your own individualized controls on details like where your child can spend, whether that be online, in-store, or at an ATM, as well as how much they can spend in a week. You might want to place controls over how much they can spend at once and how much they can withdraw at once if you allow them to use their card at an ATM. You can block or unblock these controls as needed, too.

Can You Use GoHenry Outside of the United States?

You can use GoHenry if you are traveling outside of the United States, but you can’t set up a GoHenry account unless you live in either the United States or the United Kingdom. A GoHenry card can be used anywhere that accepts Mastercard, and there aren’t any foreign transaction fees.

However, international ATM withdrawal fees will come with a $1.50 fee in addition to any local ATM fees. Plus, there are a few select countries where GoHenry just won’t work, including Belarus, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Mali, North Korea, Serbia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Ukraine, Venezuela and Yemen.

GoHenry Reviews

So, what are real people saying about GoHenry? Overall, the response is quite positive, with the GoHenry app ranking 4.6 stars out of 5 on the Apple App Store. Users report that the app is great at doing exactly what it says it’ll do, giving kids easy spending access while allowing parents to closely monitor their children’s financial activity.

There are a few things that people say GoHenry could improve upon with its app. For starters, some users wish there was a request feature for kids who want to spend over their set spending limit. Right now, parents have to go into the app and update the spending limit themselves. Plus, other users wish that the task-setting feature was easier to figure out. Users say that it would be helpful to be able to send money back to the parent’s bank account if there’s more money in the app than the parent is comfortable with.

What Are the GoHenry Alternatives?

There are a few GoHenry alternatives if you’re searching for a kid’s debit card and want to explore your options outside of GoHenry.

1. Chase First Banking

Chase First Banking is a company that offers a traditional debit card that is available to children between the ages of six and seventeen years old. The benefits include a $0 monthly service fee, spending alerts, spending limits, money requests, no ATM fees, no ATM withdrawal limits, the ability to set saving goals, and the ability to give your child money for chores in the form of an allowance.

So, you can see that you do get quite a lot of the benefits of GoHenry, just without that monthly fee. Unfortunately, Chase First Banking is only available to parents who already have a Chase checking account.

2. BusyKid

BusyKid is a little more focused on the chores aspect of GoHenry. Parents set up chores that their children are assigned to, and as each of those chores is completed, the money will add up in the child’s account on the app. The money will then be deposited into the child’s account once per week, and each week, a percentage of that money will be automatically saved.

There’s also the option to automatically donate a percentage to a charity of your child’s choice as well. Like GoHenry, BusyKid is $4 per month, though you can save by purchasing an annual account for $39 per year. Each BusyKid account includes up to five BusyKid prepaid Visa spend cards for your family, for up to five young people to earn and spend wherever Visa cards are accepted.

3. Greenlight

Greenlight likewise allows for parents to create in-app chore lists, set up a weekly or monthly allowance, send money to kids as needed and monitor spending in real-time. The Greenlight card works just about everywhere that Mastercard is accepted, though the card does have a few of those precautions in place to prevent spending at non-kid-friendly places. The card can be used in more than 150 countries with no foreign transaction fees.

Unlike the above options, though, Greenlight has several plans to choose from. The basic plan is $5 per month and comes with the debit card and basic earning and spending features. The $8 per month plan, though, allows for children to invest, with an investing platform designed just for kids. The $10-per-month plan comes with even more extra perks, such as identity theft protection and a 1% cash back feature.

Is GoHenry Right for Me?

GoHenry is an excellent tool for parents who don’t want to just give their children spending money, but for parents who actually want to teach their children how to use their money wisely. GoHenry definitely has the most robust educational features out of your various options available, making the teaching aspect of parenthood that much easier.

Learn more to decide if GoHenry is right for you!

You might also be interested in: Managing Your Finances: How To Save [Now And Later In Life]

Posted in Parenting category