Perfect Combination for Financial Responsibility
This app has all the right tools for disciplining yourself or your children when it comes to your finances. Personally, I’ve tried using it as a way to reward myself for actions or tasks I’ve completed because money is a huge motivator. Being able to tie my to-do and task-list to a sense of earned accomplishment —creating an ongoing financial leash if you will— has boosted my productivity immensely. My only wish is for the app to perhaps add easier tools to remind users of their tasks so that they can more actively engage with them. Due date reminders for each as well as better filters for organizing and tagging them would do wonders. Highly recommended.
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Spending Management in Action
Today I saw the beauty of this app in action. I took my nearly 14-year-old to a store and told her she could use her new card, goHenry. She knew what the limit was that she could spend on a transaction, so she use the calculator on her phone to add up the items in her hand. She said to me you don’t know how hard it is to stick to that dollar amount. She was nervous using the card for the first time but smiled when all went well with the transaction.
My second example is my 10-year-old failed to bring her card to the mall but she wanted to buy something from the Lego store. So I told her I would purchase it and then transfer the money from her card back to my parent account. She calculated what that would do to her balance and still thought it was a good deal. Normally, I might have offered tickets but it and then choose chores to earn the money. It’s harder to do it that way.
While I think cash is the right way to teach kids about the value of money. I don’t feel comfortable with children having cash on hand versus a card when it comes to larger sums. They are still kids. This allows them to really think through their purchases.
My second example is my 10-year-old failed to bring her card to the mall but she wanted to buy something from the Lego store. So I told her I would purchase it and then transfer the money from her card back to my parent account. She calculated what that would do to her balance and still thought it was a good deal. Normally, I might have offered tickets but it and then choose chores to earn the money. It’s harder to do it that way.
While I think cash is the right way to teach kids about the value of money. I don’t feel comfortable with children having cash on hand versus a card when it comes to larger sums. They are still kids. This allows them to really think through their purchases.
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Response from developer
Hi, Thank you so much for taking the time to write your review. It is great to see your children are benefiting from gohenry and it seems already really taking to it and learning great money management. We agree, we are by no means replacing cash however moving along with the times in this digital age. - Sophie
Great easy to use app
The whole experience so far has been very good. I initially discounted this type of account because of the monthly fee of £3 which I think is expensive and sends the wrong message to your child (i’ve never paid bank charges in my life) but I guess £36 a year is money well spent if it teaches my child about managing money in the 21st century. When looking in the High Street for something that fits with a child in today’s world I was amazed at how antiquated the banks are, it’s almost as though they don’t want to nurture any future business! I have docked a star from my rating solely because of the annoying charity donate on the app that keeps popping up in both mine and my daughters app. Annoying because we actively support charities in our way and with regularity and i resent paying for an app that keeps asking me to donate - we teach our daughter about charity and she donates her money as well but it is our choice and direction as it should be. If I could completely remove this part of the app i would give five stars as everything else just works fine so far.
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Response from developer
Hi Susie, Thanks for your great feedback, which I have passed onto our development team. Please do let us know if we can improve in any other ways as we do value everyone's ideas. Martin.
Great way to teach
I’ve only had the app a short time, but so far it has been great. My kids love being able to see when I’ve put their allowance on there and it’s convenient for me as well. Being able to get updates when and where they spend money is a great feature. My only complaint (if I would even call it one) is that you have to pay $3.99 a month per child when another card service has it at like $4.99 for the whole family. I have three kids using the service so it can get pricey quick. Other than that I have nothing but positive ratings for the service.
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I love this and so do my kids
You would be surprised how much a few pound here and there adds up. I didn’t realise till I added it up.
I gave my kids a weekly budget which was for thing they wanted, they always have everything they need. They could add to this by doing house work but the budget always went out the window (my fault) and I ended up spending so much more over the week.
Now they are in control of their own pocket money. The chores earn them extra pennies which can all be set up on the app. Different chores for different children and you can set the amount of pay for each chore. When chores are done they can be ticked off on the app. You can then either set to have this added to their regular pocket money amount or transfer as and when you want.
Loading your parent account is easy/instant and I like that you can transfer money back from the child account to the parent account.
If there is no money left then that’s it. Teaches them to budget and saves me a lot of money in the process. Card says No as my daughter put it.
They can also save for something that is maybe a bit more expensive.
App is so easy to use and your kids have their own log in so can check the remaining money themselves plus see what chores need doing to earn extra pennies.
Yes there is a monthly charge but so worth it and its clear what the charge is.
Thanks GoHenry
I gave my kids a weekly budget which was for thing they wanted, they always have everything they need. They could add to this by doing house work but the budget always went out the window (my fault) and I ended up spending so much more over the week.
Now they are in control of their own pocket money. The chores earn them extra pennies which can all be set up on the app. Different chores for different children and you can set the amount of pay for each chore. When chores are done they can be ticked off on the app. You can then either set to have this added to their regular pocket money amount or transfer as and when you want.
Loading your parent account is easy/instant and I like that you can transfer money back from the child account to the parent account.
If there is no money left then that’s it. Teaches them to budget and saves me a lot of money in the process. Card says No as my daughter put it.
They can also save for something that is maybe a bit more expensive.
App is so easy to use and your kids have their own log in so can check the remaining money themselves plus see what chores need doing to earn extra pennies.
Yes there is a monthly charge but so worth it and its clear what the charge is.
Thanks GoHenry
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Response from developer
Hi there, Thank you so much for sharing this positive feedback! It's really great to hear that the features on the accounts are working so well for you and your kids. :) If there's ever anything we can help you with, please don't hesitate to get in touch. We're always happy to help! - Zoë
Been a life saver.
I have been using this for a few months now with my 2 children so they can learn about finances as well as knowing how to learn to use a card ( now days that’s all people use).
Love how they have a feature where you can set different chores and what not to check off to deposit monies at the end of the week. Also being able to transfer monies at any time has helped my teen daughter out tremendously. Especially this past couple of weeks. I had to rush out of town while she was left behind and she needed some money so I was able to transfer money to her right Away !! So it has been truly amazing!! Check it out! Seriously it is the best.
Love how they have a feature where you can set different chores and what not to check off to deposit monies at the end of the week. Also being able to transfer monies at any time has helped my teen daughter out tremendously. Especially this past couple of weeks. I had to rush out of town while she was left behind and she needed some money so I was able to transfer money to her right Away !! So it has been truly amazing!! Check it out! Seriously it is the best.
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Needs improvement
I will start off by saying that the service is really cool and has a awesome opportunity to teach your child how to use a debit card in an electronic world. It is a lot easier to teach your child to save money because out of sight out of mind concept helps.
The downfall is that the app will remove money from the parents bank account without permission and set it aside to give your child at their “weekly” allowance. Parents aren’t given the option to cut off the child’s weekly allowances, only allowed to change the date! If the child hasn’t earned their allowance for the week, I’m not given the option to decline the deposit! GoHenry has the control! This is my child, not yours! This feature needs to be corrected or we will be canceling our account!
The downfall is that the app will remove money from the parents bank account without permission and set it aside to give your child at their “weekly” allowance. Parents aren’t given the option to cut off the child’s weekly allowances, only allowed to change the date! If the child hasn’t earned their allowance for the week, I’m not given the option to decline the deposit! GoHenry has the control! This is my child, not yours! This feature needs to be corrected or we will be canceling our account!
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Amazing Tool to Teach Responsibility
This is the app that my wife and I have been waiting for. Our kids are learning so much about financial responsibility and the value of saving money for something they want.
They are both so excited about having their own debit card and being able to save up money for something that they want to purchase with it. My 10 year old has logged on every day and moving his money around to different savings piles for things he wants to “invest” in. When he sees how this affects something else he had earmarked some money for, he learns the value of prioritizing where he should put his savings.
This is by far the best teaching app I have ever used.
They are both so excited about having their own debit card and being able to save up money for something that they want to purchase with it. My 10 year old has logged on every day and moving his money around to different savings piles for things he wants to “invest” in. When he sees how this affects something else he had earmarked some money for, he learns the value of prioritizing where he should put his savings.
This is by far the best teaching app I have ever used.
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Fabulous
I initially got go Henry for my eldest son I now have it for all 4 grandchildren aged 6-13 who live 200 miles away . They love learning the value of money , I set it up so 1/3 rd of their pocket money is saved until they are 18 they love seeing it grow. The other 2/3rd they spend as they want . After a few times of them just spending it as soon as it was in their account then going the remaining week with nothing they are learning how to budget and plan for things they want . It is great sharing this life skill with them and them learning money had a real value. So easy too set up . Each child has lost or washed their cards. Easy to block and replace . Th e only disappointment and for me a big one as I am thinking of changing to a normal bank account is you can only have 4 cards / children on one account . I am struggling as I have 6 and cant get accounts for them . I like to treat them equal and can’t
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Great product but be careful of charges
I love this app and the ability to give money to my children, to monitor their spending and their saving. My only gripe is the costs. I thought the monthly service fee (£2.99) covered transfer costs, it doesn’t. After the first transfer each month it’s 50p per transaction thereafter. They recommend topping up enough for the month, makes sense, but then the supplier benefits from earning interest whilst the children don’t get this benefit, even though we are encouraging saving, so I think they should receive some of the benefit of saving. I know interest rates are incredibly low at present but they won’t always be.
Also if you want to add more for any reason then you will need to pay fees, it’s not encouraging me to give more.
I’ll stick with it for a few months but will likely transfer to a Childrens instant access account purely because of the fees.
Also if you want to add more for any reason then you will need to pay fees, it’s not encouraging me to give more.
I’ll stick with it for a few months but will likely transfer to a Childrens instant access account purely because of the fees.
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Response from developer
Hi there, thanks for your feedback. Firstly, I just wanted to let you know that as an e-money service, we do not earn any interest on the money that is held within our account. Plus, we also cannot give out interest to goHenry cardholders. However, one thing we're looking at this year is how we can improve our Savings feature, so we're thinking about finding ways to reward cardholders for their saving. We appreciate the 50p loading fee isn't ideal, however we're simply not able to absorb the costs incurred by loading the account. If there's anything else we can do to help, please do email us at help@gohenry.co.uk and a member of the team will be happy to help.
