You will receive a prepaid Master Card for your teen. You will be able to load the card from your
All you have to do is send for the card, you have the option of adding money right then or waiting until later. At the end of the application as with all pre paid cards you have to provide your social security number and birth date for verification but, there is no credit check. You will also have to supply a funding method credit or debit card.
With this card any approved family member can add funds. You can load the card manually or set it up with direct deposits. You can choose how you track their spending habits. You can set up alerts to see when they make a purchase or you can relax a little and just view their monthly statement. I think for older kids you can relax the monitoring a little, but for younger kids you can choose more control. Your kids can also use the card at the ATM to get cash. You can get a 30 day free trial to see if it works for you and another thing I forgot to mention is you have the option of freezing their card at any time. The monthly fee is $3.95 per month after trial. If you lose the card it cost $7.95 for a replacement. As with most cards there are fees . My only disappointment is the fee for loading the card by way of credit or debit is $2.95 oppose to the .75 fee for using your checking or saving account. The Balance inquiry or ATM decline fee is .50, so you will have to make sure your child understands they must know their balance to avoid these fees. I think this is helpful for teaching younger and maybe even older kids how to watch what they spend. All in all it is a pretty good training tool for kids. I am using one for my daughter and there are no major problems with it and the fees are not too bad. In my opinion it would have been a much better deal if they removed all fess except the monthly fee and the decline fee.
From the website:
It’s hard teaching teenagers good spending habits! But the prepaid SpendSmart MasterCard® from BillMyParents makes it so much easier. It’s a prepaid card that parents can use to help their teens learn how to use their money wisely…before they get out into the real world and make mistakes that could be costly.
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