Family Mint

As part of the TOS Crew, I was invited to try out and review the Family Mint, an online money management system for kids. Family Mint is a free application. The program will continue to be free, although a “pro” version with more features and a yearly fee will be available soon.
This is how Family Mint works:
1. The parent sets up a family “bank” on the Family Mint site with an account for each child.
2. The child can set up savings categories for himself—college, charity, or categories for anything for which he wants to save, from a toy to a car. When he sets a goal in each category, a bar graph will show him how close he is to achieving his goal.
3. The child can independently log into his account to transfer funds from one category to another or to make a deposit or withdrawal.   Every transaction must be approved from the parent account unless the approval function is disabled.
4. The parent can set interest rates or matching rates in each category. This is a great feature to encourage saving. Goal categories can be “locked” by the parent if desired so that money cannot be removed from a particular category.
5. The Family Mint system allows the parent to set a weekly or monthly allowance. The allowance is automatically credited to the child’s account. No more having to remember each week!
The parent interface looks like this:

The child’s view looks like this:

My Thoughts:
The system sounds complicated, but is extremely simple to set up. Short videos for both parent and child explain the system. After watching them, it took only minutes to implement our family “bank.”
Emily was thrilled by the entire concept. She eagerly set up several goals and started planning ways to earn more money to put toward her goals. I think this is a great idea that will be very useful in our home for teaching money management. Best of all, it is FREE! Try it out for yourself!

Family Mint is a free program. I received no compensation for the writing of this review.
Family Mint