Not every dad in the world will find the need to use the per piece cost of a 100-pack of iridescent beads to teach his kids about personal finance but all dads and moms do have a to help illustrate essential home economic topics of saving, spending, giving, and the interdependence of all three in a well-lived, happy life.
In the spring of 2017, my two daughters became tween and teen entrepreneurs when they launched a handmade jewelry Etsy shop called Loopholes Boutique, bought a vanity url, and purchased inventory, shipping and marketing supplies.
These were exciting times, but the money, man, the money part has been messy.
On the plus side, their youthful side hustle gifted me the unique opportunity to move our personal finance lessons out of the imaginative play store we had fun building in our living room years ago and further away from the kindergarten mathematics of sugar packets at restaurants, into the very real world of profit margins, the difference between gross and net revenue, philanthropy through conscious capitalism, and the whens and whys of reinvesting in the business versus paying yourself some kind of wage.
The messy missing piece in their entrepreneurial puzzle, however, has been a debit card and money management solution that allows them to spend, save and give more freely than having to receive their Etsy profits from me, in cash, store those tens and twenties in old metal Curious George pencil cases in their bedrooms, only to give some of those earnings back to me to place additional supply orders online and to make donations to their favorite causes.
That problem has been solved already in this youthful year, thanks to .
My teen now has a Current account with a debit card, and an account linked to me and my own bank. And it’s been dreamy.
Current allows me to easily and electronically move money that I receive from their growing business into her account that’s divided into three wallets to help teens — mine and yours — learn how to balance spending, saving and giving.
Essentially, Current’s beautiful app makes it super simple for this dad to do and teach what I’ve been hacking my way through since my kids were little.
Because I believe that kids need and deserve a growing sense of independence, I dig that Current allows the teen to spend money on the business without me having to be involved at every turn, while still being able to keep a watchful eye.
It’s the perfect balance of parenting control and financial freedom for young people…young people who maybe still have chores to do in order to earn an allowance. Yeah, dad and mom, you can set up those in-the-flesh, real life household hurdles for your teen to clear in order to get their weekly allowance through Current.
That’s not only cool, it’s pretty damn brilliant.
My young entrepreneurs will be able to spend smartly on the day-to-day needs of their business, automate saving for the business’ long term ambitions with Current’s , and be their best empathic selves by donating to thousands of local and national charitable causes through the Giving wallet, all though the Current app.
Cool and brilliant, yet again.
Current offers families their easy to use money management tool for a really low flat annual fee (a fee that is WAAAAY below my own business checking account!) with a free debit card, free super rad app, and free transfers from a parent’s bank to their teen’s Current account.
Your teen doesn’t need to be running her own business for Current’s teenage money management tools and tips to be useful though.
Current simply is the we’ve seen after researching the entire financial services industry in our hunt for a debit card for our teen daughter, and her and her sister’s burgeoning crafty teen entrepreneur startup.
*OWTK received financial compensation for this story but all opinions expressed above are honest and unbiased, as always. My daughters do indeed run their own small business and I was indeed really tired of sorting out the money manually at the end of every month. Current is awesome, for reals.
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