Well when my son was small we gave pocket money for chores such as tidying his room and extras for doing well in school. Now as he is older he helps out now and again in our shop, washes the car, and is expected to tidy his bedroom and set the table for dinner as well.
I guess when he was young we had a haphazard way of doing it, we had no record of how much he got really and when. As he has got older I like to think that I have instilled in him that he should think twice abut spending his money and not on random things either. If he wants something expensive and its not his birthday or Christmas he generally saves for it himself, and occasionally if he saves half I will give him the rest. If he doesn't want to come into the shop and do an hours work he doesn't get paid for this but he gets a smaller amount of pocket money. A more structured way of dealing with this is definitely welcome.
Well I have been asked to review a new website called PKTMNY which could be of benefit to thousands of parents and children. What does this mean? Well I was a little slow, and didn't realise straight away, although everyone else did - it means Pocket Money!
PKTMNY (now rebranded as Go Henry) is a new way for children 8 to 16 to learn how to earn, save, and spend wisely.
Supported by a new type of VISA card PKTMNY is an easy to use secure website that offers a wide range of interactive savings tools. They pride themselves on the website being designed for parents by parents and it certainly is a colourful fun way for children to manage their money.
What I like about this website is that you can set limits on how much the child spends on the card. This enables parents to have some control while still giving the child some freedom. Another thing is that the website is very colourful and appealing to primary children and young teens in particular.
It allows the parent to set clear ways of earning extra money at home, for example you could pay £1 a week for extra jobs such as clearing away the dishes or cleaning their bedroom.
PKTMNY also gives you an opportunity to sit down with your child and talk about money, how often do we are parents actually do that? I think it can also develop positive attitudes to saving money, a goal can be set and the child has a visual representation of how much they have saved.
All fees for the website are set out here,and I will let you know more about them in my next blog when I report back on how we get on!
This post is part of a project with BritMums, sponsored by PKTMNY, highlighting it's launch (http://www.pktmny.com). The new tool allows parents to easily pay and monitor their children's pocket money online, whilst allowing their children to earn, save, spend and manage their money in a totally safe and fun way.
* We have been trialling the service and all thoughts and opinions are our own.
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