DENVER — Teaching kids about money and getting them off their phones is not always easy. But some Colorado parents have discovered a new way to turn the screen time into chores – and it pays them to do it and helps them invest in real stock.
The app is called BusyKid 2.0 and gives kids the chance to practice earning a paycheck, investing in stocks, donating and shopping on a budget.
With the app, kids earn real money doing jobs assigned by their parents and get paid every Friday, if they get their work done.
“Instead of me having to ask them to do things repeatedly, they will do it on their own,” Wynter Johnson, a mother of two boys and BusyKid app user said. “They’ll get up and make their beds on their own in the morning, they’ll unload the dishwasher without asking. I might have to ask once and say you can log in to BusyKid and they are good to go.”
“Money is really invisible now, it’s just numbers on a screen,” said Gregg Murset, a financial planner who founded the app. “So we have to teach kids in that way so they start understanding this is how it works.”
If the parents approve the completed goals, money will be withdrawn from their checking account and the money will be allocated into three categories: spending (that money can be transferred to a Visa card), saving (kids can save it in cash or buy fractional shares of stock) and sharing (this money goes toward the causes and charities of their choice).
The app is only about a year old and already has more than 25,000 users and over $500,000 have been paid out for completed chores.
BusyKid has a subscription fee of $24.95 a year (regardless of how many kids you have) but there is a free trial available.