Chore Charts for Kids

If you are looking for a great resource to get free chore charts for kids, I suggest ChoreCharts.com.

Kids are older now but I'm back!

It has been a long time, over two years in fact but this blog continues to be a great source of information for parents I've found.  Still to this day, I get my share of emails and comments, and I think it is time for me to pick it  back up.

Why did I stop posting?  The truthful answer is that my business fell on rough times during the past few years.  Venture Capital all but dried up in 2008/2009 and we were forced to focus on CardLab, our gift and incentive card business, because the PAYjr business just wasn't paying the bills.  I still think there is a significant opportunity in the youth payment space and I hope to pursue it again real soon. In the meantime, I hope to continue acting as a source to families looking for information on chores, allowances, and paying kids.

As a side note, please know that the original URL, ChoresAndAllowances.com expired and before I realized it, a squatter scooped it up and apparently has sold it to a new company hoping to compete in the industry.  Midawi Holdings, Inc.  I know they are the owners of www.our-dough-main.com and I hope their business of teaching kids financial education is a complete success, there is certainly room for more than one of us ;).  I've sent them an email requesting my domain back, let's see if they ever respond.  If you have a free minute, please drop them an email and let's see if we can appeal to their conscious.

Earn Smart. Spend Smart.

Dave
Chore and Allowance System
Teen Prepaid Card

Inc. Magazine Feature on PAYjr

Article in May 2008 Issue of Inc. Magazine!
To read article on Inc. Magazine's website:
http://www.inc.com/magazine/20080501/payjr-gets-kids-and-teens-to-pay-with-plastic.html

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PAYjr Gets Kids and Teens to Pay With Plastic


The Pitch: "Kids are spending more time online, and they need to pay for their iTunes downloads and Webkinz subscriptions. Yet many don't have debit cards. We offer three products. PAYjr Visa Buxx is a prepaid debit card for teens. It costs $3.95 a month, and refills
are 50 cents. We also have a prepaid card for kids age 12 and under; it has no monthly fee, but refills cost 50 cents. Only Target accepts it now, but we're working on deals with other merchants. Then we have a customizable gift card for adults. I need working capital and money to hire some key executives and sales reps."

Company: PAYjr

Owner: David S. Jones, 34

Location: Frisco, Texas

Employees: 24

Founded: August 2004

Clients: 30,000 cardholders

2007 Revenue: $711,000

2008 Projected Revenue: $3.7 million

Raised So Far: $4.5 million from angels

Needed Now: $5 million to $7.5 million to hire executives and sales reps

Recent Buzz: Mentions in the New York Daily News, The New York Times, and BusinessWeek and on the Today show and CBS News

The Experts Weigh In

Give us a call

This is a brilliant concept. It helps parents teach kids financial responsibility. And the cost of delivering the cards is very low compared with the amount PAYjr can make in fees. To raise $7.5 million, Jones would have to add several product lines, because the market he's targeting may not be big enough to interest a VC. If he prefers to keep his mission narrow, he can probably raise $2 million from a specialty investment boutique that focuses on the financial services sector. Jones is welcome to give us a call. We might be interested in offering the product to our customers.

Asheesh Advani
Founder and CEO
Virgin Money USA (formerly CircleLending)
Waltham, Massachusetts

Focus on the teen card

It's an interesting niche, but for a little company like that to have three products is crazy. The teen card makes the most sense. Building your own merchant network for the kid card is too expensive, and marketing gift cards to adults is a whole other world. I'd tell Jones to pick the card with the most potential and be prepared to prove to investors that its return on investment is better than the market average. Eventually a VC will want to sell PAYjr to a large credit card issuer, and it would have to make a profitable add-on for the acquirer.

Scott Perricelli
Partner
LLR Partners
Philadelphia

I'd invite him for a meeting

This is an execution play, so I'd invite Jones for a meeting and try to understand how savvy he is. There's a need for a product like this. But Jones needs to prove that his metrics are trending in the right direction: that the rate of customer acquisition is growing and marketing costs are under control. Once he raises money, I don't think he should spend it on a big executive team. He needs a good analyst, someone closely tied to the marketing team who can look at these statistics honestly and figure out which strategies are working.

Ajay Chopra
Partner
Trinity Ventures
Menlo Park, California

Dave
Free Chore Charts
Visa Buxx
Visa Gift Cards

Credit Cards for Kids -- Can Yours Handle One?

Article on TheStreet.com

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It's a conversation every parent dreads. Your teen has come to you and asked ... for a credit card.

What now?

If you think getting your child a credit card in high school is a way to teach financial responsibility before the onslaught of college credit-card marketing inevitably overwhelms your kid, think again.

Getting a credit card while they're under your roof isn't necessarily going to teach teens how to use cards responsibly. High school seniors who had credit cards actually did worse on the Jump$tart Coalition's personal financial literacy survey than their counterparts without credit cards.

So if you want your teen to stay debt free, the best solution may be to simply discourage him from getting a credit card.

"If a student doesn't have a credit card by the end of their freshman year in college, they're probably not going to get one," says Eric Weil, managing partner at Student Monitor.

But keeping your kid away from debt doesn't necessarily mean keeping her away from plastic. Instead of using credit cards, many students are opting to use debit cards. Between 2001 and 2008, the number of four-year college students with a debit card jumped 16 percentage points to 59%. Virtually the same number of high school seniors surveyed by the non-profit DC-based Jump$tart -- 54% -- had ATM cards.

Prepaid credit cards are another option for parents of high school students. They offer the protections of a credit card and the opportunity to build credit without the risk of debt, and holders avoid debit card-related overdraft fees. In recent years a handful of companies, including PAYjr., Allowance Card and Upside Prepaid card, started marketing cards for high school students.

The companies say they're a great learning tool for teens, who will eventually largely use plastic, rather than cash, to make payments.

"You're not going to teach your kids how to use a computer by giving them a typewriter," says PAYjr's Jessica Stroud.

But prepaid cards don't come cheap.

"Fees on them can really eat you alive," says Curtis Arnold, founder of Cardratings.com and author of FT Press' upcoming book How You Can Profit from Credit Cards: Using Credit to Improve Your Financial Life and Bottom Line. Pre-paid card fees to watch for include load fees, monthly fees, start-up fees, ATM fees and customer service fees.

Instead, Arnold got his high school junior a checking account -- on the condition that he attend a day long financial literacy course -- and plans to get him a debit card during his senior year.

This way, he says, he'll have a year with plastic "when his mom and I can kind of guide him."

Parental guidance with a debit card helped Arkansas high-school student Jessie Burrows learn to manage her finances more responsibly. After she turned 16, her parents helped her set up a checking account with a debit card so she could manage her income from her job at fast-food chain Subway.

"I thought I was so cool, I just kind of went crazy with it," said Burrows. Seven months later she had her second overdraft fee, and her folks canceled her card.

Now 18 and about to graduate high school, Burrows keeps close tabs on her debit card purchases. She has also opened two credit cards -- with a combined credit limit of $800. Though she carries a balance of about $250, she makes payments every time she gets paid, even if it's in between billing cycles.

Making mistakes while she was younger, she says, taught her how to keep up with her accounts, now that her parents "aren't going to able to bail me out as much as they did."

But some contend that debit cards aren't credit cards with training wheels.

"Parents need to be careful about debit cards. They're a wonderful tool, but they're not training for a credit card," says Jump$tart Executive Director Laura Levine.

Debit and credit cards are very different, Levine notes: Debit cards don't require you to make payments and don't charge interest.

Getting your child any kind of plastic product -- debit, credit, or pre-paid -- should be done with caution, and only if you're going to supervise your child.

"If you're going to do this, you have to be willing to commit the time" to make sure they understand how the card works, says Levine.

"If you just hand it to your kid and see what happens, it's a very bad idea."

Just thought you would enjoy it. Dave

Chore Charts

Visa Buxx

Gift Cards

Pajama Mommy Write Up

I thought I would share with all of you a post from Pajama Mommy

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I was just at one of my sister-in-law’s house the other day and she set up a chore chart. I find those to be remarkable useful. Heck, I set up one for myself and I’m a grown up :\.

Really these are amazing tools we’ve been using the original idea of them “to do list” but someone finally stepped up and mass produced them for families. I think these are awesome. Currently for my to-do list for myself I use my momAgenda, but what about for the entire family? I don’t want someone man-handling my personal organizer. Well I wanted something that is great and I can just print out in a snap for the next week or even month.

Granted, I am computer savvy but I’m not a designer. I have people who design for me but I don’t always want to pay them to do every little thing so I decided I wanted some for free. As everyone here knows my motto is: “Cheap, Free, and Easy” well what about combining all three for one single site? Who could of thought about that…Hmm PayJr did!

The website is ChoreCharts.com. Now when you go in you can download from several different designs and they are currently working on the new part of their site which will allow you to design your own. I can’t wait. I’m so going back and making one! This site also shows you other ways to pay your kids allowance.

I think it is so great for credit cards/debit cards for kids only for the fact that money gets lost and there is no one who is going to refund you because you dropped your last $5 while walking around the mall. So not only does Chore Charts offer free stuff but they are giving you an extremely useful idea.

1. PayJR Chore & Allowance Program. — This allows you to monitor what your kids do and pay them accordingly.

You set up amount of money per chore and they can do a set number so for example if you say washing the dishes is worth $.35 each finished load and they do 1 load a week that’s $2.45 right there for 7 days. Taking out the garbage every day is worth $.50 and that’s 7 days it is $3.50. So right there for 2 chores your child has $5.95 worth of chores. You can include making your bed, cleaning your room, picking up the toys. Whatever it is that you think is appropriate for their age group.

2. PayJR Visa Buxx Card - allows you to deposit their money into a fully working visa credit card/debit card.

You might be thinking well they can shop online why would I want it? Why wouldn’t you want it? You are able to see where they are shopping through their monitoring and control center, they also offer financial information.

Today with the world of plastic who is informing your kids about the right credit choices? Well my parents informed me the best they could however I got myself into a bit of trouble and I’m working on getting my way out. However, a lot of people don’t do that and it will take them years before they even make a dent into their ever towering credit debt.

Well if kids learn at an earlier age that plastic doesn’t mean unlimited funds, its just access to emergency cash or something they are already used to they may not be as prone to splurge.

I personally think there are so many ways you can set up this card to prepare your kids for the future. For example you can teach them the importance of credit and you as a parent can be their creditor. Setting up a payJR credit card with their approved credit limit for example $300 to $500 where you deposit it in, and you set up a standard apr for new creditors which is anywhere from 12.99-18.99% and teach them how easy in the beginning it is to get out of hand. You explain to them that, that is their entire credit limit. They can either pay you back through “cash” aka chores to work it off but for each month they don’t pay the bill in full there will be “APR” tacked on so that way they will see how quickly $300 can turn into $1000. And if they are used to this and under stand that they have to “pay their bills” you can prepare them for college when people really try to bait the kids for credit cards.

I would definitely do that with my kids because I’d rather not have them go through the annoyances I have because I was a bit of an idiot. However this is where the ideas go wild. What are your suggestions in teaching your children the value of a dollar and how to approach better money spending/saving skills?

Dave

Lawmakers consider requiring class on financial skills

Tuesday, February 19, 2008, 8:51 AM

By O.Kay Henderson

Iowa legislators are considering a new requirement that Iowa high schoolers must take a course that teaches personal financial skills. Representative Tom Sands, a Republican from Columbus Junction, is also a banker. Sands says he encounters too many people who lack basic knowledge about saving or budgeting their own money.

"I deal with financial literacy everyday...and we really have a huge problem in this country with our financial illiteracy," Sands says. Bankers like Sands have gotten behind the idea of requiring a course in Iowa high schools that teaches students the basics about personal finances. But Jeff Berger of the Iowa Department of Education warns schools would find it difficult to teach such a course.

"When you start talking about course mandates in terms of units, you get into conversations about whether or not you have licensed staff to teach those things, what gets moved around in terms of time allocation," Berger says. The bill requires each high school student to earn one half credit in financial literacy to graduate.

Berger suggests including the topic in other high school courses without requiring that schools like up a whole new class on personal financial skills. Sands, the legislator, is vice president of Columbus Junction State Bank. He says Iowa bankers already volunteer in the schools to teach students about budgeting and other finance basics.

"They go into the schools and talk about the importance of saving and compounding dollars, and will speak at all different levels of the grades but that isn't enough and an hour a year isn't enough," Sands says. The topic was discussed yesterday (Monday) at the statehouse, but the bill to require that Iowa high schools teach course on financial literacy has not made it beyond even a subcommittee at this point.

Earn Smart. Spend Smart.

Dave

Visa Buxx
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Chore & Allowance System
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Funny Picture of Matt's Office

I've been meaning to post this for a while now but keep forgetting...

This is Matt's (our President and Founder) office after the team got a hold of it. Ouch!!!

Earn Smart. Spend Smart.
Dave

Visa Buxx
Gift CardsOnline
Chore & Allowance System
Financial Education
Chore Charts
Child Safe Browser- Coming Soon!

Funny for 30+ yr. olds

I don't where this came from but my wife received it from one of her friends and I just got a kick out of it so I thought all of you other 30+'ers out there would enjoy it as well. If anyone knows the source, please let me know so I can give them credit for it.

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When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning ... uphill BOTH ways .. yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it! But now that... I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia!

And I hate to say it but you kids today... you don't know how good you've got it! I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

There was no email! ! We had to actually write somebody a letter ... with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself!

Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it!

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like "Space Invaders" and "asteroids"! Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens; it was just one screen forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy or some old broad with a hat sat in front of you and you couldn't see, you were just screwed!

Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 15 channels and there was no onscreen menu and no remote control! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on!

You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your *&$@ and walk over to the TV to change the channel and there was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-$&!@#!

And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up. We had to use the stove or go build a frigging fire ... imagine that! If we wanted popcorn, we had to use that stupid Jiffy Pop thing and shake it over the stove forever like an idiot.

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled.

You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980!

Too Funny!

Earn Smart. Spend Smart.
Dave
Visa Buxx
Gift CardsOnline
Chore & Allowance System
Financial Education
Chore Charts
Child Safe Browser- Coming Soon!

What a 22 Year Old Taught Me About Money

A few posts ago I wrote about "The Traits of Entrepreneurship" and since then I have had the pleasure of discovering like-minded Vanessa Van Patten, a 22-year old entrepreneur who is already an author of the parenting book “You’re Grounded!” and also writes a parenting blog from a teen’s perspective to help parents understand what is actually going on in the mind of kid’s today to make life a little bit easier. http://www.vanessavanpetten.com/

Vanessa and I talked about some of the big issues for parents and money was one of the items at the top of the list. She gave me some of the tips she tells parents that read her book and blog about allowances. Vanessa writes, "I wish I was still getting allowance. Now, as a bootstrapping 22-year-old entrepreneur living at home, I cherish the money and saving lessons my parents bestowed on me. There are four key messages that have stayed with me, that I hope I can tell you, to share with your kids."

What My Dad Taught Me About Money

1) Learn what you do not need and look for ways to get it cheaper
My dad is the guy who taught me how to clip coupons, by food in bulk and never turn down freebies. My dad made the decision early on to save where he could on things that he did not need to spend on. Teaching kids how to bargain and that there is almost always a cheaper way...you just have to look. When I got to college I was shocked to see that many of my friends never asked for discount tickets or group rates when we went to concerts or movies. Teach your kids to ASK, the worst that happens is that someone says no…and then you are in the same place you are when you started off!

2) Learn what you love, and spend on it, and then love it even more.
While my dad taught me to save wherever I can, my mom loves what she loves. What I mean is, she has certain aspects of her life that she freely spends on because she enjoys them so much. What she taught me is that it is really important to know what you love and allocate money to spend on it. Once she figures out what she wants to spend money on, how much money she wants to spend on it, then she enjoys it guilt free. This has been an important message for me to hear because it taught me to allow myself certain planned and budgeted luxuries so I feel like I can treat myself.

3) Passive Income…in kids terms.
Don’t worry, my dad never used the term passive income with me, but he did bring up the concept of working for your money. For example, I wanted to start a weekend car washing business when I was 14. While planning the large undertaking of my business (colored posters and signs included) my dad not only discussed the idea of having to buy start-up supplies, but also that I might want to ‘hire’ other neighborhood kids. This way, he explained, I can take a Saturday off and still take a cut of my neighbor’s earnings…it’s too bad SAT tutoring started and my budding car wash business was cut short, but the idea of making passive income has always stayed with me.

4) Give and you get.
I truly believe that if you are generous to others, others will be generous to you. My parents always gave to charity, bought meals for homeless people on the street and put their change in those little jars near the cash register. They used to tell me, even when money was tight, that if you give to others, the universe will somehow give back to you. This also gave me great perspective to appreciate the allowance and money I do have, not the money I am lacking.

The most important part about talking to your kids about money is that you are actually talking to them! Keep the communication going and show them how you value money so they can develop positive attitudes as well.

Check Vanessa out at http://www.vanessavanpetten.com/
or get a copy of her book

Earn Smart. Spend Smart. Raise Capital Smart.

Dave
Visa Buxx
Gift CardsOnline
Chore & Allowance System
Financial Education
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