A teen account
Table of Contents
I have a couple of teens (Son and Daughter both <18) who need to get paid money, by me and other people. When I started looking into this Son was getting his first job and needed direct deposit. Daughter is making money hand over fist watching neighbors’ animals and plants. I thought there would be some kind of banking or fintech product that would work. Preferably a banking product. I looked into the options and (SPOILER ALERT) there aren’t great options.
Options #
Credit unions #
My first choice would be a credit union, and, in fact, I opened a checking and savings account at Alliant for Son. Credit unions are member owned, and I feel like that’s a much better model for a bank than shareholder owned.
Alliant is a pretty great credit union, and I’ve been a member myself for nearly a decade (I’m also a member of PenFed and DCU), they have pretty good savings rates.
Son is now >18 and can do whatever he wants. I feel like that’s a great start for him, but it does not support Zelle, which is a bummer (see: later).
Banks #
For Daughter I was thinking seriously about a CapitalOne MONEY account. It seemed like a pretty great product. I have used CaptialOne for a number of years and find them to be a decent bank. Their tech is modern and simple.
They advertise it as supporting Zelle. I don’t actually remember at this point if that was a feature that was coming, or if it was available when I did my evaluation. They say you can send money with Zelle, but can you receive money? I don’t know why you wouldn’t be able to.
At the time I was evaluating the options, there was a sign up bonus for the MONEY account which I thought would have been a great extra.
I really needed Venmo, or Zelle, because that’s the way people pay other people for things these days.
Zelle #
I have since learned that your bank doesn’t need to support Zelle. You install an app on your smart phone and link any debit card and now you can Zelle.
This is great, but it requires a smart phone (see: later).
Venmo #
Speaking of smart phones, Venmo requires a smart phone, and everyone wants to pay Daughter with Venmo. So I looked into it. They have a teen account. I thought maybe I could setup a second Venmo with my phone, but, no, you need a unique phone number. We have a “house phone” which is just a dumb cell phone, so I used that as her “number.” At first I thought we could just install Venmo on her Chromebook. It’s basically an Android device, right? Wrong.
But I was able to install Venmo in a separate user profile on my Android just using the “house phone” as her number. It’s hacky, but it works. People can Venmo her, and if she wants to send money to me I just switch to the other profile on my own phone and send money to my own self. It’s ridiculous, but this is what technology has reduced us to… like animals.
The Venmo Teen account does come with a linked debit card, so theoretically she could use it to buy stuff, but in reality she just hoards her money and never spends it.
Pain points #
So where we ended up is Son has an Alliant account and Daughter has a Venmo Teen account. This kind of works, but also has pain points.
Smart phones #
Part of the problem with all of the technology is it requires having a smart phone. I’m not prepared to get a smart phone for my teen just because she needs a bank account. My workaround was to just use a Frankenstein combo of my smart phone and a dumb cell phone. It’s 2024. Why can’t people just send money to each other? I blame the Democrats (or the Republicans (or both)).
If your teen does not have a smart phone, then expect pain, but, on the other hand, if your teen has a smart phone then expect them to be suicidal because: social media? I’ll take the first thing, but I will also burn with a vague rage at all things financial and technological and also sadness that the world isn’t a better place, technologically speaking.
Recurring payment #
Pretend you have a son who drives to school (completely hypothetical situation), and you’d like to reimburse him for gas. It is easy to setup a recurring payment to your own kin! Incorrect!! You are so näive for even thinking that. Maybe you try Zelle, but it doesn’t support recurring payments. Maybe you try member-to-member transfers at Alliant; it also does not support recurring payments. Paypal, nope! Venmo, nope! Perhaps BillPay, but is your teen really going to cash a “check?”
Nope, the best thing you can do in 2024 is create a Google calendar reminder to yourself to weekly, manually transfer money. Congratulations! You live in an advanced economy!
Conclusion #
Alliant or CapitalOne MONEY could work. If you want Zelle just connect it to your debit card. If you want Venmo, then your teen needs a smart phone (or at least a phone number).
If you want to setup a recurring payment, then you must use carrier pigeons. Good luck!
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