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Helping Your Tween or Teen Save For Their Dream #TDFamilyAllowance #savemore

When my youngest was small she saved all of her birthday and tooth fairy money for a Wii. She wanted it and made it happen and that was a great lesson for both of us. I loved that Ainsley was able to save towards a goal that was important to her. Both of my girls are pretty motivated savers. This year, my oldest daughter Payton has a couple of big goals she’s working on, which is why I am happy we discovered TD Labs Family Allowance app.

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TD Lab has developed an app to help parents and kids work together towards achieving their children’s financial goals, whether it’s saving for a trip or a game console. The new app from TD Labs is called Family Allowance, and it’s a fantastic new tool in helping children and youth take control of their finances – their allowances.

My entire family is currently using TD Family Allowance App, and it’s been a great help for us. My daughter Payton’s goal is to save up enough money for a trip with her youth theatre troupe. She’s actually got a lot of money saved already. The trip isn’t until next year and it’s about $900. Part of me thinks it’s awesome that she’s made travel a priority worth saving for.

Two months ago another goal came up for my daughter. This is the last year Payton will be able to attend camp as a camper because of her age and she is determined to go to a sleep away camp with a good friend from elementary school. Both girls went to different high schools this year. The camp is 2 weeks long and the cost is actually double what I normally pay for two girls to attend camp for just one week each. It’s simply not in the budget this year with a new pool liner coming any day and a recent dishwasher spend. So we talked about how to make this happen, since it is so important to her. We have agreed that we will work together and Payton will contribute at least $500 to the cost of the camp this year. She’s also agreed to maintain As on her report card and help out even more around the house, without teenage attitude and drama interfering.

She’s doing everything she can to make extra money. She’s been babysitting all year at least two nights each week, and she’s pet sitting too. She also does chores around the house. Sometimes, she’ll be my office assistant, which I really needed during tax season, and sometimes she’ll just do general cleaning, but whatever she does, she does a great job and she’s earning every dollar towards her goals. I’m very proud of her!

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The week we started using this app.

TD Lab Family Allowance App – Virtual Finance Management

TD Labs Family Allowance app isn’t actually connected to any accounts. It’s simply a way for my daughter to set and manage her goals and for me to help by setting a chore schedule and more. It’s a purely virtual experience allowing parents like me to set up family profiles and allowance schedules and chores for their kids. Their kids can also use the app to manage their teen or tween finances (allowances) and set goals. In my daughter’s case, it’s her theatre troupe trip and summer camp.

The TD Lab Family Allowance app is simple to use. Many apps have a million bells and whistles, and sometimes that makes it harder to use the app. TD Lab purposely made Family Allowance app  bare bones because they want us, the users, to tell them what we want. They encourage feedback which they actually listen to, and use to make the next version of the app even better for us. They plan to release new versions frequently with user feedback incorporated.

The TD Family Allowance app has an easy to use built-in feedback system! All I have to do is shake my device to activate TD Lab’s feedback survey whenever I find an error, or when I think something should be different. Any feedback that helps make the experience easier for users, is welcome.

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TD Lab – Helping Teach Kids About Money Management

So far, I’ve been impressed with the TD Lab Family Allowance app. It’s very easy to use, the feedback system they have in place is quite nice, and its’ been a huge help with my daughter’s goal of saving up enough money to go on her trip. This app has allowed me to schedule chores for her, so I can help her towards her goal by giving her jobs to earn more money. It’ s also helped her keep better track of what she needs to do for her clients, mostly our neighbours. All of this is teaching her responsibility, time management and better financial skills for life.

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The Family Allowance app from TD Labs has been a huge help in teaching both of my daughters about managing finances, and I think it could be a big help for your family, too. I really like that I can add each member of our family so my husband can also assign tasks around the house. That way it’s not just one parent doing all the assigning, and he can also see what each of the girls has done after school, without necessarily being in the room at the time. The easy to use setup and feedback friendly sensibility of this app from TD Lab makes managing finances, chores, and other commitments easy.

[tweetthis]The #TDFamilyAllowance app from TD Lab can help your children learn about managing finances : http://go.td.com/allowance[/tweetthis]

Download the app now: 

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.td.innovate.crayon

iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/family-allowance/id1090612479

This post is sponsored by TD Labs, and as such I was compensated. My opinion is all my own and it is also 100 % truthful.

Mom of two beautiful active girls, traveller, fitness junkie, social media consultant, and keeper of the sanity.

15 Comments

  • Annemarie LeBlanc

    This sounds like a great app for kids to keep track of their savings. My kids are all grown ups now and I am also proud that they know how to save. Up to this day, we keep an old fishbowl in the living room which we use to drop loose change in. It is our rainy day family fund.

  • Amanda Love

    This will be great for my boys. They have no clue about saving, especially my 15 year old who loves to spend every single cent he receives and then ask me for money to buy things he want. I’ll have him download this.

    • Paula

      Liz: I agree and it’s one of the things we worry most about as parents. How will you ever cope as an adult if you can’t save your money…it’s something every parent wonders at some point. That and will they ever learn to clean their room?

  • Akhil Sharma

    Your daughters are dedicated towards their goal, which is a rare thing in present day scenario where you end up spending more money than you try to save.

  • Rosey

    It’s in an unwritten contract somewhere that parents had better teach their kids good financial practices. IF we don’t, we’re setting them up for life to be harder than it has to be.

  • Lisa Rios

    The TD Family Allowance sounds like a wonderful App & I love that it helps children and youth to have control over their finances & allowances. We all have the responsibility to teach our kids about savings & this is a great app to move one step ahead.

  • Marielle Altenor

    That’s a pretty neat app! My son has been asking for this Lego (that he doesn’t need but really, REALLY wants!). So I told him ways he can earn money and save it till he has enough to get it himself. Right now I’m just tracking his money with a paper but this app would be fun to have!

  • Elizabeth Matthiesen

    My mother always said “if you don’t have the cash you can’t buy it” and I still live by that today. I’ve also tried to impart this to my own children and it seems to have gone pretty well. The only thing I’ve not saved up for and paid cash for is in fact a house I bought, I did take out a mortgage for that, though that really did go against the grain since you end up paying at least double by the time the house really does belong to you alone.

  • Judy Cowan

    Sounds like a great app, will have to check it out. I try and encourage my nieces/nephews to save some of their money and this might help them.