Piggy Banks for the Digital Generation
As a parent there comes a time when you have to start teaching your kids fiscal responsibility. Typically this means giving your kids an allowance. Many of us had allowances growing up and it usually came in the form of old-fashioned, cold-hard cash. As an adolescent you are too young to get a job. It is, however, a critical age to learn about finances. This is when you learn things such as spending within your means and saving for things you want instead of just asking mom and dad to buy it for you.
As a father of two I gave my kids an allowance in cash and it just never seemed to work. We just don’t carry cash around like we used to. Money is tracked electronically. So we were always mismanaging our kids allowance, buying things for them and keeping a ledger in the backs of our minds. This was ineffective and wasn’t teaching them anything. So I took the next logically step: tracking via a spreadsheet.
Spreadsheets are a blessing and a curse. They are easy to set up and update but they don’t scale well. So as time went on it became more and more challenging keeping track of each kids debits and credits as I would have to keep track of things in my head until I got back home to make the updates on my computer. Things were constantly missed and my kids never knew how much money they really had. Arguments inevitably ensued.
It was at this point I decided that:
- I need an accounting system that I can update on the fly
- It needs to be transparent to my kids so they can see how much money they have at a given time
- It needs to have some kind of automation so that allowances can be added on a cyclical basis
So my wife and I came up with the idea for Stillbank. A still bank is another name for a piggy bank. Except this wouldn’t be a physical piggy bank. This would be a online banking system for kids. Not a replacement for having an true savings account for your kids rather something for them to squirrel away their ‘petty cash’ from allowances, birthday gifts, etc.
The idea is that you create an account for each of your kids, establish their starting balance, and keep a ledger for all their transactions. Create a ‘direct deposit’ for their allowance so that every week they get an automated credit in their account. When you are at the store show them on the app how much they have in their account.
Face it: when our kids grow up they will not be dealing with cash. I think it is time we start teaching them to manage their money similarly to how they will be managing their money as adults. Signup is available if you want to start using Stillbank today. Some features are not yet available. Please report any bugs or feature requests through Github or on Twitter @IgnoreIntuition
Stillbank: https://resurgencewebdesignc.ipage.com/stillbank/
Github: https://github.com/ignoreintuition/stillbank
Github (server): https://github.com/ignoreintuition/stillbank-server
