Family Mint (TOS Review)

Treehouse Review Week

Family Mint: Helping Kids Appreciate Money
Family Mint FAQ Page

This is, I think, a unique product and website. And it's very appropriate for this blog, even though we ended up not actually using it ourselves--I'm happy to pass on the word about it.

Family Mint is a tracking and goal-setting system for kids' money--with the parents as bankers. It's not an actual bank--there's no way anybody can get at your cash. It's just a fancy, fun-looking record-keeping and budget-teaching system with some nice features for families. Organize tithing, save for a bike or for college, automate their allowance, match funds for a giving goal--you set the parameters; your kids log in and see how close they are to meeting their goals.

And I'm going to tell you the nicest part right away: it's free. They plan to offer a Pro version in the near future as well, but the basic program is free. Nothing to download--you just sign up and everything's online.

A couple of downsides: There were a couple of reasons why this product wasn't something we could use right now with our own family; mostly, we just didn't need it right now since our Squirrelings already each have some sort of more-or-less-formal money system going. Mr. Fixit examined the website and felt that he would prefer the program to have been something that you download once rather than a website you have to sign into; he also found the number of sign-ins and passwords a bit offputting. Nothing too serious, just personal preference. I suggested that just using it for fun might help the Squirrelings learn more about money, budgeting and interest; but both the younger girls quickly pointed out to me that they'd learned "all that" already on their favourite Virtual Thing website.

Which was quite true, when I thought about it. The third grader may be a bit of a thrift-shop spendthrift in real life, but in ThingWorld she's a money maven. She knows how to save up her Virtual Cash Points to buy Virtual Thing a new Virtual Thingamabob, and how to trade off the Exploding Cookies the Thing won't eat for the Shuddering Sandwiches it wants. She knows you have to earn enough points to feed and clothe and entertain the Thing, and take care of it when it's sick. They're familiar with Big Sister Squirreling's old favourite virtual world where there's a bank, a stock market, and all kinds of other imaginary-money happenings. And the point of this isn't that I think children learn more in an imaginary setting than they would in the real world (or that they should spend more time online than they already do), but only to point out that some children may have already picked up more financial savvy that way than we realize. Applying it to the real world is a different challenge, but the basics are there.

Do I like this product? Yes. Following a program like this over several years could take a kid from the saving-for-a-toy period right to the saving-for-a-car years. I think it's well designed for families that already have the parent-child framework in place to make a program like this work: that is, the children are in a relationship with their parents that includes enough trust and shared values to let the parents "be the bankers" as long as they use the program. There are different levels of interfaces for different ages--the youngest children get more and larger pictures to show them where their money is going; and older children/teens would probably be able to handle most of their end themselves, with the parents acting mostly as "administrators."

The unfortunate limit on a parent-controlled money website is that both the philosophy of money and philosophy of family life expected here may be becoming a rare commodity. More common among homeschoolers and/or families of a conservative religious bent; but not so common in the mainstream world where MY money is MINE. But if you're of the opposite viewpoint, and saving, sharing and giving are part of your lifestyle; if you want a free and appealing way to teach your children to save money, check out Family Mint.

For more reviews of this product, see the Review Crew website.

Dewey's Disclaimer: Although this is a free online product, we need to state that we were not paid to give this review, and that the views expressed in this review are our own.