PayJr: 21st Century Allowances for Your Kids

When I was much younger, back in my grade-school days, I would receive $1.00 a week if I had my room-clean on Saturday morning, and most of the time it wasn't. I invariably would end up spending 2 or 3 hours cleaning my room so I could get my allowance. I'd take my $1.00, and inevitably blow it on pop, candy, or a trip to the swimming pool. It's amazing how allowance has changed in a couple of decades. Now parents can assign chores to their children through the internet and pay them online with a service called PayJr.

It's really an innovative idea that will surely make MasterCard very wealthy someday. Parents and their children all create accounts on the site. Parents can assign their children chores to do worth a certain dollar amount. The child can then go do the chore, and mark it as complete, and if the parent confirms that it's complete, it'll transfer whatever amount of money the parent specified onto a MasterCard debit card that the child can go use as if it were a normal debit card.

In order to use the option with the debit card, the child has to be at least 13 years of age. For children under the age of 13, they offer free chore-tracking online and printable chore calendars which help children and parents manage what chores are assigned and what associated rewards are given. It also has a "balance owed" so that children know how much money they have coming from their parents.

The service is definitely very unique and is an inevitability of the World Wide Web. Surely MasterCard will make a lot of money long term through this website because of what's called "Kiddy Branding," which is advertising to children when they're younger in hopes that they'll make use of the products when they're older (ie, use this debit MasterCard now, and chances are you'll use a MasterCard credit card when you're 18.)

Whether or not there's anything morally or ethically wrong to market to children this way is always up for discussion. I wouldn't be too worried about it as long as children are educated in all manners of finance and know how to use credit and debt responsibly before ever having the opportunity to make use of it.

The system isn't for everyone, but it's an easy way for tech savvy families to manage the allowance system. This way parents won't forget, and children will always know what they need to get done.