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Most start ups have one thing in mind, and that is to make things easier to do. While that is true for the most part, here’s a new start up that make things complex and your kids unsocial. Zefty claims to teach your kids about money management and spending.
Using Zefty, parents can set up virtual accounts for their kids. And it makes the parents the bank. No real money is involved ( huh? what’s the purpose then?). Parents just set up how much money their kid gets and when he gets it. They can set up automatic depositing of the virtual funds into their child’s account at different times. And when they give their child real cash ( now we’re talking! ), the parents make a withdrawal from the kids Zefty account. They can even use a check system, called ZeftyCheck to teach their children how to use checks and ZeftCalc to calculate their savings. It also says that:
Not sure how much allowance you should pay your child? Using ZeftyCalc, you can enter in your gross household income, the age of your child, and the level of chores they have. ZeftyCalc then gives you a rough estimate as to what a fair allowance would be.
Why would anyone want to enter their gross household income into ZeftCalc is beyond me. As our parents tell us not to trust strangers, I see no reason for them to do the same.
On their website they also say that
Teaching kids about responsible spending and saving is difficult. Zefty was designed to make a simple task, allowances for kids, even simpler.
I never knew it was that difficult a task. My father must have had to go through a hard time teaching me how to spend money and save up.
This is one of the most weirdest ideas I’ve seen to date for a startup. And I have no idea why anyone would want to rely on it to teach their kids something that’s better taught face to face. I, for once, was lucky that I never had to wait to get allowance from my parents to get candy, before the money had been withdrawn from my Zefty account.
Considering how kids view money these days the idea seems brilliant to me. I am going to try it out with my eldest boy, and pray that it helps in any small way. He is only 4 years old, and definitely has massively incorrect notions about money, which I blame on Grandpa, who spoils him.