**This blogpost is not sponsored by RBC or MyDoh. This is my personal opinion and review of the fintech app.**
I would have started trialing MyDoh sooner with my teens but we were in Africa at the time and our opportunities for spending were a bit different.
Now that we are back in Canada and back to the regular routine of chores and needing money for sporting events and food, I want to make sure that we are intentionally practicing what we preach about teaching our kids on how to handle money wisely and how to save up for short and long term goals.
What is MyDoh?
It is an app backed by RBC but you can still use it even though you don't have an account with RBC. It's intent is:
"make it easy for kids to gain real money skills. And you can coach, guide, or just keep an eye on things."
I like that it is customizable to your parenting style because you can be as hands on or as hands off as you want to be.
There are several cool features about this fin tech app.
Tasks and Allowance:
I like how you have the option to assign a weekly or daily task to your child and vary the amount that you are willing to pay them for said task.
You can assign individual tasks to each of your children or assign them all the same tasks or chores. There is a due date. There is also a set pay date where the money is automatically transferred from your wallet to their account/card which just happens to be on Saturdays.
Caution:
Be careful about how you set up or assign the chores because I accidentally set up a daily due date for music practice and if they missed just one practice during the week, they didn't get paid for the any of them. So instead, I had to enter a Custom Chore for each individual day instead of setting it up as a repetitive daily chore. My kids were not very impressed when they didn't get paid accurately. Kind of like when I get cranky with payroll for incorrect paystub.
The weekly allowance allows you to decide on different amounts for different kids based on their needs and stages of life.
Spending:
The Kid's MyDoh Smart Cash card acts like a prepaid Visa/debit card. They can use it to purchase products online or in person. They cannot use it at an ATM because it would be too difficult to track what they purchased with cash.
This can be considered a drawback because some people do better spending with cash and the psychological aspect involved with seeing cash leave your hands vs just swiping a plastic card. However, realistically your kids are not always going to buy with cash so it is a good practice/habit to get into. Also, they can only spend the amount that they have on their card. There is no overdraft protection on this card. There are some limits too such as the number of transactions per day and amount purchased either online or in person.
The great part is that parents can observe what the kids are spending money on and rate their feelings about the purchase with an emoji.
The kids cannot use their card to purchase gambling or alcoholic purchases. Purchases of up to $200 can be made with a physical or digital Mydoh Smart Cash Card, while purchases of up to $500 can be made with a digital one.
Kids can add their Mydoh Smart Cash Card to their Apple Wallet and make online or in-store purchases anywhere Visa or Apple Pay is accepted.
Parents can also lock and unlock their kid's cards so that they can't spend. Or if their card gets lost or stolen, this acts as a security feature to prevent unwanted purchases.
Savings Goals:
Your kids can make up to 3 different general or specific savings goals. Then you and your child can both track and see how close they are to achieving their savings goal. Once they have reached their goal, they can transfer the amount onto their active card to make the purchase. Parents can also contribute to their savings goals too.
I had one of my children set up a savings goal towards a future vehicle purchase. It was really neat to see him initiate and set this up himself.
Investing:
Although it is not specifically meant for investing, there is the option to learn about investing and set a goal for setting aside money for investments.
The caveat is that the child would have to send their "investment" goal money to their parents to then remove from their MyDoh wallet and send to another institution for investing.
The downside to keeping your kids savings within their MyDoh goal fund is that they don't earn any interest on the amount accumulated. So perhaps, setting aside smaller goals and remove them quarterly for the parent to invest in an actual savings account that earns interest, would be a great way to go. I have yet to find a bank that allows children's savings accounts to accumulate anything but miniscule interest, including any of the big banks.
Pay day:
Payments are sent automatically from your account on Saturdays to your kid’s accounts. The money is available right away for them to spend or save for later.
I purposely made sure that I didn't have enough money in my wallet to see what would happen and of course the transaction to pay my kids didn't go through and MyDoh sent me a notification of this failed occurrence. No big deal. I just had to manually pay them myself after I topped up my wallet. Topping up the parents wallet is a quick same day E-transfer from your own regular chequing account. You can also set up automatic transfers if you want.
Oversight:
Nothing beats experience
"Kids can see the amount of money they have in their account and how much of that hard-earned money they’ll have to part with to buy something. They begin to understand that a purchase is a trade-off, that there’s a difference between things they need and things they want, and can make smarter choices in time. Spending smart takes practice"
Add a Parent:
You can get the whole family involved in watching and teaching your child how to learn Zero Based Budgeting.
What is a Zero Based Budget:
A zero-based budget or ZBB, is a method where you allocate every dollar of your income and assign it to either an expense or savings goal. Taking all your income sources and subtract your expenses and savings, to equal zero.
It’s a popular tool used in the corporate world but has since been adapted to suit our everyday financial needs. Adults struggle with this concept, so it is a great way for teens to learn not to overspend at an early age.
Website Financial Education and Chore Charts:
There are printable chore charts from seasonal to weekly ones. Plus a blog and some calculators. The website has Money 101 Guides that discuss TFSAs and how you can invest in ETFs or Mutual funds which is nice to see that they are not just discussing Mutual funds.
Learning on the App:
The kids have access to topics such as:
Cost of Living
Budgeting
Saving and Investing
Debt
Economics
Banking
Psychology and Lifestyle
Some of the topics and trivia may be too juvenile for older teens.
Eliminating:
They are now eliminating the educational component of this on the app. I see that they no longer advertise the financial literacy piece on the website but as parents you can go to the website with your child and read and discuss the information articles that they have.
Independence:
I really like that I can transfer money to my kids instead of getting out cash and giving it to them. I like that it lends to some independence for my kids. For example, my child went for a physio appointment by himself and used his Mydoh card to pay for the appointment. I had transferred the money for this transaction into his account ahead of time and he was aware that he had to pay for the appointment and keep the receipt.
Cost of this product:
$3/month for the whole family if you bank with RBC (although I'm only paying $2.99/month and I don't have an RBC account.
or
$5/month if you do not bank with RBC.
Final verdict:
I really enjoy the spending aspect of this card for my older child because I can see and react to what he is spending his money on. He is 15 years old, so he is out and about with friends more and has the freedom to pay for more things.
My younger child, used the app for both spending setting up a savings goal and for some of the educational components(when it was still available).
It is interesting to see how each child benefits differently from this app.
It made things easier for me as a parent, not to have to remember to keep track of and pay their weekly chore allowance. It kept me accountable each week and I just had to keep remembering to top up the funds in my wallet. Of course, you can also choose to enroll in an automatic top up.
Your MyDoh card can even be used in other countries but you will be charged a 2.5% foreign transaction fee. If however, you are looking to avoid those pesky foreign transaction fees, the EQ bank card does not charge foreign transaction fees. Looking for a referral code?
Overall, I was pretty impressed with this Finance Technology. I'm usually quite impressed with anything that tries to mimic real life with a safety net for kids. I think that it would be a great tool for parents to use starting as soon as kids can grasp the concept of math and money.
Now Go and Be Intentional with Financial Education for your Kids!
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