piggy bank | jonathan adlerI love my kids’ innocence when it comes to money management. They think that the ATM supply is endless and a credit card is just a means of being able to push the green button.

But soon enough, they will start to get that money is earned and more importantly, saved. When that time comes, it’s worth using this handy money management system I discovered to help teach the ways of a dollar. 

Kashpile lets you create profiles for your kids and within each, set up weekly allowances, budgets, goals for things they want to save up for and even chores. It graphs out spending and lets you and your child see how much they have left in their “accounts” and how they can manage their finances. You can even get fancy and input interest and bonuses for staying on budget. Pretty cool. 

If your kids are younger, you will have to do all the bookkeeping, but kids in upper elementary may be able to handle inputting data themselves, which could function as a nice introduction to Accounting 101. 

And though you may “deposit” money into their “account,” keep in mind this is not a real account. It’s all just a tracking system, so the system doesn’t have access to any actual money of yours.

kashpile on cool mom tech

While there’s no mobile element yet like Buckaroo, a mobile app with similar features we profiled a while back, the web interface of Kashpile is very easy to follow and extremely user-friendly. In fact, it even sends birthday reminders to family members and friends so they can contribute to your child’s goals via PayPal if you activate that option.

There are a couple of little glitches while the site is still in Beta–no luck uploading photos of our kids our their goals and the connection to Amazon shopping hasn’t gone live yet. But we’re definitely rooting for this app. Because helping your kids realize the value of a hard-earned dollar is priceless. -Jeana


Teach your kids how to manage their money with Kashpile, in Beta.

[gold piggy bank via jonathan adler]