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A Quick Guide on the Goalsetter App (Including My Review)

Ready for an app that both incentivizes your child’s financial literacy learning and also helps them achieve savings goals? My Goalsetter App review.

What if I told you there’s a financial management app that both incentivizes and places spending locks on kids' & teens’ spending ability, based on how well they answer financial literacy questions?

alt="mom with tween boy making online purchase with prepaid debit card, text overlay "goalsetter app review for kids and teens"

After hearing about this app – Goalsetter – in a Facebook group, I was intrigued.

What exactly is the Goalsetter app, and how can it help you to teach your child to manage their money?

I reached out to the company, hopped on a call, and started using it myself.

Here’s my honest Goalsetter App review, a financial management and savings goal app (with an optional prepaid debit card) for kids aged 6-16.

First up, let’s just get this out of the way – worried about whether or not these guys are legit?

Is Goalsetter Legit?

I can honestly say that Goalsetter is totally legit. Not only did I meet with their company, but their savings accounts are backed by the FDIC, their prepaid debit card is backed by Mastercard, and they were even on the hit show, Shark Tank.

Goalsetter App Review

If I had to sum this app up with just two bullet points (hard to do, but I’ll do it), I’d have to say that at its heart, it’s about:

  • helping your child and teen set and achieve savings goals
  • incentivizing your child to become financially literate

 Yes, it’s got many other functionalities, but you should know that these are the company’s main goals behind this app.

App functionality that supports these goals include:

  • Set Up a Savings Goal: Under the savings icon, and then Goals, your child can set up their own savings goals. Simply click on one of the goals prepopulated, then the little pencil at the top, and edit what you’re saving for, the description, and the amount you want to save. Then, pick a date for the goal.
  • Roundup Savings: Each purchase made on the prepaid debit card is rounded to the nearest $1.00, and the difference is put into your child’s savings goal. And guess what? Family and friends can round up saves towards your child’s goal, too!
  • GoalCards: Friends and family members can gift any child with a Goalsetter account money on a GoalCard that they can use to put towards their savings goal. They can be sent with a message, and kids can send a thank you message. There’s a $1 fee.  
  • Financial Literacy Quizzes that Unlock Functions: Each Monday, a new financial literacy quiz is released. Your child must get at least 8 out of the 10 questions correct to move on. And “move on” can mean what you want it to – earn the money you’ve set aside to incentivize their learning, get a higher “Cred-Lit” score, or unlock their prepaid debit card so that they can spend with it. Quizzes start for age 5, and you can choose a harder level (or easier) as needed.
  • Two Ways to Cash Out: When your child has reached their savings goal, you can either cash out to spend the money through your savings account, or through the Cashola prepaid debit card.
  • Moneylingo™ Family Finance Videos: Watch entertaining videos about important financial education topics like smart spending, investing, earning income, and more.
man in green cape and green eye mask on Moneylingo finance video
savings goal screen with mountain summer icon in background

Money Prodigy is all about kid’s savings goals, and I’ve got some fun resources to help jumpstart your own child’s:

But, as I mentioned, these are not the only things you can do with this app. Let’s take a look at what else there is.

Here's a walkthrough video:

Digitally Manage your Allowance System

Whether your allowance system is tied to chores or not, you’ll be able to use this app to manage it all.

That’s because you’re the one who gets to set the Allowance rules.

If you want to:

  • Pay for chores, then set up the “You’re on Payroll” rule. This allows you to set tasks that must be completed, for a specified amount of money. Chores must be approved by you before your child gets paid. Here’s how to figure out how much to pay for chores.
  • Pay out an allowance, then set up the “Set it and Forget it” rule for consistent paydays to your child. Here’s how to figure out how much allowance by age.
  • Motivate your child’s entrepreneurial side (choosing whether or not to do chores, and then getting paid based on efforts), then look into the “Entrepreneur-in-the-Making” rule.
goalsetter app with three choices for setting up your allowance system

Note that by using this app to manage your allowance system, then you’re choosing Mondays for payday. That’s the day that all transfers occur.

Give Parents Control over Kid’s Money Management

There are a few parental controls with this app.  

You can “lock” any savings goal you would like, which prevents your child from moving money from the goal to somewhere else so that they can spend it.

savings goal editing screen where parents can lock spending, and kid picks goal and deadline and amount

You can also set a weekly limit on spending, and once that’s reached, there is no more spending your child can do.  

The website says you can set limits on where the money is spent.

Honestly, I’ve reached out to the company and done a good bit of research on their site (as well as have the app on my phone), and I can’t seem to find further information. I will update here as I understand them better.

Psst: for very robust parental spending controls, checkout the Greenlight prepaid debit card.

Offers a Prepaid Debit Card

Are you ready to get a prepaid debit card for your tween or teen?

There are many reasons why you might be looking for one.

A prepaid debit card allows your tween and teen to practice spending money on “plastic”, with a very hard spending threshold – there are no overdraft fees because they simply can spend above and beyond what’s on the card.

Prepaid debit cards also offer spending controls that you don’t find on a typical debit card.

And finally, they have benefits that cash does not, such as being able to make an online purchase.

Not only will the Goalsetter app stand on its own as an allowance or chore commission or savings goal manager for kids, but it also has a prepaid debit card you can get if you’d like.

It’s the Cashola Prepaid Debit Card, and here’s a few features:

  • It’s a Mastercard
  • You can lock the card from any spending if your child has not completed their Financial Literacy quiz for the week
  • It cannot be used at ATMs
  • There’s no cost to get it, but there is an $8.00 replacement card fee and a $1.00 inactivity fee (after no transactions for 12 months)

Psst: check out my article on Greenlight vs. goalsetter prepaid debit cards.

Is Goalsetter Free? No.

Amazingly, this Prepaid Debit Card for kids started out on a pay-what-you-can model.

Since then, they've updated to two subscription plans:

  • Goalsetter: $3.95/month
  • Goalsetter Gold: $5.95/month (this allows your child to invest)

Your first month is free.

You Can Cash Out of a Savings Goal in Two Ways

Since this is an app heavily based on helping your child meet and achieve savings goals, I thought it was important to write a section on how to cash out once they get there.

Once your child reaches their savings goal, there are two ways to cash out so that they can actually spend the month.

The first is with parents moving the money to their bank account. The parent (that’s you!) would then need to help the child make their purchase, online, by check, or however they need to buy what they wanted to be/do/have.

You should know that transfers to a bank account can take between 2 and 5 days.

The second way is to move the money to their Goalsetter Cashola Prepaid Debit Card. Then, the child can spend it on their goal.

It should be noted that parents can lock any savings goal so that the money in that goal cannot be spent elsewhere. Pretty smart feature (in case your child gets tempted to buy something else while watching their money grow!).

Given everything I’ve researched and seen for myself with this company, I can give this app a very good review. I think their financial literacy quizzes are really cool, meaning they meet tweens and teens at their level and are quite fun to do. I’d like to see more parental controls which, again, there might be – I just can’t seem to get an answer.

This is definitely a great financial management app for families, and it could be just the one for yours!

If you’re still on the fence, or it doesn’t quite fit the bill, be sure to check out:

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Amanda L. Grossman is a writer and Certified Financial Education Instructor, a 2017 Plutus Foundation Grant Recipient, and founder of Money Prodigy. Her money work has been featured on Experian, GoBankingRates, PT Money, CA.gov, Rockstar Finance, the Houston Chronicle, and Colonial Life. Amanda is the founder and CEO of Frugal Confessions, LLC. Read more here or on LinkedIn.