FamZoo Family Finance Reviews

We were looking for a way for our kids to manage their own money and have their own debit cards. But when I started looking into it, both are too young to get a debit card from our bank. This was the perfect solution. All money on the kids’ cards is loaded from the parent account, so I know exactly where the money is at all times, can move money between accounts easily, and can see what is being spent. The only thing that was a bit of a pain was loading money to the parent card. I didn’t want to set up an automatic direct deposit from my paycheck, but adding money via my PayPal account took nearly a week for the funds to get to the parent card (this appears to be a PayPal issue not a FamZoo issue, but either way it was annoying), but once I got Apple Cash set up, it takes just seconds. Now the kids can use their own debit card to make purchases. And the card will not allow you to overdraw the account. So no worries about going into debt or racking up overdraft fees. If they don’t have the funds, the purchase can’t be made. The price to set up the FamZoo accounts and get the cards was very reasonable. We got a debit and a savings card for each child and encourage the kids to split their deposits so some money goes into each account. It has worked really well for our family.

I struggled every week to have cash to pay allowance, so mostly it wasn't paid. Being young, my kids didn't really care too much, but they also weren't learning how to handle money either since I'd often give in and buy that trinket out of guilt knowing that I owed them allowance. FamZoo has totally solved that problem since the money is effectively virtual. I literally can't forget to pay it since it is automated and never need to make change. My kids are now engaged with learning about finance with the tools to track saving, and we get to talk again about the useless stuff they spend money on when we review their spending every couple of weeks: "so here's that $2 you spent on the funny pencil. Do you still think that was worth the money? (And by the way do you even know where it is?)

Tip: check out the blog from the earlier days of FamZooFamilyFinance as well as the associated family finance favs blog for some great ideas about how to get more from FamZooFamilyFinance (love the "could have earned" account where we note how much was spent on stuff that just wasn't worth it as well as jobs they passed on so they can start to connect long term financial effects to short term decisions) and how to approach finance education with your kids.

What could be more empowering for a kid than having their own real debit card? What could be more effective for a parent than being able to teach kids about money by supervising them actually manage it? Famzoo is a powerful platform that allows parents to configure a wide range of options. We choose to pay the kids 2% interest per month. If they save their money, they watch it grow. They actually hold back spending because they want their interest. That's exactly the lesson we are trying to teach. When they do their chores, they check them off and get paid - and we are notified via email so we can ensure it was really done. Some tasks are daily and others are weekly or monthly? Check. You can do that. Unlike some platforms that are focused only on very young kids, Famzoo matures with your kids. My high school teens still love using Famzoo and appreciate being able to get a card without the whimsical logo they enjoyed when they were younger. Everything I mentioned here is just the tip of the iceberg. If you are working to raise responsible financially literate kids, FamZooFamilyFinance is a great tool.

We have been using Fam Zoo for about four years now, and we can’t say enough about how much we love it. We were trying to pay our kids allowance but we kept forgetting to get small bills, so we would find ourselves doing IOUs all the time. It was getting very frustrating. Then I heard about Fam Zoo, so I gave it a try. We absolutely love having debit cards for our kids so that they can purchase things on their own, even online. I love that if we are at a store and one of my kids wants something,I can check their balance right then. Or if they have not brought their card with them, I can pay for the item and immediately debit it from their account. Also, family gifts of money and checks are so easy now. We just take the money and then give them credit in their accounts from our master account. It’s fantastic!

Also, anytime I have had a question, I email the company and they get back to me within hours. There is a little bit of set up in the beginning, but it’s well worth it. Try it! You’ll be happy you did!

FamZooFamilyFinance and the program it represents are a fabulous system that provides very clear boundaries about money, but also a lot of flexibility. My kids are 5, 10, and 15, so I’m getting a full experience of FamZoo across the various development stages. My teenager loves her independence, my 10yo loves how she can’t lose her money (esp. compared to keeping her money in a box), while my 5yo likes being like “the big kids” and I am the keeper of the cards. We aren’t anywhere near using this system to its full potential, but when I have a new task to do, the blogs, Facebook group, and the quick customer service will be what I do

FamZooFamilyFinance is also fabulous for me and my ADHD. Folks with ADHD can have serious problems with money, keeping to a budget, etc. FamZoo is flexible enough that I was able to set up different cards for each of out budget areas, like grocery , kids’ clothes, pet care, etc. I can always look up how much money we have in a given account. My ADHD issues with money are now much better managed, thanks to FamZoo.

Update, a year later: we are still really, really happy with FamZoo.

We’ve used the FamZoo App, Bank Account, and Debit Card System with our daughter for the past several years. We all love it! My daughter was quick to understand the spending account paid no interest, her savings/investment account paid really good interest, and her car fund a different amount. We set it up that way and it worked great.

I pretty know where all of her money is at all times AND what it gets spent on. The text alerts go to her and I every time the accounts have activity. Allowances are automated ... and the occasional penalty is just a few clicks and done.

She’s loves that she has a debit card at such a young age and overall, it’s really helped me teach about money, saving, investing, interest, debit vs credit cards, and so much. It’s been a great tool and I’d recommend to anyone. And for the very few times I needed help or support, the service was top notch. Thank you, FamZoo.

I haven’t been using this for long, but this far it has been great! I set up cards for myself as the primary funder with cards for gas, groceries, (birthday and Christmas) gifts, and spending money. My fiancé has a card that we are using for his “allowance” to track & control his spending; and my daughter has a card that I load her allowance onto for chores. I’m still working on figuring out the ins and outs of the IOU accounts, but I think those will be beneficial too, especially when my daughter wants to buy something or save up for something. So far we’ve used it primarily to gauge our spending each month - I load a certain amount each week onto each card, and we can tell at the end of the week how much we’ve spent in each category and how much we have left over. It’s really been helpful to see what we are spending and where, and adjust our budgets accordingly. It’s also helped us get more motivated to save and pay off debt because the money that is left over from each category gets put towards our emergency fund and our debt. I’m excited to see where we are in a few more months and beyond. Thanks!!

We have 2 boys, ages 14 and 17. We joined FamZoo a few years ago, before my older son took a school trip to Florida. We were mostly interested in the card aspect of it at that time, so that he wouldn’t be carrying cash. But FamZoo has made our lives easier in so many ways, I regret that I didn’t know about it sooner! Paying allowances and setting up paid chores are very easy in FamZooFamilyFinance or on the website. We used to have a whiteboard filled with who owes what to whom - no more! We’ve made allowances automatic, and the boys can transfer money to one another for shared expenses, like video games. They get hands-on experience with budgeting, and we are able to oversee their accounts at a glance, to intervene if needed. Best of all, FamZoo has wonderful customer service. They have answered any of our questions quickly and thoroughly. I have no complaints!

This card has been so helpful by allowing me to get money to my son. He lives with his father currently and it’s not always easy to get him cash, there FamZoo card has made it so much easier.
The only inconvenient thing I would mention is the time it takes to transfer money into the account from my bank. The deposit takes days... I wish it was a little more instantaneous like Venmo or others like that. I have auto draft set up on my act to transfer money every week, this last one for example was withdrawn from my act on the 25th and it still has not deposited into my FamZoo act as of today, the 29th. Only draw back is the lengthy transfer of money in. I understand the security though so I appreciate they are working to keep the accounts safe.
It has been such a big help. Thank you FamZoo.

I have been using FamZooFamilyFinance for several years, and I love it. No more jars of money, no more forgetting to bring cash to the mall, no more forgetting to dole out allowances every weekend. This solves all of those problems. When my kids want to buy something, I just say, "yes, let's see how much money you have." A few taps on my phone later, and they are deciding whether or not to spend their money. In addition to the weekly money going in to the account, my older son has monthly deductions (for his portion of the phone bill, and the meal program at school.) He gets a large allowance, and is learning about ongoing expenses. He's very proud that he is the only kid among his friends who "pays for his i.e. phone bill." We would be spending that money anyway; this puts the financial choices in his control. Customer service is very responsive,too.

Best intentions are laid to waste if not executed upon. As my kids were younger, I planned on giving them a weekly salary and the opportunity to earn bonuses. If they earned $x.xx in a week, I wanted to split their earning to be designated for three categories spend/save/give. Additionally, I wanted to help my young'ings understand the benefits of savings with a matching dollars (I call it the 401Dad program) and aggressive interest paid on savings.

The complexities of my plans made it difficult if not impossible for me to execute consistently.

FamZoo has helped me set it up and has been there for every step of the way. Their FAQs answer most questions I may have but their customer support crew regularly returns e-mail inquiries within hours.

This is my first app review ever but I took the time to write this because I feel that strongly about FamZoo and the need to provide kids with financial education.

My oldest just bought his own first car with his own money and my 10 year old just bought $500 in stock with some of his savings.

Use FaZoo and take the time to dig into it and do it right. If you are looking for a simple allowance managment system, FamZoo will meet your needs too but I call all but guarantee you will do more with it than you anticipated.

The idea behind FamZooFamilyFinance is good. I have no problem paying money for the services that FamZooFamilyFinance said I would receive. The ability to manage my kids money and teach them financial skills was exactly what I was looking for. However, FamZooFamilyFinance is so complex. I downloaded FamZooFamilyFinance doesn’t show that I have cards activated. It just shows the set up. The pictures show a very simple user face, but the actual app takes me directly to the website. Instead of an app like pictured it’s the mobile website. Everything is tiny it’s super hard to navigate. It’s just totally inconvenient. It’s enough for me to cancel the cards. The only thing that would make me keep it is the fact that you can set up direct deposit to these cards and I already paid over $100 for them. It was a toss up for me between this and another app, I came to this one because it was the better of the 2 in features but the difficulty in usability is enough for me to eat the money i lost and never open FamZooFamilyFinance again.

We were first exposed to FamZoo when we went out to eat with family friends and each of their three kids were responsible for buying their own meal. As a busy family of five they are out frequently and used the Debit cards from FamZoo as a way to teach their kids the value of a dollar. We took the plunge about 9 months ago and have found it to be an effective way to track chores, implement penalties, and give our daughters (8 and 10) visibility into their accounts as they save for bigger purchases. We are also use this approach for their weekly tithe on all they earn to separate into spend, save, and give categories. We tried all of the manual approaches and never stayed with them long. This has been a great app to teach our kids more about money and responsibility.

I use the FamZoo credit card with cards for each of my children. Using a debit card instead of cash is much easier for my 14-year-old, but my 9-year-old also is happy (though he must be with me to use it).

Where FamZoo is really useful, however, is automatically paying allowances and automatically transferring out the portion for savings. I kept forgetting to one or both weekly before we had FamZoo. I also am able to pay interest if they keep their money on their cards, encouraging my children to not spend all of their funds.

Last, my teenager can runs errands for me, using his card to pay and I can pay him back, or in advance, instantly. He is happy to have the autonomy, and I am happy to have help with errands.

It’s a great system. It take a bit to read everything to set it up, but it then can be fully automatic. I set up recurring transfers from my bank account to my FamZoo card, which then goes straight to their allowances. And I can give them funds to their cards instantly when I owe them for something. (And they can pay me back too instantly.) It is a great system.

FamZooFamilyFinance has become a big part of our family. We have relied on it for years now. It teaches the girls not only about the responsibility of doing their chores, but also about the responsibility of listing them once they’ve done them. Because if they don’t add them in FamZoo then they don’t get paid. This is something we are still working on, but it is an excellent life lesson. I love the customer service. Any time something comes up someone contacts me immediately. The platform uses Facebook as a means to get answers, but I don’t do social media. So I always have questions, and I am always responded to within minutes, hardly ever hours - literally. I love FamZooFamilyFinance. I can’t recommend it enough.

We have had good success with using FamZoo for more than a few years. At first, the advantage for us was not having to scramble for cash on allowance day. Then the debit system became a good way to understand rudimentary financials and learn about preportioning into a savings/spending split. Now the card makes my life easier when my daughter can run into the store, pay for necessities, track what needs to be paid back and feel comfortable knowing she has enough money for some splurges without carrying a wad of crumpled cash etc. With the pandemic’s effect on cash sales, the card is indispensable. Not to mention vending machine conversions to cashless transactions. We continue to be happy with FamZoo.

FamZooFamilyFinance has helped our family in so many ways! We use it to pay our kids for chores, give them money for meals when they’re out with friends or after school for extracurricular activities. My daughter even used it for direct deposit when she worked part time over the summer. They love it because it helps them be independent. I also think it’s helping them build money management skills they’ll need when they’re on their own eventually. As for FamZooFamilyFinance itself, it’s rock solid and we’ve never had issues with it working properly. Customer service is also top notch and very responsive when we needed help. It’s worth every penny we pay for the service.

My parents are elderly and on a fixed income and I have taken over managing their finances for them. They are still somewhat independent so they like to have spending money for things while I handle the bills and expenses. FamZoo allows me to give them debit cards for their spending money without worry of over spending and not having enough when the bills are due. Also every time I’ve had to contact customer service at FamZoo the response has been lightning fast and my issues are resolved instantly! I highly recommend FamZoo for anyone that has family members young or old that need some help managing their spending.

After months of research and reviewing different family finance apps, trying
To find something that would fit what I wanted to do, I came across a review of FamZoo and, more specifically, their prepaid debit card option. Four main reasons I love the FamZoo debit cards, well five:
1. I can set up automatic, recurring transfers to fund the main debit card (the bank).
2. I can set up automatic, recurring allowance payment to my boy’s debit cards.
3. The debit cards can be used like a bank account where money can be sent to and from.
4. My boys can check their balances at any time.
5. I no longer have to pay their tax at the register. If there isn’t enough money on the card to cover the tax, they can’t buy the item.

The only thing that would make it better would be if I could link our savings accounts directly to FamZoo. However, since money can be sent from the debit cards online, I purchased a second debit card for each boy to be used as savings and that can be transferred to their bank accounts. It is an easy and reasonable workaround.
I love this system. Thank you FamZoo!

What an awesome tool for our family! I love the peace of mind of knowing that in an emergency I can instantaneously transfer money to the kids’ cards. Back in the pre-covid days when the kids used to go to school, I gave the kids a weeks worth of lunch money on
Mondays. They learned to budget to make it through the week. I love getting messages on my phone showing me their purchases in real time, which lets me know where they are. Also, FamZoo customer service has always been exceptional. This card has all kinds of features I haven’t tried yet - opportunities to teach your kids about managing money. I definitely recommend it.

We have been using FamZoo for more than a year and love it. We haven’t delved into all of its features (there are a LOT!), but we do use it for allowances, IOUs and those spontaneous trips to the mall that teenagers are so well known for. Transferring money from my “mom” account to one of my kids’ accounts is instantaneous and I love that it’s not tied to my regular bank...I control how much is available even before I get a transfer request from someone!

I also feel a lot safer with my kids carrying cards vs cash. We’ve never had a problem with one not being accepted and all three have become very responsible with keeping track of their cards, etc.