BusyKid Allows Gen Alpha to Buy Fractional Shares in Companies

Created by a father of six to simplify and track chores and allowances for his family, BusyKid allows children to earn, spend, save, invest, and donate their money. The Gen Alpha users gain valuable experience managing money, which is earned through the app’s chore-setting solution. The platform hopes to aid in household productivity by creating specific tasks, like cleaning bedrooms, doing laundry, taking out the trash, and other sundry chores, and assigning specific monetary amounts to their completion. 

Parental users are able to choose their own unique list of chores from a pre-provided selection as well as add their own. The app’s nearly half-a-million users are able to then set chore frequency, such as making a bed every morning or taking out trash once a week, and then controls how much allowance money is divided up between the tasks. The app helpfully gives a baseline monetary amount for each chore based on the assigned child’s age, and parents are able to increase or decrease this amount at their discretion. 

The BusyKid app is meant to be used by children ages 5 to 16, and each family subscription package comes with a free BusyKid Visa spending card where parents can automatically load their kids’ allowances. Beyond that, and what really makes BusyKid unique, is that it offers the ability for users to both donate a portion of their earnings to more than 30 partner charities, as well as to invest their allowance money into the stock market by buying either full or fractional shares of companies. 

The app has partnered with Stockpile to offer the investing solution. There are no trading fees for buying or selling shares, although there is a $10 minimum for fractional shares, and parents must approve each transaction. There is no need for users to invest their allowance earnings if they don’t want to, the app will continue to work just fine if they don’t, but the hope of BusyKid’s creator is that by just providing the option it will inspire users to learn about work ethic, budgeting, and the importance of financial decision-making. By offering the ability for children and teens to buy fractional shares of the platforms and companies they use and enjoy, like Netflix, Nintendo, Tesla, and others, they will take the first steps toward a life of financial literacy and freedom. Parents can match their child’s savings up to 100% each week to encourage them to save more.

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This article originally appeared in the PSFK iQ report, Fractional Ownership.