Guardian Savings

Does exactly what it needs to in a simple intuitive way. It’s refreshing to have an app that isn’t trying to sell you something every 10 seconds and loaded with ads. I’ve been using this for several years and it’s worked great. As soon as my kids get money they almost always say “Dad, will you put this in my account?” When we’re at the store and they want something it’s easy to check their balance. It also helps them control their spending because it has savings goals/jars.

This is the only native iOS app I have that can’t keep me permanently logged in. It is also the only one that registers button presses twice if you tap too long. I am an iOS developer and I don’t know how you could get this so wrong. It looks like they used a terrible cross platform framework because there are 10 year old Material Design touches, which didn’t look good on Android when they were new and have no place here.

This is a great app for a simple “Parent is the Bank” idea. In the market today with the complex cards and subscriptions, this fill the perfect on the go piggy bank. It’s core purpose of educating children on savings and spending is right on. Couple of bugs that need to be cleaned up but overall fantastic.

This is the 5th finance app I’ve downloaded for my kids and it’s the only one that didn’t get deleted. It’s user friendly, simple, and straight to the point. Love that everyone in the family uses the same acct. Love the “jars”. Love that it helps my kids see where their money is going. And it gives them some responsibility. This is exactly what I was looking far.

Could you make withdrawals repeatable? My son has a monthly subscription that is $5. And we have to remember to manually put in the amount every month. Love the app. Great features: 1) savings categories that automatically get a percentage of allowance. 2) can offer interest on savings category. 3) child can request from his app and I approve on mine

We had tried several apps to keep up with the kids money, I never had cash for lost teeth or books read or extra chores - so I kept loosing track and because they couldn’t “see” it they were less motivated. This app changed all of that and has helped with everything. Kids are motivated to see their money, I can keep up and label things how I want. When they use their money I can simply deduct. We’ve all loved it. Way to go!

They don’t say this anywhere in the description, and there is no mention of in-app purchases, but the app costs $3 month. They wait until you have used the app for a month before they lock you out without even a single warning, requiring a subscription to continue using it.

Would be perfect starter app except interest applies regardless of which jar the money is allocated toward. In general we want to teach our kids to put the money in savings so they will gain interest. But interest applies to all jars - meaning this really isn’t designed to have “spend” and “give” accounts — just different types of savings.

I love the general appearance and approach of this app, but there’s two issues that have caused me a lot of head scratching: 1. PIN entry often doubles digit presses ( tested on multiple iOS devices), turning a 2 into ‘22’ and so on. 2. Since this app is basically a browser window, the app will not load if screen time is set to limit websites. You need to add “guardiansavings.org” to your allowed sites list in screen time.

Tried them all and this is the allowance app for us! Everything I want and nothing I don’t. Don’t need chores, stars, debit cards etc. Do need an app my kids can navigate themselves so they can check their balance whenever they want and get in the habit of entering their transactions, do need app synced to all devices, do need allowance to be paid automatically, LOVE the ability to pay them interest, do need a clear simple set-up with jars for their saving goals, do need a parent section to see all the kids’ accounts at once and easily make adjustments if needed. We use YNAB for our household budgeting; Guardian Savings is compatible with that mindset and flow so the kids can easily transition to YNAB and zero-based budgeting when they’re older.