Got Kids? Money transfer is a must!

Kids Need Money
If you have kids, especially teens and adult children, you know how frustrating it can be when you get that call requesting money. You love your kids and you want to help, but doing so usually comes at a cost, often a substantial amount related to how much they're asking for. And who wants to take a payday loan to pay for it???

Fortunately, there are ways to avoid these costs. It takes a little preparation, but it's well worth the time if your child has fairly frequent needs or you want to be able to help them quickly in a future pinch.

Helping Teens Get Money

If you have teens, you should set them up with a PayPal (tm) Student Card or a VisaBuxx (tm) card. This is great for allowance or for getting them some money when they're out and about and you want to make sure they can eat or take care of some other need or wants as most teenagers would have it. No more complaints about lost money and you have some idea of how your teen is spending their cash. Of course, teens will be teens, so you may occasionally have to request a card replacement when they misplace their card. But, the good news is, they learn a lesson, while their money is still safe.

Adult Kids Need Money, Too

In the case of adult children, this is where things tend to get tricky or expensive. You always have the option of using a money transfer service, such as MoneyGram (tm) or WesternUnion (tm), but even for transfering $50, the cost can be around $15-20. If you're in a pinch and you haven't done the groundwork, this may be your only option.

So what can you do to take the cost and sting out of these - in a pinch - transfers? Well, there are a couple good options here...

1) Have your adult child open an account at your bank or open one at their bank. Just be sure that the bank has online banking that allows transferring money to other account holders besides your own accounts. Larger banks tend to offer this type of service. If you really want to be able to help your kid from virtually anywhere, ask to see if you can make money transfers to other account holders using telephone banking.

2) Have your adult child open a PayPal (tm) account and request a PayPal (tm) debit card. There is no cost associated with having the card when you use it to transfer money in this manner.