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Comment by jonheller | Hacker News Reader

My son has a Greenlight card. It's been fantastic for helping him understand allowance, savings, charity in a more modern age than when I used to get cash I put in an envelope with a table on the front. It's taught him about interest and he's able to see quick results (especially when I started his savings account at something crazy like a 500% interest rate to encourage him).

As others have mentioned, cash is near useless for children nowadays. He used to give me cash when he bought Robux etc but cash is also near useless for me.

I was concerned when I saw this headline but it's not quite clear to me what impact this would have on him, that wouldn't be gathered once he got a credit or debit card as an adult. Maybe because he literally purchases from only three places (Apple Store, Microsoft, Roblox) and donates to a panda charity.

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> especially when I started his savings account at something crazy like a 500% interest rate

Yikes. What are you going to do when your child learns about compound interest?

The "Parents are untrustworthy and break promises" lesson sounds like a bad plan to me!

I thought starting him at an 8% interest wouldn't give him the motivation. After a few months we had a talk and he saw the power of compound interest based on these crazy numbers, and we've adjusted it downwards since then. Of course he was a bit disappointed but understood this was closer to the real world.

>He used to give me cash when he bought Robux etc but cash is also near useless for me.

I find this amazing. I live in New York and use cash for the vast majority of my purchases.

Most flyover states (Nevada excluded, casinos love cash) see 95%+ retail payments with cards. Cash is regarded as weird, especially anything over a $20 bill.

500% interest rate O.o that might just set unrealistic expectations when for so long interest rates have been at _best_ 2% on a savings account

On his saving account, i think that's a pretty good motivation to save money then to use a debit card...i thinks it's a great idea.

I think I will borrow your idea. That is about 3% per week.

I personally would go even higher, for a child a week is a really long time...maybe like a month for us old ones ;)

>but cash is also near useless for me.

Did your bank/ATM stop accepting it? Do you never settle debts with your friends?

> Did your bank/ATM stop accepting it?

not OP, but my bank literally does not accept cash deposits at its branches, nor does it operate any ATMs. I'm pretty sure I could deposit cash at a 3rd party ATM, but I've never tested that. anyway, I only visit an ATM a few times a year on the rare occasion that I do business with someone who only accepts cash.

> Do you never settle debts with your friends?

all the time, with venmo.

I do understand an respect the privacy argument for cash. but in most cases, it's not worth the inconvenience or sacrificing the 3-5% cashback I get on most purchases.

And here we have one more example of how our world is turning into an utterly dystopian shit hole of total always-on surveillance. But hey! Never mind all that and its implications. Gotta have that convenience, and of course, that sweet, sweet 3-5% cashback thing... So much better than a modicum of privacy in the intimate details of a daily life.

God help us if a truly authoritarian Hitler or Stalinist-type regime creeps into power in a large western country. They won't need to build surveillance structures at all. Everything will already be firmly in place thanks to increments of "convenience".

Yeah! Screw useful things! Anyone who bases their choices on utility may as well get in their car right now to go hunt Jews for the pogrom.

Honestly I completely forgot ATMs accepted cash! And my bank doesn't even have branches within 500 miles. As for friends, I mostly use Square Cash or Apple Pay (or, hesitantly, Venmo, though even with all the privacy enabled I don't love it).

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