Give your child an iTunes allowance

A question I get a lot from parents is how they can restrict the amount of music their kids can purchase for their iPod. Here’s a couple of quick solutions. Forget using your credit card. Instead, start with an iTunes gift card. You can purchase an iTunes gift card at nearly any electronics store or online at the Apple Store. Simply enter the card number in iTunes and the card value will be assigned to your account. Your child will be free to purchase music as they wish until the card value is depleted. After that they are out of luck.

But what if you want to allow your child to spend up to a certain limit each month and don’t feel like buying and redeeming an iTunes card each month? Easy. Give them an iTunes allowance (making your child feed the dog or mow the lawn to earn the allowance is completely optional). Using the Buy and Redeem option from the iTunes Music Store, click the option to Buy Allowance. You can then choose any amount from $10.00 to $200.00 that your child will receive at the start of every month. The last step is to enter your child’s Apple ID. This is the account that the allowance will be deposited to each month. Nothing to it!

One last thing. There’s nothing that says you have to buy an allowance for just your child. It works for your spouse, your friend, even your neighbor. It even works for certain What’s Noo? blog writers–just let me know and I’d be happy to give you my Apple ID!