Kids now prefer virtual currencies over cash allowances, money gifts

Yahoo Finance Live checks out the trend where children are forgoing cash allowances or gifts for virtual currencies.

Video Transcript

SEANA SMITH: Cash allowances are out. Virtual currency is in. Apparently, more kids are telling their parents that they would rather be paid in Robux-- that's video game Roblox's form of online currency-- than receive cash for their household chores. Certainly, the world has changed. I never got allowance, so I'm not exactly the best person to weigh in here. Also, my kids are a little bit too young to be playing video games yet.

But it's an interesting trend. This is a piece in the Journal, Dave. There was a 12-year-old that was quoted in here, saying that if she were to get real money or spend money in real life, she'd have to ask her parents to take her to the store. They would have a say in what she was getting. Now she has control over what she's buying on Roblox. She has a point. I don't know as a parent how I would feel about that, though.

DAVE BRIGGS: Not great. And I did get an allowance. And allowances really don't exist anymore at all, in part because their money is here. It's Apple Pay. And the financial literacy is my concern here. This is definitely a trend. My kids don't play Roblox, but it's all digital money that they ask for. Typically, my son wants gambling money on FanDuel or DraftKings, but that's a whole other story. But most of these kids--

SEANA SMITH: Well, it's kind of similar. You kind of see the similarities, yeah.

DAVE BRIGGS: Yeah, most of these kids do want it in some type of digital currency. And I guess the concern is they don't really understand the value of a dollar. I always felt that you did by holding that money, by having $5 or $10, and by spending it and realizing that a Starbucks actually costs $7. And when you just swipe a phone or when you spend digital money, you don't truly realize what you're spending, the value of a dollar. And that's the larger concern here. Some of these parents like this. Some of them like that their kids are, they think, learning in this digital space. I'm concerned.

SEANA SMITH: I don't know how I would feel about my kids spending hard earned money on Robux for Roblox. But I guess like you were saying, your kids spending it on gambling or wants to, at least. I think it does speak to a larger question just in terms of how kids do value of money, the changing times right now, the fact that cash is really becoming obsolete. I think you can say that for the younger generation, at least.

And there was also a case made in the morning meeting that people simply don't give their kids cash because not everyone accepts cash anymore. Some smaller companies only accept credit card, which makes it a little bit more complicated for everyone involved.

DAVE BRIGGS: A lot of companies cashing in on this Robux thing. Chipotle, Walmart, Kellogg's, Chobani, Nike just a few of the companies that have really jumped in on this space.