Gen Alpha Kids Earn Money as Parents Weigh Saving and Investing Tools, CNBC Reports

The survey polled 1,004 children ages 7 to 14, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points, and 1,009 parents of children in that age range, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points, between Jan. 29 and Feb. 13, 2026. PwC refers to that age group as Gen Alpha.

Kelly Pedersen, retail leader at professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, said he was recently surprised to find his 14-year-old daughter had thousands of dollars in her digital wallet. She runs a lemonade stand and can make $400 or $500 on a Saturday, he said, but still acts like a kid. "She goes to Starbucks and asks me for 10 bucks," Pedersen said.

Pedersen said such money maneuvering is not uncommon for children his daughter's age or younger. "Gen Alpha, they're entrepreneurial. They have their own money. Sometimes their parents don't even know they have money," he said.

Ali Furman, consumer markets leader at PwC, said the group is active in resale. "They're all into resale," she said. "They're doing online auctions, they're buying and selling and participating in those markets, and they're making money. And even if they're not, they're getting money for allowance and chores and odd jobs, and they really care about making money." The resale website Depop requires sellers to be at least 13, and sellers under 18 may need a parent's permission and assistance with payments, according to the report.

While children may know how to spend, many parents want them to think about the future and begin building savings or investment portfolios. Families can use government-sponsored accounts such as 529 savings plans for educational expenses and 530A or Trump Accounts to build investment portfolios for children. Large online brokerages also let parents open custodial accounts to invest on a child's behalf. Parents whose children earn income can open a custodial regular or Roth individual retirement account for them.

Companies including Acorns and Greenlight offer accounts meant to teach children how to invest. Acorns' Early Invest is a custodial account with a kid-friendly app, while Greenlight's investment offering for kids is a brokerage account held in the parent's or guardian's name. The child can make trade requests that the parent must approve.

Children cannot open any of these accounts on their own, so parents should help them understand how investing works, including the benefits and risks of putting money in the stock market, financial experts said. "Good money management is about trade-off decisions, and we want to teach kids as early as possible to think about the consequences and trade-off decisions," said Noah Kerner, Acorns CEO. "If you spend more, you're going to save less, and if you put more into savings, you might not grow your money [as much as you could] with investing."

Bellen Woodard, 15, has been making her own money since she was a child model around age 6. She often wanted to donate her earnings to charities or use some of it to buy toys, she said. Money seemed "so much bigger" when she was a young child figuring out how it worked, she said, and the examples set by her parents and four older brothers helped her learn to make spending decisions for herself.

With help from her parents and brothers and money she earned from modeling, Woodard founded More Than Peach, an art brand promoting inclusivity, when she was 8. Its products are sold at Target, and Woodard has authored two acclaimed children's books. She is a member of Acorns' Kid Advisory Board, which aims to promote financial literacy for young savers and investors. She is thinking about bigger money goals, such as saving to buy her own car soon after she turns 16.

Woodard said many of her peers are often caught up in trends like buying skincare and makeup. She likes to shop for clothes, especially at thrift stores, and spend money going to the mall or movies with friends, but she tries to be judicious. She appreciates that having her own money gives her the independence to spend on what she wants, but her bigger priority is saving for short-term goals like a car or longer-term ones like college and her future beyond school.

Woodard has a required personal finance class in school. Some concepts, such as investing in the stock market, were intimidating at first, she said, but less so after she studied and understood them.