Great information, everyone. Thanks for sharing.
eaglefan, I especially like the idea of a prepaid Visa. My son used to have his own checking account with an ATM card, but he never balanced his checkbook and relied on occasional "account balance" information at the bottom of his ATM receipts to figure out how much money he had in his account. When he went below zero for the third time, we yanked the account and the card. He is now on a cash-only basis. That's the frustrating thing about ATM cards these days. Banks allow users to withdraw more money than they have in the account and then charge them a hefty fee for the "privilege." With this prepaid Visa card, is the user allowed to over-withdraw on funds? Also, how do you deposit money for the card? Can it be done automatically through a transfer from the parents' checking account? Where did you go to get this prepaid Visa? I especially like the idea of text message and email updates.