Home / Two homes
Two homes. One child. No arguments about the app.
Around one in four families with dependent children in the UK is a single-parent family, and a great many children split their week between two houses. EarnIt is the only chores and pocket-money app built for that from the ground up.
Why nobody else does this
Everywhere else, the second parent is a guest.
Card-based pocket-money apps are built on a regulated account with one account holder. So one parent owns the arrangement, and the other is a permissioned guest who can be removed. There’s one pot, and one person controls it.
EarnIt isn’t a bank account. There’s no regulated pot to own, so there’s no owner. Each home is complete in its own right.
“He had the bins the week we were away.”
“She’s been marked down for a weekend she wasn’t even here.”
“Why has his money gone down? I paid him at mine.”
Every one of those is a fight about the app rather than about the child. EarnIt knows who was where, says so in plain English, and does the maths to match.
How it works
Two households, each complete. One child across both.
Runs its own EarnIt
Its own jobs, its own weekly amount, its own rules and its own money. Neither is a copy of the other, and neither parent has any power over the other’s house.
Sees one of everything
One combined balance with a per-home breakdown underneath, one streak, one level, one set of badges. A badge earned is earned once, not once per kitchen.
Neither can see the other
This is built into the structure, not left to a setting. The two households are separate files in separate iCloud accounts, and nothing links them. Only the child’s device holds both.
The care schedule
Chores only when they’re actually there.
Each household says when the child is with them. Jobs are only expected on those days, rotas with siblings skip a week they’re away, and nobody comes back to a wall of red crosses.
Ollie · September
When the schedule says they should be at the other home, their app asks on opening whether to switch. You switch homes by hand, never automatically.
Setting it up
Adding a second home takes about two minutes.
Each parent runs EarnIt on their own phone with their own Apple Account. That’s what keeps the two households separate.
- Both homes set up EarnIt as normal.Each adds the child with the name they use. Oliver in one house and Ollie in the other is fine.
- The second home makes a code for the child.On the grown-up side, go to Devices and create a code with the child’s name on it. It shows as a QR square and six characters, and lasts ten minutes.
- On the child’s side, add another home.In Money, scroll to the bottom and tap the “another home” card, then scan the code. Once there are two homes, a switcher appears at the top of every screen.
- Confirm it’s the same child, if asked.If the names are too different to be sure, the app asks rather than guesses. Nothing is counted until you answer.
The same machinery covers
Blended, extended, and everything in between.
Step-parents
They can run their own household, or simply be another grown-up in one.
Grandparents
Got the kids on Wednesdays? Run a household with two jobs and a pound in it.
Boarding school
Away for a term, and the away calendar handles it. Nothing to fudge.
EarnIt is iPhone and iPad only. If one parent uses Android, only the iOS household can run EarnIt at the moment.