We still pay allowance in cash for our preteen. It gets divided into save, give and spend. If there’s something she wants purchased online, she pays us the cash and we order it with our card. If the purchase is going to take most/all of her current spending money we do point that out but don’t prevent her from spending it.

I’m not sure yet what we’ll do when she gets closer to driving age. Most likely get a debit card so she can get that experience before going out on her own after graduation. But for now we want to build a more solid connection of physically parting with the money when it’s spent.

edit: fixed autocorrect error