When your kids move away to go to school, they'll probably phone home every once in a while to ask for money. If they shop a lot on Amazon (and they probably do), you can expedite that process by setting up an automatically recurring deposit into their Amazon Gift Card balance. Here's how to set yours up.

The Amazon Allowance feature charges your credit card every month and then sends the amount you choose to someone else's Amazon account. This is perfect for giving your kids money while they're away at school, but you can use it with any account you routinely send money to (if your roommate does the grocery shopping online, for example).

To set up an allowance, go to Amazon's website and click Accounts & Lists.

Under "More ways to pay," click Allowances.

On the next page, give your allowance a name (something that notes who or what it's supposed to be used on, for example), the email address of the Amazon account you want to send it to, your name, how much you want to send them, how often you want to send them money, and when to start the allowance.

You can choose to send money every day, week, month, every two weeks, or just one time. Make sure you calculate your allowance carefully and choose the right interval. You don't want to accidentally send a month's worth of allowance every week. Once you're done, click "Sign In to Continue" and enter your Amazon account credentials.

Next, choose which payment method you want to use to fund your allowance. The amount you chose will be taken out of this payment method every time the allowance goes out, so choose a method that you know will always have the funds available.

Finally, scroll to the bottom and click Create Allowance.

The recipient of the allowance will get an email confirming they want to receive your money, and they'll get the first deposit on the date you scheduled. Of course, now that your kids will get money from you without asking, it's up to you to find a new way to get them to call you once in a while.