Family sharing with different family payment methods

The short answer is only one person, the Organizer, can (and must) have a card, but the Organizer can avoid having this charged by others by asking them to make sure they have adequate personal balance (e.g., from gift cards) to cover their purchases. Other family members can only pay for things by using their personal balance or by letting the remainder automatically roll over to the Organizer's payment method (such as a credit card but not the Organizer's personal account balance).

The alternative is described in this document: Add a family member to your shared subscriptions - Apple Support

"If you're the family organizer and you don't want to pay for family members' purchases and subscriptions, you can turn off Purchase Sharing [ Use Schooltime on Apple Watch - Apple Support ]. When Purchase Sharing is turned off, everyone must use their own payment method. When Purchase Sharing is turned off, family members can share subscriptions, but they can't share individual purchases like apps or books."

Another alternative would be for you to leave the family group altogether.

=Full details=

Based on: Use Schooltime on Apple Watch - Apple Support and How apps, content, and subscriptions from Apple are billed - Apple Support

1. If anybody in the family buys or subscribes to something, Apple first attempts to charge the item to that individual's Apple Account (Apple ID) balance, if any.

2. If a family member does not have enough personal Apple Account balance, any excess will be charged to the Family Organizer's primary payment method (usually a card of some kind). The Organizer's personal balance will not be used for purchases made by other family members. If Apple cannot bill the primary payment method, the Organizer will need to make another payment method the primary method. With Family Sharing the Organizer always has to have at least one functioning payment method.

Also note: "Some purchases, including gifts, can't be billed to Apple ID balance and will be charged to the family organizer's payment method." "Some subscriptions might not be charged to Apple ID balance."

Ref:

- Family purchases and payments - Use Schooltime on Apple Watch - Apple Support

- How apps, content, and subscriptions from Apple are billed - How apps, content, and subscriptions from Apple are billed - Apple Support

- Check your Apple ID balance - Check your Apple Account balance - Apple Support

- Add a payment method to your Apple ID - Add a payment method to your Apple ID - Apple Support

Adding funds to your Apple ID balance:

- How to redeem your Apple Gift Card or App Store & iTunes gift card - Apple Support

- Add money to your Apple Account balance - Apple Support

How do I maintain my own payment method separate from other family members (who have their own) when we have family sharing?

Purchase Sharing

Organisers of a family sharing group have two choices: to use the facility called Purchase Sharing or not. When active, Purchase Sharing means that all purchases from the family group are billed to the organiser's payment method. Additionally, this allows all members to have access and use all the purchased content of the members of the group. When turned off, each member must use their own payment method and cannot share the purchases of others.

Apple provides a summary of this in Change Purchase Sharing settings in Family Sharing on Mac and an explanation of it in Share purchases with others in your Family Sharing group on Mac

I want to be able to authorize my son's purchases, but he can pay for them.

Ask To Buy

Ask to Buy is independent of purchase sharing. Your son can ask, you can approve, and according to the following linked document he can pay. See Set up Ask to Buy. This says "After the item is purchased, it's added to your child’s account. If you’ve turned on purchase sharing, the item will also be shared with the rest of the family group." This suggests that payment sharing can be turned off and Ask to Buy will still function.

I want to be able to easily find my son's lost phone with my phone with family location sharing.

Find My

Location sharing is not dependent on being a member of a family sharing group.See Find friends and share your location with Find My

We want to be able to use our credit cards, not gift cards to pay for our purchases.

Payment Method.

Set your credit cards as your payment method. See Add a payment method to your Apple ID