Can you set this up for just purchases that cost money

No - the idea is to provide parental control over what apps a child is allowed to download to their iOS device or Mac, in addition to controlling the purse strings....

Cheers,

GB

With Family sharing, there should be a "don't ask to download" option for free apps and content, and "ask to buy" option for paid apps. If you select the first option, just an email notification that your child has downloaded a free app, or content, with the ability to disable it if you decide so, will be more than enough. It's really not practical to approve every single free app my teenage boys are downloading, especially since family sharing is now the only way to share a apple music subscription.

I agree, there needs to be an option to not have to approve every single free, rated G game that my kids download. That's what the parental restrictions on the device were for. I have 4 children 7-14 with devices and don't want to be bombarded by requests for their favorite cow tipping, racing, coloring, or photo decorating apps. I love the sharing functionality, but from what I can tell it's either manually approve every single request or blank approval for everything (which means they could spend money on my credit card on whatever they want!) Middle ground would seem... obvious?