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Money Ladder

The money talk doesn't work once. It works seven times.

What a five-year-old needs to hear about money is not a simpler version of what a twenty-five-year-old needs — it's a different thing entirely. So this is seven apps in one file. Pick the age at the top, get the chapters and questions pitched at exactly there.

Free · works offline · no accounts · nothing is sent anywhere

Seven rungs

Each age adds one idea to the one below it

5 Counting and choosing Coins, earning, wants and needs, and that picking one thing means not picking another. 4 chapters · read aloud with a grown-up · “what it cost you”
8 Plans and trades Goals with real dates, a first budget, ways to pay, why jobs pay differently. 5 chapters · “a $12 toy is four garages”
12 How money behaves Pay stubs, unit prices, cash flow, savings options, investing basics, credit, identity, risk. 14 chapters · “your hour has a number”
15 Real numbers First wages, bills on a real budget, the four C's of credit, insurance, markets and the mix. 6 chapters · “the commute is part of the job”
18 On your own A first offer, a plan that survives irregular income, building credit, what education costs, a starting allocation. 6 chapters · “two offers”
21 Compounding starts A second income stream, cutting costs that repeat, a funded reserve, what fees really cost, rebalancing, killing debt in the right order. 6 chapters · “buying your hour back”
25+ The long game Total compensation, a household that absorbs shocks, funding horizons separately, account order, a glide path, coverage matched to dependents. 6 chapters · “the floor”

47 chapters · 245 questions · drawn at random so no two runs match

Try it now

This is the whole app, right here

Not a screenshot. The real thing, running in the page. Change the age along the top and watch the chapters change with it.

The part that isn't a curriculum

Every price, in hours of their own life

They enter one number — what they earned, and how long it took. From then on the app carries it everywhere. A chapter on borrowing stops being about $100 at 20% and becomes twelve and a half hours of their life to borrow, fifteen to pay it back.

Every chapter also closes with the same lens turned on its own subject. Insurance buys back the hours you'd spend recovering from something you couldn't afford. Rebalancing takes ten minutes a year; panicking takes a decade off the result.

No public curriculum teaches this, which is why it's written rather than sourced — a separate piece for each of the seven ages. It's also the only part they'll still be using at forty.

After every run

A score, then somewhere to actually go

UNDER 60%

Start here

The chapter you just missed, plus the free government guide that covers it for that age. Named, linked, one tap.

60–85%

Practise this

Calculators and worksheets — run your own numbers through the SEC's compound interest tool instead of reading about it.

OVER 85%

Go further

The next thing up, and an offer to move to the rung above. Nineteen sources in all, every one free and public.

Why it matters

The things people get wrong are specific

AGE 8

A sale is not savings

A discount on something you didn't want isn't money saved. It's money spent, with a story attached.

AGE 12

Gross is not net

The first paycheck is a shock for everyone, because nobody explains that a chunk leaves before you see it.

AGE 15

$1,200 at 24%

Paying the $25 minimum faithfully takes about four years. Minimums are built to be affordable, not to end the debt.

AGE 18

Checking your score

Doesn't lower it. Believing it does is why people never look — and never find the error that's costing them.

AGE 21

$60 a month

Is $3,600 over five years. Monthly pricing exists because $60 doesn't feel like a decision and $3,600 does.

AGE 25+

The higher salary

$120k with a 3% match can pay less than $112k with a 6% match and better coverage. Headline salary picks the worse offer surprisingly often.

Get it

One file. All seven ages. Download it and it's yours.

One HTML file, about 316 KB. Double-click it to open.

If it was useful

It's free. It stays free.

No paywall, no email, no upsell. If it helped and you want to throw something in, it goes toward the next one.

Questions

Straight answers

My kid is 10. Which rung?

The ages are centres, not cutoffs. A ten-year-old will usually sit between 8 and 12 — start at 8, and if it's too easy the switch takes one tap. Nothing is locked, so trying the rung above costs nothing.

Do I need to install anything?

No. It's a single HTML file. Double-click it and it opens in whatever browser you already have. No app store, no account, no internet required after the download.

Where does the content come from?

Chapter structure follows the FDIC's Money Smart curricula — Young People for ages 5 through 15, Young Adults for 18 and 21, and Adults for 25+ — all U.S. government works in the public domain. Investing and rebalancing follow the SEC's beginners' guide, and the long-horizon chapters draw on the Department of Labor's Savings Fitness. The seven pieces on what your time is worth are original, because no public curriculum covers it.

Does it track my kid?

No. No analytics on this page or in the app, no telemetry, no network call of any kind once the file is downloaded. Scores are stored in the browser on that device and never leave it.

The links after each quiz — are those ads?

No. Every one is a free public resource, mostly from the FDIC, SEC, CFPB and Department of Labor. Nothing is affiliate, sponsored, or paid for. They're the places to go next, and they're links out, not links back here.

Is this financial advice?

No. It's educational material about how money works in general. It isn't advice about your situation, and it isn't a substitute for talking to someone qualified about a real decision.