Can Milton teach your kids about money one treat at a time? Yes!
I’ve covered a lot of the best kids money books and it’s time to add Milton the Money Savvy Pup to the list. The first book in the short two-book series is when he brings home the bacon.
This children’s book follows the adventures of Milton, an adorable corgi with a passion for learning about money – and bacon, of course!
The Story Behind Milton
Jamie Bosse, a financial planner and mother of four children, created Milton based on her real-life experiences teaching kids about money. Milton is actually the family’s corgi. The combination of a cute dog and money lessons is a winning formula for keeping young kids engaged.
The Plot
Milton is a hungry dog and is just starting to learn about money. What coins does he need to get the bacon and how can he earn them? You’ll have to read the book to find out.
Throughout the story, Milton learns several key financial concepts:
The importance of saving coins and dollars
How to make smart choices with money
The value of delayed gratification (even when it comes to tasty bacon treats!)
What Makes This Book Different
There are plenty of children’s books about money out there, but Milton the Money Savvy Pup stands out for several reasons:
Relatable Character: Kids naturally connect with Milton. Who doesn’t love a cute corgi learning about money? The fact that he’s motivated by treats makes the concept of saving for goals very relatable to young readers.
Natural Learning Flow: The financial lessons don’t feel forced. They’re woven naturally into Milton’s daily adventures, making them easier for kids to understand and remember.
Beautiful Illustrations: The illustrators did a fantastic job bringing Milton to life. The artwork is engaging and helps keep young readers interested in the story while reinforcing the money concepts being taught.
Age Appropriateness
Amazon says this book is for kids up to age 11, but I would say it’s best for kids ages 4-7. At the younger side, children will love Milton’s personality and the colorful illustrations. The older kids will be able to grasp the concept of working and saving up for something that is truly valued.
What I particularly appreciate about this book is how it introduces the foundation for important money conversations. Rather than just focusing on basic concepts like counting coins, it helps children understand that money management is a skill they can master – just like Milton does.
Read Along
The author has a read along of Milton the Money Savvy Pup Brings Home The Bacon on YouTube. Give it a watch:
Final Thoughts
Milton the Money Savvy Pup succeeds where many financial literacy books for kids fall short – it makes learning about money fun and memorable. The combination of an engaging story, lovable character, and solid money lessons makes this book a valuable addition to any family’s library.
The only minor drawback is that your kids might start asking for a corgi after reading it! But if that means they’re also asking to start saving money and developing good financial habits, it might be worth considering.
Looking to build your child’s financial literacy library? Milton brings home the bacon is a great way to start. Just don’t be surprised if bacon treats become your new reward system for good money habits!
Recently, a friend of mine and I were comparing notes about how to best give our kids a head start with their money. He’s not just an ordinary friend, but he’s running Youth Entrepreneur Summit. That’s proof that he knows his stuff.
Since I was already thinking about the steps we’ve taken, I figured I might as well make them a blog post. I know it has been a while since I’ve written a blog post, so as a reminder, the boys are now ten and 11 years old.
Here are my seven…
Best Money Starts for Kids
(Roughly in order of importance.)
1. Education
I always tell kids that school is job 1. Get good grades, make good friends, but most importantly, just try your best. So far, so good. They each have their individual strengths and weaknesses, like all people, but they are checking off this box. I emphasize “checking” because I remind them that:
“Success is never owned. It is rented. The rent is due every day.”
I don’t have to spend any other words explaining how a good education can lead to better careers, do I?
2. Core Financial Education
I teach kids about money in several different ways: television, books, online courses, and even video games. Here’s a great list for all those resources. When it comes to books, here are my recommendations for Best Kids’ Money Books. I have quite a few sorted by age and specialty so that you can pick the best books for you.
I believe that giving an allowance is one of the best ways to teach kids about money. This is why I created a whole portal of articles about allowances.
Specifically, one of the best things I’ve ever done was set up my kids with a Famzoo debit card. You can read my Famzoo Review here. It was too difficult for me to remember to pay them every week, and I never had the right denominations of cash. This automated the process, and the kids are great at learning their cards and using the app to know how much they have.
Most parents are so confused when their kids use their debit cards. One time, a 9-year-old (at the time) took out his debit card and bought his friend a small ice cream while they were on a play date with another parent.
4. Teach them to Become Entrepreneurs
You can’t beat the old-fashioned lemonade stand to teach kids about money. They’ll value a dollar a lot more when they earn it. Learning how to run a business will help them throughout their whole lives, even if it’s not a core part of their career.
When my kids were really young, around 3 and 4, I opened brokerage accounts for them. By that time, they had a decent amount of birthday money from aunts and uncles. They didn’t need it to buy stuff because we spoiled them with more toys than they could ever play with.
At the time, interest rates were close to 0%. In the last seven years, they’ve doubled their money. Nowadays, they care more about spending that birthday money than investing it. Nonetheless, they now have several extra thousand dollars compounding away. It’s money they’ve never missed.
6. Credit Card Authorized Users
Around the same time that I created those brokerage accounts, I added them as authorized users to our Amazon Prime Credit Card. They have credit cards that they don’t even know about.
Why would I do this? To credit card companies, it looks like they are being responsible users of credit. That builds their credit history. Hopefully, they won’t need credit for a long time, but when they do, this simple step will come in handy. Compared to everything else on this list, it’s a quick and free head start that could pay off for years.
7. Kid Roth IRA
My kids have helped me with our home-based dog boarding business. It’s only fair that I pay them for their work. When kids earn money from a job (not from an allowance, but a real business), they can open up a Roth IRA. There are no special rules for kids. Anyone can contribute to a Roth IRA – as long as they have earned income. It’s the “earned income” that’s hard for kids because most can’t get a job until they are 15 or 16 years old. (Those pesky child labor laws!)
It may take some effort to figure out, but if you can manage it, a kid Roth IRA can be worth millions. There are two very important factors at play:
A REALLY long time of compound interest. When you start to learn about compound interest, you’ll wish that you started earlier. It’s hard to start earlier than being a kid. Perhaps they won’t have to save for retirement at all.
They don’t have to pay taxes on the growth of the Roth IRA. That’s very important because, normally, investment gains are taxed.
Final Thoughts
A lot of young adults are in a tough financial place nowadays. They have high student loans and health insurance premiums, and the cost of housing (renting or buying) is off the charts.
The best way to prepare them for this world is to set them up with a few of these “money starts.”
Well, I need to write about it. There is something very wrong with the Stock Market Game.
However, before that, let’s get everyone up to speed.
What is the Stock Market Game?
The Stock Market Game is an educational tool designed to teach students about the stock market. Participants engage in a simulated trading environment where they buy and sell stocks, mutual funds, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) using virtual money. Virtual money allows them to gain valuable experience without risking real money.
History of the Stock Market Game?
The Stock Market Game started in the late 1970s to promote financial literacy among kids. Over the years, it has evolved into a widely adopted educational program, reaching schools and colleges all over the world.
How Does the Stock Market Game Work?
Students use one hundred thousand dollars in virtual money on the Stock Market Game website to invest in stocks. It’s very realistic, which can help them learn how to use a brokerage platform using real money later in life.
Students learn stock tickers and how to place market and limit orders. They can work by themselves or in groups of up to five. The goal is to make the most money. The game lasts between 10 and 15 weeks. (It seems that the teacher may configure this, or different regions have different lengths.)
The Problem with Stock Market Game
A stock market simulation sounds like a fun way to learn a practical skill, right?
Unfortunately, it has one ginormous problem: The Stock Market Game encourages kids to invest recklessly.
Over a short period, a well-diversified ETF such as the S&P 500 Index or a Wilshire 5000 Index will never win the stock market game. Over a decade or more, the same well-diversified ETF will outperform nearly 90% of professionally managed funds.
In the Stock Market Game, there will always be a kid who got lucky on the first day trading some of the recent hot stocks. The kid could then sell and stay at the top of the leaderboard. Other kids who didn’t get lucky will probably lose money. They’ll make more risky bets at that point because that’s their only hope of winning.
Kids could lose 80% of their virtual money, and it wouldn’t matter. If they lose the game by $10, it’s the same if they lose it by $90,000. They weren’t planning to buy real cars or houses or save for retirement with it. In real life, turning $100,000 into $110,000 with minimal risk is rewarded with the ability to spend $10,000. In real life, losing $90,000 may mean working much longer than planned.
The Stock Market Game could do much better by teaching kids the investing basics of asset allocation and buy-and-hold (for years). It’s like giving kids a couple of games of Super Mario Cart as a test for their driver’s license. No one has ever played Super Mario Cart to complete the race safely.
“Why would SIFMA want to teach maximizing risk? SIFMA stands for the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. Well, over half of its 520 members are broker-dealers. The SMG provides great benefit to those broker-dealers. If students do well in the game, they could take away the lesson that investing is easy and become a day trader. If they do poorly, they might learn the opposite lesson and believe that picking stocks is so difficult that they need to hire a broker to buy individual securities.
I view the SMG as yet another version of the financial services industry’s game of ‘heads we win; tails we win more.'”
Stock market games reinforce bad behaviours while crushing the good ones.
Nothing else in education is so inherently backward.
What’s better than the Stock Market Game?
I recommend reading Investing for Kids or visiting our Investing landing page (which is still under development). Another great resource is the MoneyTime Kids course.
Look at the difference between compound interest and simple interest!
“My wealth has come from a combination of living in America, some lucky genes, and compound interest” – Warren Buffett
When one of the richest people on the Earth gives actionable advice that anyone can take it’s worth listening to. He’s used the magic of compound interest better than anyone.
Here are four fun ways to teach compound interest to kids:
Read A Book About Compound Interest
My third grader did a play at school called One Grain of Rice. We had read the book earlier this year.
One Grain of Rice is a lesson on how a grain of rice doubled every day for a month becomes a huge number – enough to bankrupt a kingdom. Substitute a penny for the grain of rice and there will be enough money to fill a mountain!
Read my One Grain of Rice article here. It has an interactive spreadsheet, which illustrates it better than a compound interest calculator in my opinion.
Use a Graph
There’s a classic example of the power of compound interest that compares two investors. The younger person invests for a few years and then stops after 10 years. The slightly older person invests for 30 years and still can’t match the younger one. Here’s a graph of what that looks like:
Give Kids Firsthand Experience
You can read books about fixing cars or programming computers. Reading is not the same as doing.
In The First National Bank of Dad (Review), I learned a technique where kids are given monthly interest payments on their deposits. Shorter compounding periods help kids notice the money growing faster. This creates an incentive to save more.
For example, a 3% monthly interest rate is an annual 42% interest rate. It’s something that many parents can do because kids don’t have $100,000 of principal to break the bank.
You may think that putting kids’ money in a traditional savings account is a great choice. However, the interest earnings are so low it will take them the rest of their lives to earn much. It’s no way to show how the rewards of compound interest are often described as the eighth wonder of the world.
Watch a Video About How Compound Interest Works
This video explains how the above works with a 10% monthly interest rate. It also illustrates how compound interest works over a lifetime:
While the video says it is geared to grades 5-8, I think it works for grade 3 and maybe even some second graders. The multiplication at the beginning is the most difficult part, but it’s very quick and kids don’t have to follow the math exactly to get it.
Take A Course MoneyTime is a course to teach kids about money in general. It covers much more than compound interest. MoneyTime has some gaming features like allowing kids to create their own avatar.
Teaching compound interest to kids is especially useful because they have more time to grow their money. The video above showed how much of a difference there is between an 18 and a 25-year-old saving over time. Imagine if you can start even seven years before the video’s example.
Parts of this article were originally published July 8, 2022
Does it make sense to teach kids about money with television shows? At first, it may make sense to avoid it. Some argue that kids watch too much television these days. It’s good to have limits, but I think television can be a useful tool. My opinion is, if they are going to watch television anyway, teaching kids financial literacy is a good use of that time. I’ve put together a few shows that can help form (or supplement) their financial education.
Teen Titans Go! has 7-10 episodes that cover many important personal finance lessons. Since there are more than 300 episodes of Teen Titans Go! use this guide to look up the specific episodes on Hulu.
There are very few other places where you’ll find an entertaining episode about building wealth with rental properties. One episode covers the importance of good credit history and credit score. Another episode teaches the value of money with a weird analogy of bees being the currency – a perfect starter to talk about cryptocurrency. There’s also an episode with an analogy of taking on too much student loan debt to go to the dream college instead of making the fiscally smart decision.
Warren Buffett has a cartoon teaching kids entrepreneurial lessons. There are more than twenty episodes of his group of young teens learning money lessons. It’s free to stream on Kartoon Channel at the link above. No subscription service to buy!
Decades ago, School House Rock famously taught millions of kids how a bill became a law and how parts of speech work. I don’t remember seeing their lessons about money, but my local library had a DVD that was pure gold, Schoolhouse Rock: Money.
It’s another great way to teach your kids about money with television and you can watch all 8 money lessons on YouTube! These videos aren’t the best quality.
If you have a Disney+ subscription, you can get perfect quality by looking up School House Rock and skipping to season 6 for all the money lessons. The other seasons cover a variety of different topics that are worth your time too. If you have a Disney+ subscription, look up School House Rock and skip to season 6 for all the money lessons. (While you are there check out all the other seasons.)
The short songs cover money management, economics, taxes, the national debt, investing in stocks, and dollar-cost averaging. There’s a little history of money, explaining how barter and coins work.
Cha-Ching Money Smart Kids
There’s a very complete curriculum of money education available at Cha-Ching Money Smart Kids. The lessons consist of 3-minute videos and PDFs designed for teachers (classroom activity) and parents (family activity).
Dr. Alice Wilder, the creator, is known for Blues Clues, Tumble Leaf, and Super Why, one of my favorite shows for teaching younger kids how to read. Forbes gave Cha-Ching Money Smart Kids a good review.
Shark Tank
Older kids may appreciate Shark Tank. While some topics may be boring to kids, there are quite a few episodes with kids who are entrepreneurs. My oldest saw an episode where a kid started a dog treat business that was very successful. He wanted to start cooking right away.
Biz Kid$
Biz Kid$ is a show designed to teach kids everything about personal finance. You can find some clips here. Those clips come with a lesson plan. All the lesson plans are available in English, but some are available in Spanish as well. There are a few free streaming episodes on Vimeo. Unfortunately, if you want to watch all the episodes, it is quite expensive. It seems like the pricing is geared towards school districts. Each 28-minute episode costs $5 to buy or $2 to rent. It would cost about $350 to buy all 71 episodes. You can buy a subscription to stream seasons 1-3 for $30/mo. You’d have to buy another subscription to stream seasons 4-6 for another $30/mo. So if you were really good about binge-watching 71 episodes, you could do it for $60. That’s a tall order. I haven’t taken the time to watch this series yet, but I hope to at least watch and review the free episodes soon.
The Toy Box
I’ve never seen this show, but I’ve read some interesting things about it. It sounds a little like Shark Tank where kids (and toy experts) are judges of toys. I’m not sure how much personal finance it will teach, but it sounds like it would be a fun show. You can buy each of the two seasons of The Toy Box for $15 on Amazon. I can’t seem to find it available for streaming on any major platform.
Final Thoughts on Teaching Your Kids Money with Television
There are a lot of resources out there. I think it makes sense to start with the free ones like Warren Buffett’s Secret Millionaire Club. We’ve watched most of them and, while it isn’t our kids’ most favorite show, it’s among their favorite learning shows.
Halloween is coming right up. This is the time of year for witches, ghosts, candy, and kid money lessons. Wait, kid money lessons?
Yep.
We all know how Halloween night is supposed to go. Kids get dressed up in costumes, and they go door-to-door ringing bells, saying “Trick or Treat,” and get some free, delicious Halloween candy.
What if, instead of just giving candy, the response was “cash or candy?”
If you cheated and didn’t go read the article, then:
Shame on you
I’ll give you a little summary
Jaffe has played games with kids where they either forgo candy or trade candy they already have. In return, they can have a guaranteed cash prize and/or a chance at a bigger cash prize.
The idea is simple… get kids thinking about value.
Almost all the kids took the money when the offer was simply cash. That makes sense; they can get candy from every other house. Over the years, the kids visiting Jaffe’s home seem to know he’s “the money house.” The kids almost always take that option, even when it’s just a gamble. And why wouldn’t they? It’s fun.
What if kids were given big candy bars? Everyone knows that the houses that give out the big bars are rare. They’re more valuable.
Experiment: Would Kids Choose Cash or Big Candy
I found this YouTube video about how one house offered kids a $2.50 giant bar or a dollar bill. Clearly, the giant bar of candy has more value. However, kids can still get candy from everyone else, and cash is rare. It turns out that about 25% took the dollar bill. There are a few other interesting things that the person learned. I don’t want to give it all away, so watch it below:
Final Thoughts
I’d love to try out some of this stuff at Halloween myself. However, we only get two or three groups of trick-or-treaters every year. I’m not sure I’d learn too much or increase the financial literacy of too many kids.
One of the more interesting side effects of Cash or Candy is that kids walk away with less candy. That’s less sugar, cavities, and obesity.
Finally, if Cash or Candy isn’t your thing and you find yourself with too much candy, you can always try “Cash FOR Candy.” This program run by HeathyWage will give you cash for sending your candy to overseas troops. They have limited cash to give, so you need to act fast.
Many adults need to learn how to budget. If they don’t, their lives can become more difficult as they build debt. That means they spend much of their paycheck simply paying interest to the bank.
Fortunately, when you start teaching younger kids, they can build good budgeting habits before bad ones set in. One of the problems with teaching budgeting is that it can be quite boring to kids. Kids are often a little interested in how much things cost, but they don’t really want to know where the money goes.
They’d rather play a game. So let’s give them what they want – a game!
Budget Project for Kids
In my son’s fourth grade class, the teacher used this specific Wants and Needs Budget Project. It’s free from Teachers Pay Teachers. Since this one is free, maybe I should call it “Teachers Don’t Pay Teachers.”
The student is “hypothetically” dropped off on an island. They are given $1450 to spend but must get needs (shelter, clothing, food) and wants (entertainment such as internet access, game station, tablets, streaming service, Legos, dolls, etc.)
The shelter has three options: a mansion, a house, and an apartment. The mansion has entertainment, such as a movie theater and playground. However, it eats up most of the budget.
There are two clothing stores: a fancy store and a normal store. According to my son, very few students picked the fancy store. Given the context of being dropped off on an island (presumably alone), why would anyone choose the fancy store?
Next, the kid has to pick out food to bring to the island. Most kids will pick a lot of their favorite foods.
The problem with the food and clothing instructions is that there needs to be an indication of how much to bring. You have to eat and wear clothes for a month. If you choose to spend $6 on bacon… is that going to last a month? It’s unreasonable to expect anyone to know exactly how many shirts or pants to buy. Does the housing have a washer and dryer for laundry? Shoes are a clothing option. Do kids need to buy shoes? Or can they skip them since they are likely already wearing shoes when getting dropped off on the island?
The teacher (or parent) should provide some guidance on how much to buy of each. Perhaps the food should be normalized to a 30-day supply. Or maybe the food should be simplified into three choices: a meager (bread and water) tier, a middle tier, and a fancy tier (a 30-day supply of their favorite foods)
Finally, there is the “Want” store. This is the fun stuff that kids love. Kids can buy art supplies, game systems, tablets, internet access, streaming services, Pokemon cards, Legos, books, etc.
I wish I knew what my son picked for his “wants.” Maybe he remembers, and I’ll update this article later. If it were me, I’d go with the Kindle, internet access, and a streaming service. I would choose Netflix, but I bet both kids would choose Disney+.
Final Thoughts
The creator of this budget project specifically noted that it’s useful for math. I think the idea was to create an interesting scenario for kids so that doing all the addition isn’t dull. That’s probably why all the foods are listed separately rather than three plans. It’s more math to add up the cost of bananas, chicken, and bottles of juice than it would be to choose one price for a tier of a food plan.
There may be better tools to teach financial literacy than this budget project. However, it’s a great introduction to financial literacy.
Ask a kid if they want to start a business, and you’ll probably get a mixed response. Some kids are excited for a new adventure. Other kids may see it as a lot of work. A kid with either opinion is correct: Starting a business is both an adventure and a lot of work.
If you have a tween kid who is motivated to start a business this is the book for you. Kid Start-Up was written by Mark Cuban, Shaan Patel, and Ian McCue. I speculate that Patel and McCue may have done most of the writing, and Cuban lent his name to give the book credibility. I have difficulty believing he carved out a lot of time from his hundreds of business ventures to write a kid’s book.
I believe there are two clear-cut ways to make your kid a millionaire. One follows traditional personal finance methods such as saving, earning, and investing. Teaching compound interest will take them a long way. The second way to make your kid a millionaire is to teach them to be entrepreneurs. Kid Start-Up is the perfect guide for that path.
Kid Start-up Summary
Kid Start-up was written for kids. While the authors claim that kids ages 8 and 9 can follow it, I think it might be better suited for kids who are a little older. In fact, some of the advice is perfect for adults. I’m going to go through each chapter and highlight what is covered:
Chapter 1: What is an Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is someone who starts a business to make money. To be an entrepreneur, you must have an idea and take action on it. For example, I had the idea for Kid Wealth over five years ago. I only took action to make it a reality about a year and a half ago. Of course, right now, Kid Wealth isn’t much of a business – it doesn’t make money. Maybe it will make money and become a business someday. In the meantime, I enjoy the hobby of writing it.
One of the important things to know about being an entrepreneur is that they fail. Some of them fail a lot. Failure can be a good thing. As Jake from Adventure Time says:
The good thing about failing as a kid is that you get started on that first step to being good early.
Successful entrepreneurs have five main traits. They are hard-working, enthusiastic, creative, flexible, and motivated. I feel enthusiasm and motivation go hand-in-hand, but the authors decided to write about them separately.
The main thing that an entrepreneur aims to do is to create value for someone else (usually a customer). You help them solve a problem they are having. For example, imagine you are a parent of a kid who wants to start a business. You want to help your kid learn how to start a business, but how? The authors of this book solve that problem by putting it all in the Kid Start-Up book. You spend a few dollars to give your child the knowledge of several successful entrepreneurs.
The authors of the book created a business that sells that knowledge. If people have problems like their grass growing too fast and crazy, kids can create a business that mows lawns for neighbors.
Chapter 2: The Kid Entreprenuer
Kid entrepreneurs have a few advantages that adults don’t have. The book repeats the message that by starting, young kids have more time to learn from the mistakes they make. However, the book is realistic. Kids are in school a lot, so they have to plan their time outside of school well. That can mean cutting out video games and not watching Mr. Beast on YouTube. Kids need to use that time to build their businesses. There will be time later when they’ve made their millions.
Kid Start-Up makes the great point that when time is limited, people become more efficient. For example, if you have three months to read a book, you might take all three months. If you have three days, you’ll divide it into thirds and attack it a little each day. This chapter gives kids some basic productivity tips.
Success kid entrepreneurs say the following quotes every day:
“One Day at a Time”
“One Task at a Time”
“I Will Make Money”
“Two Hours for Business”
“My Reward Will Be…”
“My Goal Is to…”
The book also gives you the best predictor of success for entrepreneurs. Curious what it is? I’m not going to give it away: Buy the book to find out.
Chapter 3: Discovering Your Business Idea
The main idea of this chapter is to identify a problem in your daily life. You can’t help someone without some kind of problem. Once you have the problem, invent a solution with a product or service. Sell that solution and profit!
What’s the best business idea? It’s a business that you are good at and gets you excited about working hard. You need to have both of them if you are going to be successful.
Chapter 4: 10 Businesses Any Kid Can Start
This next chapter is just what the title says. It’s ten business ideas that kids can start. The two ideas that interested me the most are the scented soaps and making and selling duct tape wallets. One of my sons loves to cook, and the scented soaps would be up his alley. The other kid loves making things. He’s already made wallets out of construction paper just for his own amusement.
This chapter not only gives kids some concrete ideas but also walks them through the pricing examples. Kids will learn the cost of goods and how much profit they’ll make for each sale. Kids will also learn how and where to sell the products and services.
Chapter 5: Nuts & Bolts of Launching Your Business
This chapter walks kids through the technology that can be used to sell most products and services. Kids will learn how to make flyers, use social media, build a free website, and sell on eBay.
It finishes with a page on legal tips.
This chapter often recommends that kids work with their parents. In reality, very few of the ideas in this chapter make sense for an eight or 9-year-old. Parents will need to do nearly everything in this chapter.
Chapter 6: Successful Kid Entrepreneur Interviews
This chapter consisted of six interviews with six kids with successful businesses. These stories are motivational, but I don’t know how useful they are. The answers are often very specific to that specific kid’s business. They may not translate to a different business.
Chapter 7: 10 Business Principles Any Kid Can Follow
This chapter serves as a summary or reinforcement of the previous chapters. It brings it all together.
1. Business Ideas are Easy
Kid Start-Up stresses that coming up with a business idea is easy. I agree. I have at least ten business ideas that are just sitting around. What’s difficult is executing the ideas. It didn’t take me long to come up with the idea of a website that helps parents and kids learn about personal finance. It was a lot more work to find the domain, write the articles, promote it on social media, etc.
An important thing to note is that you shouldn’t guard your business ideas. Most likely, no one else has the time to execute your idea.
The section finishes with a template designed to guide kids to create an action plan.
2. Do What You Know
The best business to start is in a field that you already know. If you don’t have a dog and have never walked one, a dog walking business may not be a great idea. If you have no experience, you don’t know if you’ll be enthusiastic enough to work hard at it.
3. Don’t Expect to Win the Lottery
Starting a business is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It can seem like famous people on social media make money overnight. It’s extraordinarily rare to go viral on social media and also extraordinarily rare to make a big profit in your business right away.
Slow and steady wins the race. It will take some time to get your name out and for business to come in. Try to set some goals, such as making your first $100 in the first month. Then try to make $200 in the next month. Keep on trying to grow the business and profits.
4. Save Money to Make Money
You do not often see a frugal mindset mentioned in an entrepreneurial book. However, it makes a lot of sense. If you can keep your costs low, that’s less risk and more profit!
5. Be a Big Fish in a Small Pond
It’s better to do business in a small town with less competition. You wouldn’t open up a fast burger place right next to McDonalds. It’s better to find someplace with no McDonalds, even if fewer potential customers are there.
6. Make Money in Your Sleep
Be careful about trading time for money. It can work for some highly paid professions, such as doctors, lawyers, and plumbers. If you start an online business, you can make money in your sleep. For example, I could add advertisements to this website and make a little money throughout the day. However, my traffic is very low, and you might not want to look at advertisements. I’d prefer you email a friend or share Kid Wealth on social media. That’s more likely to happen if you have a great experience here.
(Are you having a great experience here? Let me know by leaving a comment.)
7. Just Start
This is perhaps the best advice in the whole book. The biggest thing is to get going with something. You can always change/modify/evolve it.
The only problem with this section is the assignment. It asks kids to take an online business idea from the previous section and build a website along with a payment system. At least it tells the 8-year-old to ask their parents to help with a PayPal account. The advice is to advertise the product or service even if you haven’t created the product or know how to do the service. I don’t think that’s a smart idea.
8. Be Obsessed
This may be the second most important advice in the book. If you are obsessed with your business, you will think about it every waking minute. That means you will want to work on it and improve it.
Kid Start-up separates passion from obsession. Obsession is much stronger than passion for something. It suggests writing some things that you are obsessed about. My oldest is obsessed with Pokemon. My youngest is obsessed with anything related to Legos. Maybe they could each have their own YouTube channel.
9. Give Something to Get Something
The advice here is to give away something for free to hook your customer. For example, you can offer the first car wash for free. I could offer a free ebook for Kid Wealth in exchange for your email address. Perhaps when I create a product (such as an online course), I could sell it to you.
In fact, the example they give is to create an eBook to give away. However, I don’t know how many 8-year-olds can write a 10-page eBook.
10. Start a Service-based Business
Finally, Kid Start-up suggests selling a service-based business instead of a product-based one. It feels like they ran out of ideas and just wanted to make an even number of ten business principles.
Chapter 8: Extra Content
The extra content is a page on affiliate marketing, which is completely inappropriate for a kid under ten. Next, there’s a glossary, which is a lot more valuable. Finally, there’s a list of software and online resources that can help you get going. Some examples are art programs for designing flyers or free website hosting services.
Final Thoughts on Kid Start-Up
Mark Cuban and other Kid Start-Up authors
Kid Start-Up is the best book on entrepreneurism for kids. The only nitpick is that the suggestions often go beyond the target ages of 8-9 years old.
It’s very difficult to imagine a book on entrepreneurism because it can be very vague. Kid Start-Up has to cover the process of creating any type of product or service. Yet it does it very well. I felt like I was ready to start a new company after reading it.
“Kid Start-Up” is not just a book; it’s a call to action for the next generation of entrepreneurs. It encourages kids to dream big, work hard, and take the first step toward creating their future. Mark Cuban’s passion for entrepreneurship and dedication to empowering young minds shine through every page, making this book a must-read for kids and adults alike. It’s a roadmap to success that starts with a single step, and who better to lead the way than Mark Cuban (or writers working with him)?
If you enjoyed this book review, please check out our guide to the best kids money books.
There’s a tremendous community of personal finance content creators. I started blogging my own financial journey in 2006. I quickly realized other bloggers had the same idea: Take control of your money, and it will take care of you.
Nowadays, blogs might not be as popular to learn about personal finance as they once were. There’s a lot more content now. There are short-form and long-form video platforms like TikTok and YouTube. There are social media platforms like Facebook and whatever Elon decides he wants to do with Twitter/X this week. Podcasts are extremely popular.
All of these different forms of media fall under the umbrella of content. There’s only one awards show in the world of personal finance content. It’s not like television or movies with awards like the Emmys, People’s Choice, and Screen Actor’s Guild.
The Plutus Foundation does a lot more important work than running the Plutus Awards. You can read more about the Plutus Foundation mission here
You may have noticed that I haven’t created new articles in the past few months. I had been working on a push to close out the year, but now I’m even more motivated.
Raise your hands if you are having a great Shark Week so far? I know I am.
Kids love sharks. Especially baby sharks (do do do do-do-do). I hope kids are learning lots about sharks. Did you know that sharks can teach you about money?
I found a shark who will teach your kid (or you, if you are a kid) how interest works. I’ve got an easy job of putting just a few words of an introduction together. The great people from Nex Gen Personal Finance are doing all the work. I love it when I can work smarter, not harder. Thanks, Nex Gen Personal Finance!
A couple of weeks ago, I was searching for something unrelated on the internet and stumbled upon this gem from the Nex Gen Interactive Library. You get to play the “bad guy” as you try to maximize profits from all the delicious victims that enter your office looking to borrow money.
I made it so that you either click on the title or the image to play the game. It isn’t as easy as you think. I got a few wrong. I think it might be best for kids in the 4th grade or higher, perhaps ideally in the 5th or 6th grade.
I’m keeping it short today. It gives you more time for learning.
