Grandpa’s Fortune Fables

Make Kids Negotiate for a Bigger Allowance

Kid negotiate allowance

My ten-year-old thanked me for making him read the American Girl: Smart Girl’s Guide to Money the other day. I thought it was weird because he had read it last year. I only made him read it because he needed a “free read” for school at home and rejected so many of our other books. Even though it’s a book geared towards teenage girls, a 9-year-old boy can find value in it.

I probed deeper to find out why this is interesting now. It turns out that one of his school friends gets $12 a week for allowance. My ten-year-old only gets $5/week. This friend travels all the time – she spends more time at Disney World than Mickey Mouse. She has many opportunities to buy from gift shops where my son doesn’t.

My son remembered that the American Girl book wrote that asking your parents for a bigger allowance was fair. He knew that it was wise to mention her as a comparison. He wasn’t whining but just making a logical argument.

I said, “So you want to negotiate a bigger allowance? Let’s talk about it.”

One of the best parenting books about money is The Banks of Dad (Review). In that book, author David Owen suggests that the kids should apply for it in writing.

That’s exactly what I asked my son to do.

I’ve seen him write a few dozen sentences in a school paper on some fictional adventure. However, when it came to this – something that might impact him more – he mustered three sentences. They weren’t persuasive at all. He said that he’d do his summer reading. That’s no big deal. He’s supposed to do that. He even forgot to mention his friend’s allowance in the paper.

The sentence about doing his summer reading gave me an idea. His school gave summer reading “suggestions” – award-winning books in the last year. However, they wrote that anything that seemed interesting was fine.

So I thought, “He had a positive experience reading a money book. What if I give him a fun one that covers a little more? Better yet, I’ll create a whole ‘Fun Kid Personal Finance Course'”

  • Grandpa’s Fortune Fables (Review)

    I decided he could earn one dollar a week by reading Grandpa’s Fortune Fables and completing the code at the end of every chapter. Unfortunately, the code is like Wheel of Fortune, and he was able to complete it by the fifth chapter. I had to explain that finishing the book was the requirement – not the code itself.

    He read it in a couple of days.

  • Complete the Money Time Kids Course

    I reviewed MoneyTime in the past. In fact, my son, who was eight at the time, gave it a test drive. The course was designed for 10-14-year-olds, so it was challenging. He got through a few topics, and I got enough detail for my review, so we moved on.

    MoneyTime has a total of nine topics. I decided he could earn a quarter for each “topic” in the course for a total possible earnings of $2.25. I only asked him to do the ones he hadn’t done before, but he misread my instructions and did them again, so it was reasonable to adjust my system to include that.

    He got through three topics fairly quickly. It will be a little slower now that he’s back in camp. One benefit of this approach is that he’ll find the time if interested.

  • Watch Warren Buffett’s Secret Millionaire’s Club

    I wanted him to learn entrepreneurialism. One of the best ways to learn about money is through television. Warren Buffett’s Secret Millionaire’s Club is a cartoon that is a perfect fit for both.

    My other requirement was that after watching all the episodes, he would have to write a paper about what he’s learned.

    My 9-year-old is now interested in negotiating an allowance. I want to sync them up, so they can watch this together and write a better paper together. I don’t know about this one because the writing ability of a pre-fourth grader is different than a pre-fifth grader.

He can earn $4.25 in allowance from these tasks, bringing him to $9.25/week. It’s less than his peer’s $12/week, but he could get more than he asked for because of…

Allowance Bonus: Compound Interest

After completing all the previous tasks, he unlocks a special bonus. By now, he should know the power of compound interest. Using the concept in The Bank of Dad, I’m going to pay him 1% a week. This is around a 68% annual interest rate. When he has $50 saved and gets an extra 50 cents each week for doing nothing, it’s similar to earning $9.75 a week in allowance.

It will cost me a few extra dollars each week – more than $200 a year with the compound interest bonus. Between the two kids, it might cost me more than $500. They’ll make money mistakes and they will learn.

Brian MacFarland has reached more than 10 million people on his personal finance journey to financial independence.  He’s been featured in the Washington Post, U.S. News and World Report, and Lifehacker.

Read more on the About page.

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The Golden Quest (Book Review)

The Golden Quest
The Golden Quest by David Delisle

I recently went to a financial literacy conference and met many fantastic creators. One of them is author David Delisle who was selling his book, The Golden Quest.

It caught my eye more than any other book at the conference for one reason. It’s a graphic novel. My kids, ages 8 and 9, love graphic novels – especially Captain Underpants and Dog Man by author Dav Pilkey. They prefer graphic novels so much that getting them to read standard books can be challenging. I don’t mind, because any reading is good reading.

David Delisle has a great trick… taking personal finance to a format that kids are happy to read. As much as I like all the money lessons in Grandpa’s Fortune Fables, it’s hard to get them to read “Dad’s money books” (Ugh!) A graphic novel eliminates that pain point.

Not only will the kids want to read it, but they’ll also probably do it in one sitting.

The Golden Quest Good

Getting the kids to read a personal finance book is 80% of the battle in my experience. What kind of book review doesn’t cover the remaining 20% – the concepts that the kids learn. Fortunately, The Golden Quest excels in this area covering the following:

  • Spending on the important stuff

    This is a lesson that even adults could use. By adults, I’m talking about the man in the mirror, at least. I have bought way too much less-than-awesome-stuff.

  • Pay yourself first

    I’ve always been good at saving. I’m not sure if my kids are more savers or spenders at this point. We’ll have to experiment more. I’ve got some ideas, and they’ll be part of an article in the future. In the short term, we’ll continue with giving an allowance and letting them make money mistakes

  • The power of compound interest

    The day after reading the book, my 9-year-old said he could be a millionaire by age 77. The book explained that savings could double in 7 years through investing. I wish I could say that he did the math to learn that $500 doubling 11 times is a million. The book did the math for a half million in 10 years and then made the leap of the next year.

    It was incredible that he brought this up to me! It started a conversation, and I explained that he could invest another $500 yearly to get there even faster. I also said that while $500 seems like a mountain of money at his age now, he’s already had much more than that saved from his birthdays. He also has a lot more in his kid Roth IRA. He’s already got a couple of decades of $500 doubling done.

  • Giving back

    Many books talk about giving but don’t cover some of the advantages of giving. This book explained that not only do you become emotionally rich when you give, but you also build social capital.

  • Financial Freedom

    What good is only spending money on important stuff and saving and investing if it’s just a number in a bank account? The answer is that you can buy your time and experiences… and, of course, that awesome stuff.

These are some of the most important money lessons.

The Golden Quest Bad

One of my kids said it was about a five on a scale of one to ten. The other kid rated it a four. At first glance, those aren’t good ratings. However, these are kids, and they don’t live in a world where nearly everything from Amazon to Uber to Rover dog sitters gets perfect grades for delivering on basic expectations. They look at it as Dav Pilkey novels earning nines. If you grade on the curve of personal finance books, I’m sure it’s their favorite.

My oldest had a notable nitpick – the hero didn’t have a name. He said, “How can you name the dog and not name the main character?” I didn’t even notice it. I think it was intentional so that the reader can imagine themselves as the main character.

I had a minor nitpick as well. A page showed an Albert Einstein cartoon character with the chapter heading “Compound Interest – The most powerful force in the universe.” This phrase is often attributed to Einstein, which is heavily implied on this page. However, there’s no evidence that he said anything like that in his lifetime according to this extensive Snopes research. This minor criticism probably says more about me and has nothing to do with teaching kids about money.

Final Thoughts on The Golden Quest

When I first read The Golden Quest, I thought, “That’s great, but now there needs to be a sequel to teach everything else that it didn’t cover.” After re-reading it and writing this review, I’ve changed my mind. It covers the most essential points of what kids need to know about money entertainingly. I can’t understand what a huge win it is.

The Golden Quest is the kind of book that should probably be re-read at least once a year for a few years. It has tremendous value with a time commitment of about an hour. I would recommend reading it before Grandpa’s Fortune Fables to pique kids’ interest in money.

Brian MacFarland has reached more than 10 million people on his personal finance journey to financial independence.  He’s been featured in the Washington Post, U.S. News and World Report, and Lifehacker.

Read more on the About page.

If you enjoyed this article please Support Kid Wealth

Grandpa’s Fortune Fables (Book Review)

Grandpa's Fortune Fables

On my Kid Wealth Twitter account (@KidWealth), I noticed a lot of my followers saying how good Grandpa’s Fortune Fables by Will Rainey is. I started following him and his Blue Tree Savings website. He had some great blog posts about a millionaire janitor and how McDonalds really makes their money.

Naturally, I fast-tracked Grandpa’s Fables to the top of my “to read / to review” list. To be honest, it helped that the Kindle price is currently $3. This was an easy buy because I get to help a fellow kid financial literacy advocate… and because I could be frugal at the same time.

Grandpa Fortune Fables’ Audience

Grandpa’s Fortune Fables was written for kids ages 7-13. This is a much better fit for my kids (age 8 and 9) than M is for Money. That book was aimed at younger kids. I was able to read it myself over two days. I’m a slow reader and it took me around a couple of hours. It’s 21,339 words (that information is a tiny bit of a spoiler that you get at the end of the book).

My 8-year-old is at a guided reading level of “N” and he did two chapters earlier today. I was hoping to have my kids read it and contribute to this review, but they could sense that it was “learning” and resisted. When I convinced my 8-year-old to read one chapter, he read a second one on his own because he wanted to solve the money code. Each chapter has a question at the end about the main idea. The correct answer corresponds to a letter. Get all the letters and you solve the money code, which can be used for a discount to a money club.

Maybe it’s my kids, but I’ve found that a book needs to have a gimmick to hook my kids. They’re busy with school, karate, soccer, baseball, scouts, music lessons, Duolingo, etc. I can understand why they wouldn’t want to do extra reading.

Grandpa Fortune Fables’ Format

I had expected the book to have different, unrelated money fables. I was pleasantly surprised to find that all the fables are connected by a running story of a couple of main characters. Most of the chapters end with a bit of a cliffhanger, which made it difficult to put down. I wasn’t expecting to read it in two days, but I just kept on flipping through to the next chapter to see what the next money lesson would be.

The characters themselves are a little reminiscent of Rich Dad, Poor Dad with one character who is good with money teaching the kid who comes from a family with poor money management. Rainey does list Rich Dad, Poor Dad as one of the inspirations for his book. It’s a little outside the scope of this review, but I’ve included more information at the end of this article about why I cringed when I saw this. Fortunately, readers of Grandpa Fortune Fables can be blissfully unaware of this reality and still get great financial information.

Grandpa Fortune Fables’ Money Lessons

There are 14 money lessons covered in the book. They are:

  1. Everyone Can Become Wealthy
  2. Getting Rich Quick
  3. Rich Vs. Wealthy
  4. Working Smart
  5. Kid Entrepreneur
  6. Save Then Spend
  7. Invest
  8. Debt and Gambling
  9. Tax
  10. Risk
  11. Strategy (Leave Investments Alone)
  12. Home is not an Asset
  13. Charity
  14. Starting a Business

Almost all of the chapters are done extremely well – so well, I couldn’t imagine any way to improve on them. However, the chapter on debt used a metaphor of growing red trees to illustrate debt seemed out of place. I understood what the metaphor meant knowing that compound interest in the form of debt can work against you. It just wasn’t clear in the book why the character loaning the money would plant a tree to represent how much debt the borrower would need to pay back. Even then, I can’t think of a better analogy to model it.

The chapter on your home not being an asset is a valuable lesson, but I’m not sure how relatable it is for the average 10-year-old who doesn’t own a home. This is one money lesson that will probably need reinforcement every few years until the young adult gets to house-buying age. This chapter will be a great discussion with our kids when they ask about why all their friends live in mansions and we live in a more modest house.

Final Thoughts on Grandpa Fortune Fables

I may have been overly critical on a couple of minor points of this book. I think that’s because it is overall so well done that those minor things stood out to me. I have previously said that If You Made a Million is the best personal finance book for kids, but Grandpa Fortune Fables surpasses it. In hindsight, If You Made a Million, tries to cover too much taking you from a description of what a penny is to financial independence by earning interest on a big nest egg.

The stories in Grandpa’s Fortune Fables are more engaging than the If You Made Million. I would love to have seen this book come home from school because my kids would have had less resistance to reading it. It should be the core book of any financial education for kids ages 7 to 13.

The problem with the Rich Dad, Poor Dad

Rich Dad, Poor Dad is widely considered the worst personal finance book. It comes up on most search results for “Worst Personal Finance book.” The author Kiyosaki himself seems to be modeled in Grandpa’s Fortune Fables as Shovel Sam – the scammer who tells everyone that there is gold on the island so he can get rich selling shovels. Kiyosaki is active in the MLM/pyramid scheme community. He’s also sold a $45,000 course on real estate and suggested that people fund it with credit cards.

You can learn more about these courses in this CBC Marketplace news expose:



Nonetheless, Robert Kiyosaki filed for bankruptcy. There’s so much negative with Kiyosaki it’s hard to know where the bad money lessons end.

Brian MacFarland has reached more than 10 million people on his personal finance journey to financial independence.  He’s been featured in the Washington Post, U.S. News and World Report, and Lifehacker.

Read more on the About page.

If you enjoyed this article please Support Kid Wealth