I kept looking for a good, free financial literacy site for kids. I couldn't find one.
That's the short version. Here's the longer one.
I'm 17, and I built Finly. It's a free platform that teaches kids and teenagers how money actually works, covering everything from budgeting and credit scores to taxes, investing, and finance careers. No teacher required. No paywall. No ads.
The whole thing started because I was frustrated. There is an Economics and Personal Finance course, one semester, taught once. I went through it. A lot of what it covers is useful. But one semester is not enough time for any of it to actually stick, and by the time the things you learned in April matter in real life, you have mostly forgotten them.
I wanted something you could come back to. Something that was there before the class, during it, and after it, whenever the material actually became relevant. People my age had no idea how a credit score worked in practice, could not tell you what taxes actually come out of a paycheck, and had never had compound interest explained in a way that connected to their own situation.
That bothered me enough that I decided to do something about it.
What's on the platform
Finly has 90+ lessons across six areas: budgeting, saving, investing, credit, taxes, and finance careers. The careers section covers things like investment banking and venture capital. Most kids don't know those jobs exist, or what people in them actually do. I wanted to change that.
There's also a Spending Simulator where you make real financial decisions with a virtual budget, and a Money Personality Quiz that helps you understand your own tendencies with money. The platform has XP, streaks, and a leaderboard so it doesn't feel like homework.
The content is built for two different age groups: kids 8 to 12 and teenagers 13 to 17. These aren't the same audience. An 8-year-old needs to understand what money is and why saving matters. A 16-year-old needs to understand interest rates, how credit gets built, and what taking out a student loan actually means long-term. The lessons adjust for that.
Why it's free
I wanted Finly to be something anyone could use, regardless of what school they go to or how much money their family has. Financial literacy is already less accessible to the people who need it most. I didn't want to build another tool that only reached kids whose parents could afford to pay for it.
So everything is free. No ads, no premium tier, no lessons locked behind a paywall. That's not going to change.
Finly runs as a nonprofit through the Finly Foundation. The mission is the same as it was when I started: build the best possible financial education resource for young people, and make sure access to it isn't the thing that holds anyone back.
Who it's for
If you're a kid between 8 and 17, or a parent of one, this is for you. You don't need any background in finance to start. The lessons begin at the beginning and build from there.
If you're a homeschooling family, a teacher looking for something to supplement your curriculum, or a parent who wants your teenager to learn this before the real world makes it expensive not to, it works for that too.
If you want to try it, head to learnfinly.com. It's free to sign up and everything is there from day one.
