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Free financial literacy platform for kids – 90 lessons, no paywall

16 points by narensara 4mo ago

narensara 4mo ago
I built Finly because school covers personal finance for one semester and most kids forget it by graduation. I wanted something that stays useful — lessons you can come back to when you actually need them. It has 90+ lessons across budgeting, credit, taxes, investing, and finance careers (IB, VC, PE, quant). Split into two age tiers: 8-12 and 13-17 with different content for each. XP system, streaks, leaderboard, and a stock portfolio simulator where you invest $10,000 in real historical data and watch it play out. No account needed to start. No ads, no paywall, ever. Incorporated as a nonprofit. Built with Next.js, Supabase, Vercel. 190 Playwright tests. Happy to answer questions about the build or the content
- vibcdingenjoyer 4mo ago
  Did you vibe code this? I see people ask all the time “so where are all the vibe coded tools and softwares that are being created by this productivity boost???” Maybe this is one of them and they can begin to see the value. If not, it’s even more impressive. Great job from what I can tell. I’ve wanted something like this since my early twenties when I realized I had no financial literacy and I thought schools should be required to teach it.
  - narensara 4mo ago
    [dead]
morninglight 4mo ago
So, when will my kids be able to understand a 1040 and then do my taxes?
- narensara 4mo ago
  It's actually on there @ learnfinly.com/learn/filing-taxes-first-time walks through the 1040 line by line. Won't replace a CPA but covers the basics.
turtlebits 4mo ago
The content is just poorly written and incomprehensible. This article doesn't even get into the topic. https://learnfinly.com/learn/types-of-accounts https://learnfinly.com/learn/types-of-accounts
- narensara 4mo ago
  Which part lost you? The lesson is written for 8-12 year olds so I tried to keep it simple, but if it's confusing I want to fix it
  - koinedad 4mo ago
    Yeah it doesn’t really make sense. Very wordy and doesn’t really clearly explain the types of accounts. Those should be the first thing you layout. If you’re aim is kids you probably want to start with a story about something they can relate to and how the different types of accounts help. The reading level feels like it’s targeting college+ but not clearly. A checking account is this. This is what is helpful for, this is its down side. Here’s a savings account here’s a high yield. Here’s an investment account etc. Edit: love the idea though!
    - narensara 4mo ago
      [dead]
  - tuesdaynight 4mo ago
    Have you written everything? Or is all generated by AI? Sorry for asking, but it sounds very weirdly structured for something aimed to 8-12 year olds.
    - narensara 4mo ago
      A lot of these are based on notes I took in my personal finance class and videos I watched and took notes from. I used AI to help adapt them for the two age tiers and that's where I think it fell apart. The refinement process made them way more wordy and abstract than I wanted. That's on me for not catching it. I'm actively writing the worst ones today to actually just explain what things are first before anything else.
narensara 4mo ago
Update: rewrote all 50 foundation and real-world lessons based on the feedback here. Definitions first, real numbers, concrete examples. The types-of-accounts lesson is already updated. Thanks to everyone who pushed back on this, it made the product better
BlakeBalbirnie 4mo ago
Love the no-paywall aspect to this. We need to normalize financial talk and education on this topic. According to a recent Acorns report, "44% of Americans (and 53% of young adults) believe that simply ignoring financial decisions reduces their stress." That is a scary finding.

16 points by narensara 4mo ago

I built Finly because school covers personal finance for one semester and most kids forget it by graduation. I wanted something that stays useful — lessons you can come back to when you actually need them. It has 90+ lessons across budgeting, credit, taxes, investing, and finance careers (IB, VC, PE, quant). Split into two age tiers: 8-12 and 13-17 with different content for each. XP system, streaks, leaderboard, and a stock portfolio simulator where you invest $10,000 in real historical data and watch it play out. No account needed to start. No ads, no paywall, ever. Incorporated as a nonprofit. Built with Next.js, Supabase, Vercel. 190 Playwright tests. Happy to answer questions about the build or the content

vibcdingenjoyer 4mo ago
Did you vibe code this? I see people ask all the time “so where are all the vibe coded tools and softwares that are being created by this productivity boost???” Maybe this is one of them and they can begin to see the value. If not, it’s even more impressive. Great job from what I can tell. I’ve wanted something like this since my early twenties when I realized I had no financial literacy and I thought schools should be required to teach it.
- narensara 4mo ago
  [dead]

morninglight 4mo ago

So, when will my kids be able to understand a 1040 and then do my taxes?

narensara 4mo ago
It's actually on there @ learnfinly.com/learn/filing-taxes-first-time walks through the 1040 line by line. Won't replace a CPA but covers the basics.

turtlebits 4mo ago

The content is just poorly written and incomprehensible. This article doesn't even get into the topic. https://learnfinly.com/learn/types-of-accounts https://learnfinly.com/learn/types-of-accounts

narensara 4mo ago
Which part lost you? The lesson is written for 8-12 year olds so I tried to keep it simple, but if it's confusing I want to fix it
- koinedad 4mo ago
  Yeah it doesn’t really make sense. Very wordy and doesn’t really clearly explain the types of accounts. Those should be the first thing you layout. If you’re aim is kids you probably want to start with a story about something they can relate to and how the different types of accounts help. The reading level feels like it’s targeting college+ but not clearly. A checking account is this. This is what is helpful for, this is its down side. Here’s a savings account here’s a high yield. Here’s an investment account etc. Edit: love the idea though!
  - narensara 4mo ago
    [dead]
- tuesdaynight 4mo ago
  Have you written everything? Or is all generated by AI? Sorry for asking, but it sounds very weirdly structured for something aimed to 8-12 year olds.
  - narensara 4mo ago
    A lot of these are based on notes I took in my personal finance class and videos I watched and took notes from. I used AI to help adapt them for the two age tiers and that's where I think it fell apart. The refinement process made them way more wordy and abstract than I wanted. That's on me for not catching it. I'm actively writing the worst ones today to actually just explain what things are first before anything else.

narensara 4mo ago

Update: rewrote all 50 foundation and real-world lessons based on the feedback here. Definitions first, real numbers, concrete examples. The types-of-accounts lesson is already updated. Thanks to everyone who pushed back on this, it made the product better

BlakeBalbirnie 4mo ago

Love the no-paywall aspect to this. We need to normalize financial talk and education on this topic. According to a recent Acorns report, "44% of Americans (and 53% of young adults) believe that simply ignoring financial decisions reduces their stress." That is a scary finding.