First payslip, investment accounts, and whether a career is worth its cost.
Ages 14–15
The one idea
Every career is an investment — you pay time and money up front and get paid back over decades.
Ready?
First payslip, investment accounts, and whether a career is worth its cost.
Full screen — no distractions
Fourteen and fifteen year olds are close enough to a first job that payslip deductions and investment accounts stop being theoretical.
No printing, no materials, no lesson. Ask one at dinner and let the answer go wherever it goes — most of what children learn about money they overhear.
The money lessons only stick if these are running underneath them.
Errors happen and go unnoticed for years. Thirty seconds a month is a genuinely worthwhile check.
When you need it decides where it belongs. This one rule prevents both stranded cash and forced selling at a loss.
Before any expensive path — a course, a car, a venture — write the cost, the return, and the break-even year.
Tick these off through the year. If one is still open in June, that's the lesson to go back to.
Everything on this page is free and always will be. If you want structured worksheets to go alongside it, the 9th Grade packs cover the whole year across maths, reading and writing, and study skills.
Every career is an investment — you pay time and money up front and get paid back over decades. Concretely: reads a payslip and identifies every deduction; places savings in the right account for the timeline; calculates total cost of ownership, not just purchase price. The six lessons on this page cover each of those, and the money check tells you which ones have landed.
Around $25 a week is a reasonable starting point at ages 14–15. About $25 a week, or replace it entirely with earnings from real work. If they have a job, shift to matching their investing instead. The calculator on this page lets you try different amounts and splits.
The Paid Skill: "I do this professionally, and here are three clients who'll say so." Startup cost is $0 — the investment is hours of learning. Your rate is set by proof, not by hours worked. Three testimonials are worth more than three months of practice.
Never reading the payslip because the total looks about right. The expensive things are lines you have never noticed, in both directions. Read every line once, out loud, with someone. Ask what each one is and whether the employer matches anything. Each of the six lessons on this page names the trap for its own pillar and the smallest change that fixes it.
Yes — all 6 lessons and their pictures, the 8-question check, the 6 stories, the 3 decision cards, the 4 worked money sums, the questions to ask at dinner, the vocabulary, the mission, the starter business, the allowance calculator, and the milestones are free with no signup. The 9th Grade printable packs in the shop are optional.
Every lesson on this page has a picture as well as words, so a younger sibling can follow along. If your child is not reading independently yet, start at the Pre-K or Kindergarten page instead — those are built to be spoken and pointed at.
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