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8th Grade — Money & Business

Credit scores, unit economics, scams, and shipping a real first version.

Ages 13–14

The one idea

Build the smallest version that a real person will pay for, then improve it with their money.

Thirteen and fourteen year olds are actively targeted by online scams. The scam lesson here is the highest-value twenty minutes on the page.

📚 The 6 lessons🧠 Money check🤔 What would you do?🧮 Work it out🫙 Allowance calculator

The six 8th Grade money lessons

One per pillar. Each has what to teach, a ten-minute thing to do, and the exact words you can say — so you can start right now without preparing anything.

💼 Earn

Skills that pay a premium

Some skills are worth several times more per hour than others — writing, code, design, sales, video editing. What they share is that the result is worth much more to the buyer than the hour cost.

Real freelance rates, and what stands behind each one.
  • Shelf stacking$12

    About a day to learn

  • Social media posts$25

    A few weeks to get decent

  • Video editing$60

    A couple of hundred hours of practice

  • Website building$80

    Months, and the result earns them money

The rate tracks two things: how few people can do it, and how much the buyer gains. Never how tired you are.

Do this

Look up real freelance rates for five skills. Pick the one they'd most enjoy building and find a free course for it.

Say this

"That's $60 an hour and that's $12 an hour. What's different about the value the buyer gets?"

A story

Two jobs, one afternoon each

Ben spent Saturday afternoon stacking shelves for $12 an hour. His friend Hana spent Saturday afternoon editing a small business's product video for $60 an hour. Both worked four hours. Hana had spent about two hundred unpaid hours getting good at editing over the previous two years, which is roughly what the gap was really made of.

Is Hana's hour worth five of Ben's?

Her hour is worth five times as much to the buyer, because the video makes the business money and a stacked shelf doesn't — and because far fewer people can do it. The two hundred hours were the entry fee.

The usual mistake

Waiting until you're good before charging. You will never feel ready, and cheap first jobs are how the two hundred hours get paid for.

The fix

Charge low, deliver properly, raise the price every few jobs. The rate follows the work, not the confidence.

🏦 Save

Three to six months of runway

An emergency fund is measured in months of expenses, not in dollars. Three to six months' worth is what lets you leave a bad job, survive a broken car, or take a risk without panicking.

The same $6,000, for three people with different monthly costs.
  • Costs $600/month10

    10 months of runway. Very safe.

  • Costs $1,000/month6

    6 months. Comfortable.

  • Costs $2,000/month3

    3 months. The bare minimum.

Bars are months, not dollars. The same savings buy three completely different amounts of freedom.

Do this

Add up monthly expenses — theirs or a simple household version — and multiply by three. That's the target.

Say this

"How many months could you last if the money stopped tomorrow? That number is your freedom."

A story

The month Ola could say no

Ola's older sister had a job she hated and $6,000 saved, which was six months of her expenses. When her boss asked her to do something she thought was dishonest, she said no and started looking. She found a better job in five weeks. Her colleague, with nothing saved, did the thing he was asked to do.

What was the $6,000 actually for?

It was never for an emergency. It bought her the ability to refuse — and that is what an emergency fund is really purchasing.

The usual mistake

Measuring the fund in dollars. $6,000 means nothing on its own; six months of *your* expenses means everything.

The fix

Work out one month of real costs, then multiply. The target is a number of months, and it moves when your life does.

🛒 Spend

Credit scores

A credit score is a number strangers use to decide whether to trust you with money. Paying on time builds it slowly; missing payments damages it fast. It affects rent, loans, phone contracts, sometimes jobs.

What actually moves the number, and by roughly how much.
  • Paying on time, every time35%

    The single biggest factor

  • Not using most of your limit30%

    Using under about 30% of it

  • How long your history is15%

    Which is why starting early helps

  • Mix of credit types10%
  • New applications10%

    Several at once looks like trouble

Two thirds of it is just: pay on time and don't max it out. Nothing here rewards being clever.

Do this

List five things a credit score affects. Then list the four behaviours that build one.

Say this

"It takes years to build and one missed payment to dent. That asymmetry is the whole lesson."

A story

The number strangers use to decide about you

Ayo's cousin was turned down for a flat he could easily afford. The landlord ran a credit check, saw two missed phone payments from three years earlier, and picked someone else. He hadn't been in debt. He had just forgotten a bill twice, when he was nineteen, and the record outlasted the memory.

What was the landlord actually measuring?

Whether he does what he said he'd do, on time, without being chased. That is all a credit score is — and strangers use it because they have nothing else to go on.

The usual mistake

Assuming avoiding all credit keeps you safe. No history reads almost as badly as bad history — there is nothing to check.

The fix

One small commitment, paid automatically, every month, for years. Boring and on time beats clever every single time.

💝 Give

Giving skills, not just money

Once you have a real skill, giving it away is worth far more than the cash you could donate instead. A website built for a small charity is worth thousands they'd never have spent.

Sofia's two options for helping the same food bank.

Donate cash

$50

What she could afford. Genuinely useful, and gone in a week.

✓ Better deal

Build the website

$4,000 of value

Three weekends. Quotes had started at $4,000, so it had never happened.

Give what they cannot buy. That is usually your skill, long before it is your money.

Do this

Offer one real skill to a cause for free. Track roughly what it would have cost them to buy.

Say this

"You could donate $20. Or you could build the thing that would have cost them $500."

A story

The website that cost nothing and was worth $4,000

Sofia spent three weekends building a proper website for a food bank that had been running off a Facebook page. She would have donated $50 if she'd donated money. The quotes the food bank had been given for the same work started at $4,000, which is why they had never had a website.

Which gift was bigger?

The one they could not have afforded to buy. Money helps most where a cause is short of money; a skill helps most where a cause is short of that exact skill.

The usual mistake

Waiting until you're a professional before offering. Small organisations are not choosing between you and a professional — they are choosing between you and nothing.

The fix

Offer the skill you already have, finish the job properly, and write down what it would have cost them.

📈 Grow

Unit economics

For every single sale: what did it cost you, what did you charge, what's left? If one sale loses money, a hundred sales lose a hundred times as much. Scale multiplies whatever's already true.

One MoviePass subscriber who watched three films in a month.
  • Subscription paid$10
  • Three tickets bought for them$27
  • Made on that customer−$17

Now multiply by three million subscribers. Growth did not fix this — growth was the mechanism.

Do this

Take any product and work out cost per unit, price per unit, and profit per unit. Then multiply by 100.

Say this

"You lose 50 cents a sale. What happens when you get busy? Growth makes it worse, not better."

A story

The company that died from being popular

MoviePass let you see a film a day in a cinema for about $10 a month. Cinema tickets cost around $9 each. Subscribers went from a few tens of thousands to over three million in under a year, and every single new subscriber made the losses bigger. It shut down in 2019.

Why didn't growth save them?

Because they lost money on every customer. Scale multiplies whatever is already true — and what was already true was a loss.

The usual mistake

Reading rising sales as a healthy business. If the unit is negative, rising sales are the fastest possible route to closing.

The fix

Get the profit on one sale right first. Only then is growth the good news everyone assumes it is.

🧠 Mindset

Spotting a scam

Scams share a pattern: urgency, secrecy, guaranteed returns, and a payment method that can't be reversed. Real opportunities survive a night's sleep and a second opinion. Scams are built specifically to prevent both.

The four signals that show up in almost every scam.
Scam signalsAct within 2hoursDon't tellanyoneGuaranteedreturnsGift cards orcrypto onlyWhat real ones doStill theretomorrowSurvives anightAdmits it canloseReversiblepayments

Every left-hand item exists to stop you sleeping on it or asking someone. That is what they are for.

Do this

Collect three real scam messages. Highlight the urgency word, the secrecy ask, and the payment method in each.

Say this

"Why does it need to happen right now? Anything genuine will still be there tomorrow."

A story

The message that needed an answer tonight

Rui got a message saying his account would be closed unless he confirmed his details in the next two hours, with a link. It had his name in it. He nearly clicked, then noticed the two hours. He closed it, went to the company's real app the normal way, and there was nothing wrong with his account at all.

Which part gave it away?

The clock. Real organisations survive you sleeping on it. Urgency exists specifically to stop you doing the two things that kill every scam: waiting, and asking someone else.

The usual mistake

Believing you'd spot it because you're not stupid. Scams are not aimed at stupid people, they are aimed at busy, worried, or rushed ones.

The fix

One rule, no exceptions: anything urgent gets a night's sleep, and you navigate there yourself instead of using the link.

The 8th Grade Money Check

8 questions. You get the reasoning either way — being wrong is where the learning is.

0/8
  1. 1

    Why do some skills pay several times more per hour?

  2. 2

    You spend $1,000/month. What's a 3-month emergency fund?

  3. 3

    What builds a credit score?

  4. 4

    Costs $3 to make, sells for $8. Profit on 100 sales?

  5. 5

    Each sale loses you 50¢. What happens if sales triple?

  6. 6

    A message says "guaranteed returns, act in the next hour." What is it?

  7. 7

    What's an MVP?

  8. 8

    You can donate $20 or build a $500 website for free. Which gives more?

What would you do?

Three situations a 8th grade child really does run into. There is no silly option here — every one of them is something a reasonable person would pick.

1

Your product costs $3 to make and you sell it for $2.50 because that's what gets people buying. Sales are climbing fast.

2

A message says your account closes in two hours unless you confirm your details through the link. It knows your name.

3

You've never borrowed anything and you're proud of it. You apply to rent a flat and get turned down.

Work it out

0/4 checked

Real 8th grade money maths. Work it out first — the button shows how it was done, not just the answer.

  1. 1

    Your expenses are $900 a month. What's a 6-month emergency fund, and what does it buy you?

  2. 2

    You charge $10 a month. Your average customer costs you $27 a month to serve. What happens at 3,000 customers?

  3. 3

    Video editing pays $60/hour and took 200 unpaid hours to learn. How many paid hours to break even?

  4. 4

    You build a website for a charity. Their quotes started at $4,000. You'd otherwise have donated $50. What multiple did you give?

The Four Jars

Move the sliders and watch what each jar becomes. Only the Grow jar is invested, so only Grow compounds — that is the whole reason the numbers separate.

$
20% · $4.00/week

$208 a year → $2,080 after 10 years

30% · $6.00/week

$312 a year → $3,120 after 10 years

10% · $2.00/week

$104 a year → $1,040 after 10 years

40% · $8.00/week

$416 a year → $6,150 after 10 years

Look ahead:

You put in

$10,400

You end up with

$12,390

Grew on its own

+$1,990

That extra $1,990 is money nobody worked for. It came from the Grow jar earning 7% a year on a balance that keeps getting bigger.

For parents: About $20 a week, paid monthly. Hand over a real expense — phone bill or clothing budget — so the money has genuine obligations attached.

The 7% is a rough long-run stock market average used for illustration. Real returns vary, some years are negative, and nothing here is investment advice.

The words they need this year

Defined the way a 8th grade child would explain them — not the way a bank would.

Credit score
A number showing how reliably you repay what you borrow.
Like: It decides your rent, loan, and phone contract terms.
Unit economics
The profit on one single sale.
Like: Costs $3, sells for $8, profit per unit is $5.
Runway
How many months you could survive with no income.
Like: $3,000 saved and $1,000/month expenses is 3 months.
MVP
The smallest version worth paying for.
Like: One flavour and a folding table, not a shop.
Margin
Profit as a percentage of the price.
Like: $5 profit on an $8 item is a 62% margin.
Scam
A trick designed to take your money and vanish.
Like: "Guaranteed 50% returns — but you must send it today."
📜 This actually happened

The company that grew itself to death

In 2017 MoviePass dropped its price to about $10 a month for a film a day. Cinema tickets cost roughly $9, and MoviePass paid the cinema in full for every ticket. Subscribers exploded from tens of thousands to over three million within a year. Each new subscriber added a loss, the losses reached tens of millions of dollars a month, and the service shut down in September 2019.

They were not bad at getting customers. They were the best in their industry at it — which is exactly what killed them.

This week's mission

The Scam Autopsy

They can name the manipulation technique in a scam message instead of just feeling uneasy about it.

⏱️ 30 minutesThree real scam messages — email, DM, or textA highlighter
  1. 1Collect three genuine attempts. Spam folders are full of them.
  2. 2In each, highlight the urgency, the secrecy request, and the payment method.
  3. 3Note what each one is really asking for: money, a password, or a click.
  4. 4Write the one sentence all three share.
  5. 5Write your own rule for what you'll always do before sending money to anyone.
🚀 Starter business

The MVP Launch

"The smallest version, sold to a real person this week."

What it costs to start

Under $50 — a hard cap you set before starting

What to charge

Price so a single sale is profitable. If unit one loses money, do not scale it — fix it.

  1. 1Strip the idea to its smallest sellable version. One flavour, one size, one option.
  2. 2Work out cost per unit before you make anything.
  3. 3Set a price with a real margin, then check it against what competitors charge.
  4. 4Sell to five paying customers — friends buying out of pity don't count.
  5. 5Only after five real sales, decide whether to improve it or kill it.

The business lesson underneath

Five paying strangers tells you more than fifty people saying it's a great idea.

Four questions to ask this week

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.

  • 1"How many months could you last if the money stopped tomorrow?" That number, not your balance, is your actual safety.
  • 2"What do you lose or make on one single sale?" Ask it about any business idea, before anything else.
  • 3"Show me a scam message you've had." Find the urgency, the secrecy, and the payment method in it together.
  • 4"What skill do you have that a small charity couldn't afford to buy?"

Three habits that matter at this age

The money lessons only stick if these are running underneath them.

Sleep on anything urgent

Every scam depends on speed. A one-night rule on money decisions defuses nearly all of them, at zero cost.

Know profit per single sale

Before scaling anything, know what one unit earns. Growth is a multiplier, and multipliers work on negatives too.

Ship small and early

The smallest real version beats the best plan. Real buyers correct assumptions no amount of planning would have caught.

By the end of 8th Grade

Tick these off through the year. If one is still open in June, that's the lesson to go back to.

  • Calculates an emergency fund in months of expenses
  • Explains what builds and what damages a credit score
  • Works out profit per unit and margin percentage
  • Names the manipulation techniques in a scam message
  • Launches a minimum version and sells to five real customers
  • Donates a real skill to a cause and estimates its value

Want the written practice too?

Everything on this page is free and always will be. If you want structured worksheets to go alongside it, the 8th Grade packs cover the whole year across maths, reading and writing, and study skills.

8th Grade Packs

← Younger

7th Grade

Older →

9th Grade

See all 12 grades

Frequently Asked Questions

What should a 8th Grade child understand about money?

Build the smallest version that a real person will pay for, then improve it with their money. Concretely: calculates an emergency fund in months of expenses; explains what builds and what damages a credit score; works out profit per unit and margin percentage. The six lessons on this page cover each of those, and the money check tells you which ones have landed.

How much allowance should a 8th Grade child get?

Around $20 a week is a reasonable starting point at ages 13–14. About $20 a week, paid monthly. Hand over a real expense — phone bill or clothing budget — so the money has genuine obligations attached. The calculator on this page lets you try different amounts and splits.

What business can a 8th Grade child actually run?

The MVP Launch: "The smallest version, sold to a real person this week." Startup cost is under $50 — a hard cap you set before starting. Five paying strangers tells you more than fifty people saying it's a great idea.

What is the most common money mistake 8th Grade children make?

Waiting until you're good before charging. You will never feel ready, and cheap first jobs are how the two hundred hours get paid for. Charge low, deliver properly, raise the price every few jobs. The rate follows the work, not the confidence. Each of the six lessons on this page names the trap for its own pillar and the smallest change that fixes it.

Is the 8th Grade money content on this page free?

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 8th Grade printable packs in the shop are optional.

Does this work for a child who cannot read yet?

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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