Before the RESP: a savings account they can see
At eight to twelve the point is watching the balance go up, not spending.
What to open at 8–12The Money Tree School
Teach your kids how money works — free lessons for Canadian families, ages 8 to 18.
Nobody teaches this in school. We think how money works is the single most important thing your kid will ever learn — so we built the whole course ourselves. Play through it together, and they reach adult life already knowing.
Free. No math homework. 15 to 25 minutes a week.
Your kid will be handed an adult financial life with no instructions.
Financial literacy is not a required subject in most Canadian provinces. A kid can finish thirteen years of school having never seen a pay stub, never opened an account, and never been asked what a grant is.
And if you came to Canada as an adult, you are learning the same system at the same time they are — education savings plans, tax-free accounts, credit files, tax-agency logins — while being the one expected to explain it.
So we wrote the course we wanted to hand our own kids. Eighteen short levels, three age groups, one shape: something for them to read, something for you to say, and one thing to go do together this week.
“I learned all of this the expensive way, in my thirties. That is the part I am not passing on.”
Raunaq Singh Founder, Maple Syrup Money Three stages, one path.
Start where your child is. Each tier is six levels and stands on its own, so a fifteen-year-old does not have to go back and do the jars first.
- 8–12 Saplings How money actually works Where money comes from, the three jars, wants versus needs, saving for something big, money that grows, and why ads exist. 6 levels, about 15 min a week Open Saplings
- 13–15 Growers Earning, choices, and your first real accounts First income, a budget that survives a teenager, bank fees, a six-week micro-business sprint, scams and in-app spending, and where the education money lives. 6 levels, about 20 min a week Open Growers
- 16–18 Makers Adult money, one year early A pay stub line by line, filing a return with no tax owing, credit, the accounts that open at 18, paying for school, and a first investment explained slowly. 6 levels, about 25 min a week Open Makers
The RESP, properly explained.
The highest-value account a Canadian parent can open for a child, and the one most often explained in four minutes and then abandoned. This is the long version.
20%
The basic grant
The government adds 20% of what you contribute each year, up to $500 a year.
$7,200
Lifetime grant cap
The most basic grant one child can receive in total, across every year.
$2,000
Canada Learning Bond
Lifetime maximum for eligible lower-income families — and you contribute nothing to receive it.
$50,000
Lifetime contribution
Per child, with no annual cap — which is what makes catching up possible.
The first card, and what happens at 18
A card earns its place at thirteen; at eighteen the account stops being yours.
Compare the optionsBooks and games we’d actually hand them.
A short shelf per age — books, board games, and the free programs that already exist. Canadian authors first where the content is Canada-specific. We describe; we do not advise.
Saplings
Ages 8–12
Read-aloud books, and coin games that teach making change without calling it maths.
Open the Saplings shelfGrowers
Ages 13–15
Books about earning, and the games where the rent arrives whether you are ready or not.
Open the Growers shelfMakers
Ages 16–18
Canadian personal-finance books worth reading at seventeen, and two honest investing games.
Open the Makers shelfFree, and already out there
The best of it costs nothing and comes from people with no product to sell — the federal financial-consumer agency, the CFEE, the Bank of Canada Museum.
Family Money Night is what makes it stick.
One evening a month, same slot, no laptop. The lessons give you the material; the habit is what turns eighteen levels into something your kid still remembers at twenty-five.
In the kit for ages 8 to 12:
- Three jar labels — Spend, Save, Give. Cut out and taped to jars you already own.
- A chore-and-allowance chart — blank on the amounts, on purpose.
- The Family Money Night deck — twelve cards, one question each, for a conversation over dinner.
- A savings-goal ladder — a colour-in tracker for the fridge.
- The RESP one-page checklist — what to ask, what to bring, what it costs.
The Family Money Kit
Four or five pages per age group, sized so you can run them off on a home printer and use them the same evening. Nothing about a child is ever asked for.
Printable pages, not a download — nothing to lose in a spam folder.
First name and email, then the sheets open here.
The questions parents always ask.
How much allowance is normal?
No official number. The convention people quote is about a dollar a week per year of age — a convention, not a standard. What matters more is that it arrives the same day every week, and that everyone knows what it now has to cover.
Should allowance be tied to chores?
Genuinely contested, so we do not pick a side. The common position is that basic chores are an unpaid contribution to family life and allowance is a separate learning tool — while most parents who pay allowance require chores anyway. Growers level 01 lays out the three-way split — unpaid family jobs, paid extra jobs, outside work — so you can decide deliberately.
When should a kid get their own card?
Usually 13 to 15, and a prepaid card with parent controls rather than a bank card. Before that a savings account they can see but cannot tap does more — at eight the lesson is watching a number grow, not spending faster. The accounts page compares what exists by age.
Am I too late if they are already 15?
No. Unused grant room carries forward, so a late start can collect $1,000 of grant in a year instead of $500, and the Canada Learning Bond can be claimed for past years for children born in 2004 or later who qualify. The real deadline is the end of the year they turn 17 — and a trap at 16 catches families who start late. The RESP page sets it out.
Do I need to be good with money for this to work?
No. Every level tells you what to say and what to set up, and several work better if you are learning alongside them — "I did not know this either" is a good lesson on its own.
Is anything stored about my child?
Nothing. No account, no child login. Completed levels are kept in this browser and never sent anywhere, so clearing browser data clears them.
Is this going to try to sell me something?
The course is free. We describe what exists and what to ask rather than telling you which bank or app to pick, and none of the providers named in it had any say in what it says. Where a book or board game on the shelf page links to Amazon, that is an affiliate link and we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you — you never pay more, and every title was chosen on merit before any link existed. Our full terms are in the standing affiliate disclosure. The only thing we ever ask you for is a parent email address for the printable kit.
The Money Tree School is financial education, not financial advice. It describes how Canadian accounts and programs work; it does not recommend a product, a provider or an investment. Dollar figures quoted are statutory amounts. Confirm anything you are about to act on with the issuing body, or with an advisor who knows your situation.