Start Building Your Child’s Credit
Financial literacy often gets overlooked in school compared to other subjects, leaving children and teenagers with insufficient money management skills when they grow up. In fact, 75% of teenagers reported a lack of confidence in their knowledge of personal finance. However, you, as a parent, can change this by teaching your child about finances while they’re still young.
If you don’t know where to start or aren’t sure how to approach the topic, there are plenty of money books for kids you can use as help. In this guide, we’ll introduce you to the best financial literacy books for kids of all ages that cover various topics like money management, saving, and investing.
Best Finance Books for Kids
Experts recommend you start teaching your child about money when they turn six as this is around the time they begin to understand money as a concept. However, you can introduce money to children as young as three through various money games.
Besides learning about finances from you directly, your child can rely on numerous books about money for kids to explore a wide array of finance-related topics explained in an age-appropriate way. Here are our picks for the best financial books for kids for children of all ages—from three to 18:
- “The Four Money Bears”
- “Get To Know: Money”
- “Rock, Brock, and the Savings Shock”
- “Finance 102 for Kids”
- “Investing for Kids”
- “How To Turn $100 into $1,000,000”
- “How To Money: Your Ultimate Visual Guide to the Basics of Finance”
Best for Learning the Basics—“The Four Money Bears”
“The Four Money Bears” by Mac Gardner is a money book for kids aged 3–7 that helps children learn about basic financial concepts like saving, spending, giving, and investing. To make the learning experience fun and relatable, the book centers around four characters:
- Spender Bear
- Saver Bear
- Investor Bear
- Giver Bear
These four money bears represent different money personalities, and they must work together to teach each other money management and learn how to budget as a team. They teach your child about finances by sharing stories and providing fun money tips. The book also encourages you to help your child create their budget for every month of the year in which they read the story.
Best for Understanding How Money Works—“Get To Know: Money”
“Get To Know: Money—A Fun, Visual Guide to How Money Works and How To Look After It” by Kalpana Fitzpatrick is a good choice for visual learners aged 7–9. It uses illustrations, diagrams, quizzes, and bright pages to help children learn about topics like:
- What banks do with money
- How taxes are spent
- How billions are made and moved around the world
The information is represented in an easy-to-digest format, and the book features interactive activities to make the learning process more engaging. It also covers current themes like online safety and money well-being in a topic-by-topic structure so that all themes are thoroughly explained.
Best for Motivating Children To Save—“Rock, Brock, and the Savings Shock”
Sheila Bair’s book “Rock, Brock, and the Savings Shock” teaches children aged 4–9 about the importance of saving money through a rhyming tale of twin brothers Rock and Brock.
In the book, the boys’ grandfather encourages them to save money by giving them $1 each Sunday for ten weeks, saying he’ll match each dollar they save. While Brock decides to save his money, Rock spends it, resulting in only Brock’s savings getting matched. By the end of the summer, Brock ends up with $512, while Rock ends up broke.
Through this story, the book works as a cautionary tale that helps children manage their money responsibly. Plus, you can trust the author’s financial expertise as Sheila Bair was a chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation from 2006 to 2011.
Best for Applying Money Basics in Real Scenarios—“Finance 102 for Kids”
“Finance 102 for Kids: Practical Money Lessons Children Cannot Afford To Miss” by Walter Andal is a sequel to “Finance 101 for Kids”—a book that introduces children to financial literacy. In “Finance 102,” Andal moves past the basic money concepts and teaches children how to apply money lessons in the real world, making it a great choice for children aged 8–12.
The book advises children on how to:
- Live within their means
- Use credit cards
- Determine the real cost of purchases
- Save and invest
- Protect their money
The author of this book is a favorite among parents since he uses personal experience with his own children in his writing, making the lessons more relatable for parents and children alike.
Best for Learning To Grow Wealth—“Investing for Kids”
Dylin Redling and Allison Tom’s book “Investing for Kids: How To Save, Invest, and Grow Money” teaches children aged 8–12 about money growth through lessons about money-saving and investing. Its main characters—Mr. Finance and Investing Woman—help your child learn about:
- Stocks and bonds
- Investing in stocks
- The concepts of risk and reward
- The importance of portfolio diversification
This investing book for kids introduces children to modern investing techniques like impact investing and digital trading, teaches them about famous investors and historical events, and includes interactive activities and discussions you can have with your child to further improve their financial literacy.
Best for Aspiring Millionaires—“How To Turn $100 Into $1,000,000”
“How To Turn $100 Into $1,000,000: Earn! Invest! Save!” by James McKenna, Jeannine Glista, and Matt Fontaine is a finance book for pre-teens (10–12-year-olds) who want to learn how to become millionaires or start their own businesses. The book teaches children how to save, budget, invest, get a first job, and set financial goals. To help your child manage money effectively, it includes useful tools like:
- One-page business plan template
- Two-page plan for becoming a millionaire
- A personal budget tracker
This money book for kids also stresses the importance of hard work and dedication and explains that earning the first million doesn’t happen overnight, helping your child stay grounded while chasing their financial dreams.
Best for Teenagers Starting To Earn Money—“How To Money”
Written by HerMoney’s CEO and editor-in-chief, Jean Chatzky and Kathryn Tuggle, “How To Money: Your Ultimate Visual Guide to the Basics of Finance” helps teenagers learn how to earn, manage, and use money. Whether your child is starting to earn money from an allowance or a part-time job, this book can teach them how to manage personal finances effectively.
The book provides lessons on topics that are especially useful to teens, such as:
- Building a budget and sticking to it
- Finding a job
- Navigating college loans
- Obtaining the first credit card
- Learning about the importance of credit
This finance book for kids also features interviews with CEOs and activists, allowing your child to learn about finances from real-life experiences of successful people.
Improve Your Child’s Financial Literacy With Credit Building
Books teaching kids about money are a useful tool to improve your child’s knowledge about various financial concepts like money saving and credit building. However, they’ll only get a full grasp of these concepts once they’re able to put them into practice. While children can easily practice money-saving on their own, they can only master the concept of credit building and its importance with your help due to the lack of appropriate child-inclusive financial products for this purpose.
Establishing a good credit history early can help your child save over $200,000 over their lifetime since they’ll be able to obtain favorable interest rates on any loans they apply for. A great way to help your child build a strong credit score while they’re young is to rely on services like FreeKick. This platform provides parent-sponsored credit building for children as young as 13 to assist them in establishing a solid financial foundation.
FreeKick—The Best Solution for Credit Building and ID Protection
FreeKick is a subscription service provided by Austin Capital Bank that offers credit building services for minors and young adults aged 13 to 25. FreeKick also provides identity monitoring and protection services that help you safeguard your whole family from the risk of identity theft. The ID protection service covers up to two adult parents and six children aged 0–25.
Start Building Credit Early With FreeKick
The CARD Act of 2009 doesn’t allow issuing credit cards to anyone under 21, making it difficult for minors and young adults to establish credit. While you can add your child to your credit card to help them build credit, their credit history will be lost as soon as you remove them from your card.
This is why FreeKick provides a simple parent-sponsored credit building service that helps your child start building a credit history as early as the age of 13. Here’s how it works:
- Create an Account—Go to FreeKick.bank and choose a plan that best fits your family’s needs and budget
- Set It and Forget It—As soon as the account is activated, FreeKick will automatically start building your child’s credit over the next 12 months
- Keep Growing—After the first 12-month period ends, you can either close the account and get the full deposit back or renew it and keep building your child’s credit
Keep Your Child’s Identity Protected With FreeKick
Shocking statistics reveal that a child’s identity is stolen every 30 seconds, so besides helping your child improve their credit, you should keep their information safe from ID theft.
FreeKick helps you protect your child from identity criminals by providing comprehensive identity monitoring and protection features for minors and adults. Here’s what the service includes:
| Services for Adult Children and Parents | Services for Minor Children |
| Credit profile monitoring SSN monitoring Dark web monitoring for personal information Up to $1 million identity theft insurance Full-service white-glove concierge credit restoration Lost wallet protection Court records monitoring Change of address monitoring Non-credit (Payday) loan monitoring Free FICO® Score monthly FICO® Score factors Experian credit report monthly | Credit profile monitoring SSN monitoring Dark web monitoring for children’s personal information Up to $1 million identity theft insurance Full-service white-glove concierge credit restoration Sex offender monitoring—based on sponsor parent’s address |
FreeKick Pricing
FreeKick offers plans that suit every family’s needs and budget. There are two pricing options, and the deposits on both plans are FDIC-insured up to $250,000. Find the details in the table below:
| FDIC-Insured Deposit Amount | Plan Fee |
| $3,000 | $0 (Free) |
| No deposit | $149/year |
Assist your child in building a strong credit profile early and protect your whole family from identity theft—sign up for FreeKick today.
Freekick provides a double dose of financial empowerment and security for your whole family. It helps teens and young adults build strong credit profiles and offers identity motoring for up to two adult parents and six children under 25.
