your money era starts NOW ✨

This Is Not
Financial Advice;

The Money Learning Game

Coming Soon · Ages 11+ · Adults Welcome Too, No Judgment

Nobody taught us this stuff. Not in school, not at the dinner table, definitely not in that one "life skills" class that was mostly about ironing shirts. TINFA is a card game where you actually live it — drag money tokens, play cards, open real accounts, deal with rent, and try not to blow your budget on "miscellaneous expenses." It's your financial twenties, except this time you actually know what you're doing.

I'm SO In Wait, How Does It Work?

Account Card

🏦

High-Yield Savings

Your savings, but make it smart. Embarrassingly smarter than a checking account.

+4.2% APY

Account Card

🌱

Roth IRA

Tax-free growth. Open it NOW. Future You will literally write you a thank-you note.

+7% avg/yr

Life Event

🎉

Year-End Bonus

Your boss noticed!! Now comes the real game: what do you actually DO with it?

+$2,000

wait, what even is this?

The money class your school forgot to teach — except it's a game and actually fun.

In This Is Not Financial Advice; The Money Learning Game, you play through 5–40 rounds representing your life — years of actual financial decisions with actual consequences. (Simulated ones. Don't panic.) Each round, you draw a hand of cards: accounts to open, life events to navigate, and choices that will ripple forward in ways that may delight or haunt you.

Open a checking account, stash money in a high-yield savings account, invest in a Roth IRA, or try your hand at a brokerage. Pay rent. Handle insurance. Deal with surprise expenses (the game's personal favorite trick). Watch your credit score react to every single decision you make — in real time. It reacts fast. Like, uncomfortably fast.

At the end of the rounds, you see your net worth, your score, and a projection of where you'd land by retirement if you kept those habits up. It's a mirror — and a motivator. And possibly a wake-up call. We say this with love.

okay so how do you play

One round = one year. No pressure. (A little pressure.)

Draw your hand

Life hands you cards this round — some exciting, some stressful, some that are technically both. Accounts you can open, flex events you can jump on, and fixed events you're stuck with whether you like it or not. Life is like that!

Place your tokens

Drag money tokens onto the board to fund your accounts. Each $1,000 token is a real decision — savings? investments? rent? vibes? (Vibes aren't a category. We checked.) Every dollar you place is doing something.

Play your cards

Tap flex cards when the moment feels right. Clear required events before you can advance — yes, they're mandatory, yes, just like real life. Every choice nudges your morale, your credit score, and your precious, precious bottom line.

Watch it compound

Advance the year! Interest accrues, taxes get calculated, credit events fire. The decisions you made this round come back around next round — for better or worse. (Compound interest works both ways. Just saying.)

real stuff. zero snooze.

What you'll actually walk away knowing

Every mechanic maps to a real personal finance concept. When you crush it, you'll know exactly why. When you don't... you'll also know why. Educational either way! 🙂

🏦 Savings Accounts Checking vs. HYSA vs. certificates — they're different, they pay different, and your future emergency fund has opinions.

📈 Investing Basics Brokerage? Roth IRA? The market?? It sounds scarier than it is. The game walks you through it without the existential dread. (Mostly.)

📊 Budgeting Rent, groceries, transit, insurance — every round you allocate income across real expense categories. Spoiler: there are always more than you expect.

🧾 Taxes Brackets! Deductions! Capital gains! It clicks in-game in a way no textbook ever managed. Then you'll be that person explaining it at parties.

⭐ Credit Scores Pay on time → score goes up. Miss a payment → score cries. Watch your number react in real time. It's a relationship. Tend it carefully.

🌱 Compound Interest The projection screen at the end shows your balances 30 years into the future. We'll let the math speak for itself. (It speaks LOUDLY.)

🎲 Life Events Bonuses! Surprise bills! Job changes! The game loves to throw curveballs — because life does too. At least here you get to pause and think.

🛡️ Risk & Insurance Insurance feels boring until you need it and don't have it. The game makes that tradeoff crystal clear, so you don't have to learn it the hard way.

why does this exist

Because most of us graduated without knowing what a Roth IRA was.

Here's a fun fact that is not actually fun at all: only about a quarter of U.S. states require a standalone personal finance class for high school graduation. Meanwhile, teenagers are expected to take out student loans, open credit cards, and manage their own money within months of graduating — with essentially zero preparation. It's kind of wild when you say it out loud.

"I try to never let a friend of mine enter the adult life without some good money basics — so it's a dream to finally be building something to help share those good money basics with younger students."

— Chloe, Creator of TINFA

~25%

of U.S. states require personal finance to graduate. One quarter. Wild.

66%

of Americans can't pass a basic financial literacy quiz. (The quiz is not that hard.)

$30k

average student loan debt at graduation — with no money class to prepare you for it.

Chloe, creator of This Is Not Financial Advice

meet the creator

Hi, I'm Chloe.

Heyyo! My name is Chloe, and I am the twentysomething sidequester behind This Is Not Financial Advice. I have always been passionate about financial freedom (ever since my first "business" in 4th grade!), and will talk your ear off over it for hours if you let me.

I believe that financial freedom is not about the money — it's not about the math, and it's not about the numbers. Ultimately, financial freedom is about the human life it impacts, the doors it opens, and the human being that it empowers — so that that person can live their life to the fullest (whatever that may mean to them!).

Over the years, I had been shocked and a little horrified to learn just how few people were taught personal financial education in school. I try to never let a friend of mine enter the adult life without some good money basics, so it's a dream to finally be building something to help share those good money basics with younger students.

I want to inspire kids to get excited about personal finance — really excited — and strive for the lives they can lead when money isn't a worry but a point of pride.

psst — over here

Want to be the first kid (or adult) in the door?

Drop your email and we'll let you know the moment TINFA is ready. Zero spam, pinky promise — just the exciting updates, when there are exciting updates to share.

You're officially on the list! 🌱 We'll be in touch — promise.