Teaching My Daughter About Money - Before She Can Even Ask

One day, my daughter Ebba will look up at me and ask a question I have spent my whole career helping adults answer:

Where does money come from?

I have spent most of my professional life in finance, first in London, later in Zurich, working in banking and wealth management. I have seen how money shapes lives, choices, and freedom. But I have also learned that true wealth is much more than numbers on a screen. It is confidence, patience, gratitude, and balance. Values that are not taught nearly enough.

When I imagined explaining these ideas to my daughter, I realized I wanted to give her something lasting. Something more than just advice. I wanted to provide her with a foundation that she could build upon throughout her life.

That is how my book began. That is how Learn With Ebba began.

A young child joyfully places a coin into a piggy bank, surrounded by a small pile of coins, highlighting an early lesson in saving and financial responsibility.

My Journey to This Moment

I grew up in Hungary. After completing my master's degree in England, I built my finance career in the City of London before moving to Zurich for private banking. Each step opened new doors. New languages, new networks, new opportunities. I learned that pursuing options early creates compounding benefits across your entire life.

For fifteen years, I worked in wealth management across London and Zurich. I handled global equity portfolios for ultra-high net worth clients on the equity trading floor in Zurich. I watched these families not just manage wealth, but pass down something more valuable: the capability to steward it.

The children of these families had something most people never experience. Not just money, but understanding. Not just inheritance, but education. Not just capital, but confidence.

I began asking myself: What can ordinary families learn from how the wealthy raise their children?

Why Financial Education Matters Now More Than Ever

Most children grow up confused about money. Most parents do not know where to start. Traditional education teaches algebra and history, but rarely teaches compound interest or budgeting. We expect children to become financially responsible adults without ever teaching them how money actually works.

The result? 70% percent of wealthy families lose their fortune by the second generation. 90% lose it by the third. Not because of bad investments. Not because of economic downturns. Because children inherit capital without inheriting capability.

But the opposite is also true. You can build capability without inheriting capital. You can teach your children financial principles that compound across their lifetime. You can give them confidence that shapes every choice they make about money, work, and freedom.

When Ebba was born, I knew I wanted her to have this knowledge. Not when she is 25 and making her first financial mistakes. Not when she is 35 and wishing she had started investing earlier. Now. Starting from childhood, when these lessons take root deepest.

The Book: A Journey Through the Magical Forest

I could not find a bedtime story about financial confidence that did not feel like a lecture. So I decided to create one.

The book tells the story of a young girl named Ebba who wanders into a magical forest, guided by glowing fireflies and wise animals. Each character she meets shares a lesson about money and life. Through her journey, children learn that wealth grows like a forest: slowly, with care and understanding. Every choice, whether to save, spend, invest, or share, plants a seed for the future.

These are not abstract morality lessons. The story teaches real financial concepts like compound interest, diversification, passive income, asset protection, and understanding market cycles. But it teaches them through narrative and adventure, not worksheets or lectures. The same principles that drive successful wealth management, woven into a tale that children can understand, remember, and apply throughout their lives.

The book also teaches that true wealth includes health, safety, gratitude, and continuous learning. Because I have seen families with enormous capital who lacked these other elements, and their children were not truly free.

At the end of her journey, Ebba finds the Golden Acorn: the symbol of financial independence and the freedom to choose her own path in life.

The manuscript is complete. We are currently in the editing phase. This book started as something I was writing for my daughter. Then I realized these lessons belong to every family.

Wealth Beyond Numbers

Financial confidence is not about mastering every investment vehicle.

It is about understanding core principles early and applying them consistently over time.

It is the belief in your ability to understand, manage, and grow your resources.

It means feeling comfortable discussing money without shame or stress.

It means knowing money is a tool for living according to your values, not an end in itself.

When I worked with ultra-high net worth families, I noticed something important. The most successful ones did not just focus on growing their portfolios. They focused on raising children who understood money, who could make wise decisions, who saw the complete picture of what wealth actually means.

They taught their children about the wealth cycle: earn money through work and opportunities, spend carefully and intentionally, save with discipline and purpose, invest to create long-term growth. But they also taught resilience, gratitude, patience, and long-term thinking.

These principles are not reserved for the wealthy. Any family can teach them. The question is how.

Creating a Financially Confident Future for Your Family

Imagine a world where children grow up feeling empowered to make financial decisions. Where they approach money with curiosity rather than fear. Where they understand the value of saving, the importance of budgeting, and the power of investing early.

This is not fantasy. This is achievable for every family willing to start the conversation.

The challenge is that most financial education materials for children are either too simplistic (save your allowance) or too complex (spreadsheets and percentages that lose a child's attention immediately). We needed something in between. Something engaging that actually teaches real concepts.

That is what the book provides.

How Learn With Ebba Helps Your Family

While the book is in its final editing stages, the website already provides resources your family can use today:

The Blog translates wealth management principles I used with high net worth clients into practical guidance any family can apply. You will find posts on teaching children about money at different ages, building family investment strategies, understanding market events, and creating financial confidence in your household. These are not generic money tips. These are specific strategies backed by fifteen years of professional experience, adapted for ordinary families. Start with Your Family Wealth Guide or Age-by-Age Money Milestones to see how these lessons work in practice.

The Calculators help your family visualize how money grows over time. Understanding compound interest intellectually is one thing. Watching it play out in actual numbers is another. Use the savings goal calculator to see what consistent monthly contributions become over time. Use the compound interest calculator to explore different scenarios. These tools make abstract concepts tangible for both you and your children.

Ebba's Picks connects financial lessons to literature. We explore books like Dracula, Wuthering Heights, and Animal Farm through the lens of money, power, and decision-making. Each recommendation includes an explanation of the financial principles woven into the story. These are books your children might read anyway. Why not help them see the deeper lessons about wealth, choices, and consequences? Explore current picks here.

Ebba's Side Hustle is our Etsy shop, and it serves a specific purpose beyond just selling products. Every motivational mug is designed to spark money conversations and inspire action. But more importantly, it demonstrates that financial independence is not just about investing. It is about creating value in multiple ways. Visit the shop to see what we have built.

The Financial News Section curates relevant articles for families, filtering noise to show what actually matters for household decisions. Instead of being overwhelmed by financial headlines, you get context for what is happening and why it might affect your family's financial plans.

Everything connects. The blog references the book's lessons. The book's concepts appear in calculator examples. Ebba's Picks show financial principles in classic literature. The Etsy shop demonstrates side hustles. It is an ecosystem designed to support your family's financial education from multiple angles.

Why I Am Really Doing This

I am teaching Ebba five languages. This is cultural optionality.

I am building Learn With Ebba to demonstrate her professional optionality.

I am investing systematically to create her financial optionality.

I want Ebba to see that content creation, personal branding, and entrepreneurship are not abstract concepts. They are practical skills anyone can learn. I want her to understand that building something valuable takes time, consistency, and genuine care for the people.

Most importantly, I want her to grow up knowing that money is not something to fear or worship. It is a tool. A tool for creating freedom, for pursuing meaningful work, for helping others, for building the life you actually want.

The Role of Storytelling in Financial Education

Children relate to stories. They remember lessons learned through narrative far better than lessons taught through lectures or worksheets.

In my book, the magical forest serves as a metaphor for the journey of financial growth. Just as a forest requires care and attention, so does our understanding of money. As the trees in the forest grow taller and stronger over time, they mirror the power of compound interest and the steady accumulation of wealth that comes from patience and consistent effort.

This is not metaphorical. This is exactly how investing works in the real world. When you teach these principles through story, children absorb them naturally. They feel engaged and they remember.

By the time your child finishes the book, they will have learned lessons some adults never master. They will understand that small choices today create significant results tomorrow. They will see money as something they can learn about and control, not something mysterious and intimidating.

Join Our Community

If this resonates with you, I invite you to join this community.

Subscribe to the newsletter to be the first to know when the book launches, to receive new blog posts on family finance, to get updates on market insights translated for families, and to access practical tools you can use immediately.

Start reading the blog today. You do not need to wait for the book to begin teaching your children about money. Your Family Wealth Guide will show you the principles wealthy families follow (and why income is not the determining factor). The Family Financial Health Check explains how to evaluate your current financial situation. Age-by-Age Money Milestones breaks down what to teach your children at different developmental stages.

Use the calculators with your children. Let them see how numbers change when you adjust monthly contributions or time horizons. Let them play with different scenarios. This turns abstract concepts into concrete understanding.

Browse Ebba's Picks for your next family read. Choose a book that interests your child and explore the financial themes together after reading.

Visit Ebba's Side Hustle to see entrepreneurship in action and perhaps find a motivational gift that keeps these principles visible in your daily life.

The wealthy have always understood that true legacy is not just capital. It is capability, confidence, and wisdom. Your family can build this too. Different scale, different starting points, same principles.

Let us raise a generation that views money as a tool for freedom and choice.

Let us teach our children that financial independence is not about never working.

It is about working from choice rather than necessity.

The conversation starts NOW, before they can even ask the question.

About Learn With Ebba

Learn With Ebba helps families build financial confidence on the path to financial independence, starting from childhood. Created by a finance professional with 15+ years in wealth management across Zurich and London, this platform translates private banking principles into practical guidance any family can use.

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Read the Blog - Wealth management principles for everyday families

Explore Ebba's Side Hustle - Entrepreneurship in action

Browse Ebba's Picks - Financial lessons through literature

Use Our Calculators - Visualize how your family's money grows

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