Here’s a stat that should bother you: according to the National Endowment for Financial Education, only 24% of millennials demonstrate basic financial literacy. And Gen Z isn’t doing much better — a 2023 TIAA Institute study found that Gen Z adults answered just 38% of financial literacy questions correctly.
The tools and resources available to fix this are mostly garbage. They’re either built for people who already have money, or they’re so oversimplified that they’re useless. A budgeting app that assumes you have a $75,000 salary isn’t helpful when you’re making $1,200 a month at a part-time job.
That’s exactly why we built the Wealth Builder Tools.
Built for Where You Actually Are
Every tool on our platform is designed for someone between 15 and 22 who’s working with real numbers — not fantasy salaries. Whether you’re earning $500 a month from a part-time job or $3,000 a month at your first full-time position, our tools meet you where you are.
The Budget Calculator uses our 50/20/30 framework — that’s 50% toward needs, 20% toward wants, and 30% toward savings and investments. Notice that’s different from the mainstream 50/30/20 rule. We intentionally flip the wants and savings percentages because when you’re young, every extra dollar you invest has decades to compound. An extra 10% invested at 18 versus 28 can mean hundreds of thousands of dollars by the time you’re 40.
See What Your Money Actually Becomes
The Compound Interest Calculator is probably the most eye-opening tool we offer. Plug in what you can invest right now — even if it’s $50 a month — pick a realistic return rate, and watch what happens over 20 or 30 years.
Here’s a quick example: $200 a month invested starting at age 18, earning an average 10% annual return in a total stock market index fund, grows to over $1,500,000 by age 58. Start that same investment at age 28 instead? You end up with about $450,000. That 10-year head start is worth over a million dollars.
That’s not motivation — that’s math. And our tools let you run your own numbers so you can see exactly what your specific situation looks like.
Why Free?
We get this question a lot. The answer is simple: the people who need these tools the most are the ones who can afford them the least. A 17-year-old shouldn’t have to pay $9.99 a month to find out how to budget their paycheck.
Our entire mission at 9 Dimes Project is to help young adults build a net worth of $1M+ by 40. The tools are part of that mission. They work alongside our YouTube videos, where we break down money strategies, investing fundamentals, and wealth-building frameworks in detail every week.
How to Get Started
If you haven’t used the tools yet, start with the Budget Calculator. Plug in your actual income — whatever it is right now — and see how the 50/20/30 split breaks down for your situation. Then move to the Compound Interest Calculator and project what that 30% savings allocation could become over 10, 20, and 30 years.
The numbers will do the convincing. We just built the tools to make them impossible to ignore.
Check out all of our free tools at 9dimesproject.com and subscribe to the YouTube channel for weekly breakdowns on building wealth while you’re young enough for it to actually matter.