Money habits don't start with a credit card.
They start with the first few dollars a kid gets to call their own.
Parents want their kids to become good with money.
But most families don't have a repeatable system for practising it. Tap-to-pay, in-game purchases, subscriptions, birthday money: kids are surrounded by money long before anyone teaches them how it works — and a debit card only teaches spending, faster.
Monty was created to give those conversations structure: a short, regular family check-in we call Monty O'Clock, where your kid sees what came in, splits it into Spend, Save, and Give, checks their goals, and reflects on what they bought. Monty shows and suggests. It never decides.
There's a longer story behind all this — the drawer full of birthday money, the “not yet” weeks, and the class none of us got. Read our story →
Build the habit before the stakes are real.
Start with
- Allowance
- Birthday money
- Chores
- Small purchases
- Simple goals
Practise
- Deciding
- Waiting
- Spending
- Saving
- Giving
- Reflecting
Then repeat.
Every week adds a little more.
Parent guide: How to teach kids the value of money.
Good money habits are built.
We named Monty for a hardworking beaver, because beavers build — they stack small things, patiently, until they've made something that lasts. Beavers:
- Build little by little
- Prepare
- Maintain what they've built
- Adapt when conditions change
That makes Monty a natural guide for the idea:
You don't need to build it all today. Just add your next stick.
To help every Canadian kid grow into an adult who feels calm and capable about money.
The ledger, not the card.
The kids-money industry has one product: a debit card with a dashboard. Money in, money spent, lesson skipped.
Monty holds no money and issues no card. Your bank stays the source of truth; Monty is where the thinking happens — the split, the goal, the wait, the decision. That's not a limitation we're working around. It's the product.
The values that shape Monty
Family first
Money is a conversation between parent and kid. Monty supports it — never replaces it.
Plain talk
No jargon, no fine print. Honest language kids and grown-ups both understand.
Safe by design
Row-level security on every account, no ads, no real money held, and no card in your kid's pocket — a practice space built to be safe.
Build slowly
Good habits compound. We'd rather grow three solid jars than chase a hundred features.
The kid decides
No app should ever choose for a kid what to do with their money — including this one.
We're just getting started.
More lessons, more causes to give toward, and a future jar for growing money as your kids grow into their teens — plus everything else families using Monty keep asking for first.
A national mission, one family at a time.
The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada's national strategy calls for making financial literacy accessible and building financial resilience early. Monty supports that mission the most concrete way we know how: one family, one conversation, one habit at a time.
Monty is a financial education tool — not a bank, not a financial institution, and not financial advice.
Take the Monty O'Clock Monthly Challenge!
Two minutes a week, your kid's real money, and a habit that builds itself one Monty O'Clock at a time.