FOREST GROVE, OR, October 27, 2026 /24-7PressRelease/ — Kayden Samuel, a Forest Grove High School senior, developed a free personal finance app on his own, one of several projects he’s taken on during high school. It is now used by more than 5,000 people in over 10 countries. Samuel, 17, created MontoEdu for individuals managing their own money for the first time, such as a teen with a first paycheck or an adult who was never taught the basics.
“We spend years learning subjects in school, but a lot of students graduate without knowing how to manage their own money,” Samuel said. He wanted something anyone could use, regardless of their background. To date, he’s created more than 40 beginner lessons on everything from budgeting and saving to credit and investing, and the app saves each user’s progress so people can work through them at their own pace.
Oregon has also seen the gap in money skills among graduates, and in 2023 state lawmakers passed a law requiring high school students to complete a half-credit personal-finance course for graduation, beginning with Samuel’s class, the class of 2027.
Most adults never faced that requirement. The FINRA Investor Education Foundation tested more than 25,000 adults on financial-literacy questions, and its results, released in April 2025, found that only 27% answered at least five of seven correctly. That’s largely unchanged since the previous survey in 2021. The 27% figure means nearly three out of four adults failed to answer at least three questions correctly about topics like interest rates and inflation. Oregon’s new requirement won’t help those adults, since they’ve already finished school, so Samuel built MontoEdu for them as well as for students.
“A lot of people don’t realize how much they don’t know about money until they’re actually making financial decisions,” Samuel said. “By then, even a small mistake can end up costing them.”
Samuel also had in mind people who are more comfortable in another language, or who don’t speak English at all. So he made the entire app available in other languages and added a built-in translation tool.
The app includes calculators for savings, interest and loans, and a stock market game where users can practice trading with fake money. One user, Aditi Sharma, of Massachusetts, completed the budgeting lessons and then went over her own monthly expenses. She uncovered several underused subscription services and canceled two of them, then put another $20 per month into the savings calculator to see how much she could grow her emergency fund.
Samuel plans to continue uploading lessons through his last year of high school, and he intends for MontoEdu, available at montoedu.com, to always remain free.
“It’s great to see how many people are using the platform, but what matters most to me is whether they’re actually learning something they can use,” Samuel said. “Even if someone just learns how to avoid a credit card fee or make a better budget, that’s something that can help them for years.”
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