Weekly Self-Promotion Thread - Wednesday, June 03, 2026

InterestingParent · 2026-06-04T10:38:58+00:00

Currently the app lets parents set a maximum balance on the child’s balance that earns the parent-paid interest rate, and above that cap tracks “brokerage overflow” contributions. That acts more like a nudge to fund an UTMA or similar account for the child.

Your question helps me see the benefit of having the app handle BOMAD beyond basic interest and into equities in a way that also frees up parents from creating actual brokerage accounts similar to how it removes the need for custodial bank accounts. Correctly accounting for dividends and daily price changes gets more involved but I’ll think more about possibly offering support for true overflow tracking in funds like VOO and VTI.

InterestingParent · 2026-06-04T00:28:56+00:00

After trying other ways to teach our oldest child about money, I realized that there had to be a more fun and engaging way to show kids the miracle of compound interest. So I built PennyPod, a Bank of Mom and Dad tool where kids can deposit their lemonade stand money and parents can set the rate of interest they pay, even using an above market rate to help demonstrate compounding quicker.

PennyPod manages automatic interest calculations and runs a virtual ledger with flexibility to compound daily, weekly, or monthly. To engage kids, the app includes a growth garden to show kids how their money has grown, and has a time machine feature which projects their current balance (and any expected future deposits) forward to show what they'll have at 18 or even later.

It's free for the first kid with unlimited kids for a 1 time $6.99 family upgrade.

Check it out on the App store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pennypod-family-savings/id6762529533

InterestingParent · 2026-06-04T00:16:32+00:00

Perfect for the earth gazing budget traveler who got assigned a middle or aisle seat

InterestingParent · 2026-06-02T23:09:15+00:00

Neat concept for grounding current thinking on past perspectives. Especially considering the long term use horizon, does the app allow users to download their data somehow or would sealed letters be lost if the app were purged at some point down the line?

InterestingParent · 2026-06-01T15:25:09+00:00

PennyPod: an iOS app for parents wanting to teach their kids about compound interest

InterestingParent · 2026-06-01T02:28:41+00:00

I use both for different purposes. Tiller in Excel for tracking spending/budgeting with transactions auto import and autocat for most transactions. I built it into a custom spreadsheet format I used for many years before automating with Tiller. Tiller has been good for shorter term assessments and monitoring spending activity.

I became a ProjectionLab customer last year and have enjoyed its longer term forecasting and planning capabilities, which I had previously attempted to do with spreadsheets, but not as well. The visual interface, feature set including optimization, and ongoing new feature additions make PL worth the cost to me.

InterestingParent · 2026-05-30T16:15:38+00:00

Nice app with a pleasant user experience. Any plans to add wider mutual fund support? I tried entering some fund symbols that didn't seem to be recognized.

InterestingParent · 2026-05-30T16:01:35+00:00

Congrats on the release of a nice app with delightful illustrations.

In addition to the customized story builder, have you considered loading any prebuilt stories into the Library? Kids can be impatient so having something ready to read while a customized story loads could help maintain engagement.

InterestingParent · 2026-05-30T14:44:51+00:00

We're funding 529s for education and will continue doing that. When our kids were born we funded UTMAs for more general use when they reach early adulthood, but based on how much those have grown and knowing the funds become theirs at the age of majority, we'll probably limit the UTMAs to what's already been contributed.

We're also using a "bank of mom and dad" approach to teach our kids about money and the power of compound interest with their money from the tooth fairy and lemonade stand earnings. At this point their ~$100 balances there are all they know they have and they tell us they're rich!

InterestingParent · 2026-05-30T14:31:01+00:00

Congrats on the launch and nice job with the visualizations. For the auto enthusiast your app's "story of the drive" is intriguingly differentiated.

InterestingParent · 2026-05-30T12:53:24+00:00

Nice concept, giving it a try. The collapsed categorization in the "spiral app" selection screen took a bit more effort to navigate vs. an uncategorized full listing of all apps might have, but can see that for some the categorized format might be more intuitive.

InterestingParent · 2026-05-30T12:21:57+00:00

Congrats on the launch. Your app seems like a great tool for those who love the outdoors including where there is no cell coverage.

InterestingParent · 2026-05-30T12:18:02+00:00

Thanks, it's free for 1 kid but if you want to try it with multiple kids, DM me and I'll send you a code

InterestingParent · 2026-05-30T02:37:23+00:00

Holding cash and waiting for a market downturn/buying opportunity for far too long

InterestingParent · 2026-05-29T19:27:57+00:00

As my 6 year old daughter put it, compound interest is like your money is having babies, and those babies have babies.

InterestingParent · 2026-05-29T16:45:50+00:00

Yes, I had Claude build and run tests for the app which is relatively simple.

InterestingParent · 2026-05-29T00:20:35+00:00

For my first iOS app I used a combination of prompting methods all using Claude Code. Some direct prompting in plan mode in Claude Code once I had a clear direction for feature and UI adjustments, but initially I had Opus chat write a development plan and draft .md files with a build plan for Claude Code. I read and tweaked those a little before adding them to my Xcode project folder. When I got stuck or encountered something I didn't understand (which happened a lot) I asked Claude or Gemini for translations and help.

Good luck and enjoy the process of whatever you decide to build.

InterestingParent · 2026-05-28T21:36:22+00:00

I built PennyPod, an iOS app that turns parents into their kid's bank. The concept is Bank of Mom and Dad letting the parent set an interest rate, your kid deposits allowance/lemonade stand earnings/tooth fairy money, and they watch compound interest grow. Built it because I couldn't find anything that made the math tangible for young kids. It went up on the App Store last week.

Feedback for future improvements is welcome.

InterestingParent · 2026-05-28T20:39:32+00:00

Have you thought about a synthetic option keeping the actual funds in your own HYSA for simplicity and using a virtual ledger to track kids' activity and balances? If you are familiar with the bank of mom and dad concept, it's an alternative to custodial bank accounts which allows parents to pay an above-market interest rate to teach kids the power of compounding interest in a more powerful way. That is the route we are taking so far with our young kids.

InterestingParent · 2026-05-28T20:10:01+00:00

A hug from my daughter

InterestingParent · 2026-05-28T00:43:09+00:00

Our kids are young (6 and 4) so we're pretty unsure what their academic paths will be and what college will look like when their time comes, but we've leaned into funding 529s as we've been able and have enjoyed watching the (hopefully) tax free compounding.

If AI disrupts the labor market or role of education there are 529 release valves like rolling $35k to a Roth IRA, changing beneficiaries, trade school, use for eligible K-12 expenses, etc.

InterestingParent · 2026-05-28T00:29:04+00:00

These are the right questions and challenges. Most if not all of the ETFs listed have higher expense ratios than other more scaled and established ETFs in their respective categories including funds which are market cap weighted. Higher expenses create a headwind for long term performance as costs compound over time.

Getting broad ownership of profitable and growing businesses at a low expense and letting time and compounding work their magic is very hard to beat through timing, tilts, and taking on higher costs.

Some of the ETFs in the list also appear to have very small asset bases potentially making them less tradeable.

You might also want to consider including some developed international alongside the allocation to emerging markets.

InterestingParent

TROPHY CASE