To celebrate the launch of our new book, Happy Ever After: Financial Freedom Isn’t A Fairytale, we are posting excerpts from the book, specifically the fairytale segments of our favourite spoiled little princess being taught about money, savings, and investing by her talking pet frog, Charlie Croaker.
This Isn’t A Fairytale, Princess
Once upon a time, in what seemed very much like a magical land, there lived a beautiful princess.
Of course there did. What other kind of princess would live in a magical land except a beautiful one? It wouldn’t be a lazy one, a spoiled one or one who had never done a day’s work in her whole life, would it? No……
One day, the perhaps-a-little spoiled princess looked out of the window and wondered , seemingly for the very first time, why all the people were working so incredibly hard, and why they always had been. The farmer was planting his crops and tending his animals. The baker was baking bread and cupcakes. The carpenter was making furniture and helping the builders construct buildings, while market traders were shouting out to passing customers to buy their products, and the lawyers started arguments, or made existing ones worse, so that they could work settling them.
This had always been the way that things had looked out of her window. People were doing their jobs, working non-stop… and they never seemed to stop. It seemed like the people outside worked hard without ever being able to take a break.
“Working hard ever after doesn’t sound that magical,” she murmured, half to herself and half to Charlie her pet frog, who strangely always looked like he was listening.
Things inside her father’s castle were the same. The cooks were always cooking, the cleaners always cleaning and the guards were always guarding. Even her father, despite being king, still had to do king-type work… deals with distant lands, managing the treasury and setting impossible tasks for any visiting prince who came to the castle asking for her hand in marriage.
“Charlie, it seems that the only two people in the castle who don’t have to do any work are you and me,” she mused to the frog while still gazing out of the window.
“And your days are numbered, princess,” croaked Charlie.
“What?” said the princess.
“Yes, I can talk,” croaked Charlie.
“Well, I suppose this is a magical kingdom,” the princess mumbled through her shock, although it was what he had said that really worried her. “What do you mean, my days are numbered?”
“This kingdom may be magical,” said Charlie, “but there are limits. One day soon, when your education is finished, you’re going to have to go out into the world and pay your own way. Nowhere is so magical that people don’t have to take care of themselves eventually.”
“But what about the prince? The charming handsome one that will finally pass all the impossible challenges my father sets?”
Charlie laughed lugubriously, which is the only way frogs know how to laugh.
“Those challenges aren’t impossible,” he said. “The princes are idiots. Only people who have never had to do anything for themselves in their whole lives would fail them, which is why your father doesn’t want you to marry one. He wants you to be able to take care of yourself first, and then he’ll know you’ll be free to do whatever you want with your life.”
“But…”
“But what now?”
“But what about ‘they got married and lived happily ever after?’” she pleaded.
Charlie laughed again. “This isn’t a fairytale, princess.”
The princess looked at the frog for a long time, as it slowly began to dawn on her that she had a lot to learn.
“And don’t even think about kissing me!” said Charlie.
In the illustration on the cover of the book, we show our princess at the start of some forests. She doesn’t know what she’s about to walk into, and she definitely doesn’t know how to get out of the woods once she steps in.
Like the rest of us.
The goal of Happy Ever After is to show a way out of the woods, to shorten the path so we aren’t lost and looking for help our whole lives. I wrote it for my daughter, the inspiration for the princess in the stories, to understand how she can make her own way in the world, and never feel lost. I hope you can use it to do the same for your little princesses and princes too.
In the illustration on the cover of Happy Ever After, we show our princess at the start of some forests. She doesn’t know what she’s about to walk into, and she definitely doesn’t know how to get out of the woods once she steps in.
Like the rest of us.
The goal of Happy Ever After is to show a way out of the woods, to shorten the path so we aren’t lost and looking for help our whole lives. I wrote it for my daughter, the inspiration for the princess in the stories, to understand how she can make her own way in the world, and never feel lost. I hope you can use it to do the same for your little princesses and princes too.
