Use Board Games to Teach Kids About Money

Believe it or not, teaching kids about money doesn’t have to be boring, difficult or stressful. You can do it with board games. Depending on the game, your kids can learn how to earn money, pay bills and deal with situations in which overspending or unexpected expenses bust their budget. The best part about playing these games is they learn life lessons without even realizing it. They’re just having fun.

 

Here are a few board games that teach these lessons well.

 

Monopoly (ages 8 and up) and Monopoly Junior (ages 5 and up)

Players learn cash flow by earning income, saving money, paying taxes, dealing with emergency expenses and learning how to negotiate.

 

Game of Life (Ages 8 and up) and Game of Life Junior (ages 5 and up)

Like Monopoly, players learn about earning and saving money. This game also helps them learn how to make life choices and learn how overspending and other choices in general impact their decisions. They also learn family dynamics and how having more people in the family impacts their income.

 

Payday (Ages 8 and up)

This game is all about money management. Kids will learn how to pay bills, how to make money, how to afford investments, entertainment and more. They may even learn about going into debt, and healthy lessons about debt are important.

 

Money Bags (Ages 7 and up)

Players collect, count, and exchange money all the way to the finish line, learning valuable money skills the entire way.

 

Pop to the Shops (Ages 5 to 9)

Children learn about handling money and giving change with this fun shopping game, which encourages number and counting skills.

 

The more you play these games with children, the more savvy those children become with money. This is an important skill not taught in most schools, so take advantage of this fun way to help your kids or children in your life learn these important life skills.