5 Games That Teach You Personal Finance Lessons | brokeGIRLrich
I don’t know about you guys, but I love a good game night. I grew up with parents who nearly divorced every time we played Scrabble who had good, healthy approaches to competition, and I think a lot of that wore off on me. I was recently playing a new game with a friend (#3 on this list) and I was struck by the lessons you can learn from games too. Even games like Spades stick around in our cultural consciousness, and it’s clear to see the best games enrich our understanding of the world.
So, without further ado, here are a few of my favorite money lessons learned from board games. Gosh, if anyone had managed to turn math into a game, I would be so much better at it.
Well, there is 24… which is an incredible game too. But why no one ever turned algebra and geometry into a fun game is beyond me.
Probably the most classic money game out there, Monopoly proves real estate is where it’s at. Not only is real estate where it’s at, but with a solid plan, anyone can wind up a mogul. You can spend the whole game trying to pick up Boardwalk or you can quietly scoop up Baltic and Mediterranean at the top of the game, build hotels on them and rake in a fortune. The aim of the game is to bankrupt all your friends and family and be the last mogul standing… beware, the competition can get fierce.
Inspired by the Chicago Board of Trade and the US Corn Exchange, Pit pretty much teaches you how to not invest. It’s a fast paced game of outbidding each other, so if you ever wanted a real life example of how stock bubbles burst, there you go. The aim of the game is to obtain all 9 cards of a type of commodity. The bell rings, you start trading. The first to get to all 9 would ring the bell.
Carcassonne
While you might not think of Carcassonne as a personal finance friendly game, the need to carefully organize your moves to get the most out of what you’ve got immediately reminded me of setting up budgets and trying to figure out how to make the most of my financial future. Your pieces can act as 2 different types of “followers” – regular followers who claim roads, castles or monasteries and farmers who claim fields. In the long run, fields are worth more, but you have to commit to losing that farmer until the end of the game. Followers who claim roads, castles and monasteries are released back into play once said road, castle or monastery is completed.
Pay Day
Where saving is fun! Or that totally should’ve been its catchphrase. The aim of the game is to have the most cash and savings by the end. This game actually makes you calculate interest! You know it’s an impressive amount of fun because when it first came out , it outsold Monopoly and it was making kids calculate interest! Parker Brothers for the win.
You receive bills in the mail, as well as win the occasional lottery ticket or other fortuitous event! The game even lets you play poker and puts you on Swellfare when you’re too far into debt.
Mall Madness
Possibly the original bad news spending game, Mall Madness really just teaches you what not to do. Want a new CD? Throw it on the plastic. New shoes? Plastic. Pet parrot? Plastic. Plastic, plastic, plastic. On the plus side, it does teach you that waiting for sales and clearance is a great idea.
What’s your favorite game? Does it also teach a personal finance lesson?
The only one of these I know is Monopoly. I love a good game night. Celebrity is my personal favorite, though no pf lessons there 🙂
Stefanie @ The Broke and Beautiful Life recently posted…The High Price of Being a Woman
I’ve never even heard of Celebrity.
Pit is absolutely one of my all time favorite games. One night when I was growing up someone in our family (might have been me, can’t remember) got so upset by repeatedly getting stuck with the Bear card that they bit it in anger. So it had teeth marks on it. The card was so identifiable you had to hide the teeth marks with your hand when trading it or slip it under another card. If someone saw it they wouldn’t trade with you. So I think we eventually just used a Flax card to represent the Bear.
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HAHAHA. Best comment ever. I love it. And that’s intense.
I’ve never even heard of some of these, and others I had forgotten about (like Payday). What a fun reminder. I was actually thinking of doing a post similar to this, haha. I do love me some Monopoly!
Kayla @ Everything Finance recently posted…How Much Should You Save in Your 40s?
I would add that the game of Life totally teaches you about personal finance skills although it sucks when you get “forced” into having kids and taking jobs you don’t want (like teacher) but just like in real life, you sometimes have no control over those things and you have to deal with them anyway.
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It’s true, I thought about using that one, but felt it takes so many of the decision from you… although life does also just throw a lot of unexpected crap at you as well. Surprise! Twins!
You should have seen my reaction when the nurse told me it was twins!
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I’ve only heard of two (Monopoly and Payday) and only played one (Monopoly). I wish I’d been able to play that more, but my mom had an aversion. Though in the 7th grade, we got an NES, and she bought me Monopoly. Probably so I’d stop pestering her.
I can’t think of any real money games that I’ve played/heard of. I do think board games in general teach you asset allocation, so I suppose that kind of applies?
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I’d never really thought of board games in general teaching you asset allocation, but I think you’re spot on!
Personally I love Kuhhandel. It’s a German card game (there are rule translations online!) where you have to bid to try and get a full set of animals, then if you have a full set at the end you get points.
It’s a lot of budgeting to make sure you can afford what you need when it comes up in the pile but it is FANTASTIC fun 🙂
That sounds like a lot of fun!
The only one I have heard of is Monopoly. The girls loved playing it growing up and I actually dreaded seeing it come out of the closet. The game could go on for hours…..
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I’ve played both Monopoly and Pay Day. I’ve never heard of the others. We often play Apples to Apples as a family. No real financial value, but a fun game.
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Pit is one of my all time faves! Have you ever heard of anti monopoly? Pretty much a guy in the 70s said it was teaching people evil money behaviors (monopolies are something we should be fundamentally against,) so he made his own board game. Parker Bros sued, he fought tooth and nail, tearing apart his life over it, but he eventually won.
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I LOVE board games. I used to play them a lot when I was in university. Some of my ex’s friends were really into board games so they would have board game nights, but those games were more party games such as Cranium and Scattegories. There’s actually a couple of board game cafes in a city not too far from where I live.
Out of the ones listed, I only know Monopoly and Mall Madness. I vaguely remember playing Mall Madness when I slept over at my cousin’s house, that and Girl Talk….
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