11 Board Games that Teach Money Skills

If you have kids, you have probably been asked to play a board game with them at some point.  Board games can provide an evening of family entertainment and can also initiate discussions of financial concepts in a relevant manner for kids.  Here are eleven great board games that incorporate basic financial topics.

1.  Monopoly - No list of board games would be complete without Monopoly, the world's most popular and best selling board game.  Buy & sell real estate, collect rents and rush to pass Go so that you can get your $200.


2.  Life - Another classic game!  Your goal in "Life" is to avoid bad luck and makes some money.  Along the way you can earn bonuses by doing good deeds and helping your community.  You win by retiring with the most money.


3.  Payday - A personal favorite of mine from childhood!  The Payday game board is set up like a monthly calendar and you must get through the month to get to your payday.  The month is full of financial bonuses, such as winning the lottery, and financial pitfalls, such as extra bills or bad investments.  You play as many months as you like and whoever has the most money at the end, wins the game.

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Online Allowance and Money Trackers

Online allowance trackers, or virtual family banks, are popular tools for organizing a child’s money and encouraging financial literacy skills.  We created our MoneyTrail website and app to fit a need that we have in our family.  We have four kids and keeping up with allowances, IOUs and cash was difficult.  I would continually forget the last time I paid allowance or I would lose the sticky note that reminded me to pay Brittany $10 for washing the car.  Since Frank was a computer programmer and I was a teacher, we put our heads together and created a solution that worked for us.  (Read our full story here.) 

MoneyTrail may have started with our family but it has rapidly grown to help thousands of families with their allowance and money management needs for kids.  Frank and I are proud to offer our free virtual family bank from our website and we have an app in all the major app stores.  

MoneyTrail features include:

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10 Movies that Can Teach Your Child or Teen about Money

Photo:  Scypaxpictures

Looking for a quiet activity on a hot summer day?  Nothing beats the heat like a movie day with a big ole' bowl of popcorn.  Why not throw in a little financial education while you are watching the movies with your kids.


Here are 10 movies for kids & teens that can be great financial conversation starters.

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What Can "The Hunger Games" Teach your Teen about Money?

Last year I did a book review of "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins and shared my thoughts about the money thoughts that are embedded in this thrilling story.  Now that the movie is taking the box office by storm, I thought I would share the book review again.  There are some basic money lessons within the story, such as determining your basic needs and utilizing your skills to create an income.

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Teaching Money to Preschoolers Through Play

My husband keeps this play check on his bulletin board at his desk.   Our daughter gave it to him many years ago when she was about 4 years old.  (She is 18 now.)  She used to love to play “pretend” and I am sure she had a precise reason for giving her Daddy a check for $50.   Her imagination enabled her to be a mommy, a teacher, a chef, a dentist, a dog walker and a grocery store clerk, among many, many other imaginary careers.  One of her favorite toys was a toy cash register.  She kept it filled with play money, old tickets, discontinued checks and the little plastic credit card samples that come in the mail with credit card offers.  (Note:  coins (play or real) can be a choking hazard so supervise your kids carefully).  As I was looking at this check recently and reminiscing about our little girl, I started thinking about the money concepts that can be learned and practiced through preschool play.

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Toys Sales and the Recession

By Photos8.org

Recession.  Foreclosure.  Bankrupty.  Debt.  The past few years have been full of stories about the harsh realities of the economy.  I read post after post each week from folks who are budgeting everyday to reduce their debt and improve their economic status.  Imagine my surprise last week when I ran across an article by Jason at Frugal Dad.com in which he shares statistics about the toy industry in the United States.  It seems that the toy sales in the US have risen during the recession.

Take a look at this graphic image below that Jason put together.  Some of the stats are amazing.  The most intriguing to me are:

• Less than 4% of the world's children live in the United States but we buy more than 40% of the toys.
• The amount of money spent per child on toys in the United States is $280 per year.
• Toy sales have increased by 2% during the recession while the amount spent in supermarkets has decreased by .5%.

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5 Steps to Understanding & Organizing Kid's Finances

This week I was selected to post a guest blog on Raising CEO Kids.  Dr. Jerry and  Sarah L. Cook are the founders of this wonderful program.  The "mission at Raising CEO Kids is to to educate, empower, & encourage parents to RAISE smart, savvy, successful, and confident CEO KIDS as well as to support CEO Kids or those who want to be CEO Kids!"  Here is the beginning of the article...

January is National Get Organized month and many of us have made resolutions to organize our finances. With just a little time and effort, you can also organize your child’s finances so that your child can develop and practice responsible money management habits. 

Generally the same theories and steps that we would take to organize our adult finances can be applied to our kids’ finances. Kids and teens have income and expenses, just as we do. And, they can learn to keep track of their finances and analyze their habits, just as we should do.

Try these 5 Steps at home with your kids to get their finances in order:

Read the entire article at Raising CEO Kids...

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My Interview with Rock Your Block

Rock Your Block is a Facebook and mobile application that helps teens find job opportunities in their community. It's all location-based, so teens build a dynamic online resume that they can easily send off to local employers.  "Rock Your Block empowers teens to learn invaluable life-skills and develop a strong work ethic at an early age – ultimately setting them up for long-term success."

I have had the pleasure of getting to know the folks at Rock Your Block through several conversations.  Today they posted an interview with me about the importance of family involvement with teaching kids and teens about money management.  Here is the beginning of the interview.  Please click through to their site to read the full story.

As teens find opportunities to make money in their communities, Rock Your Block wants to make sure that they have the right tools and resources to track their earnings and spending, set money-saving goals, and learn the overall importance of money management. Parents play a vital role in instilling financial management values in their children, and our interview with Pam Whitlock, founder of Atlanta-based MoneyTrail highlights the importance of involving the entire family in money matters and how their application helps cater to the needs of today’s busy families.  Read the full interview...

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Gift Card Management for Kids & Teens

Kids & teens learn to manage gift cards

My kids really like getting a few gift cards for presents.   My younger kids view them as a “free” shopping trip and enjoy getting to use a plastic card like the grown-ups.  My teens like gift cards because they are just darn picky when it comes to gifts and would often prefer to pick out their own stuff.    Whether or not you like gift cards, the reality is that at some point your kids will have them and will need to learn to manage them appropriately.  With four kids in our house, gift card management can occasionally get challenging.    (Several of these obstacles prompted us to add a gift card tracking feature to MoneyTrail.)

Here are some of our common obstacles and the solutions we have developed over the last few years.

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Budgeting the Holiday Wish List with Older Kids and Teens

The holiday season is usually a fun and exciting time for kids, teens and families.  I can remember going through the Sears Wish book when I was a kid and circling the toys that I really wanted.  I have seen that same gleam of excitement in the eyes of my kids.  However, when kids are asked to make lists for Santa, grandparents, parents and other relatives, the focus on “what do I want” can sometimes turn into an attitude of “gimme, gimme, gimme.”   Introducing a budget limit for the wish list can help reduce the “gimmes”. 

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What do our Kids Really Understand about Money? 5 Assumptions that Parents Often Make

There’s a family story that my mother loves to tell from years ago when I was a child.  She was fixing dinner one night and heard me crying in my room.  Without stopping what she was doing, she yelled for my older brother to leave me alone.  His response?  “Mom, I’m not even in the same room with her!”  My mother claims that from that point on, she never assumed that she knew what was going on with her kids until she laid her eyes on the situation.  I guess I need to take my mother’s advice and never assume that I know what is going on with my kids.  It is pretty darn good advice, not only for child behaviors, but also for teaching kids about money. 

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What are Kids and Teens Thankful For?

Created at www.wordle.net

There are moments when I get really tired my kids asking,  "Can I have (fill in the blank here)?"   Or, better yet, "Mom, can you take me/give me/do this?"  This week, I decided to conduct a very unscientific study about what kids and teens are actually thankful for, as opposed to what they actually want.  I asked family, friends and MoneyTrail users for their help.  The kids that answered ranged in age from 3 to 22.  The results were:

• #1 Response:  Family
• #2 Response:  Friends

The rest of the responses were (in no particular order):

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Thanksgiving vs. Entitlement

Photo by Brittany Whitlock

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays.  There isn’t the pressure to find the perfect gift or throw the biggest backyard barbeque.  It is a time to enjoy being with family and to take a moment to be thankful for the good things in your life.  I have read many articles recently about the sense of entitlement and what a parent should to do to make sure their kids avoid this “affluenza” (term borrowed from Clark Howard!).  I think that one of the best ways to teach and model gratefulness is to create family traditions that honor this quality.

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Kids, Money & Family Finances

I was interviewed by Kimberly from 4Virtue Family Focus for a podcast about Family Finances and how that relates to teaching kids about money management.  4virtu is a free, secure networking and organizational management system with a family-centric approach. They deliver a solution for today’s busy families to organize while saving time & money; to simplify and manage communications with the organizations they belong to; and to connect & enrich local communities. Check out the interview about kids and money...

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How to Get Teens to Save Money

Real Items Teens are Saving For

Many teens that are using MoneyTrail are saving for specific items or goals.   Getting teens to save money can sometimes be a challenge.  However, it is a skill that can be learned with patience and practice. 

Four Key Points to Get Teens to Save:

1. Help them set a specific goal.  Whether it is a short term savings goal (cell phone, iPod) or a long term savings goal (car, college), having a specific goal will keep the teen focused and can reduce impulse purchases.
2.  Help them figure out how to achieve the goal.  Talk to your teen about how he is going to get the money.  Is he saving allowance for a long time or is he going to get a job?  What kind of job?
3. Give them an organized system for keeping track of their progress.  Details, ideas and amounts can be easily forgotten or pushed aside after time goes by.  MoneyTrail provides this organized, consistent system for teens and parents.  Customized accounts can help your teen meet his savings goal.

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Footballs & Helicopters: How to Avoid Shopping Meltdowns with your Kids

It has happened to most parents at one time or another.  You are in a department store with your kids and one of them sees “the toy” and simply must have it.

     “Can I get it?”

     “But Mama….I really want it.” 

     “I won’t ask for anything else.”

     “I promise I will do my chores.” 

     “Please, ple-e-e-e-e-e-ease.” 

      “I’ve wanted this my whole life.” 

For such a little person, they sure can have a loud voice, especially when you are in a store and feel  the eyes of all the other shoppers nearby glaring at you!  At this point, you have three options: 

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Using Children’s Books to Teach Money Concepts

Children’s literature is a fabulous resource for teaching your child money concepts or initiating money conversations between you and your child.  In this first installment of book reviews, I will discuss two books that are favorites of mine, Double Fudge by Judy Blume and Ramona and her Father by Beverly Cleary. 

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