Have you found yourself looking for ways to handle your cash that don’t involve you duct taping it to your body, or worse…downright relinquishing it to your parents?
Rest assured – you will witness kid-approved ways of smartly handling your cash that’ll totally work in your favor. Handling Cash For Kids – written just for you – gives top-notch pointers and best practices for keeping your money organized, safe, and most importantly, in your pocket.
In this article, we’ll provide you with a comprehensive list of games and online activities to play, which we guarantee will make the learning process easier for you and extremely fun. And remember, as fun as these games listed here are, they’re also made up of very serious stuff. You know, like, life lessons that you’ll want to carry with you everywhere you go for the rest of your life. That’s some commitment, isn’t it? Well, let’s get to it!
Spent: Can You Make It Through the Month? Game (ages 12+)
This evocative kids’ game starts off by first educating players on the reality of what millions of people face every day: unemployment, foreclosed homes, exhausted savings, and having only $1000 to account for (which is where the challenge comes into play). Given only one month, can you make it through before running out of all of the money?
During this crucial time crunch, you are forced to make decisions based on what millions of people face every day. The game finishes when you run out of money before the month ends or make it through the month with money leftover.
Money Bags Coin Value Game by Learning Resources (ages 7+)
A great starter game that introduces various money concepts through coin identification. This learning tool gets you comfortable with counting money and handling your own “money bag.” The objective is for players to collect, count, and exchange money all the way to the finish line! You can also practice without the board to calculate how much money you can hold for a week or month, testing yourself based on the total amount of money you started with and how much you spend within that time frame.
Breaking the Bank – Counting Game (ages 8-10)
Breaking the Bank is an online, interactive game that teaches school kids how to count money! In this game, kids get to break open fun piggy banks that reveal to them a set of coins and dollars. A bonus game can be played once the money is counted correctly and in order!
Homemade Money or Play Money (ages 5-7)
Before getting serious with real money, why not practice with something less “green”?
Play money is a simple yet ingenious way to practice and prepare for handling your money, serving as a stepping stone for how you decide to handle it in the coming future. Get your friends to join in and see if you can go through the school day without losing any of it. Check your faux pocket change before and after school time. Another cool feature is that the money – both bills and coins – look real! But don’t go around trying to fool anyone, not even that anxious class pet.
Con ’Em If You Can (ages 9+)
Con ‘Em If You Can is a financial entertainment video game app that teaches players about the different types of persuasion tactics used in financial fraud so they are better able to defend themselves against such tactics in the real world. This engaging app complements financial education modules related to “protecting your money.” As mentioned in How to Handle Cash For Kids, there could potentially be some penniless bully out there that is clearly out to fraud you or someone you know, so picking up on these methods used will have you recognizing “game” when you see it.
Con ‘Em If You Can is available to play online from a desktop computer and as an app for iOS or Android users.
Exact Change Card Game (all ages)
Exact Change is another awesome counting game that is easy to learn and play! It is similar to how UNO is played, but with a money component and can use multiple cards together. The objective is to be the one to play all of your cards first. One of the ways to discard your cards is by making ”exact change.” Doing this allows you to discard multiple cards that add to the value of the last card played. This process helps the player to win the game once they can find ways to make exact change and play a lot of cards at once.
Monopoly Game (for all ages)
This classic game teaches plenty of money lessons to kids and adults alike. Make it a family night or party it up by surprising your guests with an irresistibly tried and true board game created for all ages. There are various lessons to be learned. Here are a few of them:
- The importance of holding money – as tempting as it is to spend money that you have right away, this game will quickly show you how spending too much and too frequently means not meeting financial obligations. The same applies to the real world. If you are too quick to spend money from your pocket or piggy bank, you risk being setback from achieving your money goals. Monopoly does a good job at bringing each and every players’ attention to this.
- Living within your own means – In one of our previous articles, Earning Money for Teens – we acknowledged how important it is to live within your own means to avoid picking up harmful money habits that can cause you to be worse off in the end. Throughout the game, how you choose to spend is what matters and becomes a determining factor of whether you can win the game or not. One of the card decks is called “pass go”, which means that you can collect your designated salary and move on. This limitation on your paper makes it virtually impossible to overspend.
- Always keep cash on hand – as a player in this game, in order to win, you must be the last one to have money. If you are making your rounds on the Monopoly board buying up everything in sight, you’re unlikely to pay off your financial obligations, which means that you are more likely to run out of cash.
The Payoff Game (ages 14+)
An immersive and interactive game for teens to quickly learn about financial basics. You get to choose from playing a role between two teenagers: Alex and Jess, two newbie video bloggers who are preparing for a life-changing video blog competition while simultaneously managing their finances and handling unexpected events. The objective is to help Alex and Jess make smart financial decisions within their three-day deadline. The game is played in a web-based app that simulates a mobile phone where players can chat with characters, check their bank accounts and emails, open fake websites, and more.
Managing My Allowance – Learning Advantage (ages 9+)
This fun game teaches kids real-world money management skills. It also shows the player how to differentiate between money wants and money needs. It goes further to get players thinking about college. By saving allowance, and budgeting pocket money, you can achieve your financial goal of paying for school. Although players are focused on saving for college, they also need to take advantage of sales and discounts along the way so that they are careful not to overspend and go over budget. Players of this game learn to save, budget, and make smart financial decisions to pay for college. The winner of the game accumulates the most college savings!
This game is designed for multiple skill levels and offers two variations of gameplay that involve different budgeting skills. It also provides exciting and practical ways of handling physical cash, which kids recognize from the dozens of real-life scenarios given!
If you derive joy from playing while also learning a thing or two, give these cash handling games for kids a go! Your financial future will thank you later.
