Sivan Segev | 
08 11th, 2008| 
In my previous post, I suggested 3 games that can help teach kids about money. We recently bought our daughter the board game “Payday” - and I must recommend it.
While playing the game, we get mail - including bills - and funny postcards. If anything, it teaches kids why us grownups are less excited about getting the mail. During the game it turned out I got lots of bills, my wife had to pay for groceries and our daughter won the lottery. It gave us chances to mention our opinions about money - Don’t count on luck, don’t bet in casinos and lotteries, learn to identify a good deal, pay your debt… and all through having tons of family fun. That’s what’s great about board games, it’s a family game. Unlike computer games - where the kid sits alone or sometimes you sit next to him reading a book. Family time spent having fun is what it’s all about.
Another good thing about this game is that it teaches the kid to distinguish between different financial games like monopoly. The kid stops thinking of the deals in the same terms as monopoly - it just works differently. I guess that in real life terms it’s the difference between a trader and a real estate investor.
We also bought the game I recommended before - Roller Coaster Tycoon 3. I had a long time ago the first version and after starting to play the latest version and virtually riding the rides I found myself surrounded by the kids wanting me to do this and that. It’s very impressive visually and the kids loved it. I hope that at some point they will catch up on the management, strategic and financial value of that game. If not - they’ll still have tons of fun.
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