Guest Post: Courtesy of: Maikel from The Unchained Life
Cashflow: The Fun Way to Teach Your Kids About Money
As a parent, one of the most important skills you should teach your children is financial literacy. In other words, you need to make sure that your kids have an understanding of how money works and how to avoid the mistakes that many adults make.
And that’s also the difficulty for you as a parent. Estimates are that in the United States about 125 million adults are living paycheck to paycheck. The shocking part is that this includes 53% of people who earn between $50.000 and $100.000 per year, which is significant.
You may be one of those people.
This then begs the question: If you don’t really understand money yourself, how can you possibly teach your kids on the subject? Today I’m going to be sharing with you one of the most fun ways of teaching your kids (and yourself) about money.
It’s a board game called Cashflow.
Why Do You Need to Teach Your Children About Money?
Before I tell you more about the game, I want to establish why you need to take their financial education seriously. The fact of the matter is that unfortunately, schools do not teach children about money. Your child might get amazing grades, a degree from a prestigious university, and a great job but without financial education. Despite that, they may very well be struggling most of their life to pay off their debt because they don’t understand how money works!
I was blessed with curiosity about business and money, and so I sought out this information on my own. But most likely you need to be the one to teach them or else nobody will. For your own education, I would highly recommend picking up the book “Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki. This was the book that opened my eyes. The other day I’ve written down 5 takeaways from Rich Dad Poor Dad that I think will be a great starting point for your own learning!
Why Use a Boardgame to Teach Them?
I can tell you this from coaching sports teams of all ages for about 15 years:
It doesn’t matter whether a child is 5, 11 or 16, in all age groups I have noticed that as soon as I start explaining things, their attention evaporates like snow in Mordor. Lecturing them isn’t gonna go well. They will simply be bored out of their mind before the information can enter it! Children learn best by doing and experiencing things for themselves.
Not to mention that playing a board game together can help you bond with your child as well.
How to Teach Your Children About Money
One of the tools I recommend for this is a board game called Cashflow.
To put it simply, it is a simulation of life. Every player has a certain salary, some cash and certain forms of debt. They then get to choose what their dream is within the game, the end goal that they will work towards. Along the way, players will get investment opportunities as well as setbacks. Ultimately with the goal to first become financially free and then achieve their chosen dream.
The 2 great things about this game are that is every decision a player makes impacts their finances but at the same time, the game is unfair just like real life. If you get unlucky and draw a bad card, what can you do to turn things around financially? The game teaches them how their choices can either hurt or benefit them financially.
Note: There is also a Cashflow game for kids (around age 7 – 10). The main game would be for roughly age 10+.
Conclusion
With the holiday season coming up, Cashflow might be a great addition to your list of presents!
I believe that cash flow is one of the most fun ways to make sure that your children get at least the foundation of financial knowledge. If you want to take things a step further in their education, check out this guide on how to teach them about money in a playful way. Remember that if you don’t teach them these financial skills, most likely nobody will!
Bio: Maikel
Maikel is the founder of The Unchained Life and entrepreneur on a mission to help as many people as possible to improve their lives significantly. After having to deal with hardships and having to completely build himself up from scratch again, he now teaches the lessons learned in over a decade of self-improvement.
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates
