BGCA’s Director of Programs & Innovation Abigail Botten is back on ClubX with permission to PLAY!
Most kids and teens get excited to have their own money—whether it’s an allowance, a gift, or their first paycheck. Developing financial well-being starts with habits they learn early. This week, we share 3 games you can use to help kids and teens learn about money. Programs like Money Matters help drive financial literacy for tweens and teens, promoting financial well-being and independence among Club members ages 10–18 by building their basic money management skills. Board games like The Game of Life, Monopoly, and others offer fun, hands-on ways to explore concepts like saving, investing, debt, and decision-making. By playing, young people can practice managing money, navigating unexpected challenges, and understanding how choices shape long-term outcomes, all while having fun.
The Game of Life
The Game of Life has always been one of my favorite childhood games. Right from the start, you’re faced with a big decision: go to college and take out loans for the potential of landing that doctor career with a $100,000 salary, or skip school and dive straight into the workforce, hoping to pull a green-tab career worth $90,000, while secretly dreading the unlucky draw of the $20,000 purple card. Along the way, life events pop up both good and bad. You might welcome a child or plant a tree and earn a Life card, or you could lose your job and trade in a high salary for something smaller. At the same time, you’re managing your lifestyle, buying a house, choosing when to invest in stocks, and even getting the chance to trade in your home for an upgrade. Just like in real life, unexpected twists shape your journey. By blending chance with choice, the game shows how decisions about money, lifestyle, and opportunity impact not only our daily lives but also our long-term outcomes.
Details:
- Number of players: 2-6
- Ages: 8 and up (a Junior edition exists for ages 5 and up)
- Average playtime: 60-90 minutes
Skills Practiced:
- Career and income planning
- Budgeting and expenses
- Long-term financial planning
Money Matters Session Connections:
- Lifestyle Goals: Will I make enough to live the life I want?
- What does College Really Cost?
- Retirement Planning is for Young People!: A little today, a lot later! or “start small, gain big”
- Preparing for Life’s Surprises
Monopoly and Monopoly Deal
Monopoly is a game where friends can quickly become rivals, so proceed with caution! In this economics-themed board game, players move around the board, buy and trade properties, and develop them with houses and hotels, charging rent to anyone who lands on their spaces. Players collect cash each time they pass Go and can even find themselves in jail. The game teaches important financial lessons for teens, including budgeting and cash management through property purchases while keeping enough money to pay rent, long-term strategy by thinking beyond the next money move, and negotiation skills through property trades and creating win-win outcomes. If you have a couple of hours, this is the game for you!
Details:
- Number of players: 2–8
- Ages: 8 and up
- Average playtime: 60–180 minutes
Skills Practiced:
- Money Management & Budgeting
- Investing & Risk Assessment
- Debt & Credit Awareness
Money Matters Session Connections:
- Preparing for Life’s Suprises
- Saving Money, Reaching Goals
- Needs vs. Wants: How to Spend Smart
- Budgeting for My Goals
If you want to save time, try Monopoly Deal. It focuses on the same lessons of strategy, property investing, long-term thinking, and negotiation, but in a much faster format. Players must balance saving cash for rent, investing in property sets, and using action cards to create opportunities or block setbacks. The game highlights trade-offs between spending now versus saving for later, and the importance of adapting your strategy when unexpected setbacks, like paying a big rent card, come up.
Details:
- Number of players: 2-5
- Ages: 8 and up
- Average playtime: 15-20 minutes
Catan
To know me is to know I love a good strategy game. I’m the type of person whose heart starts racing when I have a great move ready, especially if it could win me the game. Catan is one of those games that brings me joy while keeping me on the edge of my seat. It’s a resource strategy game where players collect resources to build settlements and cities. Right from the start, you decide where to place your settlements based on which numbers are most likely to be rolled. Throughout the game, you gather resources when your numbers come up and make choices about whether to build longer roads, expand settlements into cities, or buy development cards that can give you special abilities, like adding points or building an army. Catan teaches teens financial lessons such as resource management, allocating resources wisely, negotiation and trade, making deals with other players for mutual benefit, and investing, deciding when and where to grow your settlements and roads, much like real-life decisions with money.
Details:
- Number of players: 3-4
- Ages 10 and up (a Junior edition exists for ages 6 and up)
- Average playtime: 60-90 minutes
Skills Practiced:
- Resource Management
- Negotiation & Trade
- Strategic Planning & Opportunity Cost
Money Matters Session Connections:
- Needs vs. Wants: How to Spend Smart
- My Career and Post-secondary Game Plan
- Planning for My Future and Retirement
The most important thing when building skillsets with young people is explicitly making the connection between fun and learning. As you plan your fun game day around financial literacy, consider starting by calling out the goal: understanding different aspects of money, budgeting, and future planning, and recognizing how everyday decisions impact days, months, and years to come. After the young people play the games, ask them, “What lessons from this game could you apply to managing money, planning for the future, or making financial choices?”
What are your favorite games to play at the Club? How do you bring infuse play and fun into high-yield activities? Comment below, on the BGCA Youth Development Facebook page, or email ClubXBlog@bgca.org.
If you are working with teens- How Not to Suck at Money is a great interactive online resource to teach financial literacy skills! https://hntsam.com/