A few weeks ago, I offered to substitute for my son’s Sunday school class. Of course, I forgot all about it until I pulled into the church parking lot.

Summer brain strikes again!

In the short while before class, I skimmed the lesson on tithes and offerings. The material was thin. I needed something to fill more time, so I sketched up a quick money management game. It evolved into this.

{Note this version doesn’t have a charitable contribution option, but that could easily be added.}

Basically, the game follows a two-week pay cycle.

You roll a single die to advance through the days. Every two weeks you collect a $1000 paycheck. That’s simple enough, but here are the variables:

• The players choose all expenses and have to pay up with each paycheck. At the beginning, no one will be able to afford the best everything, so…
  • Are you willing to live in a smaller house?
  • Give up eating meat?
  • Only have one pair of clothes?

• Along the way there are also a few random risks and rewards.
  • Need to visit the doctor? That will be $100.
  • Have a car? You’ll need to pay insurance on that.
  • Oh, look it’s your birthday. Grandma gives you $100! Yay.
• You win by saving $1000 (after all expenses are paid). In the game, this is the amount of each paycheck. So winning means you’ve graduated from living paycheck-to-paycheck.

To play you’ll need:

1. An instruction card
2. A game board
3. A decision sheet
4. Play money
5. Risk/Reward cards
6. An expense tracker
7. A die to roll
8. A game token

Feel free to make copies for personal and/or school use. I just ask that you don’t distribute commercially. I recommend printing the risk/reward cards on card stock and gluing the game board to a piece of cardboard for better durability. When you’re all done playing, everything can be trimmed and folded to fit into a gallon bag.

If you want to make the game even more complex you could add features, like:

• taxes
• more bills (cell phone plans?)
• charitable contributions
• add risk/reward cards that include salary increases and decreases

So far it’s been a big hit with my kids. I hope yours enjoy it, too!