In our last article, Examples of How To Teach Finances To My Children, we talked about Alfred Edmond, Jr.’s clever method of teaching his children at a very young age about the importance of having assets that outweigh your liabilities, through the game of Monopoly. What I didn’t tell you was that my husband and I began using a similar method on our children with the same game. One day, only one of our sons was at home, and he demanded that we stop focusing so much on work and spend some family time. (Yes, I more so than my husband, struggle with work/life balance. I’m working on it…). 
Nevertheless, we played Monopoly. Little did my baby boy know that he was about to get some heavy lessons during his family fun time. Now, knowing my son, there was no way we could take such a hardline approach with his lesson as Mr. Edmond did with his son. However, we were able to get in some awesome ah-has for a brother. Let’s look at the list of lessons we were ale to cover in that particular game.
Lesson 1: The 80/20 Rule Works. 
Because my son had been reading books that talked about the importance of investing, he was solely focused on using all of his money to buy properties and houses. Theoretically, that’s kind of nice, but just like in real life when your properties are sometimes vacant, we weren’t landing much on his properties; and it left him cash poor. We explained that being asset rich and cash poor can put you in situations where you don’t have the funds to take care of general needs or unexpected occurrences like paying the utilities or an unexpected tax bill. That was a rough experience for him. So sticking to a manageable formula like living off of 80% and investing 20% (or even a little more, if your budget can handle it), is a great idea.
Lesson 2: One Paycheck Will Land You in Depression When It’s Not Enough.
When my miniature man wasn’t getting any rent money, he found himself just waiting to pass GO. Most of us know what that’s like. You get paid on Friday and pay all of the bills you can pay so that by Wednesday, you’re counting down the days for your next check again. That’s what my son’s experience and Alfred Edmond, Jr.’s daughter experience was. They had only one source of income and were always looking forward to that next meeting with GO so they could get a little relief…., until they had to pay rent again. Hamburger! (Those of you who used to watch Def Comedy Jam back in the day will appreciate that). So, the moral of this story is, set yourself up to always have multiple streams of income and not rely upon one check to which you’ll undoubtedly become a slave. If you practice the 80/20 rule consistently, you can do this will minimal effort.
Lesson #3: Read Your Contracts! …. Please!
When my son wanted to buy a house for his properties, he allowed my husband, The Bank, to find the deed and tell him how much he owed for the house. But, what my husband was doing was charging my son more than what the deed said he should pay for the house, until the mommy stepped in and said this is some frackle-lackle bull! I, acting as his lawyer I guess, demanded the deed and made my son read every line of the deed, versus skimming for numbers, like he tried to do. Once he understood how the deeds were written, he kindly told The Bank, you owe me such and such, because you over charged me for all of these other properties. I intend for him to never forget this empowering lesson of the value of having knowledge for yourself versus relying solely upon that of others. No blind followers coming from this house! No, indeed!
Hopefully, these examples make it clear how a game can completely give your children a far better perspective and understanding than most of us received during our upbringings. Since that game, my son, understands a little better why we’ve had him reading certain books and researching and investing in stocks of the stores he likes to patronize. In a future post, we’ll cover some of the other jewels that came from that particular experience. One was the glimpse into how most of us are burdened by having more expenses than assets and having to lose our assets to cover those expenses.
But for now, tell me what you learned from these two Monopoly game stories. Are there any other games or ways you think are equally or better at teaching some of these lessons? I and other readers would love to learn from your experiences. Until next time, be fruitfull!
RBM Episode 27 – Cyber Monday
At What Age Should I Begin Teaching Financial Literacy To My Children?
RBM Podcast Ep. 29 – Laquita Muhammad
Can you tell us more about this? I’d like to find out some additional information.
Willis,
Certainly! Is there something in particular you’d like to know? If after reading through the other articles and listening to the interviews we’ve released, you still have questions, please let us know.
Thanks for another excellent post. The place else may just
anyone get that kind of information in such an ideal approach of
writing? I have a presentation next week, and I’m at the search for such information.
Flynn,
I hope the information on the site was helpful for your presentation. How did it go? What kind of presentation was it?
Greetings from Los angeles! I’m bored at work so I decided to browse your blog on my iphone during lunch break.
I love the knowledge you present here and can’t wait to take
a look when I get home. I’m shocked at how fast your blog loaded on my
phone .. I’m not even using WIFI, just 3G .. Anyways, wonderful site!
Christin,
Thanks for visiting us from work in L.A.!!!! We definitely look forward to hearing from you more during future visits!
Hi there, I discovered your website via Google even as searching for a related subject, your site
got here up, it seems to be great. I’ve bookmarked it
in my google bookmarks.
Hi there, just turned into alert to your
blog through Google, and located that it’s truly informative.
I’m gonna be careful for brussels. I’ll be grateful if
you continue this in future. Lots of folks shall be
benefited out of your writing. Cheers!
Mia,
Thank you! We will work hard to continue to provide useful content!
This is the perfect webpage for everyone who wishes to understand this topic.
You realize a whole lot its almost hard to argue with you (not
that I actually will need to…HaHa). You definitely put a
new spin on a subject that has been discussed for decades.
Great stuff, just great!
Jarrod,
Thank you! I appreciate you!
Hey there! I’m at work surfing around your blog from my new iphone 3gs!
Just wanted to say I love reading your blog and look forward to all your posts!
Keep up the excellent work!
Susanne,
Thanks for the spending time on our site, while at work! We look forward to your future visits!
Quality posts is the secret to interest the users to pay a visit the website, that’s what this web page is providing.
Latoya,
I’m humbled and thankful for your words.
Ahaa, its pleasant conversation on the topic of this article at this place at this web site, I have read all that, so at this time me also commenting here.
Thank you so very much for your comment!
Keep this going please, great job!
I will, thank you!
You could certainly see your skills in the article
you write. The world hopes for even more passionate writers such as you
who are not afraid to say how they believe.
Always go after your heart.
Thank you! I appreciate you!
Just want to say your article is as amazing. The clearness to your post is simply excellent and that i
can think you’re a professional in this subject. Well with your permission let
me to grab your RSS feed to stay updated with drawing close post.
Thanks one million and please carry on the gratifying work.
Thank you! I’ll have to ask my site designer about the rss feed. That’s internet language that I still don’t fully understand yet, lol.
Having read this I thought it was extremely informative.
I appreciate you taking the time and effort to
put this content together. I once again find myself personally spending a significant amount of time both reading and posting comments.
But so what, it was still worth it!
I appreciate you greatly! Thank you for the feedback and taking the time to visit, read, and comment. You’re awesome!
This website was… how do you say it? Relevant!! Finally I’ve found something
that helped me. Many thanks!
Cora,
You’re very welcome, and thank you for visiting! How did you hear about us?
Hmm is anyone else having problems with the images on this blog loading?
I’m trying to determine if its a problem on my end or if it’s the blog.
Any feed-back would be greatly appreciated.
Jackie,
I’ve not heard any other reports of problems with images loading. I’ll check with my hosting company and see if they have any suggestions.
Pretty nice post. I just stumbled upon your blog and
wanted to say that I’ve really enjoyed browsing your blog posts.
After all I will be subscribing to your feed and I hope you write again very
soon!
Gina,
Thanks so very much for your feedback. Our family has a financial services firm that is still heavily into tax season. Once that ends, I’ll definitely be posting more on a regular basis. I look forward to your future engagements! What are your thoughts about the interviews we’ve posted?
We are a group of volunteers and starting a new scheme in our community.
Your web site provided us with helpful info to work on. You have done
an impressive activity and our entire group shall be thankful to you.
Jose,
Thank you, and I’m so glad we could provide assistance to your group. Please let us know if you need any additional resources.
I know this if off topic but I’m looking into starting my own blog and was wondering what all is needed
to get set up? I’m assuming having a blog like yours would cost a pretty penny?
I’m not very web smart so I’m not 100% certain. Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Kristina,
Thanks for your question. Starting a blog is actually free. There are other options available to you, if you’d like to own your domain…etc. I used Universal Internet Designs when I was ready to expand my free design to something more customized. Please let me know if we can provide any additional resources.
Superb blog you have here but I was wanting to know if you knew of any forums that cover the same topics discussed
in this article? I’d really like to be a part of community where I can get comments
from other knowledgeable individuals that share
the same interest. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.
Kudos!
Thank you! I don’t currently know of any, but you may want to check twitter and facebook for some finances or accounting pages or people within those areas.
Way cool! Some very valid points! I appreciate you
penning this write-up and the rest of the site is very good.
Maynard,
Thank you so much for taking the time to compliment our site. We appreciate you!
I’d vetrune that this article has saved me more time than any other.
Spike, I’m sooo glad to hear that. Thank you for your feedback!
If not for your writing this topic could be very coluonvted and oblique.
Betty, I’m glad you enjoyed the article.
Thanks!
You’re so awesome! I do not think I’ve read something like that
before. So nice to find somebody with genuine thoughts on this issue.
Really.. many thanks for starting this up. This website is something
that is needed on the web, someone with some originality!
Thank you so much for your kind words, Kristy!
Hey Kristi!
I’m so sorry we somehow missed this comment. I thank you so much for your kind words. We hope it’s helpful to many.