You know the saying, “Better Late Than Never”? Well, I think ANYTIME you can use The Money Game to teach kids and teens (and their parents) about money, it’s a great thing. Here’s the latest letter I got today (December 30, 2010) from Amy who bought the The Money Game 5 months ago.

She taught the game today for the first time for her two girls (15, 16) and her friend’s four kids: two boys (15, 16) and two girls (9, 11)…total 6 kids.

She writes…

Elisabeth,

I just wanted to let you know that the game went really well.  I think the kids walked away learning they needed to pay themselves first and to diversify their assets…invest in three and focus on one.

Here are a few suggestions that I have not seen come from anyone yet.

#1.  Piddlyjunk:  After the first round the kids were not investing in this, but there was no real draw for them to do so.  One of the people helping me suggested I go and get something the kids would really like and tempt them.  So I went and got some homemade chocolate covered grahams.  Then they started buying piddlyjunk…or at least made the decision to wait until they had enough money to buy it and hoped it would still be there when they had the money.  This made it more realistic as we are constantly tempted to buy Starbucks when we are thirsty or a sandwich when we are out and about and hungry.  By waiting to introduce the grahams, the kids were starting to get hungry, so it was a real draw.

#2.  The kids wanted to keep playing even after they had “won” the game.  So I put each of the three chips in one envelope each and had someone choose an envelope.  The chip in the envelope chosen would suffer an awful fate…if it was the stock market chip the stock market would suffer a horrible blow and as a result they had to give up all their stocks.  This was interesting as some of the kids chose to purchase more stock after they lost all theirs in the crash…afterall, it is a good buy as they can only go up from there!  Also, it shows it was good to diversify.

#3.  We played about 15 rounds before they pettered out.  Everyone had a blast including the kids! (I did the $200/asset as I had just 2-3 hours to play the game)

The songs I chose were the theme to Jeopardy for the setup in the beginning and “Just got paid” from NSYNC for the paydays.  The kids were loving the song and it definitely got them to associate getting paid with that song.

Eventually, one teen noticed the more money he made the easier it was to buy more and more assets.  The more assets he had the more assets he could buy.  It was almost addicting!

Thank you so much for developing this game.  For those of us that don’t live close enough to have our children experience your Camp Millionaire, this was the next best thing. I know it took me 5 months to actually read through everything and do the game, but better than a year or not purchasing the game at all.

Thanks again, Amy

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My response to Amy:

Amy…so wonderful to get this feedback. I told you it would go beautifully. The lessons just happen. I’m going to put your email on the testimonials page:-).

Loved the idea of the piddlyjunk. Will put that in a new ‘suggestions by coaches’ category!

And yes, they do get addicted to buying assets. This is a very good thing.

Again, you did good!

Elisabeth