Budgeting Games for High School Students
What are the best budgeting games for high school students?
Learning money management is an essential life skill that every student should know.
But teaching teenagers how to budget isn’t always easy.
One simple way to make learning about money a little more fun is to play educational games.
These budgeting games for high school students are a simple way to introduce financial skills to your teenager without boring them in the process.
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Budgeting Games for Students
From classic board games to interactive apps, there are a variety of fun ways to teach your high school student about money management.
The next time you start teaching budgeting to your teen, try playing one of these fun games instead.
1) Budget
Make budgeting fun for your high school student with the Budget game.
Players must make tough financial decisions as they attempt to stick to a budget each time they travel around the game board.
The winner has the most money at the end of the game!
To play, students earn $2,000 before each trip around the game board, then they must make a budget for their money.
As they work their way around the board, they can use the money to buy a home, pay insurance, make investments, buy groceries, and other real-life scenarios.
If they budget correctly, they receive a bonus on payday.
In addition to the board, the game comes with play money, game cards, and budgeting sheets for each player to use.
To help your students learn more about creating a balanced budget, the game also includes a study guide to use for explaining probabilities and gameplay strategies.
Budget is designed for kids in grades 5 and up. It can be played with 2 to 4 players.
2) The Entrepreneur Game
Whether you’re hoping to teach your kids about budgeting or starting a business, they’ll love this fun board game.
The Entrepreneur Game teaches kids valuable skills and concepts to acquire wealth, including budgeting, investing, branding, negotiating, marketing, and partnership.
This STEM Accredited educational game is a fun and interactive way to learn and practice the skills it takes to start a business and make money.
To play, each student begins by starting their own business. As they work their way around the board, each player must make critical business decisions that will grow and expand their start-up.
The player with the highest net worth at the end of the game is the winner.
As your students play, they will learn to make critical business decisions after each roll of the dice, including:
- Whether their business will be home-based or brick and mortar
- How big of a bank loan to take out for start-up costs
- Setting a marketing budget
- Hiring employees and other necessary help, like a lawyer
- Acquiring investors
- Forming partnerships
- Starting more businesses
This game set comes with a board game featuring a mapped path, along with playing cards, playing pieces, and money. The board game is designed for between 2 and 6 players
3) Money Smart Teens
Finding ways to make financial lessons fun for your high school students isn’t always easy.
With Money Smart Teens, you can use fun interactive lessons to help teach your students about real-world financial scenarios.
The interactive workbook is designed to help students establish a strong foundation in financial literacy.
Each of the lessons will challenge, educate, and equip your students with the necessary tools to enhance their financial knowledge.
This workbook makes learning about money fun and exciting through a variety of exercises that teach your student about different financial concepts, like:
- Understanding the basics of banking
- Learning how to make money
- Discovering how to save money
- Tips on spending money
4) Pay Day
Can your students make it to pay day without going over budget?
This classic board game is a great way to help your students learn how to manage their money through the trials of everyday life.
Since 1975, Pay Day has been a classic board game aimed at teaching financial literacy through fun real-world scenarios.
The object of this board game is simple — have the most money at the end of the game. And since this game is quick and easy to play — a two lap game takes as little as 15 minutes — it’s perfect for busy teens!
To play, your students must figure out how to get from a Payday to the end of the month without spending all of their money.
The game board resembles a calendar month and each space has events like discovering a deal or receiving mail, which could include bills, insurance offers, etc.
In addition to earning a salary and paying bills, players can also learn about savings and loans.
Players may start or add to their savings account and each player receives 10% interest on the balance in their savings account every time they land on Pay Day.
Additionally, a loan may be taken out or increased at any time to help cover bills if a player goes over budget.
A player must pay 20% interest on their outstanding loan balance every time they land on Pay Day.
In addition to the calendar board, Pay Day also comes with playing cards, tokens, money, die, and a loan record pad.
It can be played with between 2 and 4 players per game.
5) Act Your Wage
Created by financial expert Dave Ramsay, Act Your Wage helps players learn how to save.
Players must keep their savings up and expenses down as they compete to be the first to yell, “I’m debt-free!”
This educational board game puts the lessons of Dave Ramsay into practice including:
- Don’t let your emergency fund go below $1,000.
- Plan for expenses using the envelope system.
- Spend, Save, and Give through the income and expenses of everyday living.
- Pay off debt using your debt snowball.
The game comes with a playing board, money, and playing cards.
Designed for ages 10 and up, this budgeting game for high schoolers can be played with 2 to 4 players.
6) Cash Flow Classic
Learning how to invest isn’t always easy — especially for teenagers.
With Cash Flow Classic, your students can practice buying and selling stocks or investing in real estate for capital gains as many times as they want.
Using the game, students can simulate how they would handle different investing opportunities to gain real-world experience before putting the concepts into practice with real money.
Designed by author and financial expert Robert Kiyosaki (Author of one of my all-time favorite personal finance books Rich Dad Poor Dad), this financial literacy game is a great way for your high school students to put real world investment advice into practice without any risk.
Gameplay is simple and straightforward. Just make a series of decisions based on your own instincts, then learn how those decisions will affect your finances. The online game follows a basic six-step pattern:
- Choose your dream
- Pick a big or small deal
- Watch your earned income grow
- Select your investments
- Give to charity
- Continue making deals until you make your way to the fast track
The online game can be played on your desktop computer, tablet, or smartphone.
7) Fortune City
Help make budgeting a little more fun for your high school students with Fortune City.
Your students can use the app to track their spending and grow a city!
Fortune City makes bookkeeping fun by attaching real-world budgeting to a city simulation game.
To play, simply record your income and expenses, and watch as your city grows.
The app comes with an easy-to-use interface that lets you track your spending and categorize transactions with a simple tap.
In addition to recording income and expenses, the app also features pie charts and bar charts that make it easy to check your income and expenses at a glance.
With over 10 different categories and the ability to add multiple accounts, you can easily track all your spending in one fun place.
And while your student is tracking their finances, they also get to play a fun game!
In the city-building game, you can choose from a variety of themes to personalize the look of your city.
Collect over 100 different styles of buildings, unique vehicles, and citizens to inhabit your town, all while tracking your budget, too.
Fortune City is available for both Apple and Android devices.
8) Financial Football
Combining finances and sports is a great way to get high school students engaged.
Visa and the National Football League have teamed up to create Financial Football, a fast-paced, interactive game that engages students while teaching them personal finance skills.
This online game features 3D graphics and football-themed gameplay, including audibles, blitzes and long yardage plays.
Players compete by answering questions about personal finance in order to earn yardage and score touchdowns.
In addition to in-game quizzes, students can learn more about personal finances to improve their chances in the game with the extra student activities within the app.
Financial Football is available to play for free through iOS and Android apps and online.
9) The Stock Market Game
Understanding the stock market is difficult for some adults, so making it fun for high school students is a great way to keep them engaged.
With The Stock Market Game, your students can play real world investing simulations to learn more about stocks.
The game is an online simulation of the global capital markets designed for students in grades 4-12.
Players learn more about the world of economics, investing and personal finance as they play and invest online.
Related Budgeting Games Articles
- Personal Budgeting Tips for Beginners
- No Spend Challenge: How to Not Spend Money for 30 days or More
- Best Paper Budget Planners
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