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Cashflow 101

December 11, 2007

  

Do your children love to play educational board games like mine do?

I don’t know what it is that makes Monopoly, Risk and Masterpiece so exciting that young people will sit for HOURS waiting on each other to “go” when normally they can’t sit still for one minute!

Maybe it’s the mental challenge.

Maybe it’s the reality.

Maybe it’s just fun!

Maybe it’s that play is at the heart of insightful learning and games have that unique ability to teach without intimidating.

Have you ever wished, in the middle of your daily routine, that you could rekindle the sense of spontaneity that sparks the essence of learning?

I have.

And I’ve made a profound discovery. Play should be an essential part of our educational process every day. And I’m not talking about Recess.

The problem is that innovation can be time-consuming and messy. Maybe that’s why those of us who spend our lives cleaning and maintaining order, cringe at the mention of setting up a game in the middle of the living room floor.

But what’s more important?

Creative, imaginative, happy children learning and gaining vision while they are having fun…

or keeping everything in its place?

I look at it as creative learning, rather than “making a mess.” Playing with them keeps me from seeing the mess from afar.

Our favorite Real Life game is Cashflow 101 developed by best-selling author and millionaire Robert Kiyosaki. It’s not really a board game; it’s an accounting course in a board game box.

When we first started playing Cashflow, I didn’t have a clue how to read a financial statement. But Cashflow 101 was designed to improve players’ financial futures by showing them how to keep their hard-earned money and how to make that money work for them. It also shows them what not to spend their dollars on.

Two tracks on the board teach the two worlds of investing - the Rat Race where all players begin and the Fast Track where those who are truly financially free really live and invest in bigger investments. The goal is to leave the Rat Race in less than an hour and learn to invest on the Fast Track.

Kiyosaki says, in Real Life, about 95% of all people are trapped in the Rat Race and stay there because of lack of financial literacy.

I don’t want my children to live in financial illiteracy.

So we play Cashflow.

The children have learned real life purchasing strategies like not to buy doodads such as a wave runner, a cappuccino machine or a new boat. Instead, they are learning which apartment complexes are good investments and which rental houses are not.

The game card is a financial statement that Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad drew for him on a napkin. Every time a player gets paid, he must figure his income by subtracting his liabilities from his earned income.

From doing that frequently, players learn basic accounting, cashflow management, investing and investing vocabulary, and how to think strategically. When a player’s passive income exceeds his earned income, he advances to the Fast Track.

Last week, I asked my two oldest boys to fill out their own personal financial situations on a Cashflow 101 game card.

The 21-year-old said it gave him “endsight” or insight about his end. He realized he needs to sell a few of his real estate investments and that he ought to start a business.

The 14-year-old commented that he needs to move two of his gumball machines, which aren’t producing as they should, and that he wants to start a business, too.

Kiyosaki has designed another game for younger children called Cashflow for Kids that my little children (4 and 6) love. And Cashflow 202 teaches investing in the stock market. We haven’t gotten that one yet, but don’t tell anybody… I’m going to order it for Christmas!

Besides learning how to make important financial decisions and learning from their mistakes, the best thing we are gaining is financial vision.

Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad said, “Vision and faith go hand in hand. In order to have a vision of a brighter and better future, you must have faith. If your faith is weak, so is your vision. And if your vision and faith are weak, your future will remain the same as it is today.”

I don’t want my children to lack vision.

I don’t want them to lack faith.

I want them to accomplish what they were put on this earth to do and to do it in faith. I don’t want fear or poverty to steal their dreams.

The only objection my husband and I have about this game is that it shows children as being expensive. Yes, they do cost money. So we teach them that children are a wonderful blessing from God.

Children are eternal.

Children carry the family into the future. (Even that one you’d like to punt into the middle of next week.)

So if you want to make learning fun at your house and you could use a dose of financial vision, consider scheduling the game Cashflow 101 into your weekly activities. One family in Montana plays Cashflow with another homeschooling family every Friday night!

You may discover a budding entrepreneur who will grow up to change the world.

And he was living with you all the time!

He may even be the one you’d like to punt.

So many books, so little time…

Rhea!

who hopes her boys learn to mind their own businesses

 

 

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Written by Rhea Perry · Filed Under Rhea Perry 

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