Jun 09, 2026

Activities

Recently, some NGPF staff were discussing how a number of classic board games are quietly teaching the same concepts covered in a Personal Finance class. Here are eight games you've probably played with money lessons hiding in plain sight. Perhaps an excuse for a classroom game day?

Monopoly → Investing

We suppose the lessons aren’t so sneaky with this one. The whole point of Monopoly is to build a portfolio. You buy properties, develop them with houses and hotels, and watch your returns grow over time. The players who win aren't the ones hoarding cash; they're the ones who put their money to work early and kept reinvesting (and avoid jail time).

 

Settlers of Catan → Budgeting

Every turn, you're managing a limited set of resources: wood, brick, sheep, wheat, ore. You have to decide what to prioritize, what to trade, and what to save for later. A budget! Catan forces you to practice resource allocation every single round, and just like in real life, overspending in one area means going without somewhere else.

 

Pandemic → Insurance

Not just a game for stoking COVID flashbacks. In Pandemic, you can't predict when disaster strikes, only how prepared you are when it does. The whole game is about pooling resources and hedging against catastrophic risk. It’s insurance in a nutshell: you don't want to need it and not have it.

 

Ticket to Ride → Behavioral Economics

Every turn, you tell yourself you'll hold out for the perfect cards. Then your opponent eyes your route and suddenly you're making panic moves you didn't plan for. Loss aversion! Present bias! Oh my! Ticket to Ride is a masterclass in how our brains sabotage our own best-laid financial plans.

 

Snakes & Ladders → Pursuing an 850 Credit Score

Ladders inch you up while chutes drop you fast — just like credit, where months of on-time payments slowly raise your score but one missed payment sends you tumbling. The obsession with landing exactly on 100 mirrors the trap of grinding toward a perfect 850: the rewards that actually matter (best rates, easy approvals) kick in well before the top.

 

Jenga → Managing Buy Now Pay Later

The more holes in the tower (e.g. the deferred payments you accumulate from different BNPL services), the more precarious the tower (and your monthly budget) becomes to manage. The tower looks impressive until one pull too many.

 

SORRY! (with Ruthless Rules) → Retirement Planning

As you get closer to retirement age, your decisions (e.g. when to claim Social Security, which Medicare plan to choose, how much to contribute in catch-up contributions to retirement accounts, how much of your current lifestyle you want to keep in retirement) have a huge influence on your retirement income and quality of life. As you get closer to home in SORRY!, the precision (and luck) of your final few rolls makes a huge difference in whether or not you win. Someone who’s been consistently rolling 2s and 3s can catch up and win with shrewd (ahem, lucky) final rolls.

 

Yahtzee → Diversification & Locking in Gains

You can't win by chasing only the big Yahtzee. The scorecard forces you to fill every category, rewarding a balanced approach over one all-or-nothing bet. On every turn you have to decide: do you keep these dice (lock in the gain) or reroll for more? Knowing when a "good enough" score beats gambling for the jackpot is key to winning in the end.

 

About the Authors

Greer Ahlquist

Greer joined NGPF as the Chief Operating Officer in July 2025. She has made a career in the education, having previously worked at EducationSuperHighway and Education Pioneers. She is a graduate of Princeton University and earned a Master's from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

More posts by Greer

Christian Sherrill

Former teacher, forever financial education nerd. As NGPF's Director of Teacher Success, Christian is laser-focused on helping the heroic teachers who fuel NGPF's mission to guarantee all students a life-changing personal finance course. Having paid down over $40k in student loans in the span of 3 years - while living in the Bay Area on an entry level teacher's salary - he's eager to help the next generation avoid financial pitfalls one semester at a time.

More posts by Christian

Hannah Rael

As NGPF's Marketing Communications Manager, Hannah (she/her) helps spread the word about NGPF's mission to improve the financial lives of the next generation of Americans.

More posts by Hannah