“Can I borrow it and pay you back?” To a child, borrowing looks like a clever way to have things sooner. The catch only shows up later, and later is hard to imagine at ten. This game squeezes a few weeks into twenty minutes so they can feel the whole thing.
A pile of about forty buttons or counters, and a scrap of paper with a treat drawn on it and a price of 12. You play the bank.
How it works
- Set the scene. Your child gets 5 buttons of pocket money every “week”. The treat costs 12. Each week is one round of the game.
- Play it the saving way first. Hand out 5 buttons a round. After three rounds they have 15, buy the treat for 12, and keep 3.
- Now play it the borrowing way. Start again. This time the bank lends them 12 straight away, so the treat is theirs in week one.
- Here’s the deal: they pay the bank back 3 buttons every week for five weeks. That’s 15 in total for a 12-button loan.
- Play the five weeks. Each round, hand out 5 and take 3 straight back. Let them notice how little is left to spend.
- Compare the two. The saver waited three weeks and had spare buttons. The borrower had the treat at once but paid 15 for it, and had only 2 a week for five weeks. Ask: when might borrowing still be worth it?
Borrowing lets you have something sooner, but it almost always costs more in the end. The extra is called interest — it’s the price of having it now.
What usually happens
Most children choose to borrow the first time, and that’s fine. The moment it lands is round three or four, when they’re handing buttons back and the treat is long gone.
Plenty then ask to be the bank. Let them. It’s the easiest way to see why banks lend at all: the extra buttons end up with them.
Make it easier
Play the borrowing round without interest first — just pay back 12. Then add the extra 3 and ask what changed.
Make it harder
Offer two banks: one wants 15 back over five weeks, the other 16 over eight weeks at 2 a week. Which is cheaper, and which feels easier? They’re not the same thing.
What borrowing costs, why it’s never free and when it makes sense is lesson 8 of the ten-lesson Smartmonies programme. See the ten lessons →