BUDGET & MEALS GAME FOR KIDS

This game is something I came up with a few years ago that my kids had a ton of fun doing, and they learned a LOT! Not just budgeting, but cooking, finding the best deals, bargain shopping, shopping the sales, using coupons, etc.

The Game

Each kid was given $25

The requirement was that they had to use that $25 to purchase and make everything necessary to make AT LEAST 2 dinners for our family.

The Rules

1. The meal MUST feed the family (one box of mac & cheese wont work)
2. The meal MUST be a balanced (healthy) meal (fruit, veggies, meat, carbs, etc.)
3. All ingredients must be purchased EXCEPT:
   • Up to 2 cups of staples such as flour, sugar, milk, etc. that we have on hand normally
   • 4 eggs or less per meal
   • Spices

How to play

Using their $25 budget each kid makes a menu plan. I encourage them to shop the grocery ads and see what’s on sale since that will stretch their budget the furthest.

I told them I would drive them to multiple grocery stores if needed to get the best deals on ingredients.

Each kid signed up for the days to make their dinners and what they were going to make. (this way we didn’t have any duplicates in a row) This was so awesome because I didn’t have to make dinner for over a week! It was AWESOME!

They could make as many dinners as their budget allowed, but had to make a minimum of 2.

Winners

At the end of the scheduled days and once all the meals had been made there were 2 winners as follows:

1. The first winner was the person who made the most dinners with their budget
2. The second winner was “The People’s Choice Winner” to determine this winner I had a list of all the meals that were made, each person in the family came in to a room alone with me and voted on their top 3 favorite meals. Their #1 choice meal got 3 points, the #2 choice got 2 points, and the #3 choice got 1 point. After everyone had voted the person who made the meal with the most points won The People’s Choice Winner.

We gave each winner $10

What they learn

• Budgeting
• Shopping the sales
• Using coupons
• Price comparisons
• Cooking/following a recipe
• Balanced meals
• The value of money and what it can buy
• Math
• Menu planning
• Pride in accomplishments

Watch the video below for our experience and what happened.