This article first appeared in Personal Wealth, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on July 22, 2019 - July 28, 2019

The urban youth of today are often inundated with advice on how to manage their money. But many of these lessons from their parents and teachers fail to stick until an unfortunate incident occurs, which often leaves them wishing they had been more prudent with their finances.

One way to address this is by giving youths a chance to experience these financial lessons for themselves before they are confronted by the realities of adult life. One way to do so is via financial literacy games, according to

LifeEquip Sdn Bhd, a local company that runs youth development programmes.

“Having a physical product to interact with children is more important now than ever because we are in the digital age. There is so much information on financial literacy out there, but children do not really know how to go about it,” says Gabriel Ngui, senior programme associate at LifeEquip.

“Putting a learning tool in their hands that is physical and interactive really makes the learning experience more impactful than a talk at school, for example … It gives children the opportunity to interact with money in a safe environment, where they can spend, save and invest without [any real-life] consequences.”

The company collaborates with GProvision Sdn Bhd to use Money Quotient, a personal finance board game, to teach players concepts such as investments, loans and insurance protection. GProvision is a local gamification-based financial literacy educational institution.

In April, LifeEquip released its own card game called Wollar$ Kids, which touches on the basic principles of saving and spending for younger participants. So far, its observation of how players react to the game has been telling.

“In Wollar$, you have to meet objectives by spending — buying school shoes, uniforms and other needs. Everyone usually fails the first round because they spend before saving. In the end, they realise that they need to save [to pay for calamities that occur at random throughout the game], but they do not have enough. So, in the second round, we ask them to save before spending. It is then that they realise they can achieve their objectives and still have savings,” says Rosaleen Goh, chief impact officer and a director of LifeEquip.

Saving before spending is one of the basic values the company tries to inculcate in the players. Some children instinctively do that, Goh observes. Once, they saw a child keep a few hundred dollars (currency in the game) in his shirt pocket when the game started.

“We thought he was planning to take it home as a souvenir. But afterwards, we realised he had set it aside for his rainy day fund. It was really cute because as the game went on and something happened to him, he had the reserves to pay for it. It was a lesson learnt for the group,” she says.

But experiential learning is only one part of its programme. Goh and her team established the company in 2015 out of their passion for youth development. They wanted to tackle issues such as unemployment, high bankruptcy rates and suicide rates among the youth.

While financial literacy has become one of the focus areas, that in itself was not enough, they observed. The youths also needed to connect it with lessons on life and purpose, leadership and career.

“We believe every person has a purpose in life. But when we talk about that in isolation, it is not enough. We need tools to work on that purpose and potential, which is why we also want to teach them about leadership,” says Goh.

“And it is not just leadership of others. It starts with self-leadership or ownership of your own life. Apart from that, we also need to manage the resources in our own lives, which is where financial literacy comes in. Finally, we want to apply all of these elements to our careers.”

The company also wants to emphasise good values. These are imparted in their courses on emotional intelligence, where they teach empathy, for example, by helping youths recognise emotions in themselves and others, as well as how to express their emotions honestly and effectively.

“We must lay this foundation when we are young. If you look at most of the issues in adult lives, they come from a failure to communicate or the false belief that you cannot talk about your feelings because that means you are weak. It is about getting the foundation right so that it contributes to your mental and emotional health and, therefore, your wellbeing,” says Goh.

The same strategy is applied to its financial literacy programme, which has two components. “First, there are the values and attitudes towards money. Once you get that right, you get to the second part about knowledge, skills and exposure to things like insurance and investments, which are tools. The fundamental values and mindset need to be in place before the tools can be put to good use,” says senior operations manager Lim Chu Yaw.

Before the game begins, attendees share their attitudes towards money. It could be a discussion on whether money is good or evil, for instance, and how that has shaped their financial habits. At the end of the session, there is a debriefing on their experience of the game.

So far, the company has run workshops and camps in more than 40 schools, universities and corporations. Over the years, it has used board games for its Money Matters sessions.

The company decided to develop Wollar$ Kids because a card game is easier for parents or educators to adopt. The team picked the name Wollar$ because they wanted it to sound as similar as possible to real currency.

“[Ultimately,] we want this to be a tool for adults who want to teach children about the value of money. Many parents have asked us, ‘How can I teach my children about money? If I talk to them, they complain that I am a nag,’” says Goh.

“Our hope is that all of these will become an integral part of the education [curriculum] as opposed to now, where we are so focused on academics. People are recognising the problem that we have ‘book smart’ children but not necessarily ‘life smart’ or street smart ones. But the system is such that these kinds of programmes are seen as [non-essential]. People often say they have no time for it.”

Lessons from the game

In the Money Quotient board game, players are given cards printed with careers and salaries, where even deductions such as contributions to the Employees Provident Fund are included. They roll dice during their turn and traverse the boxes on the board. Each box has a different scenario that impacts the player or poses a choice for the player to make.

For example, it could be a stock market crash that wipes out one’s investments or a bout of sickness that burdens players without insurance. There are also boxes where players can choose to buy a retirement savings product, property or insurance plan.

“Real estate and investment prices are dynamic. They change according to the market cycle. We use a laptop to project the prices on the screen. The number changes based on a random timer we set,” says Ngui.

There are also components such as loans, real estate and investments, which include dividend-yielding stocks and alternative assets.

“We allow them to venture out of their comfort zones. I remember there was a girl who was very conservative and did not dare to take risks. She said she would never invest. But during the game, she had the chance to try investing in a safe and fun way. She realised she could grow her wealth faster than if she just left it in the bank. It was a real learning moment for her,” says Lim.

Another participant was frightened after he picked up a situation card that said he had fallen sick and had to pay a hefty hospital bill. “His takeaway from the session was how valuable life is and how anything could happen to him. He did not want to be a financial burden to his family,” says Goh.

“He was in his final year at university and working part-time. A week after the session, he made an appointment with a financial planner to review his finances and insurance.”

For Wollar$ Kids, players are required to buy certain items by the end of the game and save 200 Wollar$ (the currency in the game). They roll dice and depending on the number that comes up, they get an opportunity or situation card. The opportunity card gives players a choice — for example, whether they want to spend money on an outing with friends. The situation card tells players that something has happened to them.

An interesting element of the game is that everyone starts with a different amount of money, depending on their roll of the dice. It is a reflection of reality and part of the debriefing questions included in the education guide. The children have to discuss whether it was unfair that everyone had a different starting point.

“The educator’s guide tells you the questions you can ask after the game. For example, when another player lost everything due to a calamity, did you offer to help? We want to teach them that sharing and teamwork will bring you far in life. The money that you have can be shared with others,” says Goh.

The importance of sharing is manifested in a “flood” card, which wipes out a player’s entire fortune. On one occasion, while Goh was playing with a group of children, she was one of the unlucky players who picked up that card.

“When I got the flood card, I had already achieved all my objectives. But then I lost everything. So, the other children were like, ‘Oh no! It is okay. We will buy the things for you so you can achieve your objectives’. It was so beautiful. I did not even think of that,” she says.

The team is now hoping to add layers of complexity to the game so it can serve the needs of older participants as well. Interested individuals can purchase Wollar$ for RM59.90 via LifeEquip’s website.

Money Quotient requires a trained facilitator to conduct the session, so those interested can reach out to LifeEquip, whose staff have been trained to facilitate the game.

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