Play twelve years of one person's money life in four decisions - first paycheck, first car, first apartment - then watch every fee and interest dollar replayed at 28.
Financial Literacy / Math (Percents & Proportions)Grades 6-86 roles56 min1 class period
Financial Literacy / Math (Percents & Proportions)Grades 6-86 roles56 min1 class period
One ordinary life, fast-forwarded. Each team creates a character at age 16 and plays four moments twelve years apart: the first paycheck, the first car, the first apartment, and the audit at 28. Between rounds the clock jumps YEARS - savings earn interest again and again, installment debts keep accruing, and every recurring charge is multiplied by the time that passed. A choice made at 16 is still on the screen at 28, with receipts.
Each team plays twelve years of one person's money life in four rounds - first paycheck at 16, first car at 19, first apartment at 23, and the reckoning at 28. Nothing locks until the team computes the real all-in cost on paper and the engine checks the arithmetic. At 28 the audit replays every fee and every dollar of interest in red, next to the line showing what that money would have been worth if it had stayed in the account.
Small (3 households), Standard (4 households), Standard (5 households), Large (6 households)
Learning Objectives
6 objectives
Standards
11 standards aligned
Where This Fits in Your Curriculum
This is the applied week of a 7th grade ratios and proportional relationships unit, and it is the single best fit for the percent-applications standard that names tax, fees, markups, markdowns, gratuities, commissions, and simple interest all in one sentence. Students need to be able to take a percent of a number and read a rate table; they do not need algebra, and a calculator is fine. Grade 6 classes can run it on the unit-rate and percent-of-a-number strands alone. What it is teaching underneath the money theme is that a rate multiplied by time is a different number than a rate, which is why a $25 phone plan is not $25 and why $12 a month for five years is a decision. It serves grade 6-8 math, pre-algebra, and any teacher who owes the district a financial-literacy unit and refuses to give up the standards to get one.
What Students Will Learn
Compute the true all-in cost of a purchase by applying discount, then sales tax, then fees, then interest across the years the charge actually runs (7.RP.A.3).
Compare offers on unit rate rather than sticker price, and show why a lower monthly number can be the more expensive plan (6.RP.A.3b, 7.RP.A.2b).
Apply the simple interest formula I = P x r x t to savings, an installment loan, and a peer loan, and explain what changes when t changes.
Compute a percent decrease repeatedly to find the depreciated value of an asset, and use it to judge whether a price is fair.
Split a shared cost in a negotiated ratio and compute the cash side payment that makes an uneven split fair.
Read a fee schedule critically: identify the charge that is added automatically, and quantify what it costs over the life of the plan.
Cases Included
CCSS.MATH.7.RP.A.3 - Use proportional relationships to solve multistep ratio and percent problems (simple interest, tax, markups and markdowns, gratuities and commissions, fees, percent increase and decrease ...). PRIMARY STANDARD: simple interest, sales tax, markdowns, plan and activation fees, and percent decrease over time are each an in-game decision with a consequence at Age 28.
CCSS.MATH.6.RP.A.3b - Solve unit rate problems including those involving unit pricing and constant speed (the phone plan and side gig comparisons).
CCSS.MATH.6.RP.A.3d - Use ratio reasoning to convert measurement units, manipulating and transforming units appropriately when multiplying or dividing quantities (dollars per month to dollars per year to dollars over the term).
CCSS.MATH.6.RP.A.3c - Find a percent of a quantity as a rate per 100 (sales tax, the Buy Now Pay Later plan fee, APR).
CCSS.MATH.7.EE.B.3 - Solve multi-step real-life problems with positive and negative rational numbers in any form, using tools strategically and assessing the reasonableness of answers.
CCSS.MATH.7.NS.A.3 - Solve real-world problems involving the four operations with rational numbers (the running ledger).
CEE/Jump$tart National Standards for Personal Financial Education, Earning Income 8-5 - Explain the difference between gross and net income and identify the deductions that separate them (the Round 0 warm-up sheet).
CEE/Jump$tart National Standards for Personal Financial Education, Managing Credit 8-3b - Evaluate the total cost of a purchase made on credit, including fees and interest over the life of the plan (the true-cost worksheet on every offer card).
CEE/Jump$tart National Standards for Personal Financial Education, Saving 8-4 - Differentiate between the principal and the interest earned on it (the savings projection sheet at every stage). NOTE: Saving 8-5, whose outcome is compound versus simple interest, is deliberately NOT cited - this game posts simple interest on the carried-in balance at each fast forward and never applies a compounding formula.
CEE/Jump$tart National Standards for Personal Financial Education, Managing Credit 8-1 and 8-3 - Compare the cost of credit across sources and calculate the total repayment on a loan (Meteor financing, peer loans, Rapid Cash, Buy Now Pay Later).
CEE/Jump$tart National Standards for Personal Financial Education, Managing Risk 8-5 - Explain how insurance transfers the cost of an unexpected event from the individual to a pool (the Round 3 insurance pool against the seeded emergency).
Social & Emotional Learning (CASEL)
Aligned to the CASEL framework's core competencies. These are the SEL skills students actively practice while playing.
Responsible Decision-MakingNothing commits until the team has computed what it actually costs. The worksheet gate is evaluate-before-you-commit built into the machinery, and the Age 28 Audit is consequence analysis with the receipts attached - three biggest leaks, in red, on the team's own timeline.
Self-ManagementDelayed gratification is scored on both sides. The Balance Bonus rewards a team that kept a cushion AND still let itself buy things, so hoarding loses and impulse loses. The Round 3 subscription audit makes twelve years of a $12 charge visible in one number, which is impulse control made arithmetic.
Relationship SkillsThe marketplace, the roommate pairing board, and peer lending are all face to face and then formalized on the device. A team that co-signs a roommate pact is on the hook when the partner comes up short, and the engine enforces it.
Flexible Class Sizes
Small (3 households)
Three teams, 6-12 students. The pairing board at Round 3 may leave one team solo; solo is viable and mildly suboptimal by design, and the marketplace runs on one NPC listing at Round 2. Minimum viable class - below three teams the inter-team stages collapse to NPC only.
Standard (4 households)
Four teams, 8-20 students. Even pairing at Round 3, peer listings plus one NPC listing in the marketplace. The tuned default for most rooms.
Standard (5 households)
Five teams, 10-25 students. One team pairs solo at Round 3 by construction; the guide tells the teacher to say that out loud before the board opens so it reads as a rule and not a snub.
Large (6 households)
Six teams, 12-30 students. Peer listings plus two NPC listings, and both deal windows run one minute longer.
How the Game Plays Out
Turn 1: Sixteen
Setup and the first paycheck
"Why is the number on the bottom of a paycheck smaller than the number they told you when you were hired?"
Turn 2: Age 16
First paycheck, first phone bill
"A plan says $25 a month. What will it actually cost you over twelve years?"
Turn 3: Age 19
Three years gone, and you need a car
"What does a $9,000 car cost when you finance $7,500 of it at 10 percent for four years?"
Turn 4: Age 23
Roommates, and the bill nobody planned for
"Would you pay $400 now against a bill of $1,500 to $2,100 later, when you know it is coming but not which one?"
Turn 5: Age 28
The reckoning
"You saw what twelve years did to every number. What would you undo?"
Roles Your Students Will Play
Click any role to see their background and what they are trying to accomplish.
Household 1
You are one person's twelve years. Your team names them at 16, and from there every choice you make is their choice. You will get the same paycheck as every other team in the room at every stage, so nothing that shows up on the board at 28 is luck. It is arithmetic you either did or did not do.
Jobs rotate at every stage start. Whoever holds the Banker card this round runs the ledger this round, and next round somebody else does. Initial your own paper sheets before anybody enters them.
Goals
Know the true cost before you commit - all-in, across all the years it runs
Reach 28 with a cushion AND a life you spent something on
Never let a default choose for you
Household 2
You are one person's twelve years. Your team names them at 16, and from there every choice you make is their choice. You will get the same paycheck as every other team in the room at every stage, so nothing that shows up on the board at 28 is luck. It is arithmetic you either did or did not do.
Jobs rotate at every stage start. Whoever holds the Banker card this round runs the ledger this round, and next round somebody else does. Initial your own paper sheets before anybody enters them.
Goals
Know the true cost before you commit - all-in, across all the years it runs
Reach 28 with a cushion AND a life you spent something on
Never let a default choose for you
Household 3
You are one person's twelve years. Your team names them at 16, and from there every choice you make is their choice. You will get the same paycheck as every other team in the room at every stage, so nothing that shows up on the board at 28 is luck. It is arithmetic you either did or did not do.
Jobs rotate at every stage start. Whoever holds the Banker card this round runs the ledger this round, and next round somebody else does. Initial your own paper sheets before anybody enters them.
Goals
Know the true cost before you commit - all-in, across all the years it runs
Reach 28 with a cushion AND a life you spent something on
Never let a default choose for you
Household 4
You are one person's twelve years. Your team names them at 16, and from there every choice you make is their choice. You will get the same paycheck as every other team in the room at every stage, so nothing that shows up on the board at 28 is luck. It is arithmetic you either did or did not do.
Jobs rotate at every stage start. Whoever holds the Banker card this round runs the ledger this round, and next round somebody else does. Initial your own paper sheets before anybody enters them.
Goals
Know the true cost before you commit - all-in, across all the years it runs
Reach 28 with a cushion AND a life you spent something on
Never let a default choose for you
Household 5
You are one person's twelve years. Your team names them at 16, and from there every choice you make is their choice. You will get the same paycheck as every other team in the room at every stage, so nothing that shows up on the board at 28 is luck. It is arithmetic you either did or did not do.
Jobs rotate at every stage start. Whoever holds the Banker card this round runs the ledger this round, and next round somebody else does. Initial your own paper sheets before anybody enters them.
Goals
Know the true cost before you commit - all-in, across all the years it runs
Reach 28 with a cushion AND a life you spent something on
Never let a default choose for you
Household 6
You are one person's twelve years. Your team names them at 16, and from there every choice you make is their choice. You will get the same paycheck as every other team in the room at every stage, so nothing that shows up on the board at 28 is luck. It is arithmetic you either did or did not do.
Jobs rotate at every stage start. Whoever holds the Banker card this round runs the ledger this round, and next round somebody else does. Initial your own paper sheets before anybody enters them.
Goals
Know the true cost before you commit - all-in, across all the years it runs
Reach 28 with a cushion AND a life you spent something on
Never let a default choose for you
Hand Each Student Their Own Sheet
One click on the teacher dashboard prints a dossier for every role - background, goals, key facts, and their confidential briefing - plus the primary-source packet and a vocabulary sheet. Print them, or save as PDF, so each student reads their role on paper instead of huddling around one screen. The app still runs the votes and the action; the paper just carries the reading.
Primary Sources
Every role includes real historical documents. Students read them because they need the information to make their case.
Look at your three biggest leaks on the audit. Pick the one that surprised you. What was the monthly number, and what was the twelve-year number?
Somewhere on your timeline is a moment where you paid a fee or interest that you could have avoided with arithmetic you already knew how to do. Find it. What would you have had to compute, and when?
Look at the class total on the projector. That is how many dollars left this room in fees and interest over twelve years. Every one of those dollars went somewhere. Where?
In this game everyone earned the same paycheck. What changes in real life, and why is that worth knowing?
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