ByAARON KATSMAN
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 “I began playing Monopoly for real when I was 26 years old. Today, my wife and I have approximately 1,400 little green houses – each paying us monthly. You do not have to be a rocket scientist or have a Harvard degree to play Monopoly for real.” –Robert Kiyosaki

In what has become a weekend ritual in our home, I learn Talmud with our 12 year old in exchange for playing a game of Monopoly. Go figure that while during our studying he is fidgety and not always focused on the text. In fact he will come up with all kinds of excuses to delay even sitting down with me at the table. I’m sure that my father, when reading this column will smile and say something about poetic justice! When it comes to Monopoly, he is a different kid. He’s totally locked in and focused on winning. This past week we were joined by our 10 year old and she didn’t really know how to play. She got so excited when someone landed on her property and paid rent, but couldn’t grasp the concept of building apartments and hotels. Needless to say she came in last place. The 12 year old on the other hand, loves to make property trades to create monopolies, and invest in those properties to make more money.

I love the concept of the game but my one issue with it is that there is only one winner. I am all for winning and understand that when playing a board game, someone needs to win. It’s just that I don’t believe that the “winner” in life is the one who has the most money at the end. Some have the custom of studying a chapter of Ethics of the Fathers on Shabbat from after Passover until either Shavuot or Rosh Hashanah.

Last week we learned in 6:9: “And further, when a person departs this world neither his silver, gold, precious stones, nor pearls accompany him, but only his Torah study and good deeds.” As I have mentioned previously, I remember a bumper sticker with the quote “he who dies with the most amount of money wins.” That may be cute but not so relevant. After all, one is allowed to enjoy his money and the money should be used to serve a purpose.

Monopoly is a great game for learning good financial lessons. Here are some.

All cash

In Monopoly, you pay for everything in cash. Don’t have enough money, you can’t buy a property. There is nothing more antithetical to financial success than having lots of debt. Instead of plowing money into savings, tremendous amounts of money and energy are used keeping lots of balls in the air, to make sure that no interest payment is missed to avoid default and bankruptcy. I have worked with so many individuals who literally spend three to four hours a day running around to find loans to pay off previous loans. Obviously if you don’t have the money to pay off the initial loan, you won’t have money to pay off successive loans, and it becomes like a black hole.

How do you get out of debt? The method I like to use is to list all your debts from smallest to biggest, and start attacking the smallest debt. Personal finance guru Dave Ramsey subscribes to the same view. He said “the math seems to lean more toward paying the highest interest debts first, but what I have learned is that personal finance is 20% head knowledge and 80% behavior. You need some quick wins in order to stay pumped enough to get out of debt completely. When you start knocking off the easier debts, you will start to see results and you will start to win in debt reduction.”

Start buying apartments and hotels

After you become debt-free, you need to make saving and investing a priority. Make a habit of ‘paying yourself first’ every month. Whether you invest in real estate (where you get a monthly rent check) or you invest in dividend paying stocks, focus on a slow and steady approach to building wealth. Building wealth is a process. Don’t try and make a fortune instantly, because chances are you will lose more than you will make.

Now is the time

As I have written many times, individuals often wait to begin investing because they think that their accounts are too small. They think that if they don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars, there is no point investing. I recently met with a couple that has been married for a few years and had received $25,000 in wedding money. They basically took the money and stuck it into a savings account at their bank which is earning zero interest. When I asked why they never invested the money, they said that they figured that it was such a small amount that it wasn’t worth it.

Use the principles of Monopoly to get yourself on the path to a secure financial future.

The information contained in this article reflects the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of Portfolio Resources Group, Inc. or its affiliates.

Aaron Katsman is the author of Retirement GPS: How to Navigate Your Way to A Secure Financial Future with Global Investing. www.gpsinvestor.com; aaron@lighthousecapital.co.il.