Fun and Educational? Animal Crossing Teaches us a Ton About Money
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Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the newest hit in addictive video games. It's fun, it'due south slightly challenging, and it's visually appealing. Only did y'all as well know that Animal Crossing teaches you a ton of stuff besides? It's fun and educational at the aforementioned time!
Entertaining Beast Crossing Teaches Valuable Lessons
It's weird that you can larn things from a silly video game, isn't it? Animal Crossing is such a fun game, merely it also teaches y'all and so many cool things! It's is loaded with subtle lessons on a diverseness of topics – from patience to building friendships, dwelling house décor to money management. And since this is a finance weblog (generally), nosotros're going to focus on what Animate being Crossing teaches us about money.
What Animal Crossing Teaches Well-nigh Money
Yes, a video game can teach you finance! And you wondered why I liked the game so much. Animal Crossing is filled to the skirt with lessons on coin management. It covers debt, mortgages, oversupply funding, making coin, savings and interest, investments, and more.
This game has heaps of content related to money – and it's so fun that you don't even realize you're learning almost it! Seriously, I alive and breathe finance and it took me two whole weeks of playing to realize how everything in the game is a life lesson on coin.
Debt and Mortgages
1 of the very outset things you demand to do in Animal Crossing is get into debt to buy a house. Okay -y'all don't really Demand to, but a business firm volition requite you lot and then much more storage! And who wants to live in a tiny trivial tent anyway? So, you lot get to Tom Nook and he graciously lets you complete your first upgrade for Nook Miles – something you earn by doing tasks. This lets yous build your very own house on the isle. What a swell deal!
You'll soon learn that the one tiny room isn't enough – you need more than infinite! So, y'all get dorsum to Mr. Nook, and he offers to permit you aggrandize your home…for a price. Information technology costs a whopping $168,000 bells (the currency in Animate being Crossing) to expand your home for the fist time. Fortunately, you don't accept to pay it all upward front end. Tom Nook is generous enough to offer you a loan (mortgage) so that you tin expand your habitation.
But that debt stays with you. And y'all accept to pay information technology dorsum if you want more room in your business firm. The one tiny room only holds and so much, you know. Expansion is the American Dream, and once you have the one room, you accept to take more! So you pay off your loan as apace as you can, then that yous can keep expanding. Information technology'south a never-catastrophe cycle of debt and repayment, just like existent life.
Lifestyle Aggrandizement
But alas, that get-go loan was only the beginning. Every new expansion is going to price you lot more and more. As your living state of affairs, improves – things get more than expensive! That's lifestyle inflation in a nut shell, isn't information technology? The thing is, you don't have to brand all these additions on your domicile. Only it'due south so hard not to! Who is satisfied with just one minor room when they tin can have four rooms, an cranium, and a basement (and all that sweet sweet storage space that comes with it!)?
My current loan for my 4th room was well-nigh $800,000 bells! I can't even imagine how much basement and the cranium are going to cost. I don't need them to play the game – but I sure practise want them, regardless of how much they're going to cost.
Information technology's much easier to eat the cost of these increases in living standards in a video game, but this happens to u.s.a. in real life simply as often. Once we've lived with a certain amount of comfort, it's difficult to get back. And it'southward hard to not want more than, regardless of how much it might cost.
Making Coin
And that leads u.s.a. to making the money to pay for the expansions. In order to do anything in Brute Crossing, much like in real life, you need to make money. Fortunately, its far easier to make coin in the game. All y'all have to practice is collect stuff and sell information technology!
And just similar in existent life, rare stuff makes you the large bucks. Anyone can catch a horse mackerel on any given solar day, only have you tried catching a Mahi-Mahi? That's where the real money is! Collecting the smaller stuff will make you coin, but it will be a little bit at a time. Grinding it out and waiting for that big win takes forever, but has a huge pay off! The existent lesson is that either way – making money takes time. Merely its upwards to y'all if you lot want to grind through and brand a little bit every day, or do a ton of work upward front for a larger pay off later.
This is very similar to choosing to piece of work for yourself vs. choosing to work for someone else. If y'all decide to exist an employee, you'll become paid the horse mackerels every day, and information technology will exist fine. You'll somewhen make enough to pay off all of your mortgages and purchase what y'all desire. Starting your own business organisation is more than like waiting it out for the big fish. You lot'll have to grind to make bait, and throw back a lot of the smaller ones, in the hopes that you'll grab that big one. There's a run a risk in that location that the big one won't e'er show, but the reward is worth it.
Investing
Yep, Animate being Crossing does dive into the world of investing! Turnip investing! On Sundays, you tin buy turnips from Daisey Mae, the local turnip dealer. You tin sell these turnips at the Nook & Cranny every other day of the calendar week. But the turnip prices fluctuate on a daily basis – you never know how much they are going to be worth on a given day. That reminds me of something…hmmm…what is it? Oh aye -the stock marketplace!
Stock prices vary on a minute to minute basis sometimes, not merely daily. Sometimes you lot buy stocks at a peachy price and make banking company, and other times you purchase too high and can't get your coin dorsum.
Turnip investing is much less circuitous than stock marketplace investing, but the same concepts use. You desire to try to buy at the everyman possible price, and sell at the highest possible cost.
Oversupply-Funding
So you want to build a bridge huh? That will cost $168,000 bells please! (I like the fancy stone bridges). On the plus side, you lot don't have to pay it right away, and you don't even have to pay the whole thing.
That'due south what your villagers are for! Yeah, you lot can crowd source infrastructure on your island! Unfortunately, much like real crowd sourcing, the NPC villagers are less than helpful. They will simply give about $500 bells per day towards whatever infrastructure projects. At that rate, information technology will take forever to build new things. Just, if you lot have multiple real people with different accounts and dissimilar homes on your island (like a family sharing a Switch, for instance), everyone who plays can contribute to the project. My boyfriend and I both play, then we are able to get our infrastructure built pretty quickly. It's nice to be able to work together and share in expenses!
Savings
Another great attribute of Animal Crossing is that you go to have a savings account – that pays interest! But similar real life, the interest is incredibly low. Information technology'southward only .05%! Talk near realistic, huh?
Although you lot don't reap whatever massive rewards from having a savings, Animal Crossing teaches y'all that it's a proficient thing to have. Yous don't want to be stuck without any bells on a Sunday when turnip prices are low, or when 1 of the many merchants comes by with a great deal on an particular that you tin't get anywhere else.
I learned this lesson the first time I wanted to visit a friend's isle. My lovely boyfriend was far more interested in paying off loans than saving coin, and when he played on my account, he'd always drain my savings to motility the story forward (every bit I'thousand the main character his can't practise that).
One of my favorite parts of Beast Crossing is all the shopping – so I knew I'd want to bring tons of bells to her isle so that I could render with all the cool stuff I couldn't get on mine. But sadly, at that place wasn't enough coin in my savings- so I had to practice some grinding before I could play with my friend.
At present, I've learned (then has he!) that it'due south vital to continue some bells in savings for instances like this. You never know when you lot will need those extra bells!
Spending all the Money!
Speaking of shopping – One interesting things that Animal Crossing taught me is how much I love shopping and spending coin. I'm so lucky that I'k a little lazy and frumpy in existent life – because I'd be buying all the clothes if they were as beautiful on me as they are on my character!
I also honey ownership random junk to requite to my villagers as presents. It'south fun to requite them stuff and see what they volition give you in return – or run into them wearing information technology later. Gift giving is a huge component of the game, and information technology's and so much fun!
Buying random junk to decorate my house with is just as fun. My bath has a little stream running through it, my bedroom is decorated equally a literal trash heap, and my kitchen is an extra storage room for all the things. At that place'south so much stuff you can go in the game, and it'due south so much fun to get it! I'm glad I accept an outlet for spending coin that isn't existent or I'd be bankrupt.
What Else Can You Learn From Animal Crossing?
Animate being Crossing's educational value doesn't stop with finances. You tin learn nearly a variety of bugs, fish, and fossils every bit well! One of the goals of the game is to fill your island'due south museum with specimens, and the wise owl curator will tell you juicy (real!) tidbits about annihilation that you bring him.
What Have You Learned from Animal Crossing?
I'1000 merely three weeks into it, and I've already learned all this crawly stuff. Ok – to be off-white, I knew most of it already, but having this little activities and side quests makes the game infinitely more exciting in my opinion. What cool educational tidbits in information technology make it more than fun for yous?
And if you lot don't have Animal Crossing yet – it's not too late! Grab it and start learning almost money the fun way today!
Source: https://partnersinfire.com/passion-fire-2/gaming/what-animal-crossing-teaches/
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