Statistically, I get out of the Rat Race one out of 4 games in Cashflow 202. In the most recent game, I won in the manner I least expected.

I started the game with a real estate. At the first few turns, I landed on the Doodads and babies. When I did land on the opportunity squares, the cost was too high for me to purchase, even with bank loan. Before I knew it, I had a monthly cashflow of -$150. I thought that I would be out of the game within 10 paydays.

Lucky for me, one player landed on the Market square. I took this opportunity to sell my starting real estate property and to receive $180,000 cash. This gave me a lot of breathing space to look for a breakthrough; even I landed on more Doodads and resulted a $1,500 monthly outflow.

In the following few turns, I purchased a real estate option. Upon exercising this option, I had a $3,000 passive income. This was the turning point of the game. Now, my financial statement had turned from red to blue.

I continued to purchase more and more cashflow opportunities, paying back loans. And soon, I was out of the Rat Race and started on the fast track.

Starting badly with a very high monthly maintenance fee has taught me a few lessons. Firstly, things may not be what they seen to be. It could be a blessing in disguise. I thought it would be another losing game, but little I expected that I turned out to be a winner.

Secondly, it taught me on selling an asset. I sold my starting property to get cash for the breathing space and breakthrough. This was the only property I sold throughout this game. The reason was that, I bought the later properties for cashflow. If I sold these properties for a huge profit, I would lose my cashflow and went back to the red monthly. I understood the meaning why Robert Kiyosaki meant by not doing the flip-flop.

Lastly, I also learnt that to create a surplus, we can either reduce the expenses or increase the income, preferable the latter one. In the start, I could not reduce my expenses any further. The only way to get out of the mess, I had to increase my income. And through this process, I got to see more opportunities.

This was one amazing game that I played. Little I expected to learn so much from this game. I believe, the more I play the Cashflow game, the more I learnt to increase my financial intelligence.

What I like about this game is that, it is a software. I just need to install on a computer and I can play it anytime without having to look for friends to play the board game version. I can choose the number of computer players in the game.

Like the board game version, the character occupation is random. Of course, we can click on “back” and “next” repeatedly to “select” the occupation we want.

An interesting part of the game is any time I need some help, there is a help function. I can click on it and get additional information, may it be the investment, or market situation. This provides us with more information to build up our financial knowledge.

The game also has attention gasping animated rat and tortoise. These two characters occasionally would comment on our decisions.

Overall, I quite enjoy this game, playing to build my financial knowledge while having fun. This is one game which I strongly recommend.

One part of the game is the “Small Deals” cards. And this simple pack of “Small Deals” card provides us with powerful lessons to go financially free. “Small Deals” card is something like the “Chances” card in Monopoly game. This provides opportunities to make money.

Any players at Cashflow 101 need “Small Deals” to get started. The reasons are simple:
1. Most occupations do not have much cash at the start of the game.
2. Most “Small Deals” are relatively inexpensive and require little cash to get involved

In general, I classified the Small Deals in the following two categories:

1. Capital Gain Deals

The small deals include stocks, mutual funds, startup businesses, some real estates and collectables.

The objective of group is to raise enough capitals to go for the “Big Deals”.

The key characteristic of this group of deals is that there is no cash flow. The rule of this group is the topical “buy low, sell high”. The only time the play can make money is to sell the investment at a higher price. In another words, the player buy these investments for capital gain.

Because of this characteristic, the player has to hold the investment for unknown period of time. The player has to wait for the “right” time when the favorable card is drawn.

There is a higher chance of making money from the Stocks and Mutual Fund, because of the price is determined in the Small Deal pack and there are more landing chances for Opportunity.

The other capital gain small deals would depend on the “Market” cards. There are less landing spaces to draw these cards and the “right” cards have to be drawn from the pack of so many cards.

When we apply this to real life, we can make money through capital gain investments. The risks are, we do not know how long we need to hold on to the investments. Some investments are riskier because we have no or little knowledge on the outcome.

Some, like stocks, are less risky because, we can find out the trading range and we can equip ourselves with the knowledge to make money out of these investments.

2. Cash Flow Deals

The small deals include mostly real estate, certificate of deposit and Preferred Stock.

The objective of this group is to provide a stable income come in addition of the salaries.

The key characteristic is that it provides passive income and increase the monthly cash flow into the pockets. There are also opportunities to make big bucks from capital gain when the “right” Market card is drawn.

The advantage of this group of “Small Deal” is that very little action is required. The money just flows in, like “making money while you sleep”.

In real life, we can buy real estates to earn rentals or preferred stocks to earn dividends.

In this simple pack of cards, I have learnt powerful lessons on how we can invest to build capital for the big deals or build passive income. There are many more lessons from this financial game Cashflow 101. The more we play, the more lessons we learn and better we can be financially freed.

The last time I checked, there are only 2 left in stock for Rich Dad Cashflow 101 game. As this is a very popular game, I believe this will be sold out soon. Click here and order yours now.