Financial Lessons Learned from The Godfather

I recently discovered an online game called The Godfather: Five Families and I have been addicted to it for weeks. I am not usually a Video Game lover or an Online Gamer, I am actually more of a Pac-Man kind of girl; but for some reason I am totally in love with The Godfather: Five Families. Maybe I love this game so much because I can relate it to my life as well as my personal finances.  I like anything that makes me think, and The Godfather: Five Families definitely requires some strategic planning.

The planning required to be successful in the online game The Godfather: Five Families is a little bit more involved than “Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli”.  The entire allure of this game is smart business planning, building personal relationships, and strategic advancement. The game gives us a neighbourhood that we have to develop by adding and upgrading buildings. We also have our own Estate which requires upgrades and maintenance. Once we are established we need to join one of the Five New York Crime Families and then eventually join a Crew.

Being part of a crew gives us a huge advantage in the game because it offers us personal protection.  Being part of a crew also allows us to gain knowledge from players who are more experienced than we are.  This is also true in real life, when we are trying new adventures or learning about personal finance it is always beneficial to learn from other who have already been there and done that.  Think about the online or strategic games that you play, now think about how you can relate them to your real life and your personal finances.

Money Management and Investment Lessons from The Godfather: Five Families

– It takes time to build your empire.  Wealth doesn’t happen overnight.  It takes time to research our options and make the best possible choices for our own personal situation. Nothing creates wealth like hard work. Sometimes in the Game it takes 4 hours to complete a building upgrade and sometimes in life it takes 4 years to achieve our goals or make a profit.  Patience is required for all worthy benefits.

– Have a plan. Don’t spend any money unless it will help us advance in one aspect or another.  If there is no advantage then the cost of an item, education, or risk is not worth it.  We also shouldn’t spend money that we don’t have because this only leads to debt accumulation.  Plan to make money and then plan to spend it on upgrades or advancements. We truly can’t be successful at something unless we fully take the time to plan and to fully understand it.

– The price always goes up. We have to be prepared for prices to increase over time whether it is the price of a stock or  it is the price of our daily goods with the cost of inflation.  We should also expect to pay for quality.  Nothing worth buying (or investing in) ever comes for cheap.

– Need a support system. We can learn a great deal from more experienced people. Whenever we want to try something new or we want to learn about something new we should always research the subject and seek advice from others. Remember that it’s ok to ask for help.  Sometimes people don’t ask for help because they are afraid that it will make them look stupid or weak.  However, the truth is that asking for help is sometimes the smartest thing that we can do.

– Defeat is ok. We don’t always have to make a profit or win at everything, especially if we are a beginner.  As long as we learn from our mistakes we can keep moving forward.

– Have Passive Income.  In the game we are given properties to collect money and we can enhance and upgrade those properties to produce a passive (and secondary) income; this allows us to build our wealth.  The more wealth we accumulate the more we can spend on upgrades and increase our territory along with our profits.

Photo by Eisenbahner

Kristina Tahnyak

Tahnya is a Certified Financial Planner and former Investment Advisor turned marketing and communications professional She holds a degree from Concordia University, is debt free and currently works in the field of digital marketing.