The Grocery Money Game: Teach Teen Unit Pricing, Shrinkflation, and Meal Math

FinStrike helps teens build real-world money skills through a four-year financial literacy curriculum, a Smart Tutor that helps students around the clock, and extensive free resources for parents and students.

You want a teen who understands money? Skip the lecture. Take them to the grocery store. One cart, one list, one budget. In 30 minutes you can teach more about tradeoffs, value, and real prices than a semester of worksheets.

How the Game Works

Set a hard budget before you leave. Pick three dinners you will cook this week. Assign roles: your teen is the buyer, you are the coach. The goal is simple. Feed the family, stay under budget, and hit a target cost per meal. Winner gets to pick dessert.

Your Toolkit:

1. A calculator on your phone

2. The store’s unit price labels

3. A running note that tracks item, quantity, total price, and cost per serving

4. A rule that anything not on the list needs a quick pitch and approval

Level 1: Unit Pricing

Teach your teen to ignore the giant price tag and read the tiny one under it. That is where the unit price lives. Ounces, pounds, or count. Have them compare two similar items by unit price, not sticker price. Example: Pasta A is 16 ounces for 1.49. Pasta B is 32 ounces for 2.79. Unit price wins, not package size. Repeat this in three aisles: cereal, rice, and yogurt multipacks. Let them choose the best value and record the savings.

Level 2: Shrinkflation Spotter

Brands quietly shrink packages while keeping the price the same. Put your teen on patrol. Have them compare sizes from different brands and flavors, and look for odd sizes like 13.7 ounces or 14.3 ounces that used to be 16. If the smaller box is the same price per unit as the bigger one next to it, call it out and switch. Add a bonus point every time your teen catches shrinkflation before you do.

Level 3: Meal Math

Pick one dinner and break it down. Taco night example:

• Tortillas 2.49 for 10

• Chicken 7.98 for 1.2 pounds

• Beans 1.29 per can

• Lettuce, tomato, onion 4.00 total

• Seasoning 0.60 for the portion used

Total 16.36. If you will get four servings, that is 4.09 per plate. Have your teen adjust quantity to hit a target, like 3.50 per serving. Maybe swap chicken thighs for breast, or use half the lettuce and add rice. This is the budgeting muscle in action. You are not guessing, you are designing a result.

Rules That Keep You Under Budget

• Only one premium item per trip

• Store brand first, name brand only if taste truly demands it

• Buy produce in season, skip pre-cut unless time is worth the cost

• Use a two-minute review at the end to pull extras that crept into the cart

Post-Trip Debrief in Five Minutes

At home, do a quick audit. Did you stay under budget? What was the average cost per meal? Which swap saved the most money? Pick one habit to keep next week, like reading unit prices in two aisles or planning one low-cost dinner that everyone actually likes.

Run the Grocery Money Game every other week. Your teen will start catching shrinkflation in the wild, choosing store brands on their own, and thinking in cost per serving, not just brand and hype. Keep it short, keep it fun, and watch real financial literacy show up at the dinner table. teach teen money