Sometimes, you just don’t want to use real cash.  Play money can come in handy.

You can use a wad of homemade cash to play board games after you’ve lost the dough that came from Parker Bros. or Milton Bradley.  Printable play money comes in handy when your kids want to play “store” but you don’t want to entrust them with the real McCoy.  It’s good for teaching kid money-related math.  It’s NOT a good idea when you want to buy groceries, though.  The Treasury Dept. doesn’t think it’s funny when that happens.  In fact, they dislike the idea so much that it can be tough to scan your own money and print it out.

In any case, you might have a need for some play cash.  If you do, there are plenty of places to find it.  Here are 7 great places to find it online.

Money Instructor. This site has a nice collection of realistic US bills.  They’re clearly marked “COPY” and bear the site’s URL.  Oh, they also do coins.  Paper coins?  Sure.  They come in handy when you’re trying to teach your youngsters not to fall for that whole “a nickel is bigger than a dime so it must be worth more” trick the big kids always use.

Free Stuff for Kids.  These folks have printable play money in a few different denominations.  The values are easy to spot and read.  The cash looks nothing like the real deal.  Totally different, but almost web 2.0-ish.  There’s something about the way it looks that I really like.

Printable Play Money.  Two different options at this site.  You can either print the stuff that has a real look to it, or you can go with the “obviously NOT U.S. currency” look.  Either way, you can find printable phony cabbage here.

Activity Village. Here’s another site with the standard paper currency and pages of coins.  This one has an advantage, though.  It’s not all US money.  They do Euros.  Get your printable play Euros here.

Disney Dough.  If you’re kids are all about the Magic Kingdom, you might want to print out these $1, $5 and $10 bills featuring Disney icons like Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and even the Pirates of the Caribbean skull and crossbones.

Festisite. This isn’t really a play money site, per se.  It’s actually a cool little app you can use to create phony bills featuring your own photo or someone else’s. You can create bills from a variety of nations.  If you wanted to, you could even make a Kazakhi dollar bill with Bernie Madoff’s picture on it.  I did.  It’s the picture you saw above.  Your finished products can be saved as PNG files and you could then opt to print them out.  If you want to come up with really fun play money, imagine putting your kid’s face on a $10 bill.  Just make sure that mom and dad adorn the big bills so the kids remember who’s boss!

Donna Young.  Here’s a good source of play bills in a variety of denominations.  They share enough characteristics with the real deal to create some level of recognition in a learning youngster.  You can also print each denomination in a different color to make sorting easier.

There you have it.  Seven different sites where you can print yourself a small fortune.  Lose all your monopoly money?  Have a burning desire to put your snapshot on a Euro?  Need a printout of coins to help your kids learn how to make change?  Get your printable play money now!