On a recent Friday night, members of the extended Carlson family finished a potluck dinner of ham sandwiches, baked beans and potato salad. Then they settled down in front of a giant projection screen - not to watch the game but to scrutinize their stocks.

The Carlsons have started their own multigenerational investment club as a way for young and old to learn how the stock market works.

Their newfound interest even brought them to their first shareholders meeting last month. Members shared their opinions about 3M’s annual meeting as 11-year-old Erin passed around Post-it notes and other freebies from the meeting.

It’s difficult to say how many family investment clubs exist. BetterInvesting, a national investment club organization, does not have an official count. But Bob O’Hara, a BetterInvesting senior vice president, said they seem to be growing in popularity at a time when financial literacy is a hot-button topic.

Family clubs typically are started by an older, interested family member "trying to pass on some knowledge and instill some discipline" before the family teens go to college or get a job, O’Hara said. The club philosophy is to buy good-quality growth stocks and monitor their performance as a way to learn about how stocks work. Ideally, clubs will double their money in five years.

Investment clubs were all the rage in the mid-1990s. From 1994 to 1998, BetterInvesting tripled the number of member clubs - from 12,429 to 37,129. As the market declined, so did membership. As of February, 13,127 clubs were registered.

Martha Simms convinced her family to start the Fortune Fourteen Investment Club in 1994 after investing with a successful all-women club for three years. She hadn’t learned about compound interest and stock valuation until her children were grown.

"I wanted my kids to learn those things," she said, but at first, nobody wanted to do it.

"I can’t say I was super-excited," Martha’s son, Joe Simms, said. He was 30 and just starting a teaching career. So she sweetened the pot, telling her four kids that Grandma Martha would give $5 to every grandchild who contributed $10.

Joe Simms went along with it because his mom was passionate about the idea. Now, his three kids - ages 12, 10, and 7 - have a "few thousand in there." The club’s portfolio is worth more than $50,000, mostly invested in large companies such as Kohl’s, Wells Fargo and Intel.

The Carlsons’ club began when Elaine Carlson returned to Minneapolis after a career abroad. She was looking forward to spending time with her busy family. Also, she had made investment mistakes and wanted to learn more.

At first, many Carlsons were unsure of what an investment club was. But 15 members of the family spanning three generations agreed to try it.

"I was looking for an avenue of some sort to get more information about investing anyway," said Bill Carlson, Elaine’s nephew.

The club, now 18 months old and named CR$$Grow - "see our dollars grow" - meets monthly. Each member contributes $10 a month to the portfolio. Members who can’t be present participate via conference call.

Club members discussed their stocks to watch, with family members sharing insights on whether the release of the new "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie would raise the price of Disney stock and whether an accident on a water ride at a Disney theme park would lower it.

Then to the part that’s fun: spending money. The club had about $1,500 to invest and was considering GameStop, which Erin brought to the group’s attention in May after seeing it mentioned in BetterInvesting Magazine.

After a lengthy discussion, Bill blurted, "Somebody make a decision."