Budgeting: Mastering Your Money
Created By:
ActiveLearningLabs
Lab Description
This comprehensive budgeting lab will help students master budgeting skills and is crucial for their financial well-being. This lab is not just theoretical knowledge but is filled with a lot of interactive activities and practical scenarios. Students will go through simulations and hands-on exercises that simulate real-life financial scenarios.
The lab is divided into four sections
- Basics of Budgeting
- Budgeting Factors
- Building Your Budget
- Conclusion
Please take a look at the outline tab to see the activities included in each section.
Each section is preceded and followed by a review and classroom discussion materials that teachers can use.
Some of the core activities are -
Basics of Budgeting
- A quick start activity to allocate the salary of a person into different expenses
- Introduction to budgeting and drag-and-drop activity to classify expenses.
- Understanding discretionary and non-discretionary budgets and categorizing expenses worksheet.
- Analyzing John's budget
- Budgeting strategies such as 50/30/20, zero-based budgeting, etc., and an interactive worksheet to create a zero-based budget.
- Introduction to Needs & Wants and an interactive worksheet to choose their choices on different categories such as housing, food, entertainment etc.
Budgeting Factors
- Analyze American's average monthly expenses
- Dive deeper into housing expenses with worksheet activities on rent analysis etc.
- Dive deeper into transportation expenses with worksheet activities to analyze transportation modes, calculate total car ownership cost, etc.
- Dive deeper into food expenses with worksheet activities on the USDA food calculator, average food expense analysis, etc.
- Impact of inflation on budgeting with a worksheet that includes an inflation calculator.
- Comparison-shopping and activity to do comparison shopping.
Building Your Budget
- Help Sarah - a fictitious character, to build her budget by using
- Interactive worksheet to choose a career - analyze education loan required, salary, sample monthly paycheck, etc.
- Interactive worksheet to set short and long-term goals
- Interactive worksheet to build the final budget based on the salary and goals.
- Students will create their budget for a semester.
Conclusion
- Write a letter to parents explaining the importance of budgeting.
- Feedback
By providing an interactive learning experience, we equip students with the necessary skills to navigate the complexities of personal finance confidently.
Student Feedback
I will remember that budgeting is really important and can help you get what you want the right way.
- Student
I will remember the fact that i ended up 2,000 dollars in debt even though I was being conservative with my spending.
- Student
Basics of Budgeting
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Econ Ed -
Spending
Students will know that Consumers incur costs
and realize benefits when searching for information related to the purchase of goods and services .. Students will use this knowledge to 12-5a . Explain how pre-purchase research encourages consumers to avoid impulse buying .
12-5b . Brainstorm consumer research strategies and resources to use when making purchase decisions .
12-5c . Analyze social media marketing and advertising techniques designed to encourage spending .
Econ Ed -
Spending
Students will know that Consumer decisions are influenced by the price of products or services, the price of alternatives, the consumer’s budget and preferences, and potential
impact on the environment, society, and economy .. Students will use this knowledge to 12-2a . Select a product or service and describe the various factors that may influence a consumer’s purchase decision .
12-2b . Describe a process for making an informed consumer decision .
12-2c . List the positive and negative effects of a recent
consumer decision on the environment, society, and the economy .
Econ Ed -
Spending
Students will know that A budget helps people achieve their financial
goals by allocating income to necessary and desired spending, saving, and philanthropy .. Students will use this knowledge to 12-1a . Identify their short-term and long-term financial goals . 12-1b . Develop a budget to allocate current income to
necessary and desired spending, including estimates for both fixed and variable expenses .
12-1c . Explain methods for adjusting a budget for unexpected expenses or emergencies .
12-1d . Evaluate the advantages of using budgeting tools, such as spreadsheets or apps .
Econ Ed -
Earning Income
Students will know that Employers generally pay higher wages or salaries to more educated, skilled, and productive workers than to less educated, skilled, and productive workers .. Students will use this knowledge to 12-4a . Identify different types of jobs and careers where wages and salaries depend on a worker’s productivity and skills .
12-4b . Explain why wages or salaries vary among employees in different types of jobs and among workers in the same jobs .
12-4c . Discuss possible explanations for the persistence of race and gender pay gaps .
Econ Ed -
Earning Income
Students will know that Compensation for a job or career can be in the form of wages, salaries, commissions, tips, or bonuses, and may also include contributions to
employee benefits, such as health insurance, retirement savings plans, and education reimbursement programs .. Students will use this knowledge to 12-1a . Research potential income and employee benefit packages that are likely to be offered to new employees
by various companies, government agencies, or not-for- profit organizations .
12-1b . Explain why people should evaluate employee benefits in addition to wages and salaries when choosing between job and career opportunities .
12-1c . Differentiate between contributory and non-contributory employee benefits .
12-1d . Examine the benefits of participating in employer- sponsored retirement savings plans and healthcare savings plans .
Price per Classroom
$9.99
Grade Levels
8-12
Duration
5 Hours
Activities
57
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