In Round 1, students learn to allocate their "20 bean salary" according to which options they want to spend their beans on. Round 2 forces the students to reduce their salary to 13 beans and make decisions about where they should make their "cuts". Round 3 includes some "life happens" challenges that allow students to make more decisions on where to move the beans in order to deal with the situations. This activity completes with some reflection questions on how this activity relates to budgeting with real income.

Learners become introduced to the concept of budget and its use in business settings. They will prepare a simple budget in excel for two business trips from Washington D.C. to both a domestic and an international destination of their choice researching various websites and they will create a short presentation on ways to save money on business travel. The lesson will provide learners with an opportunity to develop basic literacy in MS office applications, basic financial literacy and to hone their internet researching skills.

The learner plans a vacation trip to Washington DC focusing on a three of their own selections between the numerous historical sites, monuments or museums. The learner plans where they will visit over those three to four days. Using addition, subtraction and or percentage functions, the learner prepares a budget for lodging, transportation, entertainment, souvenirs and food. The student will be ask to develop a five slide PowerPoint presentation of one of their places chosen and what they plan to spend on the visit to Washington DC. Materials to include in this exercise are computer, books and calculators.

This activity contains three case studies which allow students to evaluate situations that are considered when budgeting. The students will create budgets for the individuals in the cases as part of this assignment.

This activity uses mini cases to help develop some problem- solving skills in relation to budgeting. Situational analysis allows students to role play and help the person in the case figure out how to budget and deal with their financial decisions. Cases allow for students to role play in real life scenarios that they may experience in their future.

This is a full project that can be used in to meet standards around budgeting and money management. This usually takes the students about 5 hours to complete and it is very comprehensive to cover all future spending. The assignment requires the students to "screenshot" proof of items they found for their budget (and support each item with evidence). Students really enjoy this project (and adults have used it too for budgeting in real life!). Students may chose to have $0 spending on some items (pets, legal, etc.), but they should explain their reasoning for entering a zero. As well, students should enter savings into their budget (at least 10% of earnings).

This audio excerpt captures the beginning of Bayard Rustin's 1967 "Freedom Budget" speech, describing the social and economic impact of racism over time.

Students will analyze monthly household expenses, explain the benefits of using a budget, and create a sample budget.

While completing a digital worksheet, students will describe the purpose of a budget, classify expenses as needs and wants, and explain the difference between gross pay and net pay.

This lesson Plan is for Financial Literacy and Budget Planning. The Standards were not listed in the Resource section so they are as follows:
Analyze the role of cultural, social, and emotional influences on financial behavior.
Evaluate the role of emotions, attitudes and behavior in making financial decisions.
Recognize that individuals are responsible for their own financial decisions and for subsequent positive and negative consequences.
Define a rational decision-making process and the steps of financial planning.
Define opportunity cost (tradeoffs) and their role in decision making.
Describe a rational decision - making process.
Identify short- and long-term financial decisions and the impact they have on financial planning.
Define the elements of a financial plan.
Standard 1Identify and explain the process of budgeting based on calculated income.
Develop a budget.
Identify and prioritize fixed, fixed variable and variable budget categories.

The Image for this Budget Planner was created by Sharon Pinkerton.

Students will be exploring different jobs and creating a budget based on the job's income. View google doc below for more details.

Budgeting is the most basic and most important tool in anyone's financial toolbox. With this resource, students are given the hands-on opportunity to create budgets for fictional "Regan" during her sophomore year in nursing school, and, later, as a recent graduate with an apartment and a new car. Using either Microsoft® Excel or Google Docs, the students download our budgeting tool with space for their own budget, as well as the examples they created by establishing Regan's budget.

This task allows the students to create a family’s cash flow budget based on their current situation, analyze strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to their household budget, and give the family some financial advice.

The assignment also asked the students various planning questions regarding family budgets, events that affect the budget and variables to consider when a household plans their budgets.

This is a reflection activity for students to help make budgeting more relevant to their future lives. 

Students practice budgeting by planning for a fun overnight trip to a rural area.

This lesson will focus on applying basic math skills to determine current inventory on hand at a business or in the home, and calculate the number of items needed. In addition, learners will determine the costs to replace items and apply the amount to an overall budget.

Students apply their knowledge of linear regression and design to solve a real-world challenge to create a better packing solution for shipping cell phones. They use different materials, such as cardboard, fabric, plastic, and rubber bands to create new “composite material” packaging containers. Teams each create four prototypes made of the same materials and constructed in the same way, with the only difference being their weights, so each one is fabricated with a different amount of material. They test the three heavier prototype packages by dropping them from different heights to see how well they protect a piece of glass inside (similar in size to iPhone 6). Then students use linear regression to predict from what height they can drop the fourth/final prototype of known mass without the “phone” breaking. Success is not breaking the glass but not underestimating the height by too much either, which means using math to accurately predict the optimum drop height.

Cards, Cars and Currency is a curriculum unit that challenges students to become involved in three specific areas of personal finance: credit cards, debit cards and purchasing a car.

Cards, Cars and Currency is a set of personal finance programs that encourages participants to learn about three areas of personal finance: credit cards, debit cards and purchasing a car. Cards, Cars and Currency includes five individual programs that can be used together or individually to enhance personal finance learning.

Students connect their future career choices and decisions with budgeting practice and identifying the type of lifestyle they will be able to live based on their career choices.