LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Students will be able to:

Understand the components of a budget

Compute savings

Compute debt

Learn financial management: Time value of money

Learn the nature of opportunity costs

Understand the importance of self$-$regulation

In these lessons, students will learn personal financial management strategies based on budgeting. Students will also learn the theoretical concepts involved with budgeting and financial management, including income, expenses, savings, and debt.

Section A

Students to complete dreams for the future student worksheet first. Students will then complete hands$-$on activities to create three different saving and spending scenarios based on their own lives and expenses. The amounts of money spent and saved will differ in each scenario, with scenario $1$ having some debt, scenario $2$ having no debt but almost no savings, and scenario $3$ having significant savings. $($Both Dreams for the future and Debt$/$Savings worksheet provided to record the three scenarios available on Blackboard$)$

Section B

The goal of this activity is to budget expenses with the aim of saving for a short$-$term purchase $($a car$),$ and to see the results of saving over a long$-$term for a larger purchase $($a home$).$ The student is working a full$-$time retail job for the summer. They will develop a monthly budget of expenses, modifying their behaviour so as to create savings. Then they will brainstorm ideas presenting an opportunity for savings or spending.

Students will brainstorm ways to manage their own budgets while making room for investments. In this way, students are examining ways to save money to "invest" in themselves, for a return in their lives over the long$-$term.

Students will use a template of a personal budget to display their ideas above being as realistic as possible. $($Template provided on Excel on Blackboard, Students to enter amounts and automatically figures will be computed$)$