Meet Mia Saver and Ima Spender are two 23-year-old women who recently graduated from college.  For a couple of years after graduation, neither of them saves any money for retirement. Both are focused on establishing their careers and purchasing household items.  At age 25, both decide it’s time to start a retirement account. In this activity, we’ll use an online financial calculator to better understand the power of compounding, interest rates and time!

Broke is a documentary about sports stars who went from having millions of dollars to being broke and the mental anguish that comes along with this. The movie explores why this happens, mostly due to how many of the individuals lacked basic financial literacy skills. Students will develop 5 lessons / take-aways that they learned from the movie that the rest of us can learn from? They will discuss the themes and lessons shared regarding making responsible financial decisions, ways to gather information and explore how financial security (or lack of it) can have a major influence on mental health and well-being. 

Outcome: FL10.5 Examine the role of personal budgets and their importance for financial planning. Indicator: i. Create and justify a personal budget for a hypothetical scenario that includes income and expenses. Students will read Gabrielle’s story and examine her budget.  Use the table or budget sheet to set up and maintain Gabrielle’s budget. Then the students will need to re-do her budget for the next month to make it work that she doesn’t spend more than she earns. There is a final reflection and analysis for the students to learn from this budget activity and how it will help them in the future to budget unanticipated items as well. 

This lesson includes full classroom sequence including suggested intro activities, timing, formative and summative activites, and context for teaching. In this lesson, students will identify and review their expenses and income and learn to create a budget. At the end of this lesson, students will: know, understand and/or can distinguish between needs and wants and create a personal budget. According to a FCAC’s 2024 Canadian Financial Wellbeing Survey, 53% of Canadians have household budgets. 62% of respondents say their debt increased by more than $5000 in the past 12 months and only 54% had an emergency fund to cover 3 months of expenses (down from 64% in 2019) 32% of Canadian say they are short on money at the end of the month (vs. 19% in 2019), which means budgeting isn’t going as well as it should be. So, since budgeting seems to aid in your financial health, why don’t most Canadians follow their budget?

Students will work through a budgeting workbook, choosing their expenses and overcoming unexpected items each month. Step 1, the student will use a dice to determine their future job, which will be used throughout the activity. Step 2 guides the students to calculate their take home pay using step by step guide to take off deductions from the paycheck. Step 3 allows the students to make life decisions for how they want to live and determine how much those decisions will costs (tracking the happiness points that go along with each choice). Step 4 is a fun part of the budget where "stuff happens" which impact their monthly finances and happiness points. There is a summary activity to find out if students are able to fund their monthly budget, even with the unexpected. There is a final reflection and analysis for the students to learn from this budget activity. Students will need this workbook, a dice (could be virtual), and a calculator

This collection features resources to support teaching Module 6C: Applying Personal Spending Plans from the Saskatchewan Financial Literacy curriculum.  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.

This resource provides a listening guide, presentation and student assignment on the topic of "Buy Now, Pay Later", which has become a very popular way to finance everyday purchases. Students are challenged to identify the rise of BNPL programs and how they can "hurt" your credit score and lead to irresponsible borrowing in the future.  

This humorous vignette points out the necessity of taking care when we purchase something online. More and more we are making purchases online and avoiding the bricks and mortar stores. While this is proving to be an increasingly popular choice for people, there are cautions that need to be taken. As with any financial practice, there are safeguards and checks to be made, prior to any purchase, in order to ensure that we don’t wind up with something we don’t want – or worse – that we have been taken advantage of by unscrupulous people. So how do we safeguard ourselves as we shop online? There are certain things you can do.

Use the course content in your own program and help your students develop an understanding of how the Canadian tax system works. Modules: Purpose of taxes, Starting to work, Lesson plan: Working for an employer, Lesson plan: Working for yourself, Lesson plan: Preparing to do your taxes, Lesson plan: Completing a basic tax return, Lesson plan: After sending us your tax return, Lesson plan: Using My Account, Lesson plan: Accessing your benefits and credits

In this activity, students will explore a job as an Uber driver. There are some clear perks of working in the gig economy, such as being your own boss and working flexible hours. But it might not be as easy as it seems. You’re a full-time Uber driver with two kids to support and a $1000 mortgage payment due in a week. Can you earn enough to pay the bill -- and make more than other players?Students will keep track of their activities in the game, their choices (to pick shifts or spend money) and how they did during the game over (able to pay bills, balance life with a job that side hustle and varying hours). 

This funny vignette stresses the importance of reading the fine print. Many times the “small print” is hard to read.  Warranties, contracts, policies, agreements and guarantees can be so long that it is human nature to skim over the text and sign without fully reading all the details. It is likely we have all done it. Think about it, if there is something that a seller wants to hide from you knowing, where would you put it? Often the information or exceptions that you really need to be aware of are placed at the end of the agreement. By that time, you are tired of reading and often agree without finishing reading all of the terms.  A buyer needs to be aware of his or her rights and have the confidence to stand up for them.

Smart money management requires building a foundation in strong, healthy financial habits. In this activity, we’ll learn about how habits work and then apply that knowledge to a financial habit that you’d like to change.Have students think about a financial habit they would like to change, and then answer the questions in the booklet. 

There are several interesting articles written by Anne Gaviola on Vice focused on Canadian finances, debt, and correlations between money and a person’s well-being. Keeping your debt a secret can mess with your mind and body. The culture of secrecy around debt causes young people to suffer in silence, making it even harder to manage debt. Use this content for case-based learning opportunities.

Teachers can use this resource to debate as a class or have the students reflect and answer on their own. It works well to divide the class into four groups and assign the students a topic (for or against). They may not agree with the topic they have been given, but that's the importance of debate- to allow a person to see both sides and why someone would support an argument different than your own.

Teachers can use this resource to debate as a class or have the students reflect and answer on their own. It works well to divide the class into four groups and assign the students a topic (for or against). They may not agree with the topic they have been given, but that's the importance of debate- to allow a person to see both sides and why someone would support an argument different than your own.

This activity supports Module 32e Economic Factors that impact personall financial decisions. We all know demand for goods and services can rise and fall, but what causes it to do those things? In this activity students will demonstrate how consumers’ income and preferences, prices of substitutes, and number of consumers in a market can affect demand. Students will reflect on their learning and how the actions may affect consumer demand for products and eventually the money we spend on purchases these products!

This humorous vignette reminds us of the need to carefully consider who we trust to give us valid guidance in investing our money. Most of us either don’t have the expertise or the time to manage our investments. As a result, as we begin to build an investment portfolio, we look for help. Some rely solely on family members or friends to guide them while others look for professional help. Regardless of the course you take, it is crucial to understand the background and experience of those offering the guidance and advice. It is important that we give our trust to those who deserve it and not simply rely on friendship or whim. After all, you have worked hard for that money and you want to make sure that it is well managed.

Marginal Cost/Benefit Decisions and the Investment Industry Watch video: DRUG SHORT ON NETFLIX in the Dirty Money Series (Series 1)This activity is meant to be used once Marginal Cost, Marginal Benefit and Diminishing Marginal Utility and Investing (short selling) are taught. The movie "Drug Short" is part of the Dirty Money Series 1 on Netflix. Underlying issues in this case are greed, ethics, corporate profit and efforts to maximize shareholder profit at all costs (even human life). This activity looks at the activites of pharmaceutical companies and their efforts to make money, yet disregarding the impact on people who rely on the medicine. Short seller investors "sold the stocks" of drug companies when the prices were high, predicting that there was unethical activities which would eventually bring the share price down. Short sellers make money by expecting share prices to fall, when they identify bad companies or unethical behavior (which is exactly what happened here).

FL10.2 Examine the influence that finances have on well-being Review a survey done to evaluate whether money can determine a person's happiness. Students can review a chart and see the results of happiness versus income levels. There is also a determination of a person's overall wellbeing and their "perceived happiness levels", based on what other think their happiness should be.

The main objective of English for Financial Literacy is to help instructors incorporate financial literacy content into their program planning and teaching, and support them in learning about key topics and concepts related to financial matters. The activities in this section explore the topic of banking services, credit cards, types of credit and related concepts. The activities present basic information on various bank accounts and transactions, forms of credit, what good and bad credit is, and how credit cards work. English for Financial Literacy is an instructor’s resource for teaching financial literacy concepts and skills in LINC and adult ESL programs at CLB levels 1 to 8.