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