Activity to teach budgeting and momey management

[Anonymous UserParticipant]

I need help coming up with an idea to teach the young women about money management and budgeting. I would like it to be a hand-on activity and have thought about using Monopoly money but I can’t come up with what to do. Any help?

[Jenny SmithParticipant]

I like the idea of monopoly money — you could ask the youth ahead of time what jobs they are interested in and find out how much those things pay. Using your pretend money, “pay” the girls their salaries and then have them start calculating expenses like taxes, rent/mortgage in your area, tithing, food, family costs, insurance, car maintenance/payments, savings, debt payment, etc.

I don’t think I would try to scare the girls with the money exercise, just try to show them that that paycheck that *seems* big can shrink really fast. You may also want to demonstrate the part that education pays in wage earning potential.

You might also get some ideas from the game about homelessness called “Spent”:
http://playspent.org/

Let us know what other ideas you get — this sounds like fun!

[Anonymous UserParticipant]

We did this in RS, but could be used for YW.
We had three classes, Balancing a Check Book, Paying off Debt, and Saving.
We had a teacher in each class teaching how to balance a check book (and other bills) and what the best way to pay off debt as well as staying out of debt and then the importance of saving. The teachers used real numbers like how much a house typically costs, how long the loan is for, and what the monthly payments are. You could easily use Monopoly money to play “house” and instead of using a home as an example, use a car. Tell them how much a car is and what the monthly payments are. Show them the importance of saving now, to get what they want later. I’m sure you can use the game of monopoly and change the properties to meet the needs of the girls. But I think it would be important to give them numbers on how much things cost and how the world works. As a new mom, I had to learn how “the world works with money” and sometimes we assume that you just know, but you don’t.

[Author]

Posts