Money Management: Creating a Spend and Save Plan

What Students Will Learn:
Objective #1 Students will recognize how to create a spending plan by dividing their allowance into spend, save, and give categories.
Objective #2 Students will learn how to balance income and expenses.
Objective #3 Students will gain confidence in preparing spending plans. 

Background Knowledge Needed: Students need to have knowledge of receiving an allowance and using that allowance to pay for personal wants and needs. 

Materials Needed
•	Copies of the Expenditure Cards for school lunches, video games, movies, sports equipment, clothes, donations to the church or other charities, and blank cards for other activities.
•	A copy of the OneWeek Spending Diary page.
•	A copy of the One-Month Spending Diary page.

How Students Will Learn the Objectives - Learning Activities:
Allowance Allocation
1)	Students will prepare expenditure cards and be given a pretend weekly allowance amount of $15.00.
2)	Next, students will allocate their allowance to expenditure categories on the cards by marking with Xs for each dollar spent.
3)	Each card offers different amounts of spending choices. Recognizing spending choices helps students consider alternatives within each spending category.
5)	Discuss the choices that the students made.
6)	After students have allocated their allowances, they will subtract their expenditures from their total weekly allowance. 
7)	Discuss changes that students were forced to make in response to losing income.
(15 minutes)

Reading and Learning About Allowances and Spending Plans
1)	The teacher will review the reading list with students and provide an overview of each recommended book.
2)	The students will share any information about these books or other familiar money management books. 
(10 minutes)

One Week Spending Diary
1)	The teacher will explain and provide an example of how to complete the diary.
2)	Discuss the many different possible categories to choose from for their weekly spending. Students will be directed to focus on the three types of money management categories spend, save, and give as they create their plan. 
3)	Next, the students will brainstorm spending categories to generate a spending plan. 
(10 minutes)

One Month Spending Diary
1)	Discuss how students will put themselves on a budget for one month. They first must determine what categories of expenses they will include. They may use fun, food, and gift categories or spend, save, and give categories. 
2)	Students may make more copies of the One-Week Spending Diary to help them keep track of their expenditures. 
(10 minutes)

Evaluation Students will complete a 10-question true/false and multiple choice quiz on creating a spending plan. (15 minutes)