Using a Budget - Personal Finance Budgeting Exercise

This is a personal finance budgeting exercise. It is self contained within a Microsoft Excel file. I found that this could stretch over 2 one hour lessons.
I have used this resource with Year 9 and 10s in personal finance lessons but I feel it could be used with older students. The students really enjoyed looking for somewhere to live, were shocked at the rent and were often hopeless at planning for food that would last a full week!

The learning objectives are for students to:

• Gain an awareness of wage slips, minimum wage and deductions
• Be able to plan a weekly shopping list for independent living
• Budget for other costs including rent, phone contracts, broadband
• Consider ways to lower personal outgoings
• Find jobs that would pay the wages that would allow them to live within their budget.

The are 3 sheets within the spreadsheet. These are linked, so if one sheet is updated the costs or wages will be automatically updated on the weekly budget (My Budget).

Students start by looking at their wage slip and the minimum wage as if they were 22 years (its worth showing them that in reality at 16/18 they could be earn less). This is a chance to talk about wage slips and deductions. You could change the hourly rates to show them how little a 16 year old might earn.

The tasks are outlined next to the wage slip.
First they must find a flat to live in. There is a link to Right Move to help them to do this. They just need to put in the local postcode.
The second task asks them to find a broadband deal and phone costs. Again there is link to a website that will show them latest deals.
The third task directs them to a supermarket website, where they have to do their weekly shop, they type this into the My Shopping sheet and it automatically updates on their weekly budgets.
They then have to consider other costs.
The My Budget sheet summaries their weekly wage and spending and gives them a running total of what is left in the bank.
The final task asks them to consider how much they would have to earn to live how they would ike and directs them to a website showing the hourly rate for different jobs, thus leading to consideration of what jobs they might like to do.