Creating a Budget: Part 2 of the Major Project Name: Subject: Semester: Todd McLauchlin Personal Finance 30 Winter 2014

Date: Grade: Lesson Length: TBD 12 60 min

Content Identification: This class, along with the previous class, will serve as the introduction to the major project for the unit. The students will create and maintain two budgets this semester, one personal and one household. The household budget, unlike the personal budget will be theoretical and based on what the students would like to see from the future. This assignment will require more research than the personal budget, however; the weekly reflections will not be present in this portion. The students will need a partner for this assignment, as two income households are the most common household setup; however, the partners do not need to male-female partners. This is an opportunity for cross-curricular connections, and a brief discussion on different family styles, such as lesbian or gay couples could be beneficial. It should be noted that this assignment is assuming two incomes for practical reasons but many households are single parent families, which is also important to address. The students will be briefly informed that we will be creating a budget with a partner, before being asked to find a partner, since the students will be working together for the entire semester, the students should choose their partners. It is likely there will be an odd number of students in the room; in this case, it will better to have a group of three than one single. Even though 3 income houses are less common, the benefits of collaboration outweigh this fact. Once the partners have been chosen, we will discuss the actual assignment document, which can be found at http://goo.gl/BuvrOX. The students will be required, in their pairs to imagine themselves 10 years older. They may have gone to university or acquired a skilled trade. They may imagine that they have dependants, a home, a great job, like to travel, a nice car, etc. The catch with this is imagination so that they will need to back it up by reality. If they choose to send their future selves through post secondary education, we will assume that they need student loans (placing everyone on an even playing field) which they will have to repay. If they choose to have a fancy car or a nice house, they have to be able to afford it based on their income, which they will also research. This exercise is designed to take some of the intangibility out of the financial future and show the students that there are many factors that take part in making a financial dream a reality. The students will have a fair bit of freedom in choosing their future selves, but they will not be able to say they chose to be dependants of their parents 10 years from now; this exercise is about their own personal finance. The students, while creating a future vision of themselves, will work in tandem with their partner to make a yearly and monthly budget for their 10-year-older household. This budget will take into account, income (both regular and variable), taxation, savings, investments, expenses (fixed, variable, required and optional). The nature of these amounts will change from pair to pair but they all must be considered. Many of these areas, such as taxation and investing, have not been covered yet and will not be until future units. Therefore, to help the students conceptualize these parts to their budget; there will be several introductory lessons to follow on these areas. The actual assignment will have two parts, the first being the spreadsheet budget for both monthly and yearly amounts for the household, the second being some type of analysis on the budget, conditions used in its creation and the requirements for planning for the future. Like the personal budget, this will have a reflective element to it, but will not require weekly posts. Instead, the students can choose to write, record or present once at a mid-semester check-in and once at the end of the semester. They can either write a paper describing the budget, how/why they created it the way they did, how class/real events affect the budget, what opportunities/contrariness they found given their choices, and what they

learned from the process. They could also present the same information in a recorded interview with their future selves. Finally, they could choose to present in front of the class all the required components, in a fully scripted presentation. I have also included a rubric with the assignment for the students to review. After discussing the assignment and rubric, the students will be provided time to begin the project. Outcomes (Objectives): PF(L) 5-Demonstrate understanding of personal budgets and their importance for financial planning. Indicators (Assessment): a. Describe budgeting and explain how it relates to financial problem solving and financial responsibility. d. Explain considerations that must be made when developing a budget, e.g., income, prioritizing, recurring and unexpected expenses and use them to help prioritize personal and financial goals. e. Monitor spending behaviours and income streams( monthly or quarterly) f. Create, modify and maintain a personal budget for earning, spending, saving and investing.

The students will be able to create a household budget, which they will co-create with a partner. The students will be able to critically examine the elements that effect the future financial conditions based on current choices, such as education, employment, saving, investing, spending, purchasing, etc. The students will be able to express how they adapted their future budget, based on new content gained from the course. The students will be developing goals for their future selves, based on the financial data created in the budgets.

Common Essential Learnings: Personal and Social Values and Skills, Numeracy Critical and Creative Thinking Cross-Curricular Competencies: Developing Identity and Interdependence, Developing Thinking, Developing Literacies Prerequisite Learning: An understanding of budgets, budgeting terminology and layout, need vs. wants and long-term and short-term goal will be required for this lesson.

Equipment/Materials: The Creating a Budget: Household Budget assignment and rubric, Google Drive access, and internet/computer will all be required. Set: (10 min) 1) The students will be asked to get into pairs, after a brief synopsis of the assignment that we will be embarking on: the creation of a household budget. - It will be beneficial to use the opportunity to point out the fact that non-heterogeneous households exist and the person they are working with is simply a partner, so they should feel comfortable to choose who they want to work with. It is also important to mention that the two-income household was chosen for reasons of practicality and collaboration, and that single income families are very common as well. Development: (20 min) 1) Once the students have chosen the pairs (there may be a possible group of 3 depending on class numbers) we will examine the assignment document. The actual document will be shared with the students on Google Drive and on the course web page. 2) The assignment will require research and this element must be clear to the students. Simply guessing will not work for this project. Closure: (30 min) 1) Once we have examined the assignment and rubric in detail, the students will have the remainder of the period to work on their project. I will need to provide assistance to the students as this assignment can be daunting at the start, but will become clearer in the coming classes.