Budgeting Activities for Teens: A Classroom Guide for Teachers

Imagine your students confidently making choices about their money; saving for something special, planning for the future, and understanding the value of every dollar. Teaching budgeting isn’t just about numbers; it’s about empowering teens with skills they’ll use for life.

Let’s explore why budgeting matters for teens, what makes it challenging, and practical ways you can help your students build these essential skills.

Main Takeaways

• Budgeting for high school students is one of the most important skills a teen can develop.
• High school teachers can use free online resources to teach teens about budgeting.
• These resources are available right now and can fit into almost any curriculum at any time.

Table of Contents

1. What Is Budgeting and Why Is It Important for High School Students?
2. How Do You Teach Budgeting to High School Students?
3. What Should Be Included in a Teen Budget?
4. What Are Some Budgeting Activities for High School Students?
5. How Can Teachers Make Budgeting Lessons Engaging?
6. What Are Common Budgeting Mistakes Teens Make?
7. How Can Students Track Their Spending and Stay on Budget?
8. How Can Teachers Assess Student Understanding of Budgeting?
9. Where Can Teachers Find Free Budgeting Resources for the Classroom?
10. Empowering Students to Take Control of Their Financial Future

What Is Budgeting and Why Is It Important for High School Students?

How do you define budgeting? In short, budgeting is a system designed to help a person both spend and save money. Learning these skills helps high school students in the short term, as many will be working part-time and earning money for the first time. However, students are often bad with money because they haven’t received any financial education at home. According to the National Financial Educators Council, only 23% of kids frequently discuss money with their parents.

Teachers can provide the high school financial education that teens aren’t getting at home. This can have numerous long-term benefits for students, including helping them avoid debt, buy a house, and generally achieve financial independence. In this way, lessons about budgeting for high school students last a lifetime for the teens who benefit from them.

How Do You Teach Budgeting to High School Students?

Budgeting is vitally important for high school students to learn, but how do you actually teach teens to budget? Begin by using examples that everyday students can relate to, like saving up to buy a car or saving money for the upcoming prom. This helps students see that these lessons will have an immediate and practical impact on their lives.

Students these days are “digital natives” who don’t always learn best from a textbook. Fortunately, Everfi offers a suite of free, interactive financial literacy lessons aligned to national Jump$tart standards that teachers can easily integrate into their lessons. These tools are very effective: Just last year, over 3 million students learned critical personal finance skills with Everfi.

What Should Be Included in a Teen Budget?

Adults use their salaries to budget for major items like car payments and house payments. But when it comes to teens, where can they get money, and how should they actually budget? First, students should add up all their current income, including regular income such as paychecks and allowances.

Next, teens need to consider which of their expenses have fixed costs (like their share of the car payment or a monthly haircut) and which are variable (like the occasional need for extra school supplies). With this information, they can begin saving for short-term goals (like tickets to the hottest concert in town) and long-term goals (like a college fund).

This should leave at least a small pool of money for an emergency fund. At a minimum, a teen should start saving for a $500 emergency fund to cover unexpected expenses like speeding tickets. Afterward, teens may wish to donate any remaining amount to charity, a kind act that may be tax-deductible when they are older. Everfi’s lessons can really help here: 30% more students reported feeling prepared to deal with an emergency expense after completing Grow: Financial Planning for Life.

What Are Some Budgeting Activities for High School Students?

Many high school students are hands-on learners. How, then, can teachers help them learn how to budget? Many fun activities are available to teachers. Keep reading to discover some of the most effective ways to teach budgeting for high school students.

Basic Savings Goals

One of the best interactive financial literacy lessons for high school students is this basic savings goal activity. Alone or in pairs, have students write down a modest financial goal and their weekly income. Have students calculate how many weeks it would take to reach their monetary goal, and consider what they would be willing to give up (even temporarily) to achieve it.

Debt vs. Cash: The Buyer’s Dilemma

Break students into small groups and present them with this personal finance for teens scenario: they must pretend to be a teen considering whether to buy a modestly priced phone with cash or accept a payment plan that charges interest. Have students calculate how much more they will ultimately pay for the phone if they finance it rather than buy it outright. Have students consider how saving up for a big, out-of-pocket purchase might ultimately be far cheaper than the instant (but ultimately expensive) gratification of a payment plan.

Envelope Budgeting

In this personal finance for teens budgeting exercise, hand students four envelopes labeled Savings, Bills, Spending, and Emergency Fund. Assign students a monthly income and ask them how they would allocate their money. After the first round of discussion, throw unexpected scenarios at students (e.g., “what if your car breaks down and needs repairs?”) and discuss how they would adjust their budget to accommodate changing needs.

The examples above include engaging ways to incorporate hands-on, interactive learning in the classroom. Teachers can further supplement these activities with Everfi’s financial literacy toolkit, provides you with even more ready-to-use resources you can use as quickly as today! Looking for proof that Everfi works? High school students who completed Everfi: Financial Literacy experienced an average learning gain of 28%.

How Can Teachers Make Budgeting Lessons Engaging?

Some students may be dismissive of learning budgeting because the subject feels as dry as … well … math! But teachers can keep things interesting by making their budgeting lessons as engaging as possible. Below, you’ll find more information on how to do just that.

Bring in Charismatic Guest Speakers

You don’t have to carry the entire load when it comes to teaching teens financial literacy. Try bringing in charismatic local professionals students will be excited about, including successful influencers and young managers of teen-friendly stores like Hot Topic and GameStop. This can help high school students learn about budgeting from those they already admire.

Tie Budgeting to Students’ Favorite Hobbies

Perhaps the single best way to get students to care about budgeting is to tie it to their own self-interest. Try emphasizing to them that solid budgeting is how they can afford to buy the hottest new fashions and the coolest video games. Once teens know what’s in it for them, they will feel more motivated than ever before to learn about budgeting.

Provide Interactive Tools

Teens always prefer interactive tools over “sit and get” lessons. Try integrating Everfi’s financial literacy resources to make your lessons more engaging instantly. To further engage students, be sure to provide them with the names of phone apps they can download and websites they can use to master practical budgeting skills, both in and out of the classroom.

The methods above are a great way to make every financial lesson more engaging than before. Teachers will also find more resources in the financial literacy toolkit to help them bring about money management tips to real life.

What Are Common Budgeting Mistakes Teens Make?

One of the reasons that financial literacy lessons are so important for high school students is that teens are notoriously bad at budgeting. Fortunately, it’s easy enough for students and teachers alike to learn from the failures of others. Below, you’ll discover the most common budgeting mistakes that teens make.

Mistaking Wants vs. Needs

The most basic mistake teens constantly make with money is confusing wants and needs. In general, they need to learn that some things are essential needs (like a phone, even an older model) and others are luxurious wants (like the newest, shiniest iPhone). Once students properly understand the difference between want and need, they can create a proper budget.

Never Saving Money

Shockingly, a large portion of teens never save any money at all, even though they should be setting aside 10%–20% of their paycheck or allowance. Developing this habit at an early age can help teens grow into adults who know how to budget for both wants and needs appropriately.

Not Properly Tracking Money

Before a teen can properly budget, they need to know where their money is going. Sadly, far too many teens don’t track what they are paying for or what digital subscriptions they currently have. Fortunately, a variety of apps are available to help teens track their spending and make wiser financial decisions.

How Can Students Track Their Spending and Stay on Budget?

Teens historically have had a tough time tracking spending and staying on budget. Fortunately, teachers can help their students get started.

Using Spreadsheets

The simplest way that students can track spending and stay on budget is to create a financial spreadsheet. This spreadsheet should track income, expenses, goals, and anything else the student wants to include. The more data they collect, the more efficiently they will be able to budget.

Online Banking Features

If a teen has their own bank account, they should explore the online banking features. A growing number of banks will keep track of your different expenditures and provide information about how much money you spent on bills, food, entertainment, and so on. This provides all the info a teen needs at the click of a button.

Personal Budgeting Software

Another easy alternative for teens who want to track spending is to download and use personal budgeting software. Apps like Mint make tracking easy and provide granular info on the fly. Such apps are often the best way for teens to track their finances and move closer to their financial goals.

All of these suggestions are reliable ways for teens to track spending and meet their budgetary goals. Teachers can supplement these suggestions with Everfi’s Financial Literacy Toolkit. It includes:

• Over 90 hours of digital & offline lessons for students in grades 4-12
• Planning calendars
• Discussion guides
• Guest speaker opportunities
• Virtual PDs
• College scholarship opportunities & more!

How Can Teachers Assess Students’ Understanding of Budgeting?

If you’re reading this, chances are that you’ve never taught budgeting to high school students before. How, then, can you properly assess whether the students are learning or not? The most traditional method would be to use quizzes and reflection prompts to gauge what students have (and have not) learned from your lessons.

You can also assess learning through various hands-on activities. For example, split students into groups and have them create and deliver peer presentations on various financial subjects. You can also have individual students create budgeting portfolios that demonstrate what they have learned in your class. Additionally, Everfi’s lessons include built-in assessments and reporting tools, making it easy for teachers to evaluate student learning. You should expect some very positive results: students who completed Grow: Financial Planning for Life experienced an average learning gain of 37%.

Where Can Teachers Find Free Budgeting Resources for the Classroom?

School districts are typically cash-strapped and can’t afford to develop a financial literacy curriculum from the ground up. But many trusted sources offer free budgeting resources. This includes Everfi, Jump$tart, NEFE, and the FDIC’s Money Smart.

While many sites offer free budgeting resources, Everfi’s free resources come with a standards-aligned curriculum. You also get access to convenient resources, like the financial literacy toolkit, ready for immediate use in the classroom. These resources make learning both fun and easy, and students who completed Minding Your Money: Skills for Life experienced an average learning gain of 39%.

Empowering Students to Take Control of Their Financial Future

It’s vitally important that high school students learn how to budget their money. To make that happen, teachers across the country need to focus on providing teens with a versatile education in financial literacy. Fortunately, it has never been easier to give the money management lessons that students need to hear.

At Everfi, you will find over 90 hours of free, easy-to-use financial literacy resources for studnets in grades 4-12.  These are the lessons students need the most, and with Everfi, you can start changing their lives today. Get started today.