Budgeting and Finances!

This week in PSHE, we continued our work in budgeting and financing. Over the last few weeks, we have engaged in some excellent discussions about money, mortgages and essential and non essential bills. This week, the children got to put their skills to use and plan a budget based around our fictional character, Billy. Billy was moving to a new area and needed a new job, house and budget planner in order to plan out his finances. The pupils had to work in pairs in order to find the best situation to suit Billy. They were given a choice of careers and salaries to choose from, having to work out the monthly take home after tax and pension contributions. They then had a selection of properties available from Rightmove to choose the best and most affordable property for Billy and his family. The children had a list of essential bills such as water, gas/electric and council tax which they had to deduct from their pay as well as savings for emergencies and paying for food and toiletries for the household. Anything they had left over at the end of the month, they could use to budget for non essential activities and leisure activities such as cinema trips, takeaways and pets. We had some excellent discussions about money and finances and I think it really opened up the children's eyes to the fact money really doesn't grow on trees! I think my favourite quote of the day was "Oh I'm not paying for a car that's too expensive. He will have to get the bus!" Over the next few weeks we will be continuing this work around budgeting in order to give children an insight in to how to manage finance and prepare them for life beyond primary school.