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Financial Responsibility
by Camille Shosted
/ ga12122007
I made a game out of the lesson. First I had them pull a
"situation" out of a bag- so that told them whether they were single, married,
or married with children. If they were married, I had them next pull out a paper
that said whether they had "1 income" or "2 incomes", and if they had children,
I had them pull out a # of children after that. Then they each drew a "job" out
of a bag- I just looked up different professions and the average amount of money
made, and gave them each a monthly total. (Click
here to open up this file in Word).
Then I gave them all a budget sheet (see outline at bottom of page). I told them
we were going to play the game of "life" for 6 months. So first they had to add
up their tithing and fast offerings for 6 months, and subtract that from their
total first. Then I had them subtract things like car insurance, groceries (I
just made a chart that told them how much per person, so they could add it up
for their "household), utilities, and then they had optional expenses like:
internet, cable, phone & health insurance (which was an extra $65 per person,
per month).
So then they looked at where their budgets were at after all of that, and got
ready to buy their houses and cars. I just glued a bunch of different cars and
houses onto pieces of paper and let them look at the prices, and see what they
could fit into their budgets. After all of this...I put each girls name and the
amount of $ they had left on the board, and then I pulled out a jar that said,
"surprise" on it. They each had to pull out 6 unexpected things for the 6
months. Some of them were good, like, "You clipped coupons and searched for
bargains, so you saved $50 on groceries this month", others weren't so good,
"you got a speeding ticket- $80, or husband loses job for 3 months), and some of
them taught the importance of health insurance, like, "Your child is sick, if
you have health insurance, it will be a $20 co-pay, if not,
it will cost you $250).
So we pulled out the 6 things, and subtracted or added them to their totals on
the board. Surprisingly, none of them went into debt, so I was impressed
that they had left themselves with so much savings. Then we went over the most
important points in the manual. The girls had so much fun, and they were anxious
what our lesson was going to be about, since I told them earlier in the week
that they all needed to bring their calculators to class with them.
Also a big hit, was that I made them each a set of "checks". (Click
here for a check template - it is created in Microsoft Publisher).
I went onto a check website, copied and pasted different checks, and then put a
text box on them and filled them in with each girl's name and our ward.
They especially loved the checks, and they all asked if they could keep them,
and some of them even wanted to take my papers home with the cars and houses on
them so they could play the game with their families. Anyway, that's a
really long explanation - but I thought it went well in our class.
PS - When I had them pick their houses, I just
made up a price with utilities already included to save on time. And I had
everything from apartments, to manufactured homes to mansions, and the same
with the cars- old, used mini-vans up to a brand new hummer. And I just found
those pictures and details in those magazines you can pick up for free by the
doors in some grocery stores.
To figure out the monthly cost for the cars, I
just took the sale price and divided it by 3 and then 12, on the houses, I
divided the prices by 30, then 12. I also wrote on the bottom of the pages
some *extra fees* associated with the homes, but didn't necessarily call
attention to them- I let the girls make uninfluenced decisions. So I wrote
that the apartments had a one-time application and screening fee & deposit,
that the homes had an extra $200 each month for taxes and insurance, and that
the manufactured homes had a $400 per month "lot" rent.
Personal
Monthly Budget
Income
Tithing
Fast Offering
Mortgage/Rent/Utilities
(electricity, heat, water,
sewer and garbage included)
Groceries
Car Payment
Car Insurance
Car Maintenance
Misc. Transportation
Health Insurance
Other Medical costs
Telephone
Internet fees
Cable TV
Savings
Other
Other
Other
Total expenses
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