Fun ways to teach budgeting.

[ancoda]

I have been asked to help teach a real world Math class for 8-11 year old boys.  One of the things we are wanting to cover in it is budgeting.  I am wanting to find some fun activities or games to introduce the idea of budgeting.  They could be online or off line games or activities as long as they will appeal to the age of the boys. 

[SundayCrepes]

This isn't budgeting, per se, but it is about compound interest. We did it with our kids.

We told our kids we would give them money every day for a month. The first day we would give each of them a penny then every day we would double how much we'd given them the day before. The only condition was we would give start giving the one money on Sunday and the next we would start giving three days later. (I don't remember if that was Tuesday or Wed.) By the end of the month the first kid had $18 and the second had $14. They saw that the earlier you start saving the more money you end up with in the end.

We also did a virtual credit card. We pretended to lend each of them $1,000. Our son pretended to buy a laptop with his and our daughter pretended to remodel her room. The interest rate was 18% and the monthly payment was 1.5%. Every day they calculated a payment and the interest. They quickly saw that paying back the loan took longer than the laptop or the room would last.