Making a Budget
Having the ability to make a budget, stick to it and finally have enough savings to buy your desired item is an important life skill. A budget is a plan to show how much money a person or organization will earn and how much they will need or be able to spend.
The aim of this WebQuest is to give you an insight on how to clearly make a budget so you can track your spending and savings.
You and your sibling are 13 and 14 years old. You both do weekly chores around the house for your parents, and in return you receive €40 each for the work completed. Normally you save half of this, but you both want to start saving three quarters of it instead because you want to split the costs of buying a brand-new PlayStation 5 console. Your parents will allow you to purchase the games console if you can save for it by yourselves and show them a planned-out budget of how this will work.
In this WebQuest, you will be asked to assess your abilities in creating a budget.
- Step 1
So, what is a budget? A budget is basically a financial plan for a specific period, normally a month or year and that is known to greatly enhance the success of any financial undertaking. Learn more about what a budget is and how it works here:
7 Steps to a Budget made easy
How to Budget as a Teenager
What is a Budget - Step 2
You both decided to be open-minded and accept the task of designing a budget to show how you can afford a new games console.
Choose from the budget templates below, or else find or create one yourself. You can choose to print one out and fill it in by hand, or else digitally such as in a Microsoft Excel sheet.
Free Budget Templates
Printable Budget Template
Blank Budget Sheet - Step 3
You and your sibling realise that you will also want to buy two games and an extra controller so that you can play together. You had not entered this in the budget so it will need to be adjusted. Find out the cost of a new PlayStation 5 controller and two new games and then add these costs to your budget or saving goal.
How and Why to adjust your budget
Adjusting your Budget -
Step 4
You are now able to create a budget and make changes to it if necessary. You have set out a realistic savings goal and plan on sticking to it.
How many months will it take you to reach your savings goal if you both continue to save your desired amount of money?
For more budgeting resources for teens, see below:
As part of the assessment of this WebQuest, we ask that you complete a short self-reflection exercise and write 300-350 words on how you rated yor performance in the task, what elements they enjoyed or didn't enjoy and what they would do differently if they were to repeat the activity again.
- What skills did you acquire through this activity? Is there something you were good at that you did not think you would be good at?
- How easy would it be for you to transfer this knowledge to your friend or to another situation?
- What elements of this activity did you enjoy best?
- What aspect did you find most challenging and why?
- If you were to do this activity again, would you do things differently next time? What and why?
Congratulations! Not only have you figured out how long it will take you and your sibling to save up for a games console, games, and an extra controller, but you have also learned how to make a budget that can be used for anything.
This WebQuest has challenged you to create a budget with a savings goal in mind and showed its importance when planning for the future. You have learned how to adjust a budget as required and will be able to transfer these skills to many real-life situations.
By creating a budget with your sibling, you were able to map out a timeline of when you could afford to purchase a PlayStation. You have a better understanding of the effort required to meet your goal which allows you to be realistic with your savings.