Should I Buy The First Thing I See?

As you may well be aware, we have a Budgeting game which can be used as both a supplemental and integrated resource. The philosophy of the Budgeting game is for the students to learn by doing. The focus of the game is to keep things simple and for the student to learn the fundamentals of money management. This resource is not here to replace you, but merely to become a teaching tool that you can use to introduce or consolidate a topic, so the basics can be understood, while theory and terminology can be scaffolded onto initial understanding.

Here is a QuickStart lesson that I like to use with my classes that you can use with your classes to introduce some of the fundamentals of money with our Budgeting Game. Each lesson will require the player to play at least one “virtual month” in the game which will take approximately 20 mins. Further time can be taken to do research and answer questions. Differentiation can be by outcome .

Lesson: Comparison Shopping

When shopping it is really important to understand that we do have choices. But buying objectives should be noted. With opportunity cost, we are looking at the cost of giving one thing up for another. With comparison shopping, it is the process of finding and then looking at the choices available to us.

Quite often we assume that price is the only thing that we should consider when comparing products. However, along with the initial price saving, will quality actually be a factor? Are the needs we have defined met by that choice? Do you get what you pay for?

It is always important to understand why you are buying that product and how you intend to use it. There are various ways to compare products, including price comparison websites, reviews of products and the part where you actually try things for yourself and make a decision.

This concept follows on nicely from opportunity cost where the student will want something, but will have to forgo other options.

Activity

Within the Budgeting game, students will have many choices to make.
For one round of the Budgeting game, students should find out how much they have paid for their internet, cell phone and groceries. They should then research alternative plans available to them and produce a comparison list. For the internet and cell phone, they could include the price, plan, coverage etc. For the groceries, they should create a list of groceries that they would buy for a week and then compare prices between 3 supermarkets, remembering to look at the price per unit/weight/volume. Encourage the students to discuss the variation in prices they have found and how they can use this method to reach saving targets.

I hope you enjoy teaching this lesson as much as I do.

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