Create a Career Budget Approximate Time Needed:   60 Minutes Lesson Summary:   Students will learn how budgets work and why they are valuable, as well as learn how to create a budget based upon potential career earnings. Lesson Objective:   Students will, through group discussions and web-based research, create a budget and see how to develop a concrete plan with money. Students will also communicate their ideas and findings to the group in a class presentation. Materials and Resources: ECOS Career Search or Career Directory ECOS Career Strategy ECOS Life Skills Budget worksheet Classified section of local newspaper Calculator Paper and pen and/or pencil Helpful Hints:   Students can work individually, but would preferably working groups of two or three Be sure to emphasize that this is not a traditional math exercise with one right, absolute answer. Students are formulating estimated budgets for the practice of doing so, not to see if all their numbers add up correctly. Activities Students login to ECOS using their User ID and Password and then go to the Life Skills module Once in the Life Skills module, students click on Resources and then on Finance to choose the “Budgets” article Students will read the article and answer the following questions on a separate piece of paper What is a budget? List three advantages of using budgets Have you ever used a budget before? If yes, when? How did it work for you? If you were to estimate your total monthly expenses as a working professional, what would you guess? Students will go to the Career Search or Career Directory and choose one career to save to their Locker Students will read the data provided in the Career’s details pages and go to the Career Strategy to view the salary information for their chosen career Students will use the strategy function to specify in which state they would like to view the salary information Students will refer to the classified section of the local newspaper to search for information pertaining to local prices (i.e., apartment rentals, furniture and car purchases, day care, etc.) Students will create a monthly/yearly budget based on the researched information and insert information into the Budget Worksheet Students will look at their results and discuss them with their group, answering the following questions in a group discussion Do your estimations seem accurate and realistic? Are you surprised by any of the numbers and/or results? For instance, are your total monthly expenses more than you expected? Each group of students should present their sample budget in front of the class, listing their estimates for each individual expense and sharing their answers to the research questions The teacher should be able to speak to the following issues Common themes found in the budgets presented by students Reality of student estimates (may compare student estimates with real-world examples) Importance of budgets (may provide other examples of budgets such as a company’s budget, giving concrete examples of how these budgets affect every-day life) Evaluation:   The presentation or a combination of the presentation and the notes from the research Possible Adaptations:   After the first budget exercise, other budget exercises may be introduced. For example, students can create a budget based on a specific scenario, such as living in a specific city and finding out the average amount spent renting a one-bedroom apartment.