We all know that to manage our finances effectively, it helps to have a plan…aka budget.  With that being said, many high school students and young adults have no idea how to do this. If you teach any courses, classes or units that include adulting or financial literacy, this Salary to Budget Hyperdoc is a must to get them ready for life!  Initially, the hyperdoc puts the learning in the hands of the students as they independently work through the basics about budgets before applying what they’ve learned in a simulated budget, paper plate visual project, using a randomly assigned occupation and salary. Learn more as you continue reading.

Set

• Introduce the Intro to Personal Financial Management via the hyperdoc.  I always do the ENGAGE part as a class to kick off the lesson and then discuss it.
• Take a few moments to briefly explain what’s included in the hyperdoc especially if this is the first time you’ve used one.
• Give students time to work through the sections and have them stop when they get to the APPLY section as that will be introduced and explained as a class. In this hyerdoc, students will learn about how to set up a budget, the categories and typical percentage allowances, and vocabulary.

Materials

• iPads or Laptops
• Projector & Screen
• Paper Plates
• Colored Markers or Pencils
• Occupations/Salary Info

Activities

• After students have worked through the hyperdoc and have completed everything up to the APPLY section, you can either go over the assigned sections briefly or wait to grade when the entire assignment is complete. It may be a good idea to spot check with some questions, just to be sure students understand what they’ve just learned.
• Before beginning the APPLY section, you will need to provide students with an occupation. I did this randomly by writing jobs on slips of paper or index cards and placing in a bag or basket.  Students select a card and whatever the job is, that is what they must use to create their paper plate visual budget. They can look up the salary info using this website:  List of Jobs With Career and Salary Information as that’s where they were pulled from.  For example, if a student pulled the job of “teacher”, they would find it in the linked resource and drill down until they found the median salary which is  $55,790. You could put the salary on the card, but you may have to update them yearly so they are current.
• Next, students complete the calculations on the Salary to Budget worksheet to calculate their net monthly income so they can see how much money they have to work with when it comes to their budget category allocations.
• After students have their categories and percent allocations figured out, have them swap papers and do a peer edit on each other’s math calculations.  This way. if there are mistakes they are caught before the visual is underway. Once the peer edits are finished, they can begin creating their paper plate visual.  When they are done, they go back to their hyperdoc and complete the REFLECT and EXTEND sections before submitting the document for a grade. NOTE: I do the paper plate visuals because I like to include hands-on projects whenever possible. The pie chart could also be done in Google Sheets and inserted into the hyperdoc if you’d rather keep the entire lesson digital…your call.  If you need info on how to do this, check out this website.
• I know that giving each student their own job/salary is a bit more work, however, I have found that if I give them all the same job/salary, they copy off of each other and I have no way of knowing if they truly understand the concepts. This way they all are accountable for their own work and I can see who may need additional help and the peer edit also helps them practice their math calculations!
• After grading the projects, I hang up the visuals on my wall.  This not only makes a colorful display, but it piques the interest of other students and administration can see what you’ve been teaching!

Attachments

• Intro to Personal Financial Management Hyperdoc (please make a copy if you wish to edit. Simply go to file, click make a copy and it’s yours)
• Salary to Budget (please make a copy if you wish to edit. Simply go to file, click make a copy and it’s yours)

Similar Lessons

• Lifestyle Creep Hyperdoc
• Inflation & The Family
• Inflation & Savings Scenarios
• EverFi: FutureSmart Financial Literacy Modules for Middle School
• Basic Budgeting

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