The Game of Life

Part 2: Creating a Budget—where am I going to live and what am I going to eat?—DUE Friday, September 19th!

  • Step 1: Using the 3 jobs that you found from Part 1 create 3 Budgets—1 for each job! (60 points)
  • To figure out how much your take home pay is go to:
  • Make sure you have the state as Alabama, and that you are looking at annual figures. Choose how often you will be paid (monthly is most common). Do not fill in any other information on the form and press calculate!
  • You will need to recreate the following chart and fill in the information:

EXAMPLE / Job #1—no college or experience needed / Job #2—Bachelor’s Degree needed / Job #3—Dream Job
Annual Income/ Gross Income (before taxes) / $36,000
Less income taxes, Social Security, & Medicare / -$8926.70
Net Annual income (take-home pay) / $27,703.30
Annual Spending (Living Expenses)
Housing (Apartment Rent, Mortgage, etc). You need to attach the actual apartment or housing listing to your report. / $12,000 ($1000/ month) /
Utilities and Cable TV
Find out how much cable is for a year? List the website or ad that you found your amount from. / $600

Cell Phone Find out how much for a cell phone a year.
List the website or ad that you found your amount from. / $600

Groceries, Laundry, incidentals Make a shopping list of all the items you need to survive for a month. This needs to include your food, laundry, personal products, etc. You will need 3 separate lists for each job! (For instance, you might have a larger list for the job that pays more. Or, you might have more needs depending on what your job is). Multiply this amount by 12 to get your annual grocery budget! / $3600 /
Car Payment Find the car you want and figure out how much you have to pay each month to afford the car. Multiple that amount by 12 to get your annual car payment. List the website or ad that you found your amount from. / $2400

Car Insurance How much will it cost to insure that car for the year? List the website or ad that you found your amount from. / $1000

Gasoline, car maintenance, registration How far do you need to drive from your house to work? Figure out how much gas will cost for the year. (Multiply the number of miles you drive per day by how many days you work (ex: 10 milesx5 days=50 miles per week). Then, multiply this number by 52 to get the number of miles per year. Then, divide this number by the average cost of gas (ex: 5000 miles per year/3.19 per gallon=$1282 for gas). This is the amount you will pay in gas per year). List the website or ad that you found your amount from. / $1500

Clothing Do you have to have designer clothing? How much can you spend a year on clothes? List the website or ad that you found your amount from. / $1000

Restaurants, travel, & entertainment Would you like to take any trip? Or go to a nice restaurant for your anniversary? Figure out how much it will cost…Don’t forget you need to list the website or ad that you found your amount from. / $2000

Gifts & Other Expenses How much are you going to spend on holiday gifts for family and friends? What other expenses may you have? Do you have special hobby (scrapbooking, snowboarding, hunting, etc) that costs money? List the website or ad that you found your amount from. / $1500

Annual Living expenses (add up all of your living expenses) / $26,200
Money left over for savings:
Net Annual Income – Annual living expenses = / $1503.30

STEP 2 ON BACK!!!!

Part 2-Continued….

Step 2: Type up a 1-2 page response to your findings from your research. Do not simply answer the questions—write a 1-2 page paper/essay (40 points).

  • Were you able to get all of your wants with each of the 3 budgets?
  • What items did you have to give up in order to pay all of your bills?
  • What items on the above list can be sacrificed for a while, in order to save more money now?
  • What did your learn from this activity?

Part 3: Create a Savings Plan—getting what I want! 100 points total—DUE Friday, March 7th!

  • Step 1: Answer the following questions in complete sentences (25 points):
  • Have you opened a savings account yet? Why or why not?
  • What could you give up in order to make regular deposits in your savings account?
  • What is the opportunity cost to smoking?
  • Write a 10-15 sentence response to the following statement: Your decision is not between spending and saving; your decision is between spending now and spending more later.
  • Step 2: Interviewing 5 adults (75 points):
  • Survey 5 adults (non-CHHS students. Adults must be over 18, and NOT in high school. You can ask parents, teachers, friends, etc. You can ask them in person or on the phone) about their savings plans—Include your results in your final report (25 points).
  • Ask them the following questions, and write down their answers:
  • How do you save money? (Do not ask for the amounts—that is rude! Ask what percentage of their income they save)
  • If the person is not saving money, ask them if they feel they could save money if they made it a priority.
  • Ask them what items they have purchased that they could do without.
  1. Type up a 1-2 page response to your findings from your interviews. Do not simply answer the questions—write a 1-2 page paper/essay (50 points).
  2. What was the overall consensus of your surveys—are adults saving or spending all of their money?
  3. What did your learn from your interviews/surveys?
  4. Put the following action plan in your paper:
  5. When I have a full-time job, I will set aside ______percent of my income every pay period.
  6. By giving up_____, I can save a minimum of _____ a month.

Turn in the interview question/answers AND your 1-2 page response!!