Every day, we are fed with tons of information, and we unconsciously work towards segregating that information according to its usefulness, absorbing it, and applying it in our daily lives. However, a systematic approach is required to predict and manage one’s revenue and expenditure when it comes to finances.
This concept becomes crucial in adulthood, and to teach the same, employing strategies that do not feel heavy and are fun yet logical for the individual is always a win-win! In this post, we talk about why budgeting is crucial and how inquisitive minds can learn this while indulging in some fun activities.
What is budgeting, and why is it important for Adults To Practice?
Budgeting is the process of creating a plan involving anticipated revenue and estimated expenditure. Anticipated revenue here is the potential cash inflow for an individual, and the estimated expenditure can be defined as the outflow of the cash for the future. It is the act of balancing one’s expenses with the current income. Budgeting is instrumental for the foundation of any financial plan, and efficiency in financial management behavior is important to make these decisions.
While certain learning disabilities like dyscalculia can affect one’s budgeting skills; however, adults need to practice the concept of budgeting in daily life to ensure financial security and achieve one’s lifestyle goals. A few other reasons that make it imperative for adults to engage in budgeting are:
- It can help an adult determine their long-term and short-term goals and put them on a path toward directed objectives. It can help set criteria or a map, instrumental for allocating resources to ensure that an individual can live and fulfill their monetary needs well within their limitations.
- It can help adults individually prepare for emergencies and unexpected expenses that their future might hold. Any individual who practices budgeting can look towards a financially stable present and meet the financial needs of the future through the process of saving.
- It is instrumental in avoiding financial overwhelm. By this, we mean that in case of excessive inflow of money or excessive outflow of money, budgeting can be the best way to combat the financial overwhelm that comes with these situations.
Fun budgeting activities to consider
While we have also talked about the various online games that help Individuals understand budgeting better, at the same time, certain activities can help adults regulate the practice of budgeting. Some of which are:
1. Reshuffle the cards
For this activity, individuals need to be guided to make index cards. This is an activity that can be played by 4 people at a time only. Another thing that would be needed apart from the index cards are 4 chits made out of paper, that would have emergency expenses listed out on them:
Dental Expense: 30$
Health Expense: 50$
Car Breakdown: 20$
Major home repair expense: 40$
- Give a strict budget of $100 only to each individual. From this, they would have to note down what they need in a week. This would include travel, food, rent, shopping, and grocery.
- Next, the individuals will randomly pull out a chit.
- The next step would be to calculate the usual expenses that one has written down on their index card. For example, the total is $70.
- Now, the individual would open their chit, to see what emergency expenses have landed in their lap. For example, the person now gets “Health Expense: 50$”.
- However, from the budget of $100, the person has already spent $70, hence, they would have inefficient to pay another $50 for health expenses. This disqualifies the player from the game.
- In the end, the person with the maximum savings wins the game.
This game not only teaches individuals about how emergency expenses can land anytime but also gives in insights into how one can plan their week smartly and wisely so that they have enough savings for any uncalled expense.
2. Purchase Planning
This activity is perfect for adults as it involves planning, purchasing, and a whole lot of teamwork!
- Ask your team to create a list of up to 10 things they want to purchase. The price of all the things can vary here.
- Ask individuals to respond to some other leading questions and to provide an explanation for their selection of these items in this activity. Questions asked by the moderator can be: What core values do these things symbolize for you? How would these things aid them in achieving their objectives? Will those things bring them joy?
- After that, ask the team to come up with a plan for some of the items they want to purchase in the upcoming year.
- Help them choose how they will pay for the item based on whether they have a job, receive an allowance, or have money saved up, and assist them in adjusting each plan to their particular circumstance.
This activity will encourage group discussions and make sure that the knowledge of budgeting is exchanged in the process. Moreover, this activity will make sure that individuals know what their needs are, and as per their needs, how they need to plan their budget.
3. Wear someone else’s Shoes
In this budgeting activity, individuals should estimate how much they believe another individual spends each week. Hence! be ready to do some research!
- Group the Individuals into various situations, such as being single, married, with or without children, paying off school debts, paying for a car, etc.
- Maintain a budget using information from news stories and other sources.
- The player would now have to calculate various things like do they have enough money to pay their debts and maintain their spending plan? Individuals may add up all the costs a certain person can incur on any given day (including the small ones that are easy to forget).
- Individuals can contrast their group’s spending at the conclusion of the week with their forecast.
This game teaches financial acumen and empathy! Moreover, through this activity, the individual would learn more about budgeting as they will be fed with information related to debts, expenses, and much more. Planning a budget for someone else can also give insights to individuals which can help them with their own budgeting, and savings.
4. Plan Meals and Grocery Shopping
This activity will encourage adults to prepare meals on a tight budget! They can either use an internet tool to create a fictitious shopping list or provide money for an actual trip to the grocery store.
- In this activity, Individuals evaluate how they spent their money at the conclusion of the week: Food-wise, did they have enough or too much? Was the food they bought wholesome?
- To take it a notch up, individuals can be given a common budget like $50 – for the individual who has a family of 2, $75- for a family of three, and $100 for a family of 4.
- Now, this would be the budget for their whole week’s grocery shopping. They can make a list of what they would need. The list can also be further divided into – needs, likes, and luxuries so that later, the things can be sorted out as per the budget given.
- For example, buying chocolates might be “Like” for some; if they have the budget for it, they can purchase it, otherwise focus more on the “want” part of the list.
This game encourages individuals to think about the connections between food access and financial health as well as how good financial habits enhance wellbeing. It also helps set a budget for meals thereby encouraging to live a budgeted lifestyle through financial planning.
5. The Game of Chance
All teenagers are advised to assess the expense of their education against the amount of money they hope to make in the future, according to the National Standards for Financial Literacy.
Ask participants to consider their future selves and list the following:
1) A career they are interested in (including becoming a stay-at-home parent);
2) The estimated number of children they desire; and
3) The location in which they wish to reside.
Then, have the team construct a map of their financial future that includes a plan for their schooling and a budget for their homes based on their expected future earnings. Create entertaining vision boards with their money maps using images from magazines, art supplies, and other resources.
6. Monopoly
A strategic board game that both adults and children may play together is a monopoly. Trading houses and paying off mortgages are the game’s primary ideas. Playing this game will teach you money management skills and how to devise clever strategies to achieve your long-term objectives.
You can easily play this game with your mates and enjoy the tricks of understanding budgeting. It will help you out in the best manner for bringing the right results.
This engaging game is perfect to understand financial competition, how money works in the real world, banking systems and structures, and how to play safely in the ever-growing market.
7. Busy budgeting calculation game
For adults to make a busy budgetary calculation game. List several sources of income and outgoing costs on index cards to make the game. Briefly explain the money entering or leaving the fictitious budget on each card. Make enough playing cards so that each individual has ten cards.
Allow the Individuals to draw 10 cards randomly. Inform these individuals that the cards they drew include a list of their revenues and outgoings.
Individuals should use the sheet of paper they were given to add how much money they would have had overall at the end of the month if the cards they selected accurately represented their actual income and outgoings.
8. How low will you go?
Try to outdo each other in terms of how cheap you can make your everyday spending. Add up how much money each of you spends each week on things like magazines, coffee, lunch, movies, and other entertainment.
Find out how much you can save. An expenditure cannot be eliminated since that would be too simple. In other words, even if your morning break always consists of a muffin and a coffee and costs $4.50, you may still enjoy it.
You may switch out the workplace kitchen coffee for a home muffin. Alternatively, you might invite friends over for a potluck instead of going out to dine or rent a movie instead of going to the cinema.
Conclusion
It is imperative as adults to make informed decisions and have a curated timeline for one goal. Hence, it is essential to create a budgeting method that suits your personal needs. This would require an individual to have strong decision-making power, clarity of their goals, and the capability to stick to their budgeting norms.
It is rightly said that with power comes responsibility. Similarly, finances come with the responsibility to truly enjoy financial freedom by budgeting it in the best way possible. This article highlights the importance, types, and components of budgeting activities that can help an adult indulge in the best-balanced budgeting process.
An engineer, Maths expert, Online Tutor and animal rights activist. In more than 5+ years of my online teaching experience, I closely worked with many students struggling with dyscalculia and dyslexia. With the years passing, I learned that not much effort being put into the awareness of this learning disorder. Students with dyscalculia often misunderstood for having just a simple math fear. This is still an underresearched and understudied subject. I am also the founder of Smartynote -‘The notepad app for dyslexia’,