Personal Finance and Budgeting Project
Get the full classroom-ready project
Personal Finance & Budgeting Project
Everything on this site is the free companion to the complete printable and digital project for middle school, high school & adult education.
- ✓38 pages of real-world budgeting activities
- ✓Needs vs. wants, housing, transportation & emergencies
- ✓Editable PowerPoint, Google Slides & Easel
- ✓Answer key and rubric included
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Free companion site
Personal Finance & Budgeting
This is the free companion site for the Personal Finance and Budgeting Project. Both videos and the monthly budget spreadsheet your packet uses are here, in order.
Work through the sections in order, or jump to the one your teacher assigned. Everything here is free to use with your students.
2 videos
Budget spreadsheet
Free to use
01Watch
Budgeting Basics
A budget is just a plan for money you have not spent yet. This video covers the foundation the whole project is built on: what income and expenses are, the difference between a need and a want, and why writing it down changes how you spend.
02Watch
How to Set a Budget and Stick to It
Making a budget is the easy part. Following it for a whole month is where most people give up. This video moves from writing the plan to actually living on it — tracking what you spend, adjusting when the numbers do not work, and building in room for the things you did not see coming.
The number most first budgets get wrong. People remember rent and forget the small repeating costs — subscriptions, snacks, gas, a haircut. Those are the ones that quietly break a budget, so track everything for the first month, even the two-dollar purchases.
03Download
Monthly Budget Spreadsheet
This is the working file for the project. Enter your income at the top, fill in what you expect to spend in each category, and the totals do the arithmetic for you — so you can see right away whether the month balances or comes up short.
Monthly Budget spreadsheet
Downloads as a spreadsheet file. Open it in Excel or Google Sheets, then save your own copy before you start typing so the blank version stays clean for next time.
Opens in a new tab · Google Drive · Free, no account needed
If a category comes out negative, that is the assignment working. A budget that does not balance on the first try is normal. Go back and change a number — that trade-off is the decision the project is asking you to make.