Credit Card Project
Get the full classroom-ready project
Credit Card Project
Everything on this site is the free companion to the complete printable and digital project for middle & high school.
- ✓31 pages of activities with answer key and rubric
- ✓Sample statement, interest math & repayment scenarios
- ✓Editable PowerPoint, Google Slides & Easel
- ✓Downloaded over 5,000 times
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Free companion site
Credit Card Project
This is the free companion site for the Credit Card Project. The five project videos, the spreadsheets you will use for the scenario activities, a real payoff calculator, and a full documentary about the industry are all here.
Work through the sections in order, or jump to the one your teacher assigned. Everything here is free to use with your students.
5 project videos
3 spreadsheets
Payoff calculator
Documentary
01Practice
Label the Credit Card
Every part printed on a credit card is there for a reason. Drag each name into the box beside its number, then check your answers. Some parts identify the account, and others are there to stop anybody else from using it.
Match each number to the right part
Drag these into the boxes above
Tap a box you have already filled to send that name back to the tray.
Look at how many are security features. Most of what is
printed on a credit card is not there to help you. It is there to make the card hard for
somebody else to use. The chip, the signature panel, the hologram, the verification number and
the contactless symbol are all defending the account.
02Calculate
Credit Card Scenario Calculator
Anthony's TV costs $700 on a card charging 18%, and he pays $50 a month. Build the table by hand first. That is the lesson. Then use this to check your work row by row. After that, change the monthly payment and watch what happens to the months, the interest, and the hours he has to work.
Months to pay it off
Total interest
Total paid
Extra hours worked
What a different payment would do
| Monthly payment | Months | Total interest | Hours of work |
|---|
| Month | Balance | Payment | Remaining balance | Interest charged |
|---|
Rounded to the nearest cent each month, the same way you would with a calculator.
Prefer a spreadsheet?
The same activity as a file you can open in Excel or Google Sheets. Start with the blank sheet and build the formulas yourself, since working out how interest gets added each month is most of the lesson. The pre built version is there if you would rather read the pattern, or to check your own sheet against.
Blank scenario sheet ↓ Version with formulas ↓The number to write down is the interest, not the months.
Run it once at $50 and once at $100. The payment doubles, but the interest drops by far more than
half, and that difference is hours of Anthony's life behind a bus tub.
01Watch
Credit Card Project Videos
Five short videos covering how credit cards work, how the companies make money, how payments and interest actually get calculated, and what using one responsibly looks like. Watch them in order before you start the worksheets — each one assumes the last.
04Compare
Credit vs Cash
You found an item and built the balance sheet by hand. Enter the same numbers here to check your table, and to see the other half of the question: what would have happened if you had saved that same amount each month instead of borrowing it.
Buy it now with a credit card
months until it is paid off
- Interest charged
- Total you pay
- Hours of work for the interest
Save up first, then pay cash
months until you can buy it
- Interest charged
- $0.00
- Total you pay
- Hours of work for the interest
- 0.0 hrs
How long each way takes
What each way costs
| Month | Balance | Payment | Remaining balance | Interest charged |
|---|
Rounded to the nearest cent each month, the same way you would with a calculator.
Prefer a spreadsheet?
The same comparison as a file you can open in Excel or Google Sheets, if you would rather your students build it there than by hand.
Credit vs Cash sheet ↓Look at the two savings figures. The money you save by paying
cash is exactly the interest the card would have charged. It is the same number, twice. And saving
always reaches the item sooner, because every dollar goes to the item instead of partly to interest.
05Compare
Which Card Is Right For You?
The Sample Credit Card Application offers two cards. One has a lower interest rate, the other pays rewards. Neither is better on its own. It depends entirely on how you would use it. Put in your own numbers and see which one wins.
How would you pay the bill?
Preferred Points Card
- Interest for the year
- Rewards earned
Net cost
Low Rate Card
- Interest for the year
- Rewards earned
- $0.00
Net cost
What each row of the rates table means
Try it both ways. Set it to pay in full and the interest
rate stops mattering at all. Both cards cost nothing, so the rewards decide it. Switch to
carrying a balance and the rewards stop mattering. Same two offers, opposite answers.
02Download
Project Spreadsheets
These are the working files for the scenario activities. Each one downloads as a spreadsheet you can open in Excel or Google Sheets. Save your own copy before you start typing so the blank version stays clean.
Credit Card Scenario spreadsheet
The working file for the Credit Card Scenario activity. Track the balance, the payment, and the interest charged month by month to see how long the purchase really takes to pay off.
Credit vs. Cash spreadsheet
Compare what something costs when you pay cash against the same purchase carried on a card. The gap between those two numbers is the whole point of the project.
Scenario spreadsheet with formulas already entered
The same scenario sheet with the calculations already built in. Change an input and the whole table updates.
Which version of the scenario sheet should you use? Start with the blank one and build the formulas yourself — working out how interest gets added each month is most of the lesson. Use the pre-built version if you want to focus on reading the pattern instead, or to check your own sheet against it when the numbers do not match.
03Calculate
Minimum Payment Calculator
Every statement lists a minimum payment, and paying only that amount is the most expensive way to use a credit card. Enter a balance and an interest rate below and you will see how many months it takes to clear the card — and how much of what you paid was interest rather than the thing you bought.
Then switch to Fixed payment and try paying just $25 more each month. The difference is usually bigger than students expect.
$
Your minimum payment: $15
Select a payment schedule based on:
With a minimum payment:
It will take you 0 months to be rid of your debt.
In that time, you will pay:
$
0.00
in interest.
Payment Schedule
| Month | Minimum Payment | Interest Paid | Principal Paid | Remaining Balance |
|---|
The number to write down is the interest, not the months. A $2,500 balance at 18% paid at the minimum takes years to clear and costs well over a thousand dollars in interest — money that bought nothing. Run it once at the minimum, once at a fixed payment you could actually afford, and compare the two interest totals. That comparison is the whole activity.
04Watch
Secret History of the Credit Card
A full-length Frontline documentary, made with The New York Times, on how the credit card industry became one of the most profitable businesses in American banking — and how the rules that made that possible got written. It is 56 minutes, so plan for most of a class period.
Two more ways to use it
The film also streams on the PBS site, and Frontline publishes a follow-along guide with questions you can answer while you watch.
Watch on PBS Follow-along guide
Both open in a new tab · PBS