STAYING ON BUDGET: LEADER'S NOTES The Scout Association Registered Charity Numbers 306101 (England and Wales) and SC038437 (Scotland).
introduction One of the most important aspects of managing your money is knowing how to budget. It means that you know how much money you expect to receive and how much you expect to pay out over a particular period of time. If you want to save up for something special like a holiday or just make the most of the money you have day-today, it s a good idea to budget. You don t have to be out at work and earning a salary before you can start managing your money so budgeting can be as relevant for young people as for adults. But we know it s not easy, so that s why we ve put together this resource to help Scouts become brilliant budgeters. The Scout Association working with Natwest The Scout Association has teamed up with NatWest MoneySense to produce this resource for Scouts to help them learn how to budget. It will help you deliver a balanced programme of activities. There is also a Scout activity pack which should be provided to each Scout as further support. The activities in the pack relate to those outlined here, but parts of them can also be done at home. These resources should help give Scouts confidence in themselves and their own ideas, and, of course, be great fun. This pack will help Scouts learn more about: What is a budget Working out weekly budgets Money and travelling It s part of a series of five NatWest-sponsored activity packs covering a number of money management skills in simple ways that you can include in your programme: Money and your life Staying on budget Bringing the fun into fundraising Running your own event Running your own business Make money make sense NatWest run MoneySense, a programme that has helped more than two million British young people to develop money management skills. All materials are impartial and do not promote NatWest products or services. Find out more at natwest.com/moneysense
Activity: spending and saving Introduce your Scouts to budgeting and try our fun quiz To introduce your Scouts to the concept of budgeting it may first be necessary to gauge their understanding of the subject with a group discussion. You first might want to find out what your Scouts know about budgeting by asking them a few questions and getting a general discussion going. These might include: Have they ever saved up for anything? What sort of things have they saved up for? How did they manage to get the money together? Did they save the money every week? Did they have to go without things to do it, like sweets and magazines? I don t really make my money last very well. I m normally out of it by the end of the month, but I think I really should write down what I m spending it on and try and budget a little bit more.. Matthew, 11, London When you ve finished the discussion, get your Scouts to try the saving money quiz from their own Being On Budget activity pack. Talk about the results of the quiz, and how it relates to the five budget tips below. top five budgeting tips FOR SCOUTS 1. Before buying something, ask yourself if you really need it, or whether it would be better to save the money for something better or more important. 2. Make sure you think about what you need first rather than what you want. 3. Keep a record of what you spend. Write down everything that you are spending. 4. Think about things you re aiming for in the short term to give you some encouragement to budget. 5. Make a collage or write a list of your aims to act as encouragement towards your saving. FIND OUT MORE If your Scouts want to find out more, give them the following link. It s a really useful tool which is also available for you and might help you effectively budget for Scout days out: natwest.com/moneysensebudget-tool
Activity: Estimating the weekly shop This activity will help Scouts estimate how much food shopping costs. What each Scout needs: A partner Access to a local supermarket Pen and paper A bucket (to put any money you decide to raise in) Time: 2 hours Badges it can help towards: Expedition Challenge I have started to use the bank account my parents set up for me. I am saving money that I will need later on as I would like to go travelling. Sarah, 13, Bristol 1. Talk to the manager of your local supermarket to arrange a night when your Troop can pack bags for shoppers. You could use it as a way to raise money for your Troop by asking shoppers for a donation to pack their bags. 2. Once your big shop has been arranged, agree a place and time to meet and make sure you dress smartly so people will want you to pack their bags. 3. Divide into packing teams of two. 4. Get your Scouts to take it in turns to pack. When one person is packing, the other should think about the shopping items and try and guess how much the shopping comes to. Get them to write down their guesses and how close it is to the actual amount when the cashier reads it out. Make sure you ask the manager that it s okay to do this first, and the Scouts should check with each customer before they start writing anything down. 5. Get your Scouts to track how close they are to the actual figure. If they are within 10 of the actual amount, tell them to give themselves one point. The duo with the most points will win a secret prize. This activity could also be done in the Scout Headquarters by bringing in approximately 30 different items (that you know the cost of) and splitting the Troop into two teams. Split the items into 15 and place them into two different boxes. Get each group to pack the goods from each of the boxes into bags and as they are doing it, estimate the cost of the shopping. Then get the group to do the other box. The group who guess closest to the true total wins. FIND OUT MORE If your Scouts want to find out more, give them this link which has some really good tips about saving and budgeting: natwest.com/moneysensebudgeting
Activity: World currency This activity will help your Scouts to understand how world currency and money works. This will be essential if you are planning any foreign trips but will also give them some really valuable life skills. What each Scout needs: Some foreign currency. If you can t get enough, you could either use some images of currency off the internet and print them out, design your own or get the Scouts as a first activity to make their own having done some research at home Exchange rates for three different currencies A partner Pen, paper and colouring pens Time: 1 hour 35 mins Badges it can help towards: Expedition Challenge Making a budget and saving some money meant I could afford to go on a Jamboree, it was an amazing experience and I am glad I made the effort. Govinda, 14, Carlisle 1. Get your Scouts to bring in examples of foreign currency to your next Troop meeting. Also, get them to look on the internet or go into their local bank to find out the exchange rates for currency in three different countries of your choice. 2. Display the notes or coins that are brought in on the floor or on a table (10 minutes.) 3. Get your Scouts to move around the room and try to guess which country other people s coins and notes are from. Get them to discuss what they know about the country where the currency comes from (30 minutes.) 4. Get Scouts to share with the Troop what you found out about different currency rates. Were they different depending on where they looked? (15 minutes.) Two more things you might want to discuss with your Scouts: 1. Travel insurance. Let Scouts know that it s a good idea to get this before they go abroad and explain what it s for. 2. Other ways to pay. Get your Scouts to tell you 5. Now ask them to work out how much their foreign currency is worth compared to 1. If you were travelling to America, you d swap pounds for dollars. Find the latest exchange rates online at exchangerates.org.uk (10 minutes.) 6. Get them to ask the person next to them to work out how much of their currency they could get for 200 (10 minutes.) 7. Ask them if they could design their own currency, what it would look like? Have a go at designing one coin and one note (20 minutes.) about the different choices they know of to make payments abroad. Tell them about the use of credit and debit cards abroad and also explain that there will be charges for this. Also tell them how traveller s cheques are pre-printed cheques for a fixed amount, often in a foreign currency, issued by a bank, that can be used instead of cash. And that they can also get pre-pay cards from places like the Post Office which they load with money before they travel.