Lesson 1.2: Build — and Actually Manage — a Budget
The Go Further companion to Lesson 1.2 in Money Decisions.
SPENT — a budgeting simulation
SPENT puts you in charge of one month on a fixed, low income. Every choice — rent, food, a broken car, a kid's field trip — comes out of the same small pile of money, and the month doesn't care about your intentions.
Key ideas from the lesson
- A zero-based budget gives every dollar a job before the month starts — and savings counts as a job, a line you fill first, on purpose.
- Build in order: fixed necessary bills first, subtract them from take-home pay, then split what's left across flexible lines until the total hits exactly zero.
- Measure saving as a rate, not a feeling: saving $650 out of $2,600 is 650 ÷ 2,600 × 100 = 25%. A rate lets you compare a good month with a lean one fairly.
- At month's end, compare each line's plan with what actually happened. That difference is the variance — information, not failure. A line that runs over three months in a row is telling you the plan number is wrong.
Why this helps
Lesson 1.2 says every budget looks great on the 1st — the real test is the 18th. SPENT compresses exactly that month into one sitting: a budget that survives on paper meets boots splitting, a cracked phone and a birthday dinner in the same week.
Try this
Play one full month of SPENT. Each time the game forces you off your plan, write the choice down in two columns: what it cost, and which budget line it came out of. At the end, compute your variance on the line that moved the most.
Using Money Decisions with a class?
See the whole book, or order classroom sets direct for your school.