There are two sides to a budget—income and expenses. When asked how to best balance a budget, people often respond by saying to reduce or eliminate expenses. In this lesson, students choose a car and a housing option and, using these expenses, determine if the income they earn from the occupation they’ve chosen will be sufficient when other expenses are added. If they determine it is insufficient, they seek ways they could increase the income side of the budget by improving their human capital.

Students read A Chair for My Mother, about a little girl and her family who save money to buy a chair after their furniture is destroyed in a fire. Students learn that characters in the book are human resources who save part of the income they earn. Students identify other human resources, discuss how their work allows them to earn income and name strategies that will help them reach a savings goal. (Book written by Vera B. Williams / ISBN: 068804074-8)

In this lesson, students practice counting as the book Counting with Common Cents is read. As they count pennies, nickels, and dimes, they place those coins on the appropriate spot on a handout, indicating how many pennies are equal to a nickel and a dime. They discuss saving their pennies and draw a picture of an item they would like to buy. In an optional activity, they draw pictures or write notes indicating chores they would do to earn 10 pennies.

Students learn that the loanable funds market is a virtual clearing house matching borrowers and savers. They participate in an activity to demonstrate crowding out in the loanable funds market. They use demand and supply analysis to graphically represent the results of crowding out.

Students are given a portfolio of investments, and they assess the relative risk associated with the products in their portfolios. They later determine which savings and investment instruments might be most suitable for clients of different ages and economic status.

Stocks and bonds offer potential gains for investors, but they can also help fuel the economy. The October 2016 issue of Page One Economics: Focus on Finance explains how stocks and bonds can help companies grow, entrepreneurs start businesses, and governments fund public projects.

You may be doing all you can to prepare for the price of education after high school, but if your savings, grants, and scholarships aren’t quite enough, do not overlook student loans as a means to gaining the education you need to make the big bucks.

Students engage in an activity that matches programs for low-income people with the type of economic inequity the program addresses and observe an activity simulating tax payments and transfers.

Students are read the story Little Nino's Pizzeria and identify the inputs in a pizza, categorizing them as intermediate goods, natural resources, human resources, and capital resources. They use a Venn diagram to sort attributes of each restaurant mentioned in the story and the attributes the restaurants share. As an assessment, students write a restaurant review, categorizing the inputs of pizza.

Students develop the production possibilities frontier model while discussing the value of models in general in explaining complex ideas. They see what movement along the production possibilities curve entails on both the constant-cost curve and a bowed curve indicating increasing costs. They discuss ways a society can consume beyond the limits of its production possibilities through specialization and trade, as well as through an increase in resources, capital investment, and technological advance.

In this lesson, students learn that saving is essential to economic well-being, especially in times of extreme economic downturn. They read Saving Strawberry Farm, a story about a Depression-era family attempting to save a neighbor's farm by waging a penny auction. Students hear about the lack of goods and services available and the high rate of joblessness during this terrible time. They simulate a bank run to see how even those with savings were affected. Finally, they learn that savings are safe in banks today.

In this lesson, students read about incidences of racial discrimination and how those incidences were met with methods of protests. They engage in an activity that matches programs for low-income people with the type of economic inequity the program addresses and observe an activity simulating tax payments and transfers.

In this lesson, students read the story of Sojourner Truth and discuss events that took place during her lifetime. Among these were the abolition of slavery and the effects of policies pertaining to abolition. Students will determine the costs, benefits, and unintended consequences of policies, beginning with an analysis of costs, benefits, and unintended consequences of a policy that would allow them to take two years off of school before advancing to middle school. They will analyze the effects of policies noted in the book and continue the analysis by examining government policies.

In this lesson, students learn about the act of saving and how the accumulation of money saved is termed savings. They are read a story about a family that saves and how savings can be used to make a large purchase the family would not ordinarily be able to make. They recognize that there is an opportunity cost to saving, as well as an opportunity cost to spending.

Students make a choice between a cookie and an ice cream cone and state the opportunity cost of their decisions. They then listen to the story Something from Nothing and identify all the items Grandpa makes his grandson Joseph, beginning with a blanket. Using a sheet of paper that represents Joseph's blanket, students cut out the various items Grandpa made and identify the opportunity cost for each item they cut out.

After reading a story about a supermarket, students examine the change in supermarket jobs due to the advances in technology. Students observe two demonstrations. One simulates the checkout process at a grocery store using a cash register, and the other uses scanners that are in stores today. Students conclude which method is faster and more accurate and why.

U.S. taxpayers expect the government to be a careful steward of taxpayer money. The October 2017 issue of Page One Economics: Focus on Finance explains how the Treasury Offset Program recovers taxpayer money from people who have received government benefits in error or by fraud and also recovers delinquent child support.

Students will determine the costs, benefits, and unintended consequences of policies, beginning with analysis of a policy that would allow them to take two years off of school between grades 10 and 11. They will then analyze the costs, benefits, and unintended consequences of various government policies.