Best for
Starter financial capability lessons, pastoral programme work, practical maths, or an end-of-term life-skills rotation.
Mathematics / life skills • Years 6-10 • Practical planning page
Money Skills: Budget, Save, Spend, Share
This handout helps ākonga think practically about how money is used: meeting needs, planning spending, setting a savings goal, and making choices that support future options rather than impulse decisions.
Free planning page, premium adaptation path
This page is ready to print as-is. Te Wānanga becomes useful when you want different dollar amounts, a bilingual class version, or a school-specific scenario built around your learners’ age and readiness.
- Swap in age-appropriate income or spending scenarios.
- Generate a simpler support page or a senior budgeting extension.
- Save your adapted page to My Kete and revisit it in Creation Studio.
Kaiako planning snapshot
- Use length: 20-35 minutes for a practical worksheet, or longer if students compare decisions in pairs.
- Grouping: Individual planning with quick pair kōrero after each section.
- Prep: Decide whether to use the sample amount on the page or replace it with a class-generated weekly amount.
- Teaching move: Push students to explain why a decision is wise, not just whether it is cheap.
- Support / stretch: Offer one completed example for support; ask students to design a second budget for stretch.
Resources already provided
- A needs-versus-wants thinking frame
- A simple budget planner
- A savings goal section with writing space
- A consumer-choice checklist
- A curriculum companion for teacher-only planning
This page is deliberately practical. Students should leave with a clearer money plan than the one they started with.
Ngā Whāinga Akoranga / Learning Intentions
- We are learning how to separate needs from wants.
- We are learning how to plan a simple budget that includes saving.
- We are learning how to make spending choices that support future goals.
Paearu Angitu / Success Criteria
- I can sort spending ideas into needs, wants, and savings.
- I can build a simple budget using a realistic amount of money.
- I can explain why one spending choice is wiser than another.
Curriculum integration / Te Marautanga alignment
The companion page makes the links explicit around money calculations, percentage discounts, and practical decision-making in context.
Why this matters in Aotearoa
Money decisions affect mana motuhake, whānau wellbeing, and future choices. Students do not need to wait until adulthood to practise sensible planning; they need usable thinking tools now.
Through a mātauranga Māori lens, money choices can also be discussed in terms of responsibility, contribution, and making decisions that care for people as well as self.
Start here: needs, wants, savings
- Needs: things that are essential right now
- Wants: things you would enjoy but can wait for
- Savings: money put aside for a goal or future need
- Share / support: ways money can also help whānau, group goals, or others
My budget planner
If I had $40 this week, I would plan it like this:
Needs: $__________
Wants: $__________
Savings: $__________
Share / support: $__________
Before I buy it, I ask...
- Do I need this now, or do I just want it today?
- Will I still think this is a good choice in a week?
- What will I lose if I spend the money here?
- Could I compare prices or wait?
- Does this choice help or block my next goal?
My savings goal
Choose one goal and write a realistic plan for reaching it.
Useful starters: “My goal is...”, “Each week I could save...”, “A smart choice that would help is...”
Hononga Marautanga · Curriculum Alignment
Social Sciences — Tikanga ā-Iwi
Level 3–4: Investigate social, cultural, environmental, and economic questions; gather and evaluate evidence from diverse sources; communicate findings and reasoning clearly for different audiences and purposes.
English — Communication
Level 3–4: Read, interpret, and evaluate information texts; write clearly and purposefully for specific audiences; apply critical thinking skills to evaluate sources and construct well-reasoned responses.
Aronga Mātauranga Māori
This resource sits within a kaupapa that recognises mātauranga Māori as a living knowledge system with its own frameworks, values, and ways of understanding the world. The New Zealand Curriculum calls for learning that reflects the bicultural partnership of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, which means every subject area has an obligation to engage authentically with Māori perspectives — not as cultural decoration but as substantive contributions to how we understand our topics. The concepts of manaakitanga (care for others), kaitiakitanga (guardianship), whanaungatanga (relationship and belonging), and tino rangatiratanga (self-determination) provide a values framework applicable across all learning areas, and all are relevant to the work in this handout.
Ngā Rauemi Tautoko · Support Materials
This handout is designed to be used alongside the broader unit resources available at Te Kete Ako handouts library. Related resources from the same unit are linked in the unit planner. All resources are provided — no additional preparation is required to use this handout in your classroom.
Curriculum alignment
- Reading — Making Meaning: Students will select and use sources of information, processes, and strategies to identify, form, and express ideas across a range of texts.
- Writing — Creating Meaning: Students will select and use sources of information, processes, and strategies to write in a range of text types for a variety of purposes and audiences.