Ambassadors
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Ambassador Financial Literacy Planner Badge Activity (High School)
Brainstorm ways to lower troop expenses.
Explore how your troop can save money.
Activity Details
Time needed: 20–30 minutes
Materials needed:
- Fill in
Setup:
Part of financial literacy is learning about expenses: money needed to pay for something. If a person pays monthly for a phone plan or a streaming membership, that’s an expense. Some expenses are essential and help people get by day-to-day, like groceries or rent. Some are investments for the future, such as savings for education or a big purchase. In this financial literacy activity, high school Girl Scouts will look at their Girl Scout Cookie™ business budget expenses and explore ways they can decrease them.
Activity:
- Have Ambassadors (Junior and Senior high schoolers) look at their spending plan for their Girl Scout Cookie business budget. Have them place expenses in the “50/30/20 Spending Plan.”
- Next, ask them to check out the definitions in “Fixed and Variable Expenses” to categorize what their troop is spending.
- Encourage them to adjust the budget and goals according to what they learn.
- Have them explore ways their troop can lower expenses. For example, it might be borrowing camping supplies for a future trip instead of buying them.
50/30/20 Spending Plan
This is a common way to allocate money to help plan a budget. It might not work for everyone, but you can adjust it to meet your circumstances.
50%: Needs or must-have expenses, such as transportation, groceries, basic clothing, and school supplies.
30%: Flexible expenses or wants, such as dining out, entertainment, and membership services.
20%: For financial goals or emergencies, such as saving for future education, travel, or computer repair.
Fixed and Variable Expenses
Fixed expenses are always the same, such as a car or loan payment.
Variable expenses are things like fuel, food, and entertainment costs that are harder to plan for because the amounts change month-to-month.
Unplanned expenses are ones that may not come up every month and usually come as a surprise, like computer repairs or medical emergencies.
Troop Leaders: The instructions for all badge steps are available free of charge in the Girl Scout Volunteer Toolkit.
Girl Scout Activity Zone activities have been adapted from existing Girl Scout programming.
Adapted from Step 1 of the Ambassador Financial Planner badge.Purchase the badge booklet to complete all requirements and earn the badge.
Made possible by a generous grant from Charles Schwab.
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