Foundations of Personal Money Management

This unit introduces essential personal finance concepts—budgeting, tracking expenses, saving, net worth, emergency funds, consumer protections, and basic fintech tools—to build practical money-management skills. It reinforces foundational math and decision-making and prepares students for deeper financial planning, credit, and long-term investing topics in later units.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze personal financial behaviors and common consumer pitfalls using case studies to identify risky decisions, scams, and warning signs (e.g., timeshare or predatory offers).
• Apply budgeting techniques to create and maintain a monthly budget and to track expenses across categories using both manual methods and digital tools.
• Demonstrate calculation of savings rate, financial net worth, and emergency fund adequacy for given scenarios and interpret results to set short-term savings goals.
• Evaluate features of savings accounts and technology-based solutions (banking apps, automation, budgeting software) to recommend strategies that build, protect, and automate emergency savings while minimizing common money mistakes.