Empowering Special Needs Kids with Budgeting Skills
What would your special needs kid or friend do if he/she were responsible for a trip to the grocery store?
That was a question I put to the test as I organized an original, simulated ‘Budget game’ as the highlight activity of this past Lifeskills club meeting. Lifeskills is a club within the nonprofit True Love for Hope, dedicated to teaching autistic children to be self-reliant by encountering real world situations with life skills. Financial literacy, you guessed it, is one of the main topics we cover in Lifeskills club. Like everyone knows, with money, comes responsibility, and budget management plays a vital role for sure. What better way to teach and practice this concept than a fun grocery budget game?
This is how the simulation game worked. Each child was given $300 (not real money) to spend on a week’s groceries. They were required to ‘buy’ from the categories of meat, dairy, grain, eggs, cooking oil, fruit and vegetables, and spices/seasoning. After they met all the mandatory items above, they were free to buy anything they wanted—just not over the budget. We had three autistic students, each paired with one volunteer. They were to research for groceries online and record their choices on a separate sheet of paper, also calculating how much money they spent and what was left over. Whoever spent the least amount of money on groceries from reasonable sites and of reasonable quantity won the game.
As the game kicked off, both the volunteers and the children were eager and incredibly competitive. The volunteers helped the students start off by searching directly on google for items or a specific grocery store’s website. The challenge really heated up when the kids were caught between different prices of different foods within each grocery category. They discovered they needed to achieve the ideal balance between cheap prices and healthy, delicious foods they wanted to eat. The experience was extremely fulfilling and exciting to watch as the children were becoming more comfortable with the concept of spending on a budget. They could also get a taste of what their parents had to go through when they bought groceries. After the kids bought all their necessary groceries, they got to the fun part—they could buy anything they wanted with the leftover money. The kids, both girls and boys, shared their favorite wish-list items, while maintaining their budget.
Overall, the activity was successful, and I highly recommend parents or clubs to try this simulation out. It helps to develop their understanding of managing a budget and searching for the best deals when it comes to grocery shopping. If you want to spice things up, you can take your pal to an actual grocery store and let him/her decide what to buy on a budget!
