Planning Ahead
Planning ahead means thinking about what you might need your money for before you spend it.
What's ahead?
Instead of spending everything today, you can plan for expenses you know are coming.
How planning connects to saving
Spending it all today
If you spend all $10 today, you won't have the $5 when you need it. What could you do instead?
A budget is planning ahead
A budget is one of the simplest ways to plan ahead — deciding where your money will go before you spend any of it.
⏱️ Short-term
Something you need soon — like a birthday present next week.
📅 Long-term
Something you may need or want much later — like a bike later in the year.
Plan your $20
You have $20. A birthday present costs $5, a school activity costs $3, and you want to put $8 toward a savings goal. How could you plan your $20?
$5 + $3 + $8 = $16 planned, leaving $4 available for anything else. There's no single correct answer — the important part is thinking it through ahead of time.
Use upcoming real-life events as examples — an actual birthday, an actual school trip. The aim is helping your child understand that money often needs to be available at the right time, not just at some point.
Where to next
More on saving and budgeting.
Next lesson: Unexpected Expenses
Even the best plans sometimes need to change when something unexpected happens.