The Badge Archive

• Fulfills 2 steps of GSUSA Daisy Money Explorer (Year 1) – Paper Money, Practice Using Money – Still requires learning about Coin Money.
• Fulfills all 3 steps of GSUSA Daisy My Money Choices (Year 2) – Needs/Wants, Goal Setting, Costs
• Fulfills all 5 steps of Brownie Budget Builder (Year 1) – Costs, Needs/Wants, Budget Adventure, Comparison Shop, Budget for $15
• Fulfills 2 steps of Brownie My Own Budget (Year 2) – Spending, Needs/Wants – Still requires learning about Spend/Save/Share Budgets and practicing Saving and Sharing.
• Fulfills 2 steps of Junior Budget Maker (Year 1) – Needs/Wants, Choose Between Needs/Wants – Still requires learning about Financial Services, Spend/Save/Share Budgets and practicing making a Spend/Save/Share Budget
• Fulfills ZERO steps of Junior My Money Plan (Year 2) – Still requires learning about Earning Money, Jobs, Income Tax, Saving/Investing, Protect Financial Information

Items Needed:

• Print and cut out items from Flash cards (by GSUSA) file. Make 2 full sets.
• Print and cut out several extra sets of only the clothing page and set aside for the Clothing activity – enough for if you divided your troop into groups of 3.
• Print and cut out enough $1 and $5 fake money from the Pretend Shopping (at DS Brownie Girl Scouts) file for every scout to have (2) $5 and (5) $1.
• Paper
• Pen/pencils

Scavenger Hunt

Around the meeting room, hide the items (from the Flash cards) that fit the categories of groceries, clothes, and school supplies. When scouts arrive, split them into three groups. Have each group hunt for one of the categories. After they have found them, have them total up what one of each item would cost them using pen and paper provided.

Each group shares their total and what they bought.

Sort it!

Change the groups up – sort them into four groups. Take all the grocery items and divide them into roughly half. There will now be two groups with grocery items, one with clothing, and one with school items.

Each group takes their items and sorts them into two piles. One is a pile of things they would need. The other would be things they would want. Remind them that we all need food and clothing and we need school supplies to attend school. However, we don’t need everything at a grocery store, or every kind of school supply there is, and we can only wear so many clothes.

Give them a time limit and then have them share what they found.

All About the Clothes

Use the clothing items and grab the extra sets you printed. Divide the troop once again, this time into groups of no more than 3. Have them take the clothes and compare the tops, the pants, and the shoes. Which one would their group buy and why?

After each group shares what they would chose, explain that the jeans are more expensive, but should last longer than the tights, which sometimes tear after only a few uses. But if you don’t have a lot of money, tights are better than no pants at all.

Talk about the shirts and how the dress is more money, but you wouldn’t need a pair of pants if you wore it. It is cheaper than the shirt and jeans. However, if you wore the shirt and tights, the dress is still more expensive.

Briefly talk about shoes and that the boots look more like cloth ones that you would wear at home, not good shoes for going out and about. They are cheaper, but depending on their materials, it might be more of an accessory than real shoes.

Go on an adventure!

Put away the items you’ve been using and pull out the fun activity items. Pull all the troop together – no groups this time. Huddle around the items and talk about what would be a fun activity and how much would it cost. Let them us paper and pen if they need to when totaling up costs.

The troop needs to come up with at least one adventure and calculate how much it would cost for every troop member to go on it.

Shopping Spree

Get out all the item cards and have the scouts line them up around the room like they are setting up a store. When the store is made, group the scouts in one spot and hand out the fake money – $15 (two $5 and five $1) – to each scout. Tell them they are going to go shopping. They can buy whatever items they want, but they only have $15. If they want to combine their money with someone else to get something big – like enough ingredients for a nice meal they could share – they can.

But there is only 5 minutes on the clock to do all your shopping. It’s first come, first serve. That means whoever gets to an item first has the right to buy it. If the store is out of an item, there is nothing we can do. There will be no fighting over who gets an item, or the store will take the item and put it in the “back room”. That means no one will get to purchase the item. When the timer goes off, whatever is in their hand is what they check out with.

When everyone understands the rules start the timer and let them go. At check out, be a cashier and have them present their items and the correct amount of money to pay for them. Have the whole troop cheer when a successful purchase has been made. If someone calculated wrong and didn’t have enough to pay for everything, have the whole troop give them a pat on the back with encouraging words like “Don’t worry”, “We’ll get it next time.” “It’s okay.”

Extra Time?

Reset the store and go on another trip. Give the different amounts in small groups. Challenge them to buy something for lunch. Challenge them to get something they would want as a reward. Do as many shopping sprees as you have time for.

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