💵 Financing Your Future

Now that I am in grade 10, the main focus of this year in careers has been figuring out my near future. This unit in PGP 10 we have been focusing on the financial part of our future.‘How can I plan a financial future that will provide opportunities for success?’ That was the driving question for this project. Honestly, this is a very important thing to know, especially for high school students preparing for their post-secondary education. During this project, we took a look at investing, different kinds of credit cards, buying cars, and planned a financial lesson plan. 

The first thing we did, as I mentioned before was take a trial run on investing. We used a simulator website to gain an experience on what investing in the real world is really like. I had never learned anything about investing prior to this project, and slowly being able to figure things out myself using this simulation was very exciting. Researching companies, and seeing their stocks through out the years, as well as the recommendations from the website helped me make smart decisions on where to invest to benefit myself the most. 

Next, we did some research on different types of credit cards. We were given a notes document to fill out, and do our own research. I think that this was a great opportunity for me personally, because having to do my own research meant that I would get to discover what kind of credit cards I preferred, and helped me narrow my decision for the future. 

Speaking of our future, another thing we did in this project was create a budget chart fo the first year of university. Creating this helped me figure out how much I need to save up, how much my parents will pay, and give me a more detailed idea of what my realistic and very near future would like. 

Once we had all of this basic information, we played a mini game where we pretended to buy used cars. We explored many scenarios with assigned salaries, and experienced consequences depending on the type of car or apartment we had. I think that this was a fun way to experience what a day in the life of a newly graduated employee. It really helped me get an idea of what it would be like for me. 

💸 Income, Spending, and Expenses

Now that we had learned all these things, it was our turn to teach something. We were split off into groups and were told to choose a topic to research and teach a mini lesson on. My partner and I decided to teach a lesson on the dangers of online shopping. This topic was one I could definitely relate to, since I love to shop online. Creating this presentation not only helped me learn new things about budgeting and smart-spending, but it also (hopefully) benefitted my classmates. After we presented, I got a bit of feedback from my peers on what they thought I could improve on. The biggest feedback that I got was to look more at the audience when presenting, instead of just reading off of the slides. This is something I will definitely try to work on, since public speaking is a very important skill to have. 

💭 Apply Your Learning

Now, to answer our driving question, ‘How can I plan a financial future that will provide opportunities for success?’ I think that to plan a successful financial future, you need to be smart with your money. You can’t spend your money impulsively and always need to pay off the necessary expenses, before purchasing personal wants. This is something that I need to practice, since currently I don’t have any necessary expenses. Overall, I think that this project was very beneficial to me, and I learned so many things that will definitely be useful in the near future.