Financial Literacy Tips & Activitie

This fact-sheet offers tips to help parents teach their children money-management skills. The underlying principle is the need for both adults and children to balance income and expenses.

Tips include using a shopping list to reduce impulse purchases; tracking expenses to figure out where the money goes; and splitting income or allowance into categories of spending, giving, short-term saving, and investing.

The authors have provided basic tips for developing a workable budget, beginning by tracking all expenditures for a month, including rent or mortgage payments, basic groceries, and transportation.

From there, they encourage the user to look closely at expenses to determine whether they really are essential or whether they could be reduced or eliminated.

The authors of this brief document explain, in chart form, a variety of different means of borrowing money and offer some advice on the costs of each one.

This document sets out, in chart form, programs the Government of Canada offers to help parents save for their children’s post-secondary education through a Registered Education Savings Plan. The programs are the Canada Learning Bond (CLB); the Canada Education Savings Grant – Basic (CESG – Basic); and the Canada Education Savings Grant – Additional (CESG – Additional).

This document explains, in chart form, three special savings plans established by the Government of Canada: the Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP); the Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA); and the Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP).

For the RRSP, the authors also provide a chart that shows how much greater a return on investment someone can earn by starting to save at age 25 instead of waiting until age 30, 35, 40 or 45.

This sheet offers an activity to help the user track spending on a daily, weekly and monthly basis by keeping a money journal.

This worksheet offers a way to track monthly income and expenditures.

The authors have provided charts for listing each item and the amount spent on it each month. Expenses are divided into "basic needs" and "extra wants" categories. At the bottom of the sheet is a space for calculating how much income is left after expenses.

In this document, the authors provide definitions for common financial terms, including direct deposit, net personal income, and credit check.

They also include brief explanations of a number of government financial programs, including Canada Education Savings Grant; Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA); and Canada Learning Bond.

The authors of this document have provided brief definitions for a variety of financial terms, including credit, interest and income, and for financial products like an RRSP (Registered Retirement Savings Plan) and an RESP (Registered Education Savings Plan).