Classroom · Finance
The surprise didn't break the month. Having nowhere to put it did.
Every phone gets a job and a month's pay to split into four envelopes before anyone knows what the month holds. Then it happens a week at a time: the bills, a surprise for some, a temptation for everyone. The room sees who saved, who went overdrawn and what the bank took.
- Up to 600 people
A practice run with fictional students. No real classroom or join code is created.
Try an answer on the phone. Lead the lesson from the screen.
On their phone
You are presenting
Setting up the room…
Lesson deck
Teach it as a ready-made lesson
Hook, how it works, the live game and takeaways. Edit anything.
Payday to payday
A ready-to-teach lesson deck: a hook, how it works, the live game and takeaways for the debrief.
6 slides · 1 activity
What it teaches
Students plan a month's pay against their own fixed costs before they know what the month holds, then read on their own statement where each pound came from when an envelope ran short: Savings, then the overdraft and its fee. From the room's own counts they argue whether saving or salary kept people out of the overdraft.
- Budget constraints
- Emergency savings
- Overdraft fees
Debrief, while the boards are still up
- 01
If a surprise came your way, which envelope paid for it, and what did it cost you in the end? If none came, which envelope would have paid?
- 02
Look at the two-way table. What do the people in the top-left cell have in common, and the bottom-right? If a cell is empty, what would it have taken to land in it?
- 03
The bank's jar: who paid into it? Could the same people have kept that money with the same pay? If the jar is empty, what kept it empty?
- 04
Did a bigger salary keep people out of the overdraft, and how would you argue it from your own job card?
- 05
If you played the second month: what did you change at the second payday, and did the second jar fill more slowly?
How it works
- 01
Add it to your library
Sign up free and pull the activity from Decka's built-in classroom catalog — one click copies it into your own library, ready to run from Decka or inside PowerPoint.
- 02
Students join by QR
Everyone scans from the projector and plays in their phone's browser. No app, no account, nothing to install.
- 03
You run the room
You move the activity phase by phase: collection closes, the boards resolve on the big screen, and the debrief happens while the results are still up.
A budgeting game the room lives for a month
Each phone is dealt a job in the order phones join: a café supervisor, an apprentice electrician, a care assistant, a junior web developer or a delivery rider, in turn, so a class of thirty holds six of each. Each job has its own take-home pay, from £1,300 to £2,150 a month, its own rent and its own weekly travel, and only that phone shows it. The card's small print says what a real bank would: you can go overdrawn, and it charges £25 each time you do.
At payday everyone splits their own pay into four envelopes: Rent & bills, Food & travel, Fun, and Savings. The plan must add up to the pay exactly, and it is made before anyone knows what the month holds. The job card names every known cost: the rent in week one, the phone and energy bills of £60, food at about £50 a week and the job's own travel.
Then the month happens a week at a time. Each week the known costs are paid first, then any surprise, then the week's choice: a birthday meal, a gig, a pair of trainers and a weekend away, each with a cheaper option and a way to skip it. A cost is paid from its own envelope; if that runs short, from Savings; and then from the overdraft, never from another envelope. Every payment that reaches the overdraft adds the fee. Each phone shows its own statement, line by line.
The big screen shows only counts. Each week it tallies the room's choices and how many were surprised, ran short or went overdrawn, and the fees drop into the bank's jar, its label the exact total. At the month's end a two-way table counts who put at least 5% of their pay into Savings against who was overdrawn at least once, beside what everyone had left as a share of their pay. No name, job or salary is ever on the screen.
At the second payday everyone plans again, with their pay plus whatever the first month left: someone who ended overdrawn starts the month owing it. Four new temptations, a second jar and a second table follow. Whether the room saved more is shown, never promised. Try the screen-and-phone preview, where your phone is the care assistant's and practice classmates play the rest of the room through the same runtime as the lesson.
A note for the teacher: in a class, the surprises are drawn for each phone alone and sealed for your room before anyone answers, from the cards of eight short decks written for the lesson, so nobody, you included, can see or choose one ahead, and each reaches only its own phone, the week it comes. Most cards say nothing unexpected happened. The practice room on this page deals those decks by the order phones join instead, so every preview lives the same month. If a student asks why the surprise came to them, say so: the lesson is where their money was when it came.
FAQ
Budgeting game questions, answered
Why can't one envelope pay for another?
Because each envelope is the money set aside for its own things. A cost is paid from its own envelope; if that runs short, Savings covers it, and if Savings is empty, the overdraft does. Money left in Fun never pays the rent. That is how a student can end up overdrawn with money still in another envelope, and the screen counts how often it happened.
How does the bank's fee work?
Every payment that reaches the overdraft adds the fee once, £25 by default: a week with two payments into the overdraft costs two fees. The fee is on each job card's small print from the start, and the jar on the big screen holds every fee the room paid, with the exact total on its label.
Where do the surprises come from?
From the cards of eight short decks written before the lesson: a cracked phone screen, a burst bike tyre, a filling at the dentist, a higher energy bill, a lost travel card and a refund, with most cards saying nothing unexpected happened. In your class each phone's card each week is drawn for it alone and sealed for your room before anyone answers: the big screen shows the seal's fingerprint before the month starts, nobody can see or choose a card ahead, and each phone sees only its own. The practice room on this page deals the decks by the order phones join instead, so a preview always lives the same month. No page prints the decks' order.
What does “saved at least 5% of pay” mean?
It is the table's top row: a plan that put at least 5% of its holder's own take-home pay into Savings at payday. The threshold is a setting, and the row's words always print the one in use. A phone that sent no plan is counted apart under the table, never in a cell.
What happens to a student who joins late, or doesn't answer?
A phone that joins after the plans close is paid into one pot, and every cost draws from it. A phone that sends no plan lives the month in one pot too, counted apart under the table. A phone that doesn't answer a week's choice stays in, which costs nothing, and the week's tally counts it.
Can I change the numbers?
Yes. Before you run it, set the bank's fee, the savings threshold, each week's three prices, each surprise's amount and the envelope it comes from, and the three clocks: four minutes for the first payday, ninety seconds for each week and three minutes for the second payday. Every word on the screen and the phones is yours to edit too. The jobs, the order the payments are made in and the decks' order stay as written.
What does Decka keep about the class?
Counts only: each week's choices and how many were surprised, ran short or went overdrawn, the spreads of the room's plans, both two-way tables, what was left in bins, and the bank's jars. No names, no jobs and no one's own statement are kept.
How long does it take?
Allow about thirty-two minutes for two months, or about seventeen if you stop at the end of the first. Each payday and each week runs on a clock, and you move every other step on when the room is ready.
Do students need an app or an account?
No. Students scan a QR code from the projector (or open a link) and play in their phone's browser. Nothing to install and nothing to sign up for.
Does it work in PowerPoint or Google Slides?
In PowerPoint, yes: open the Decka add-in on a slide and choose the Classroom tile. Google Slides is not supported yet; there you present from Decka itself. Students play from their phones either way.
How many students can play at once?
Up to 50 participants per live activity on the free plan, 150 on Pro, and 300 on Badass.
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