Grocery Shopping on a Budget – Financial Literacy

About this resource

What's inside this resource

Healthy eating and budgeting are key life skills that need to be taught to our middle school students in grades 5-8. Here's a fun, interactive lesson that can do just that!

Students are tasked with creating a personalized meal plan using a $30 budget for the day. They are given 20 food options for each of three meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) with the prices provided (based on a Canadian discount food store). They plan which items they will buy for each meal while following some healthy and budget-friendly rules:

each meal must include a vegetable or fruit
each meal must make some leftovers to be eaten another day
all three meals must not exceed the $30 budget

Students can approach this task in different ways. They might decide to use $10 for each meal, or plan two cheaper meals to be able to have one that is more expensive. They might have to change their plan as they go, put back a sweet treat they don't really need, or switch to a cheaper option to stay in budget. These are all helpful, real-life math and life skills!

What's Included:

Teacher Handout with instructions on how to use the lesson.
Student Handout to brainstorm ideas for healthy shopping and staying on budget.
3 Pages of Worksheets: Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner: Each with 20 food options, a shopping list, place to add up the total cost of the meal, and some reflection questions.
Final Budget Page: Students add up the cost of all three meals and write a paragraph to reflect on the shopping for healthy choices on a budget process.

Grades to Use With:

This lesson is perfect for students in grades 5-8 who are learning decimal operations and starting to learn about life skills. It could also be used in a high school special education classroom if the students are able to complete decimal operations (calculators can be used).

What's included

A teacher overview page setting out the three stages of the task and naming adding with decimals as the maths skill required
A brainstorm page on choosing healthy food, what to avoid, and how to stretch money, followed by the challenge rules
A breakfast page listing twenty priced items, from 16 Name Brand Waffles at $6.97 to 2 Roma Tomatoes at $0.80
A lunch page of twenty priced items including tortillas, canned tuna, mini carrots and both brand-name and store-brand granola bars
A dinner page of twenty priced items covering rice, sauces, pasta, chicken, vegetables, drinks and desserts
A shopping list, running total and four questions on each meal page - how money was saved, what makes the meal healthy, what is less healthy, and what will be left over
A totals table for the three meals and a reflection prompt on healthy eating, budgeting and being creative with leftovers
A sample completed set showing one worked route through all three meals, totalling $29.67

Resource types: Worksheets & Printables

In the classroom

Teaching tips & learning objectives

Learning objectives

Build three meals from priced lists while keeping the combined cost inside a $30 budget
Add decimal prices accurately to reach a meal total and then a day total
Check each meal against three set conditions - a vegetable or fruit, leftovers, and the budget
Explain what makes a chosen meal healthy and identify what part of it is less healthy
Compare name-brand and store-brand alternatives and state how a choice saved money

Teaching tips

Run the brainstorm page before the meal pages - the sample responses treat it as the source of the criteria students then use to judge their own choices
Prices come from a discount grocery store in Canada, so a short conversation about how local prices compare is worth having before students start choosing
Each meal page deliberately pairs a dearer and a cheaper version of similar items; pointing out one pair aloud sets up the comparison for the rest of the page
The worked sample lands at $29.67 across three meals, close enough to the limit to be worth showing after students have attempted it themselves rather than before
All three meal pages carry the same four written questions, so the writing load builds; splitting breakfast, lunch and dinner across sessions keeps it manageable
Students are told to assume salt, pepper, spices, oil, dressing, margarine and mayo are already at home, and that leftovers may carry from one meal to a later one - both rules are easy to miss on a first read

Skills covered

Adding decimals in context - students total the prices they choose for each meal and then add the three meal totals on the summary table; the overview names adding with decimals as the maths skill required.
Budgeting to a constraint - a $30 limit for three meals, which may be split evenly at $10 each or spent unevenly, forces trade-offs across the twenty options on each page.
Comparing purchase options - each page pairs alternatives such as name-brand against store-brand waffles, a box of mac and cheese against a bag of macaroni, or a two-pound bag of rice against an instant pouch.
Evaluating a meal's nutrition - after each meal students write what makes it healthy, what is less healthy, and what will be left over for another day.
Reflecting on decisions - the closing page asks what was learned about healthy eating, shopping on a budget and using leftovers, and what was fun or challenging about planning the meals.

Good to know

Questions teachers ask about this resource

Where do the prices come from?

A discount grocery store in Canada, so every figure is in Canadian dollars. The items themselves travel well - store brand against name brand, a large bag of rice against an instant pouch - but a class elsewhere will be working with prices that differ from their own shops.

What has to be true of every meal a student builds?

Three things, printed on each meal page: a vegetable or fruit, enough to feed two people with some left over for another meal or day, and a total that keeps the whole day inside $30. The budget may be split evenly at $10 a meal or spent unevenly across the three.

What arithmetic does the task actually require?

Adding with decimals, and nothing beyond it. The overview page names that skill directly: students total each meal's prices, then add the three meal totals together on the summary table.

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Curriculum

Standards, concepts & topics

Standards

6. NS.B.3 — Fluently add, subtract, multiply, and divide multi-digit decimals using the standard algorithm for each operation.
7.NS.A.3 — Solve real-world and mathematical problems involving the four operations with rational numbers
5.NBT.B.7 — Add, subtract, multiply, and divide decimals to hundredths, using concrete models or drawings and strategies based on place value, properties of operations, and/or the relationship between addition and subtraction; relate the strategy to a written method and explain the reasoning used.