Can you afford it?

Debt! Hard to live with it! Hard to live without it!

A Webquest for seventh grade math

Designed by

Micky Huff
Mhuff@brenau.edu
Introduction | Task | Process | Evaluation |
Conclusion | Credits | Teacher Page
 Intro
duct
ion
Congratulations !You are twenty-three
years old and you have just graduated from
college. Even though you have just
graduated from college, you have already
entered into the world of debt! The cost of
your college tuition has caused you to
accumulate $25,432.50 of debt because of
student loans and you have $8,600 dollars of
debt in credit cards. Not to mention that
you have a fiancé that wants to get married
as soon as possible, but he or she will not
marry someone that is in debt over
$160,000. Your fiancé also wants to marry
a person that has a car and owns his or her
own house. Now that you have graduated
from college, you are anxious to please your
fiancé and this will require you to be in even
more debt! You have also gained
employment and you are ready to buy your
first house and car! You have to buy a
house, and a car while not exceeding
$160,000 in debt.

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T
a
s
k
You will design and create a budget that
allows you to pay off your debts, save
money to get married, and buy a house and a
car. You will show your budget as a circle
graph and you will write a one-page report
that describes your budget and your plan to
get out of debt. Your final product will be
displayed on a poster board that shows your
budget displayed as a circle graph, a one-
page report about your budget, and a picture
of your house and car.
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T
h
e
P
r
o
c
e
s
s

You will work in groups of three

students. Each student will be assigned a
part in this WebQuest.
 Car Buyer – this
student is in charge
of buying the car.
House Buyer – this
student is in charge of buying the house.
Budget Boss – this
student is in charge of
the budget. It is his or
her job to make sure
t
hat
the
group
stays
under
budge
t.

Even though each

student is in charge of
something, the group
must agree on the
purchase in order to
complete the
transaction.
 What’s your
current total debt?

The first step that you need to do is to find

the sum of your debt so that you will know
how much more debt you can acquire to buy
your first house and car. Remember your
total debt cannot exceed $160,000.

T
o
t
a
l

D
e
b
t

_
_
_
_
 _
_
_
_

Occu
pation

Then you should pick an occupation. After

you pick an occupation, you need to find the
starting salary for
your job. To find the starting salary for an
occupation visit
www.cbsalary.com/salarycalculator/?siteid=sep
Since this is your first year out of college,
your salary cannot exceed $50,000.
(You do not have to fill out the survey, just
click no thank you to see your salary
results.)

O
ccu
pati
on
___
___
___
___
___
___
___

N
et
Ear
nin
gs
per
mo
nth

1. It’s time to calculate your net earnings per

 month. Your net income is the amount
that you actually bring home with you
after taxes. Divide your annual salary by
12 to find your monthly salary and find
2/3 of your monthly salary to estimate
your net earnings each month.

Net
Earnings per month__________________

Buy your first house!

Mo
rtg
age
Pay
me
nt
 Next it is time to pick a
house. Tip (Make sure your
fiancé also likes it)

Go to
www.century21.com to search for a house
that fits into your budget plan.

Once you have found

a house that you are
interested in, you need to
calculate the monthly
mortgage payment for
that house to see if you
can afford it.

To calculate the monthly

mortgage payment go to
http://www.century2
1.com/learn/calculat
ors/mortgage.aspx

When calculating the

monthly mortgage
payment we will assume
that the interest rate is 6%
for a 30 year loan, the
annual property taxes is
$1000.00 and that you do
not have any money
saved for a down
payment.

Am
oun
t of
mo
nthl
y
mor
tga
ge
pay
me
nt
___
___
___
_
 Pick out your car!
After you have picked your house and
determined the amount of your monthly
mortgage payment. Go to
www.traderonline.com to search for your
first car. Once you have found a car that
you like go to
www.habershamfcu.com/calculators/auto_lo
an/clc.html to calculate your monthly car
payment. When calculating the monthly car
payment, we will assume that it is a 48
month loan with a 5% interest rate.

Amount of Car Payment

________________
 Don’t
forget
about
your
monthly
bills!
When calculating your budget, you also
have to think about your bills and
expenses that you will have. These are
the bills and expenses that you will have
each month.

Electric-$40.00

Water- $20.00

Gas- $50.00

Cable- $35.00

Cell Phone Bill- $60.00

 Car Insurance – $90.00

Gasoline- $300.00

Groceries-$375.00

T
i
m
e
f
o
r
a
b
u
d
g
e
t
!
 Calculate the sum of your expenses per
month and make sure that your expenses do
not exceed 90% of your monthly net
income. You need to make sure that you
save 10% so that you can start paying off
your credit card debt and student loans.

8.Show your final budget in the form of a

circle graph that shows each of your
spending categories as a percent of your
monthly net income.

Your budget is required to

have these categories. You can add more
categories to it if you are able to fit them
into your budget.
 Bills, Automotive (car payment and
insurance) , Mortgage, Gasoline, Clothes,
Groceries, and Savings

Are
you ready to make the
final product?
9.Write a one -page paper that describes
your job, house, and car. Also give a
detailed account of your budget in your
paper.

10. For your final product, you will attach

your circle graph, paper, and pictures of
your house and car to a piece of poster board
for the class to view. See the rubric to follow
the proper guidelines.

Congratulations! You
now have a house, a
car, a happy fiancé,
and a plan to get out
of debt and manage
your money wisely!

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Evaluation
(This is how you will be evaluated so please read carefully!)
Beginning Developing Accomplishe Exempla
1 2 d 4
3
The student More than 2 1-2 All of the All of the
has categories categories required required
formulated a that are to that are to categories categori
well- be shown in be shown in are shown are show
designed the budget the budget in the in the
budget that are are budget. The budget.
will allow missing. missing. student’s The
him to be The The debt does student’
financially student’s student’s not exceed debt doe
stable. debt does debt does $150,000. not exce
not exceed not exceed The student $150,000
 $150,000. $150,000. has The stud
The student The student designated has at le
has has at least 10% 10% of h
designated designated of his or her or her
at least 1% at least 5% earnings to earnings
of his or her of his or her savings. designat
earnings to earnings to There are 1- as saving
savings. savings. 3 errors in All
There are 7- There are 4- the calculati
9 errors in 6 errors in calculations in the
the the in the budget a
calculations calculations budget. correct.
in the in the
budget. budget.
The student The paper The paper The paper is The pape
has written is less than is at least at least ¾ of is at leas
a one page ½ of a page ½ of a page a page in one page
paper that long. The in length. length. The length.
gives a student has The student student has student
detailed adequately has adequately describe
description described adequately described his or he
of the his or her described his or her budget i
budget that budget. his or her budget. detail.
is There are 6- budget. There are 3- There ar
grammatical 8 grammar There are 6- 5 grammar 2 gramm
ly correct. and spelling 8 grammar and spelling and spel
mistakes in and spelling mistakes in mistakes
the paper. mistakes in the paper. the pape
the paper.
The student The The The The
has student’s student’s student’s student’
produced a circle graph circle graph circle graph circle gra
circle graph is messy is neat and is neat and is neat,
that is easy and hard to easy to easy to easy to
to read, read. The read. The read. The read and
colorful and sum of the sum of the sum of the colorful.
gives an vectors in vectors in vectors in The sum
accurate the circle the circle the circle the vect
depiction of graph do graph do graph equal in the cir
the budget. not equal not equal 100%, and graph eq
100%, and 100%, and their size 100%, an
their size their size correlates their size
does not correlates with the correlate
correlate with the percent that with the
with the percent they show. percent
percent that they There are 1- that they
 that they show. There 2 errors in show. Th
show. There are 3-4 the percent percents
are more errors in calculations. have als
than 4 the percent been
errors in calculations calculate
the percent . correctly
calculations
.
The student The The The The
has student’s student’s student’s student’
produced a final final final final
final product product is product is product is product
that shown on a shown on a shown on a shown o
accurately poster poster poster poster
portrays a board. It board. It board and it board. T
budget that does not gives a has a title. final
will allow give an vague It also product
them to be accurate picture of accurately colorful,
financially view of what a depicts a has a tit
stable. what a well depicts a well and
structured well- -structured accurate
budget structured budget that depicts a
should look budget that meets most well-
like. It meets only of the structure
does not some of the requirement budget t
meet the requiremen s of the meets al
requiremen ts of the assignment. the
ts of the assignment The requirem
assignment . The student’s ts of the
. The student has final project assignm
student at least 1 also shows a . The
does not picture of picture of student’
have a his house or his house final pro
picture of car on his and car. also sho
his house or poster a picture
car on his board. his hous
poster and car.
board.
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 Conclusi
on
After you have completed this lesson, you will
understand how positive and negative
numbers relate to real life. You will also be
able to use computation skills proficiently and
analyze data by looking at a circle graph. Both
of these skills relate to the GPS standards, and
this is also a meaningful activity that you will
remember when you think about buying a
house or car in the future.

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Credi
ts and
Referen
ces
Clip art images came from the
Microsoft Office Online Clip art
gallery.
 http://office.microsoft.comen-
us/clipart/FX101321031033.aspx?pid=
CL100570201033

Georgia performance standards were

obtained at
http://www.georgiastandards.org/SearchR
esults.aspx

Salary information for occupations as

obtained at
www.cbsalary.com/salarycalculator/?siteid=sep

Home information was obtained

from century 21 at
www.century21.com

Calculations for mortgages were

obtained from century 21 at
www.century21.com/finance/tools.aspx

Information about cars was obtained from

traderonline at www.traderonline.com

Auto loan information was obtained from

the Habersham County federal credit union
at
www.habershamfcu.com/calculators/auto_lo
an/clc.html

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er Page