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100 Pennies Budget Percentages Activity (Free PDF)

By: Author Amanda L. Grossman

Posted on Last updated:

Budgeting by percentages and measuring your own spending to common budget percentages is a great money life skill to practice.

Budgeting by percentages – whether that’s following the 50/30/20 rule, or your own set rule – is an important tool in any money manager’s toolbelt.

white paper with pie chart with lots of pennies on it, text overlay "budget percentages activity for students"

It gives you:

  • A quick glimpse, overall, of your portion of money going towards needs vs. wants.
  • A blueprint for how to use your money as your income changes
  • An early warning sign for budgets being out of balance

But grasping what it means to budget by percentages – figuring out which category gets what percentage out of 100% of the money – can be kind of difficult for kids and teens.

It feels like just playing with percentages and numbers that don’t really represent actual money being moved around.

That’s where this budgeting activity comes in.

100 Pennies Budget Percentages Activity for Students

Can kids and teens actually visualize what it means to budget with a large pot of money?

Probably not.

But with 100 pennies? That’s more relatable.

Using 100 pennies ($1.00), they can see how much out of every dollar should go towards certain categories.

The 50/30/20 rule (50% spending on needs, 30% spending on wants, and 20% spending on debt repayment) suddenly becomes:

  • 50 pennies for needs (like food, utilities, and housing)
  • 30 pennies for wants (like streaming services)
  • 20 pennies for savings or paying off debt (like student loans, and saving for retirement)

OR, they can use other suggested percentages based on more niche categories.

Here’s how this goes.

Supplies Needed: 100 pennies (I got mine from our bank – yes, they looked at me funny), pipe cleaners (or a pencil), big piece of white paper, sharpie, and free printables

1. Download the free printables and print them out (answer key PDF is included).

2. Choose which of the two Budget Percentage Worksheets you want your students to work on:

  • The 50/30/20 rule, OR
  • The budget broken down into more categories:
    • Housing: 30%Transportation: 10%Life: 25%Debt: 15%
    • Savings: 20%

3. Set up a budget money math station: draw a large pie circle in the middle of a large white piece of paper. Include a pencil, 100 pennies, pipe cleaners (if using), and the worksheet you’ve decided your students will work on.

two rolls of 50 cents of pennies, next to pie chart partly covered in pennies by budget category

4. Have students work through physically counting out the number of pennies needed for each budget category. They will put these in the budget pie chart, then separate each category of pennies by drawing a line, or by using pipe cleaners (especially good if you want to use the same base pie chart over and over again).

hand counting out pennies to be put into big pie chart

This simple budgeting activity will help them to see that out of every dollar, a certain percentage/amount should go towards housing, a certain percentage/amount goes towards food, a certain percentage/amount goes towards transportation, etc.

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Amanda L. Grossman

Chief Creator at Money Prodigy
Amanda L. Grossman is a writer and Certified Financial Education Instructor (CFEI®), a 2017 Plutus Foundation Grant Recipient, and founder of Money Prodigy. Her money work has been featured on Experian, GoBankingRates, PT Money, CA.gov, Rockstar Finance, the Houston Chronicle, and Colonial Life. Amanda is the founder and CEO of Frugal Confessions, LLC. Read more here or on LinkedIn.