Curriculum / Financial Literacy / module 2

The Needs and Wants Audit

By OSH Founding Team✓ Verified by OSH Review Panel

The learner audits a real month of family or personal spending and sorts every line into needs, wants, and traps.

Parent guide (what to say and do)

Share an anonymised version of one real family expense month, or use the learner's own tracker. Sort each line into three columns: needs (survival and obligations), wants (chosen pleasures, which are fine), and traps (spending that brought no lasting satisfaction). The traps column is the goldmine; discuss what triggered each trap purchase. No shame allowed at this table, including for the parents' lines.

Learning material

Three-column audit sheet (platform library)
Trap trigger checklist: boredom, ads, friends had one, sale pressure

Practical exercises and activities

Audit session: sort one real month completely. Trap hunt: for one week, note every advertisement that creates a want. Rewrite: redesign the audited month to fund one meaningful goal without touching needs.

Materials required

A real month of expense records and honesty.

Assessment checkpoints

Learner sorts a month accurately, identifies at least two personal trap patterns, and produces a rewritten month that funds a goal.

Learn with AI

Ready-made prompts for this module. Copy one into your AI assistant and it becomes a patient tutor that follows the OSH method: no lecturing, no rote learning, hands-on activities included.

For the student

A tutor that teaches this module step by step, asks questions, and never just gives answers.

For the parent or teacher

A coach that helps you prepare, deliver, and troubleshoot this lesson.

How to set this up in ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude

ChatGPT: Open ChatGPT → press your profile → My GPTs → Create a GPT → paste the prompt into Instructions → name it after the module → save for repeated lessons. Or simply paste the prompt at the start of a new chat.

Gemini: Open Gemini → Gems panel → New Gem → paste the prompt into the instructions box → name it after the module → save. The Gem stays available for every study session.

Claude: Open Claude → create a Project (or a Skill in Claude Code) → paste the prompt into the project instructions → every conversation in that project becomes a tutoring session for this module.

Safety note: children under 13 should use AI assistants together with a parent, and account age rules of each platform apply.

This module is part of the open OSH curriculum, licensed under Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0. Print it, adapt it, share it.