Teaching Participants About Using Cash Flow
This article focuses on providing practitioners with both information and tools on using cash flow to help participants manage their financial resources.
This resource provides teachers and students with an alternative to the usual budgeting activities that are found in most financial literacy curricula. Cash flow management is designed to better reflect the realities of unstable incomes and unexpected expenses.
Most financial education curricula include information on household budgeting but they do not represent the dynamic nature with which money enters and leaves a household.
Cash flow is a term used frequently by businesses to express the constant ebb and flow of money in and out of an enterprise. Cash flow management has an important role in the management of household finances too, and can be a welcome addition to a financial education program.
Unlike the budgeting taught in many financial education programs, cash flow takes into account the fluctuations and timing of both sources and uses of income. Learning about cash flow can help people better understand how to control their finances weekly and may be a better starting point for students struggling to make it to the end of the month without running out of money.
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