Financial Intelligence LabTools that teach your first real money decisions.

For educators

Financial-literacy resources for early-adulthood decisions

Use short lessons, transparent calculators, and educational games to explore first-paycheck, housing, transportation, saving, and borrowing concepts.

The site is educational only. Instructors can review each page's assumptions, limitations, sources, and accessibility for their context.

Who it is for

  • College instructors
  • Career centers
  • Student-success programs
  • Residence-life programs
  • Financial-wellness programs

Ways to use the site

  • First-paycheck session
  • First-apartment session
  • Cost-comparison activity
  • Vocabulary review
  • Finance-game reinforcement

Suggested 30-minute activity

  1. Read one lesson.
  2. Use one related tool.
  3. Compare the entered assumptions.
  4. Complete one knowledge check.
  5. Discuss the limitations.

Suggested 60-minute activity

  1. Complete one pathway segment.
  2. Compare two fictional scenarios.
  3. Discuss assumptions.
  4. Review a related lesson.
  5. Play a related game.
  6. Discuss what the simulation leaves out.

Original learning resources

Five classroom-ready activities

These activities use fictional scenarios and the site's existing tools. They are designed to be discussed, printed, or adapted without collecting student financial data.

1. Read a fictional pay stub

Use the fictional pay-stub example in Reading a Pay Stub and the Pay Stub Decoder.

Prompts
  1. Identify gross pay and net pay.
  2. Separate current-period from year-to-date values.
  3. Identify which lines are taxes, benefits, or other deductions.
  4. Explain why a bank deposit is not the same as gross pay.

Discussion goal: trace gross → deductions → net without using a real student's pay data.

2. Compare two fictional job offers

Offer A: $58,000 base salary, $2,000 stated signing payment, employer retirement contribution, 15-minute commute.

Offer B: $61,000 base salary, different benefit contribution, 40-minute commute, no signing payment.

  1. Label guaranteed, contingent, and not-yet-valued components.
  2. Use Job Offer Comparison Tool with clearly entered assumptions.
  3. Discuss which assumptions change the modeled totals.

No answer should declare one offer universally “better.”

3. Sort fixed, variable, and periodic expenses

Classify fictional rent, electricity, annual registration, quarterly insurance, groceries, streaming, transit pass, and school fees.

Two dimensions:
  • Does the amount stay similar or vary?
  • Does the timing happen monthly or periodically?

Then model the non-monthly items in the Periodic Expense Planner.

4. First-apartment cost scenario

Fictional household: $1,450 rent, $1,450 deposit, $85 internet, $45 parking, $28 renters-insurance premium, utility bills that vary, and a one-time $220 moving cost.

  1. Separate move-in from recurring costs.
  2. Identify which amounts require lease/provider verification.
  3. Use the First Apartment Cost Planner.
  4. If roommates are included, compare transparent split methods with the Rent and Move-In Splitter.

5. Commute comparison activity

Job A: 8-mile round trip, $120 monthly parking, no tolls.

Job B: 34-mile round trip, free parking, $3.50 toll per workday.

  1. Model fuel, parking, and toll assumptions separately.
  2. Keep commute time as its own output rather than automatically converting time to dollars.
  3. Use the Commute Cost Calculator and discuss what the model leaves out.

Accessibility and boundaries

  • The site is browser-based and requires no account.
  • Tools do not collect submitted classroom responses.
  • Core lesson reading works without JavaScript.
  • Instructors should review content and external-source links for their context.
  • Calculators and games are simplified education, not recommendations or assessments.

Educational boundary

Financial Intelligence Lab provides simplified educational information, calculators, and games. This page does not provide individualized financial, investment, tax, legal, credit, student-loan, insurance, housing, retirement, career, business, or budgeting advice. Examples and formulas use simplified assumptions. Actual costs, taxes, rates, benefits, laws, eligibility rules, and personal circumstances vary.

Educator or partnership interest

The project does not claim that paid packages or institutional partnerships currently exist. The feedback helper can prepare a copyable educator inquiry for an available contact channel.

Prepare an educator inquiry