fandomhigh | Life Skills; Monday, First Period [01/23].

"Alright," said Summer, feelings all too comfortable leaning forward on a Danger Shop version of the check-out counter at Turtle & Canary (complete with Fake Squishy Machine and AI Apu!), "so. Continuing with our practical approach to this class in a variety of useful, but not exactly thematically cohesive, ways, today, we're going to move onto something that could be a little tricky in a place where so many people are from so many different places, but we're going to talk about money. In particular, we're going to focus a lot on budgeting. Sounds super fun, right?

"Now, obviously," she continued, "we're all from different places, so there's a good chance you have a different form of currency or maybe you don't even have a monetary system, but some sort of barter and trade deal instead. But since you're here now, we're going to focus on American currency and capitalism for the purposes of this particular lesson."

Which meant it was time for a quick overview of the US currency, which included a nice laminated handout of some conversion rates that surely wouldn't make anyone's eyes gloss over from trying to decipher it. She explained a little bit that, if you haven't already, the bank in Fandom was actually great at converting all sorts of interdimensional currency into currency to be used here, and, obviously, the sheet was only covering some other countries on this planet only.

"So now we're going to move onto a little thing called budgeting, which is basically just managing your money so you don't run out of it. Some people have an astonishingly difficult time doing this. Other people are far too good at it and end up not spending their money on anything. Most people are probably going to be somewhere in between. We're going to talk a little bit about different ways to budget, as well as tips to make it a little easier, and then we're going to practice, and then I'm going to give you some homework."

Hey, they were the ones who mostly voted for all this practical real life life skills stuff! Don't get mad at her for sticking to it!

"But, today, we're practicing with grocery shopping; you're going to get a random amount of money, and you get to spend the class trying to figure out the best way to spend it here in this fake T&C, and still have enough left over for, like, rent and other expenses. And then, for the homework, I have a worksheet for you to work on through a weekly budget that includes things like making time for leisure and eating out and things like that. Don't stress about it too much if there's a writing or language barrier there, we'll try to figure something out. The main goal is just to help you be smarter about money. Which, I mean, I'm definitely not the best person to be teaching that, but at least I know my spending habits are dumb.

"And with that? Let's get started."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Like a rich bitch.

Kurt Wagner

Gray

Belle

Beta

Josephine Jones

Learn all about the American currency system and capitalism! Find out about all the fun expenses you get to deal with as you move on into adulthood, assuming you're likely to be sticking to a society like this one after you graduate! Find out about fun hidden fees and unexpected expenses that'll fuck up your budget and how to prevent them!

And basically all you need to prepare yourself for the assignment for the week, which is the worksheet, in which you're given a particular budget, a list of expected expenses, where you can work out how you're going to spend that money throughout the week.

Firstly, Gray's family was rich, thanks to his brother Castor's thorough mastery of the stock market. Secondly, no matter what Gray did he would never be the family member who blew the most money in a month (that was also Castor).

So this was all extremely academic to Gray, and instead of paying attention to the lecture he was subtly looking for a place to nap where he wouldn't, say, knock over a display.

Kurt was listening to the lecture tentatively. He had quite a range of surface-level experience with different money systems and such having been raised on a farm, dealing with German monetary systems, then having to learn American capitalism (bleck). He still wasn't great at managing his own money, something his folks and The Professor hoped he would pick up. He was trying. He really was!

By now, Vi was relatively sure that Summer didn't deliberately pick topics that'd get her back up, but it sure felt like it sometimes.

Belle did know something of budgeting but not in any way that resembled what was being discussed today. Belle had some experience with a household budget and military budget for her father's lands.

This was, somehow, somewhat more confusing. But she was a clever girl. She could sort it out.

This was... all over Beta's head, frankly. She'd gone from being a tool in a bunch of trillionaires' arsenal (that a whole one of them occasionally even remembered was a person), on a spaceship where everyone just plugged into VR all the time anyway, to part of a small group in a primitive post-apocalyptic society where people (Aloy) hunted very large robot animals for materials they needed and used the metal shards off those kills as currency for everything they couldn't get themselves.

And she'd been given a thorough education in STEM fields, not economics, because what was the point of that when all she'd been intended to do was operate the machinery to wipe out all life on earth (again) before the trillionaires took it and fucked off to a new planet anyway?

Let's say you're given a handwavey amount of money to spend in the store today! How do you spend it? What do you get? Have you spent that money wisely, or were there better choices you could have made? Or are you completely lost on the concept of capitalism and how money works?

Oh, and careful not to be bullied into buying expensive cheeses from the fake cheese panda, too, while we're at it!

Gray had finished his nap and now had an armful of candy and Eggos that, based on his rough mental calculations, should be under budget. Maybe. Probably.

Wait, did they have sales tax here?

Why was there tax added to the price of goods? Why wasn't that just figured into the posted prices?

Some things about this realm would never make sense.

Beta was not literally tearing her hair out at all of this? But she sure looked like she might.

"None of this makes any sense," she kept muttering under her breath.

Vi didn't even bother looking at any of the food that might actually be tasty or fun to eat, or anything that might give her itchy fingers, instead just grabbing a couple of bulk packets of grains and pulses.

She'll be more than happy to postpone going to the real Turtle & Canary after this if anyone should need her!

Oh, wow, budgeting memes are really, really terrible...

Have a screaming sun planet crossover meme instead:

Life Skills; Monday, First Period [01/23].

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