Finance

Money is one of the most useful places to use maths. Soon you may have your first job, a payslip, a savings account and maybe a loan, and at school you'll run stalls and fundraisers. In this topic you'll build simple models with algebra to work out when a business or fundraiser starts making a profit, how your pay is worked out, and how interest makes savings grow and loans cost more. You may use a calculator on every worksheet.

What you'll learn

• Investigation: finances. Plan a budget for your first job, set a savings goal, and plan a fundraiser stall that reaches its target.
• 6.01 Cost, profit, revenue: fixed and variable costs, writing rules like $C = 200 + 5x$ and $R = 12x$, finding the profit, and finding the break-even point from a table, a graph or an equation.
• 6.02 Income: wages, salaries, overtime and penalty rates, commission, superannuation, and working out income tax from a simple tax table.
• 6.03 Simple interest: using $I = PRT$ to find the interest on savings and loans, working backwards to find the rate, time or principal, and reading simple interest graphs.
• 6.04 Re-investing with simple interest: adding the interest to the balance each period, filling in balance tables for savings and loans, and comparing this with plain simple interest.

Which level should I pick?

Every worksheet comes in three levels. Each one covers the same skills.

• Level 1 · Warm-up: whole-dollar amounts, short tables and more help along the way. A good place to start.
• Level 2 · Core: the main worksheet for the lesson.
• Level 3 · Challenge: working backwards, comparing options and problems with more steps and more explaining, for when the Core level feels easy.

Not sure? Start with Level 2. If the first few questions feel tricky, drop to Level 1. If you finish quickly and get them right, try Level 3. Download the worksheet, print it, and write your answers in the boxes.

Practice tests

When you've finished the lessons, try the three practice tests. Each one is like the real topic test: 45 minutes, 40 marks, a section without a calculator and a section with one. Write your working under each question, then copy your final answers onto the answer sheet on the last page, just like you will in the real test.