Basics: the simplest concepts
If you know nothing yet, start here. These lessons explain the simplest everyday concepts in plain language with real-life examples. Read them in order: each one builds on the previous one.
All lessons 12 lessons
1Lesson 1 Finance What is money and why do we need it?The first Basics lesson: how hard it would be to get bread without money, what three jobs money does, and how pocket money can turn into a big purchase. For a reader who knows nothing yet.Start →- 2What is a market?The second Basics lesson: is a market only stalls and counters, who meets there, and why three bakers on one street are good for the buyer. In the simplest words.
- 3What is a price and how does it appear?The third Basics lesson: what is hidden inside the price of one loaf, how a baker works out his price, and why tomatoes get more expensive in winter. With simple examples.
- 4Goods and services: what is the difference?The fourth Basics lesson: the difference between a thing you can hold and take home and work that someone does for you. Shown with a barber, a baker and a cafe.
- 5Income and expenses: shown on a family and a shopThe fifth Basics lesson: where money comes from, where it goes and what is left at the end of the month. We put one family budget and the accounts of one bread shop side by side.
- 6How are profit and loss calculated?The sixth Basics lesson: two weeks of a watermelon seller, one ending in profit and the other in loss. We calculate how much is left from one watermelon and how a loss can be reduced.
- 7What are ownership and property?The seventh Basics lesson: which things in a seamstress's home are hers, and which she has only taken to use. We make a list of her property and calculate its value.
- 8Debt: lending and borrowingThe eighth Basics lesson: the credit notebook of a neighbourhood shop, how the shopkeeper himself owes someone too, and the charge paid on top of a loan. We look at both sides of a debt in a simple table.
- 9What are savings and how are they built up?The ninth Basics lesson: if a schoolgirl who dreams of a bicycle puts money aside every week, when will she reach her goal; and how does a family build a reserve for an unexpected day. With a table of weeks and months.
- 10What are wages and how are they calculated?The tenth Basics lesson: the pay of two workers at a car wash is calculated in two different ways. One by the number of cars washed, the other by the days worked. We see what wages mean for the worker and for the employer.
- 11Who is an entrepreneur and what is an enterprise?The eleventh Basics lesson: when Munisa, who sews dresses at home, becomes an entrepreneur, what an enterprise is, and why business money must not get mixed up with family money. With a simple calculation for one month.
- 12Document and receipt: why is everything recorded?The twelfth Basics lesson: at Qodir's shop a cash shortage turned up at the end of the day. What a document and a receipt are, why they are needed and how to find a missing entry, with a simple calculation.