The idea in brief. Find what was spent before finding change; compare each complete purchase with the budget. Find the amount spent before finding the change. Count every copy of an item. In the lesson. Last lesson, you added and subtracted money. Today, we find the total cost first, and then the change. Find the total cost first, then subtract it from the money you have.
Lesson video, with the working
Shopping, change and a budget
5 min 20 s
The film teaches 3 questions in turn. Each question shows first; its working is written as the film explains it.
How do you solve money word problems with change in P3?
This page applies P3 money sums to shopping: finding a total cost, the change from a note, the money left after buying several items, and which items fit a budget.
What your child learns here
This page applies P3 money sums to shopping: finding a total cost, the change from a note, the money left after buying several items, and which items fit a budget. It is a word-problem use of the P3 outcome on adding and subtracting money in decimal notation.
Find the total cost first by adding every item, counting repeated items each time they are bought.
Subtract the total cost from the amount paid to find the change or the money left.
Work backwards: the amount spent plus the money left gives the amount at the start.
Count a payment made with more than one note before working out the change.
Check every pair of items against a budget, knowing that a pair costing exactly the budget can be bought.
Does the answer make sense?
Change can never be more than the money handed over, and the money someone had at first must be more than the money left after buying. When your child works out how many pairs fit a budget, the answer cannot be more than the number of different pairs the stall offers.
How to practise these questions
The Basic question practises finding change by subtracting the price from the amount paid. The Intermediate questions add buying more than one item before the change is found. The Challenge questions work with a budget, asking what can still be bought, or working back from the change to a missing price. If a shopping question is stuck, watch the solution film for it and try it once more later from Revision.
Questions parents ask
How do I teach my P3 child to find change? Start with the total cost, then subtract it from the money paid. Real shopping or a pretend shop at home makes the two steps feel natural, and the lesson on this page sets them out as two written lines.
Are two-step money word problems in the Primary 3 syllabus? The Primary 3 syllabus lists adding and subtracting money in decimal notation. Shopping problems use that skill twice, once to find the total and once to find the change, so they apply the outcome to everyday situations.
Does my child need to draw a bar model for shopping questions? For simple change questions, two written lines are usually enough. A bar helps when the question works backwards, such as finding the money at the start from what was spent and what was left.
