Credit and borrowing

What it is

Money you do not have yet: what renting it costs, how the price is expressed, and how the record of your borrowing follows you around.

Half of this pathway is arithmetic — interest, minimum payments, amortisation, total cost against amount borrowed. The other half is the file: what a credit report contains, who writes to it, who reads it, what a score summarises, and how to find and fix what is wrong in it.

Why it matters, by grade band

K–2

Borrowed things go back. Borrowing from a friend and giving it back is the whole idea, one decade early.

3–5

Borrowing money costs something. The thing that came early has a price for having come early.

6–8

Interest compounds against the borrower. A minimum payment is an offer, not advice, and taking it has a cost that can be computed before agreeing.

9–12

A credit file is a record kept about you by someone else, with errors you are allowed to fight. Financing a large purchase is a shoppable decision, not a signature at a desk.

What a student actually does

• ▸Runs a simulated loan to term and sees the total paid beside the amount borrowed.
• ▸Carries a card balance at the minimum payment and computes what the balance actually costs by the end.
• ▸Reads their own sim credit report — all sections, not the score — finds a planted error, and disputes it in writing.
• ▸Compares two financing offers for the same purchase by total cost, then walks away from the worse one.

What they can do afterward

• ▸Read their own credit report yearly and know what every section is for.
• ▸Dispute an error on the file in writing, with dates and evidence.
• ▸Compare credit offers by total cost rather than by monthly payment.
• ▸Decide when borrowing is the right tool — and price it before signing, every time.