Money
How do people buy and sell goods and services?
Goal:
Goal:
What is money?
Money is used to pay for goods and services. The most common form of money, or currency, in the U.S. is bills and coins. The most commons bills are $1, $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100. The most common coins are 1¢ (penny), 5¢ (nickel), 10¢ (dime), and 25¢ (quarter).
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People use money every day. For example, they use it to buy groceries, clothes, and gas for cars. What things do you and your family use money to buy? When goods or products have a cost, money is used to pay for them. When you want to buy a product or pay for a service, you are the buyer. The seller is the person you are buying the product or service from. Buyers determine the demand for a product. The demand is how much people want of something. Sellers, on the other hand, determine the supply, or the amount of something that is available. Take a look at an ice cream shop to see how this works. 
If the most popular flavor of ice cream is cookies and cream, there is a high demand for it. People want it. 
People will pay more money for a product if it is in high demand and they want it. So as an ice cream shop owner, you could raise the cost of a scoop of cookies-and-cream ice cream, and people would still buy it. 
But if a product is not very popular, there is too much supply and little demand. As the ice cream shop owner, you would want to sell that supply, so you would decrease the cost of the product. If cotton candy was the least popular flavor of ice cream, you might have a sale of two scoops for the price of one. 
The relationship between buyers and sellers is important. Sellers need to be aware of the demands and prices of their products so buyers will use their money to buy them. If there isn't a balance, there could be no demand and too much supply or high demand with no supply. |
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