Class 15 — Financial Literacy: Budgeting a Small Food Venture

Session overview

A food venture fails on paper before it fails in the kitchen. Tonight we build the money picture of a small food business: what it costs to exist (fixed costs), what it costs to sell one more plate (variable costs), and how to lay both against the sales you honestly expect — so the month ends with something left over, on purpose.

Learning objectives

By the end of this session, you will be able to:

Distinguish fixed versus variable costs in a small food venture.
Build a simple monthly budget for a hypothetical food business.
Identify common budgeting mistakes new food entrepreneurs make.

Session flow — 50 minutes

Time	Segment	What happens
5 min	Warm-Up	Sort cost examples into fixed and variable piles.
10 min	Mini-Lecture	Chef McCoy walks through a simplified monthly budget structure.
20 min	Signature Activity: Budget Jenga	See the activity below — teams allocate, then absorb the surprise costs.
10 min	Debrief	Discuss which pulled block caused the most damage.
5 min	Takeaway	Students keep their budget template — and complete the exit ticket below.

Key concepts — the glossary

Fixed cost: A cost that stays the same whether you sell one plate or a hundred — kitchen rent or commissary fees, permits and licenses, insurance. It is owed on your slowest week too.
Variable cost: A cost that moves with how much you sell — ingredients, packaging, per-event help. Sell more, spend more; sell nothing, spend (almost) nothing.
Food-cost percentage: Ingredient cost ÷ sales. The fastest health check on a food business: kitchens commonly teach a healthy range of about 28–35%.
Margin: What's left after every cost is paid, as a share of sales. The margin is the cushion that absorbs a slow week or a price jump.
“Life happens” cost: The surprise bill nobody budgeted for — a cooler dies, a market day rains out, an ingredient doubles in price. A real budget leaves room for it before it arrives.

Signature activity · 20 minutes

Budget Jenga

Teams allocate a fixed budget across cost categories — then absorb random life-happens costs by pulling money from a category and explaining the consequence out loud. It makes budgeting tangible and consequence-based: every block you pull, something real gives.

Then run your own numbers. The class budget template lives in the platform as the Small Venture Budget Builder — set the period to per month, enter a hypothetical venture's sales and costs, and watch the food-cost percentage, total costs and margin build live. It's the template you keep tonight.

Open the Budget Builder Runs on your phone — your numbers stay on your device; nothing is saved or sent.

Materials for tonight

Cost category cards (warm-up sort + Budget Jenga).
The “Life Happens” surprise-cost deck.
Your phone — the budget template is the Budget Builder in this app, not a handout to lose.

Common budgeting mistakes — tonight's card

Forgetting to pay yourself

If your labor isn't a line, your "profit" is partly your own wages in disguise.

Budgeting your best week

Plan on the honest average week — then check the worst case before you trust the plan.

Losing the small costs

Fees, packaging, gloves, labels — individually tiny, together a real slice of every sale.

No life-happens cushion

The surprise bill is not an if, it's a when. Fixed costs are owed in the slow weeks too.

Discussion prompts

In Budget Jenga, which pulled block caused the most damage — and why that one?
Pick a food venture you know: name its two biggest fixed costs and its two biggest variable costs.
Which of tonight's common mistakes is the easiest for a brand-new entrepreneur to make without noticing?
When a life-happens cost lands, which category would you pull from first — and what consequence do you accept?

Exit ticket · before you leave

Three lines, out the door

1 · One fixed cost and one variable cost from a venture you'd actually like to run.
2 · Your completed monthly budget from the Budget Builder — show your margin.
3 · One budgeting mistake from tonight's card that you are now watching for, in your own words.

Finish my budget in the Budget Builder

Student takeaways

A completed monthly budget template — built in the Budget Builder tonight.
The Common Budgeting Mistakes card — on this page, whenever you need it.

Resources & sources

Villa Kitchen Small Venture Budget Template — the Budget Builder, in this app (VK-authored).
U.S. Small Business Administration — budgeting basics: calculating what a venture costs to start and run.

Session materials © 2026 VK Capital Ventures Inc. — prepared for the TSU Workforce Readiness Series. Instructor Hub pages render the session guides in-app for teaching; the series is taught by Travel Villa Kitchen at Texas Southern University.

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