Practicing building a budget will help college students learn how to plan their finances on a short-term basis. Their income might be very small, but having them itemize and categorize purchases, keep receipts, balance checkbooks, pay bills and organize everything is something that everyone needs to know how to do when supporting themselves. This can be done with their real finances or with mock numbers. Either way, it teaches valuable lessons on planning financially every month.
At the beginning of a semester, have each of your students set financial goals for themselves. After they build a budget, have them set a savings goal for each month and come up with ways to reach their goal each month. Then have them write down how much they plan to save by the end of the semester. Once a week, have them write about the process and how it's going, so you can keep track of their progress. This activity teaches financial planning and, ultimately, saving money.
Ask each of your students to write down every purchase they make in a notebook for a whole month. At the end of every week, ask them to add up their total purchases for the week. Then tell them to go down their list and draw a line through the unnecessary purchases. Have them add up the unnecessary purchases and add that amount back to the total purchases for the week. This illustrates how much they could have had at the end of each week had they more wisely spent their money. Each week, instruct your students to write a journal entry about what they learned. Read each journal entry and offer encouraging words when you hand it back.