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Helping students learn budgets by doing.

Budget Bird turns the real New Zealand Budget into a classroom challenge that fits in one lesson. Students take the driver's seat, make the trade‑offs themselves, and you get the discussion that follows.

Run your first class How it works
Two students and the Budget Bird working through the budget together on a laptop

What we do

We make public money tangible, so trade-offs click fast.

01
Make it real
Categories map to everyday things, with no jargon, so students connect the dots quickly.
02
The $1000 challenge
Students allocate a fixed budget across competing priorities, learning by doing.
03
Instant class view
Teachers see aggregated results in seconds to spark discussion and debate.
Classroom impact so far

In classrooms from Auckland to Otago

More than 35 New Zealand teachers have run Budget Bird with over 500 students, who have made more than 10,000 budget trade-offs.

500+
students have played
35+
teachers have run a class
150+
student learning hours
10,000+
budget trade-offs made
Map of New Zealand showing where Budget Bird is being used
Every pin is a school that has played
The story behind Budget Bird

Why I made Budget Bird

Harry Cosslett
Harry Cosslett
Founder, Budget Bird
Wellington, New Zealand · former Senior Strategic Finance Analyst, NZ public service

Budget Bird was created by Harry Cosslett, a Wellington-based founder and former Senior Strategic Finance Analyst in the New Zealand public service.

After spending four years working in central government, I saw firsthand how difficult it can be to make sense of where public money goes and the trade-offs behind government decisions. Budget Bird started from a simple idea: instead of just teaching people about those choices, why not let them make them?

I built Budget Bird to turn the New Zealand Budget into something people can explore, debate and learn from themselves. Today, I'm continuing to develop it alongside the teachers and students using it in classrooms around New Zealand.

Running a class takes three steps

Low friction. Ready in under a minute.

1
Create a class
Enter a class name and get a join code instantly.
2
Students join
Students go to budgetbird.co.nz/join, enter the code, and start allocating.
3
Discuss results
View live totals, compare choices, and guide a values-focused conversation.
Try it out Or browse the free teacher resources and lesson plan.
How Budget Bird is funded

Free for every classroom. Schools can pay for more.

Run New Zealand is free for every classroom, with unlimited classes and students, and it stays free. Schools that want more pay for a licence: Budget Bird for Schools costs NZ$399 + GST a year and turns the game into evidence of learning, with students' reflection answers, full comparisons with New Zealand, class summaries and exports, and a school-wide history for every teacher at the school.

Next up is My Money, a personal-finance game about pay, rent, bills and savings. It arrives in 2027, at no extra cost for schools with the licence.

See Budget Bird for Schools

Give your next class the Budget to run

Create a class, share the code, and let the debate start. It takes about a minute to set up.

Run your first class