Economics students at Sacred Hearts Academy had to be creative with their Christmas shopping this year when teacher Lurline Choy decided to teach them to budget.

The project was born out of a conversation about after-Thanksgiving sales, when she discovered her students, "get money from their parents and go out and madly shop and if they run out of money, they get more from mom and dad," Choy said.

Not for this class.

As an assignment, Choy gave each student a fake Christmas account from "granny" to buy at least 12 gifts. All the students had $250, but those with part-time jobs could add an extra $100.

However, before they started shopping, everyone had to sock away 10 percent in a savings account and set aside $20 for a Toys for Tots gift.

With a little over $200 left for most, students were forced to hunt for bargains, look for small but unique items and even cross people off their lists. Even the generous "granny" was not guaranteed a gift.

"It wasn't very hard, it just took a lot of thinking," said 18-year-old Ashley Ogawa. Since her friends all like Mac makeup, a big find for her was discovering she could buy an empty palette and one shade of makeup to give as a gift, then her friends can go back and fill it up with the colors they like best.

The budgeting was the biggest challenge, so Ashley made sure to make her parents her top priority, then bought two or three little things for the other 11 people on her list.

She ended with $9 to spare and actually used the assignment to complete her real shopping.

Jaclyn Park, 17, thought her love of shopping would make this an easy assignment, but found it took more thought than she expected. "I was forced to be creative on the gifts I had to get," she said. "A lot of the prices are out of my range."

She was pleasantly surprised to find nice gifts in sale and clearance sections online.

Although she will do her real shopping at actual stores, she plans to stick to the same budget.

"Realistically, I changed my mind after doing this project. Two hundred dollars is all you need," she said.

It was not enough to cover all 20 people on her list, but she plans to bake and make homemade items so that everyone gets a gift.

For Kapua Kaimana Meyer, 17, the hardest part was finding gifts under $10 for teenage girls. She discovered lotion and candles that would make good gifts.

She has been saving birthday money since the third grade but now knows she has to do more. "This project has taught me that I really need to budget my money," she said.

With just over $200 to spend, 17-year-old Samantha Saito knew she couldn't buy her aunt a much-needed car, so she decided to make coupons that her aunt could redeem for rides home from family members.

In real life, Samantha does not think she can stick within the budget set for class. "I think I might need more for better-quality presents for my parents," she said. "I don't want to buy them something cheap."

Amy Nagano, 17, also found that she would need more to buy presents for her friends, as well as figure out a way to get them something unique.

"My friends are all rich and they have their own money and can buy presents for themselves. I had to come up with things they would never think to buy for themselves," she said.

The project still had value, though. "I think it would be good experience for this class every year so they can learn the value of money and the value of Christmas," Amy said.

Reach Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com.