Abstract. Ilf and Petrov's novel “The Golden Calf” gives us many illustrative examples of budget management on various levels: personal, group and organizational. The characters of the “The Golden Calf” are concerned with the problem of finance and, as a rule, suffer from a lack of banknotes. But even when they have financial resources at their disposal, they cannot really use them. The article analyzes various variants of the financial behavior of literary heroes in emerging life situations, gives their assessment from the point of view of modern ideas about rational budget planning. This approach makes it possible to use the novel “The Golden Calf” as an illustrative material when teaching the broad masses of the population the basics of financial literacy.