Applying the budget line/indifference curve apparatus to policy issues reveals important and sometimes counterintuitive policy implications. Also, it provides practice in using the apparatus. The author applies these tools to subsidies. The analysis follows textbook treatments but is extended at some points. In particular, the present analysis explicitly models consumer behavior when the consumer is also the taxpayer. The approach uses Microsoft Excel workbooks to depict a variable-quantity subsidy (housing) and a fixed-quantity subsidy (schooling).