CHANCE … The student’s favorite booth, the ‘Chance’ booth, gave students a chance to have something good happen in their life or something bad. This chance would have an effect on their budget in one way or another. (PHOTO PROVIDED)
By: Jacob Kessler
Evergreen students participated in a Real Money, Real World exercise on Wednesday, May 4th. The event included students in grades 8 and 12 with eighth graders participating from noon to 1:15 and seniors from 1:30 to 2:45.
This program is meant to have students experience how expenses for necessities and luxuries are balanced with a realistic monthly income.
This experience is gained first hand by the students with a program developed by the Ohio State University Extension.
Like the game of Life, students were given an occupation, monthly income, credit card debit, and the possibility of children.
Spending booths were set up inside the High School Gym with community business representatives to help out with obligations and services.
These obligations and services included things like banking, groceries, transportation, childcare and utilities. Students were required to visit each booth to purchase the goods and services they required.
The goal of this simulation is to help prepare students for independent living, budgeting and financial competency.
Students needed to end the simulation with a positive cash flow at the end of the month.
This also showed students the difficulties of balancing the budget, and that in the real world they may have to make sacrifices.
An overwhelming consensus also took hold regarding how expensive children are, with many saying they would think twice about having one in the future.
With the financial landscape of the country and world changing drastically and quickly, financial literacy has never been as important for students as it is today.
Jacob can be reached at jacob@thevillagereporter.com