Undergraduates experience real-life budgeting exercise
BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Monitor Editor
KEYSTONE HEIGHTS— The community partnership school and area volunteers put students through a household budgeting exercise with the high school’s second annual reality check.
Event organizer Tina Baker said that during the simulation in the school’s gym, each student was randomly given a job:
“It could be industrial certification jobs like welders,” she said. “It could be a veterinarian, a teacher, an aircraft worker out at the airport or a doctor. It’s just the luck of the draw.”
Students were also assigned a marital status and the number of their children.
Baker said all the students were given a check register and training on logging revenues and expenses. Then they were told to visit a table to purchase their housing and utilities.
“And then up to that point,” Baker added, “they can go to any of the booths to get their house furnished, get transportation, get a cell phone.”
Baker said some students experienced anxiety last year while going through the exercise, so mental health counselors were on hand this year to help.
“They’re licensed mental health counselors,” Baker said, “because some of our kids get a little bit of anxiety because they realize now this is what my parents have to do to have us survive in a nice home. (The counselors) talk them down and give them some advice.”
$1 million lottery winner
Participants also had two additional outlets when expenses exceeded revenues. An SOS table offered students having a hard time making ends meet a second job and other options like downsizing on housing or transportation. A chance table also gave students opportunities. One student who visited the chance table won $1 million through the lottery. The chance table could also present new life obstacles and expenses like a traffic crash.
Baker said the real value of the exercise comes from the one-on-one students have with adults seated at the tables about finances and life’s challenges.
“A lot of times it’s just great one-on-one conversations with adults who have lived it, who know it, who have the life experience, and they’re sharing their experience with the students,” Baker said. “But on the other hand, students are really getting the realization— they’re getting a reality check that this is what it means for me to be an adult. I need to be looking at either getting a college degree or maybe I need to get an industrial certification. What am I going to do when I get out of high school?”
I’ve sold nine corvettes today
Stacy Wall, assistant to the pastor at Trinity Baptist Church, volunteered at the transportation table to help students decide on a car.
She said she volunteered for the event to help students learn financial literacy.
“I’ve sold nine Corvettes today,” she said, “and only two have bounced back. One came and got a second car and bought a Corvette. He was a doctor.”
Wall said that typically, students buy more car than they need and don’t make allowances for their children.
“Then they will come back and resell those cars to get what they need to work within their budget,” she added. “This is awesome for the kids. I mean, just to see the light go off in their heads is wonderful. This is my second year doing this, and I’ll be back next year if they do it again.”
This is the second year for Reality Check at Keystone Heights High School. Organizers modeled it after a similar event at Bradford High School.
Harold Gilstrap, who, along with his daughter Natalie volunteered at the table selling mobile phones, said students seem to be more financially literate this year than last.
“Last year, they didn’t even know how to fill out their checkbooks,” he said. “This year, they know how to do that.”
Gilstrap added that students are surprised at how expensive setting up a household can be.
“They have no idea of the costs,” he said.
It’s not about the car
Realtor Debbie Beals, with her husband Todd and fellow realtor Branden Waters, worked at a housing table, and said most students are focused on a car when they first start the exercise.
“I hate to use the words ‘reality check,’ but that’s really what this is,” she said. “They come over here and pick out their housing, and then they come back a few minutes later for something with a smaller payment because they want the expensive car. We keep telling them: it’s not about the car.”
“I think the concept of seeing where their money is going as they deduct it is the reality check,” said Todd Beals.
“Slowly seeing that balance drop down is a tough thing,” added Debbie.
Waters said he was pleasantly surprised by a few students.
“I’ve been surprised by a few kids that really have it together,” he said.
Waters said that even the students who start the simulation with difficulty quickly catch on.
“The balancing of a check register and being organized has been the biggest confusion for them,” he added, “but once you explain it to them, it’s like: Oh, that’s how it works? That’s easy.”
Waters said the three realtors tried to convince the $1 million lottery winner to buy some rental homes, but the student was starstruck with his newfound wealth.
“Debbie was explaining to him that with the rentals, he could convert that cash into income, but he said, ‘No, I just want to be rich,’” recalled Waters. “We’re telling him how to keep his money, but he didn’t understand that concept.”
“We had to explain to him that a million dollars isn’t a lot of money nowadays,” Debbie Beals said. “You can blow through that really quick.”
Children are expensive
Ninth-grade student Jackson Faul said he was surprised at how much groceries cost.
“It’s kind of shocking how much they are,” he said.
“I learned how to write a check,” added sophomore Landon Feagle, “and that children are expensive.” “Money is not something you can really hold onto,” he added.
Freshman Miles Johnson said he learned healthcare is far more costly than he imagined.
“The doctor was really expensive,” the ninth grader said. “It’s hard to afford stuff and have any money left over.”
“The car and groceries were the most surprising things,” added Dalton Moore, a sophomore.
Moore chose a Ford F-150 for his transportation and was determined to hang on to the truck even as his other expenses piled up.
Ethan LaVane, like many of his colleagues, complained about the cost of food.
“Groceries are skyrocketing,” he declared. “I learned how expensive things are and how quickly it all adds up.”
