Many babies were born at the Haines School gym Sept. 22.
Imaginary babies, that is.
Haines juniors and seniors walked through a simulation of adulthood during a “reality fair” last week, an hourlong event designed to teach financial planning.
Budget worksheets in hand, students ambled among a handful of tables set up around the gym, each staffed by a volunteer and signifying a different aspect of life, from healthcare to housing to a “wheel of reality” that symbolized life’s unforeseen events.
“Today you are going to be magically transported into the future. You are 24 years old. You are coming out of college,” Colin Patton, assistant vice president of lending at Tongass Federal Credit Union, which co-sponsored the event, told students. “You’ll have to make some choices. You’ve got to figure out where you’re going to be living, what you’re going to be paying for rent, things like that.”
Students freely chose their occupations, but their salary, spouse and number of children were given to them on budget worksheets that they filled out as they went from table to table, weighing the costs, needs and wants of life.
Each time someone had a baby – after spinning the wheel of reality, or at the health table – a bell rang, and applause filled the room.
Alison Benda, a senior, was a married teacher with two children Thursday. She wants to be a teacher, so that’s the profession she picked. But she didn’t get to choose her husband, a lineman, or her young children, 10-month-old James and year-old David.
To supplement her $3,062 monthly salary, Benda quickly got a second gig, as a summer kayak guide, through part-time job broker Jeanne Kitayama. “Since I’m a teacher, I wanted to get another job in the summer, so I could afford everything,” Benda explained.
While her credit score rose and fell – dictated by bright yellow magic-8-like balls on some of the tables – she navigated loan options, buying a 1989 Volvo station wagon and a mobile home, settling on healthcare and cellphone plans and determining how much to spend on groceries and clothing.
At the healthcare booth, a randomly selected card told Benda she was having a baby. Thankfully she had just selected the top-tier health plan. A third child upped her childcare payments to $2,400 a month, making “family life” by far her biggest expense. That category included diapers, baby wipes and groceries, in addition to childcare.
By the end of the simulation, Benda had budgeted wisely enough to put $1,000 per month into savings and investments and still have more than $100 to spend.
“I think it was a good opportunity for us to learn what it’s like to be an adult,” Benda said, reflecting on the activity. “As a senior I’ve been thinking about that: going to college and paying for my own things.”
Jerry Howard, a junior, was a Marine, married to a restaurant manager, with two children. “My credit score is stuck at 700 for some reason,” he said. Howard, who wants to be a chef in the military, said the fair reminded him of the board game Monopoly. It didn’t last as long, though.
One of the first students to wrap up the simulation was Marin Hart. “I acted like a cheapskate because I didn’t want to go over budget,” Hart said.
Hart already felt well-versed in financial planning. She keeps a budget and is taking Lee Robinson’s personal finance class, which she said helped her maneuver the fair. Hart doesn’t anticipate needing to be as frugal in life as she was in the simulation – at least not in her twenties.
“Instead of paying for diapers, I’m going to pay for a vacation,” Hart said. “I’m not going to have kids in my twenties. The philosophy that came out of this is mostly because I was stuck with them – and a husband, for some reason.”
School counselor Kristen Brumfield, who helped organize the fair, said she thought the event presented a venue for students to apply what they had learned in the personal finance class and give “them a hands-on opportunity to see those day-to-day expenses of life and adulthood that we don’t realize are things when we live with mom and dad, or a guardian.”
Tongass Federal Credit Union and ALPS Federal Credit Union sponsored the fair. It originally was planned for April 2020 but was postponed due to the pandemic.
Brumfield said the school plans to hold one every two years.