Reality Check

I, along with a couple of my sorority sisters from Delta Theta Tau, volunteered at the recent Reality Store, which was hosted by the Greencastle Lions and Kiwanis clubs.

The main purpose of the event is to show local middle schoolers how they will have to budget their money when they grow up and get jobs. At the beginning of their experience, students choose a vocation, and then visit different stations to "purchase" cars, homes, furniture, insurance and other necessities and wants.

The students apply decision-making, problem-solving, and management processes to develop a spending plan to meet established goals with a degree of accuracy. The goal is to develop the knowledge and skills needed to use these processes in practical, real-life situations involving the use of money. The Reality Store is a place where students pay bills after planning their budget for a level of income based on a predetermined level of education.

My sorority sisters and I were at Station 8, where they "purchased" their home furnishings. They were given three options: Used furniture, which did not include appliances; mid-grade, discount store furniture and appliances and high-quality, name brand furniture and appliances.

It was really, really interesting to hear what the kids had to say about things. By the time they got to us, some of them had a little as $200 left in their monthly budget, while others has in excess of $4,000.

It was also interesting how a kid with $600 left would choose the most expensive furniture, while the one with $2,000 would choose the mid-grade.

I readily admit that I am HORRIBLE at handling money. Not just inept, horrible. Truly horrible.

I think it would have been wonderful if I had been exposed to an exercise like this when I was in junior high. I got a checkbook the day I graduated from high school, and I was nowhere near ready for it. I spent years trying to get a handle on budgeting.

I am still terrible at it, and my husband handles most of it in our house.

I really hope the lessons from the Reality Store will stick with at least some of the kids who went through it. Maybe, just maybe, it will convince one of them that they should go to college. Maybe another will reconsider a career choice that they now realize wouldn't allow them to have the things that they need to make them happy.

I hope the kids who came to the Reality Store enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed working with them.