Real-life budgeting experience for Kennedy AVID students

Kennedy High School’s 10th and 11th grade AVID students are learning about financial literacy and responsible budgeting. The students spent seven weeks in the classroom learning through an experiential education program from Junior Achievement, which culminated in a recent field trip to the JA Finance Park in St. Paul.

Students were assigned an adult profile with attributes like a specific job, income level, and number of children in their household. Participants then rotated through interactive stations of real-life experiences, like renting versus owning a home, leasing versus financing a car, responsible use of credit cards, investing, how insurance works, and costs for child care, utilities, vacations and more. 

As part of the experience, students were challenged to apply what they learned to create a monthly budget based on their assigned profile. With that budget in mind, students were then led through an interactive shopping experience where they made informed purchasing decisions.

Afterwards students shared what they learned about budgeting.

“I learned how hard budgeting actually is and how much certain things change depending on circumstances,” said junior Andrea Ostalaza Aguilar. 

“What was most challenging during the simulation was having unexpected problems in life that you can’t budget and plan for, and how that takes a lot of money from you and makes your budget tight,” said junior Ammar Elmustafa.

“I learned it’s very important to have a stable income as a young adult, especially if you have a child,” said junior Faridah Seebou. “I think this experience was very informative and helped me understand the importance of budgeting.”