Thrall High School seniors played their own version of “The Game of Life” on March 3 with the financial literacy program “It’s Your Money.” Brought to them by the Williamson County AgriLife Extension and Capital Farm Credit Taylor, this is the second year THS has held the event.
Lyndi Sanders, customer education officer with Capital Farm Credit, said the company identified financial literacy education as an area of need where they could make a difference. They looked for a program that would help them with their outreach efforts and they found it in the AgriLife Extension’s program “It’s Your Money.”
Capital Farm Credit partnered with AgriLife Extension in 2023 to bring this workshop into schools where it has since reached 700 students statewide.
“The ability to manage finances is a critical life skill,” Sanders said. “This program provides an opportunity for real world financial lessons without real world consequences.”
“It’s Your Money” is played as a game. Students scan a QR code which offers them different career tracks. Depending on their chosen track, the game assigns them a job and corresponding salary.
The students then visit different stations to outfit their lives with homes, cars and even pets. Another station includes entertainment, such as the cost of going bowling or out to dinner with friends and the cost of monthly subscriptions like Netflix.
Students also spin a wheel, similar to “Wheel of Fortune,” that yields surprises like winning the lottery or the unforeseen expenses of a car accident.
Capital Farm Credit made the game a contest awarding prizes to the students who saved the most money, those closest to $0 without being negative and even a prize for the student who had the most debt.
“As we send students into the real world it’s important that they make smart decisions when it comes to finances,” said THS counselor Emily Laurence. “This program opened students’ eyes to the costs associated with things young people don’t think about like health insurance, car insurance, taxes, unexpected monthly costs and more.”
Senior Amber Kevil agreed the event was an eye opener and said some of her friends were rethinking their future career paths because of this activity.
“My salary (in the game) was around $140,000, which was a lot,” Kevil said, “but I was still $1,000 in debt by the end of it. They told us to buy or to get what we wanted in real life … so I bought an SUV and a big house and a dog. I didn’t expect everything to be so expensive and add up so quickly.”
THS plans to offer “It’s Your Money” every year to its seniors. Laurence said, “It’s a fun way for them to learn what the real word will be like prior to entering it.”
