Lexington Traditional Magnet School identified a need for financial literacy education among its student population. After meeting with the youth service coordinator, we decided that the Reality Store Program would be a great fit for their 7th-grade class, with 85 students. Lexington Traditional Magnet School has a highly diverse student population. 

During the program, students are randomly given a career, the gross salary, and any education requirements for their job. Students are also randomly assigned a family size (married or single and number of children). We will then walk through turning their yearly gross salary into their total monthly salary after taxes. The students were shocked at their "take home" pay, considering their gross yearly salary. 

We then move on to talk about the importance of having savings of some type. Most banks and financial institutions recommend saving 20% of your monthly paycheck, 15% for retirement, and 5% for an emergency fund. I then walk them through seeing how much that is based off their “take home” salary. We also touch on how some employers will help with your retirement plan. 

The heart of the program is having students go from booth to booth and spend their monthly budget on real-life expenses. This is one of the most shocking parts of the program for students. all of the students were baffled at the cost of regular monthly expenses and surprised at how fast their money was spent.  

Demographics

40 Male

45 Female

10 Hispanic or Latino

75 Not Hispanic or Latino

20 White

50 Black or African American 

15 youth indicating more than one race