Each year 4-H Youth Development, Trigg Family Resource Center, and a 7th grade Social Studies teacher from Trigg County Middle School team up to present 4-H Reality Store, a financial simulation that provides students an opportunity to experience making real life financial decisions based on certain perameters such as career choice and grad point average.  

This year 157 seventh grade Trigg County Middle School students went through the simulation.  The Trigg County FCS agent spent days speaking to the 7th grade classes about basic finances--wants vs. needs, budgeting, correlation with educational success. etc  The Youth Services Center director assigned each student a monthly salary based on theifr carrer choice in their ILP and their current grade point average.   38 volunteers manned 16 booths that students had to visit. Students who had "money" left at the end of the simulation received a Pay Day candy bar.  Those who had no money at the end, or were in the red, received a Zero candy bar.  

After the simulation students completed an evaluation about the experience.  77% of the students responding to the survey said they were definitely going to try harder in school.  735 stated that they were definitely going to get more education after high school.  58% of students said they would be likely to delay having children and 75% stated they would be more likely to make wise financial decisions.  As a result of going through the Reality Store simulation 86% stated that they were definitely going to save more of their money.   77% of the students responding to the survey said that as a result of the simulation they planned to earn a college and/or a graduate degree.  17% stated that they planned on earning a high school diploma and on-the-job training or completing community college or a technical school.