MARQUETTE — High school seniors from the area participated in the Financial Reality Fair on Friday hosted in tandem by Northern Michigan University’s College of Business and Honor Credit Union.

HCU community development officer Jamie Gollakner said students could download an app to simulate an adult’s monthly budgeting experience.

“We’re taking 30 days of ‘adulting’ to high school seniors and trickling it down to 45 minutes,” Gollakner said. ” … they’re going to pick an occupation, we’re going to give them a salary and a credit score and from there, they’re going to navigate to different tables of life — whether it’s housing, transportation, food, etc. — they’re going to make selections.”

HCU employees and NMU student volunteers attended tables labeled as “housing,” “lifestyle,” “technology” and more. As the high school students paid for their necessities and weighed what they should spend their disposable income on, there was a chance a financial surprise could spring upon them.

“There’s going to be pop-ups, we call them the fickle fingers of fate and basically they can be good or bad,” Gollakner said. “It could be $100 for (your) birthday from grandma or it could be a $200 (veteranarian) bill, which happens in life. From there, there’s going to be times where they need to go see the credit union table and we have team members there that will advise them and have them make possibly better life decisions.”

Simulating these real-life experiences helps prepare students for the real world when they’ll be out on their own. Gollakner emphasized the importance of communication with experts both in the simulation and in everyday life.

“It’s important for them to be able to talk to somebody because it’s all based on knowledge,” he said.

As they went along, students became irritated by the inconvenience of car payments or the price of rent and utilities.

“Getting them out there and having them have to make those decisions and actually seeing the money go down in their budgets, as it does in real life, is important,” said Westwood High School athletic director Jake Skewis, a former finance teacher. “I like to see all of their side conversations and looking at each other’s phones as they’re going through ‘How much money do you have? What did you do?’ Because in the real world, a lot of times, we’ll talk to our parents when we’re starting up, we’ll talk to our peers.”

Carol Johnson, dean and department head of NMU’s College of Business, said she was “thrilled” when Assistant Professor Corrine Bodeman told her about this opportunity with HCU.

“We’re always looking for opportunities to engage with our community and especially students,” Johnson said. “Helping students learn something about financial literacy is mission number one.”

Johnson hosted an interactive question-and-answer period with the students after their simulation was completed. Students shared their thoughts on the experience and she gave some advice concerning their financial future.

Gollakner said HCU plans to hold more financial reality fairs for area schools that were unable to participate. He also thanked the NMU College of Business for its support as well as the Michigan Credit Union League, which created the event’s interactive app and the reality fair idea.

Alexandria Bournonville can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 506. Her email address is abournonville@miningjournal.net.