Fair helps students make financial sense

KOOTENAI — Sandpoint High School student Bailey Tomazich probably didn’t expect she’d have to financially support a four-year-old daughter Wednesday morning.

To make matters worse, she also learned she had once been married but her husband was dead, leaving her to financially support the child on her own.

Good thing, then, that both the husband and daughter were all a bit of educational role-playing. As the centerpiece of the fourth annual Bulldog Finance Fair, the morning exercise is designed to instill financial literacy in graduating Sandpoint and Clark Fork seniors. With 270 total participating students packing the Coldwater Creek gymnasium and auditorium, it was the biggest fair yet, Sandpoint High School counselor Jeralyn Mire said

In the hands-on portion of the event, participating students had to make choices regarding cell phone plans, food and clothing purchases, buying or renting a home and more.

“My favorite comment of the morning was, ‘No wonder my mom is so grumpy at the end of the month,’” Mire said.

In Tomazich’s case, her big decisions centered around supporting her theoretical daughter. However, each student had different circumstances to consider. Some had a spouse that gave them a second income source. Others had more kids or lower-paying jobs to factor into their decision-making.

“Some of this was stuff I had no idea how to do, which was really eye-opening,” Tomazich said. “It’s getting close to where I’m going to need to know how to do this.”

She and her classmates made those decisions by moving from station to station, each of which was manned by representatives from local businesses. For example, Coldwater Creek employees handled the clothing station, Yoke’s representatives helped students plan their food budget and real estate agents from Century 21 detailed the advantages and disadvantages of renting versus owning a residence.

At the beginning of the day, high schoolers were split into two groups. One tackled the hands-on exercise while the other went to the auditorium for a guided financial demonstration. As opposed to previous years, however, event planners decided to go with something more engaging than a talk on smart financial decisions.

Instead, they structured the auditorium session as a game show, complete with two outrageous hosts in Andrew Sorg of Coldwater Creek and Keith Appleton of Spokane Teachers Credit Union and live guitar playing by Benny Baker. Students separated into teams to answer financial literacy quiz questions with prizes for the highest scores.

  At the end of the morning exercise, students were rewarded for their efforts with a chance at prizes like iTunes or Amazon gift cards or even tablet computers — provided their budget passed inspection from some school staff turned IRS agents, of course. The wrap-up meeting also allowed Mire to thank the many businesses that collaborated on the event — especially Coldwater Creek, Spokane Teachers Credit Union and Horizon Credit Union.

As for Tomazich, she recommends underclassmen pay close attention when their trip to the finance fair rolls around — it’s information that will likely become very important very quickly.

“Definitely take it all in, because what you put into it is what you take out of it,” she said.