On May 23, 2022, employees of Martin Starnes and Associates, CPAs, P.A. (MSA) assisted other North Carolina Association of Certified Public Accountants (NCACPA) with a game of Making Cents in classes at Oakwood Elementary School. Making Cents is a game derived to teach students about budgeting and making sure their money lasts.
The students were given a variety of career choices. Salary, savings, and taxes were given to them based off of what career they chose. Students were then able to make their own choices of transportation, car insurance, clothing, food and entertainment, and cell phone. Each choice had a low priced option, a medium priced option and a high priced option. After this was done, they were given three cards called life cards. Two of these life cards were random expenses and one was a random gift of income.
Today, children are growing up in a digital world. Cash is not as prominent in today’s society and children believe that money is endless, especially when they have their parents paying for everything for them. It is important to teach children at an early age that budgeting money is important, making sure to save some as life can throw some curveballs. We need to encourage financial responsibility early on to make sure our youth will grow up and know how to be successful financially.
Submitted by: Cassie Wilson
