South Dakota State University Extension presents Adulting Free Trial at Philip High School

Adulting: Free Trial was a one-day event for Philip High School Sophomore and Freshman students held on November 30th.  Students share their future career aspirations and based on that given the average salary for that job in South Dakota.  The youth were randomly assigned marital status and if they had dependents.  Each student received their monthly paycheck based on the state’s average salary for that position FICA, Medicare and Federal Income Taxes were deducted.  Students then deposited their paycheck into the “bank”.  Representatives from First National Bank in Philip helped the students properly fill out a deposit ticket, endorse their paychecks, then provided them with temporary checks and a check register.  Once they had checkbooks in hand, students then had to navigate and manage different options they would face over a pay period.  Youth were challenged to select housing, transportation, communication, automotive, health and home/renter’s insurance, child care- if applicable, entertainment, and several additional stations.  
Following the experience of going through the 16 different stations, booth volunteers presented on a wide variety of important topics.  Some highlights were the importance of credit and how to build it, benefits and challenges of both home ownership and renting, food costs, reality of health insurance costs, different types of automotive insurance and some of the variables that determine rates, and why charitable contributions both financial and volunteerism is important.  
Through the program, several students commented about the challenge to make their paycheck cover all of their expenses and the sky high cost of health insurance.  Youth who had higher paying jobs noticed the lessened stress and challenge trying to make their funds stretch to the end of the month.  
For more information about this program or other 4-H programs, please contact the Haakon Jackson 4-H Office at 859-2840. 
SDSU Extension Contact:
Kaycee Jones, SDSU Extension 4-H Youth Program Advisor – Haakon and Jackson County 
Kaycee.jones@sdstate.edu