New Haven Independent

The teachers came from a class of their own: the Leadership Greater New Haven Financial Literacy Class of 2006. The class is run through the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce ” to engage professionals from the corporate, non-profit and government sectors more actively in the community.” They came to Career for a community service component of the class.

Students were given a mock family with newborn twins and asked to budget out their lives: calculating monthly costs, researching savings plans and utility bills.

Sharp-eyed students were quick to point out costs the financial pros hadn’t considered. What about the Internet? asked one.

One teacher, Christopher Cavallaro, gives personal financial advice as a living. He noted most of his clients hadn’t had this early opportunity to learn about real-life budgets.

“Most people are forced to learn this stuff later in life, after college,” he said. “If you can impart some wisdom into them before hand, you can come at it with a proactive, not reactive approach.” Meaning learning to budget with a strategy, not just get blindsided with unforeseen costs.

“It seems like it’s gonna help in the long run, when we get to college,” said student Sean Lindsey (far right in the photo at the top of this story). All students are focusing their high school studies on business and financing. Almost all have jobs, mostly paid internships in businesses and non-profits arranged through the school. They have paychecks but no budgeting experience. “Right now we don’t have any bills, we kinda just pay as we go,” said Lindsey. “It’s gonna help us in the long run.”

Deandra Sheppard-Meyers (seated in top photo) works at the New Haven school board in the communications department. She wants to study pharmacy, maybe own her own pharmacy one day: “That would be a good investment,” she said.

As her team worked through the simulation, Sheppard-Meyers debated colleagues on each part of their mock family’s life. How much should cable cost? Is this an affordable cell phone plan? How much would groceries be?

With two newborn twins, “I don’t think they should be going out to McDonald’s,” reasoned Lindsey. Sheppard-Meyers agreed: “Nah, that’s bad for their health.”

Asked to compute the cost of the water bill, students thought back to their own lives. “I’m going to ask my mom what she pays,” said Sheppard-Meyers.

That’s the point of the “Game of Life” simulation, noted a proud Cavallaro: “They’re bringing in their own lives.”

If the simulation goes well over the next six weeks, the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce will think about expanding the program to other city schools.