GLENBURN, Maine — Do I really need that landline? Should I buy that new luxury sports car, or my brother’s old truck? Can I afford a house, or do I need to rent with a roommate for a few years?
These are the questions Glenburn children faced Friday while playing a game aimed at showing them what kind of life decisions they will need to make to survive on earnings from potential future careers.
The Finance Authority of Maine rolled out its latest version of the Claim Your Future program at Glenburn Elementary School and Lincoln Middle School in Portland on Friday. Students in grades seven and eight at Lewiston Middle School will try out Claim Your Future on Tuesday.
“A lot of [kids] don’t have a broad idea of what career choices they have,” said Mary Dyer, financial education officer at FAME. Some of those careers don’t require the traditional four years of college, putting you to work with a two-year associate degree or a certificate program.
“That’s the message we want to send,” Dyer said. “There isn’t just one way to get to a happy, healthy life in Maine.”
On Friday, Dyer handed each student a wheel with a career printed on it, as well as annual income, monthly income with taxes and insurance withdrawn, and the education requirement to get into that career. The jobs range from a waiter, bringing in $18,500 annually, to a surgeon, earning $187,200 per year, but requiring a doctoral degree and often more than eight years of college. The income levels are based on median earnings in those industries in Maine.
The wheel also includes different types of expenses — food, housing, transportation, communications and extras.
Students turn the wheel to figure out how much each area will cost them, depending on how extravagant they want to be. Do they want to eat the basics, or to fill their grocery cart with gourmet foods? Do they want to take the bus, or hop in a Lexus? Do they want to add cable or pets to their list of expenses?
Then, they add up the costs of everything they want and find out if that can fit within their monthly budget. It’s much easier for a surgeon or psychiatrist to justify the costs than a retail worker or day care assistant.
Part of the goal is to help them differentiate between what they need and what they want, Dyer said.
There’s also a Web-based version of the program, featuring more than 125 career choices. That’s available at www.claimyourfuture.com. The Claim Your Future game appears in schools across the U.S. and in countries such as Australia, Brazil and China, according to FAME.
Mara Monk, 10, played Claim Your Future last year when she was in the fourth grade, and got another shot on Friday. Last year, she drew the “journalist” wheel, with its just under $36,000 annual income and bachelor’s degree requirement.
“It was a lot of fun and made me think about what I wanted and what I needed,” Monk said Friday. “I ended up living in my parents basement, I didn’t eat great food, and I had to buy my parents’ car,” because of the low income.
Monk said she wants to be a teacher when she grows up. That job comes with an annual income of $45,400, according to the game.
For seven years prior to the release of Claim Your Future, FAME offered another program called “Get a Life,” which brought FAME representatives into schools to discuss career opportunities and life expenses.
Now, the game and related materials are available for free online.
Educators can find the classroom resources at www.claimyourfuture.com.
Follow Nick McCrea on Twitter at @nmccrea213.