Wall Students to Participate in Financial Reality Fair

Did you ever wish you got a good dose of financial reality before you joined the work-a-day world? Wall Township students will, starting next Friday.

It's called the Financial Reality Fair, sponsored by the New Jersey Credit Union League Foundation. Kathleen Zimmer Director of Business Development for First Financial Federal Credit Union says it's not an event where students will be going from booth to booth and picking up pamphlets. She says 150 students will be going through an intense 30 day process that starts with a survey about what they presently know about handling finances. Then they'll be choosing a career with its associated salary.

She says that information will be sent to the credit union where "each student is given a personalized budget sheet where what we do is we actually will net out all of their Federal and State deductions, pension amounts, health benefits contribution. So that salary that looks such like a great number, becomes what you have to work with in order to make ends meet."

She says at the fair, students will also be presented with purchasing temptations, life-altering scenarios with the 'Reality Wheel' and savings opportunities.

Zimmer says "it's a real hands on experience on how to budget and make things work after you obtain your first job and your on your own."

Zimmer says the Financial Reality Fair is a real eye-opener. She says some students realize that they won't be able to move out on their own right away or maybe they'll decide to live with a roommate. She says they're going to have many choices to make but once they make their choices on the worksheet .. they're going to have to live with those decisions for that month.

She says at the end of the process, students will get to meet with their volunteer financial counselors to walk students through their decisions and review what they did good or what they could have done differently to make their lives easier.

Get more information about First Financial at www.firstfcu.com, Facebook at www.facebook.com/firstfinancialnj, twitter: www.twitter.com/njbanking