Personal Finance classes are on a roll again! Second semester personal finance classes are participating in the H&R Budget challenge. The Budget Challenge is a free online simulation with three windows each semester to compete in. In the first semester over 9,000 students all over the country participated and Ms. Fieser’s third block, the Financial Gurus, was recognized in the top five and won a $25,000 midpoint grant and managed to stay in the top five throughout the semester and won another $5,000 grant.

The Budget Challenge, run by H&R Block, allows students to practice many of the real-world money management skills like paying bills, managing expenses, saving money, and investing in retirement. A window is a three month long session that classes can compete in. In this “real life” simulation students go through events that relate to money management. “I had a student text me in the middle of the night saying that he had sent an email to budget challenge to get points back for a late payment. And apparently our phones fell in the toilet.” said Personal Finance teacher, Ms. Anfindsen. Part of the stimulation of the Budget Challenge is to figure out how to manage money when unexpected event occur, in this case Ms. Anfindsen’s class had to replace their phones.

The top five classes in the simulation are recognized and are given a $25,000 midpoint grant, which Anfindsen’s sixth block class, the Money Wizards, has won. “With the grant money, we have taken it and invested in technology within the Career and Technology E department. So we bought a set of Chromebooks.” said Feiser. With the new Chromebooks, all personal finance classes have gone paperless and now use Google Classroom to streamline the course instead.

In order be in the top ten “students have to pay their bills on time and not get penalties for late payments. And they also have to have a good, strong 401(k) contribution and score well on the quizzes and essays.” said Anfindsen. Students who individually place in the top 10 receive scholarship money up to $20,000, “five individual [PFHS] students that won have already been recognized at a school board meeting, and also will be recognized in the spring awards ceremony when H&R Block will be coming in with giant blown up checks” said Feiser.