• check ledger
  
• monthly income and expenses form (they listed their projected expenses)
  
• ads from local grocery stores (they had to make a shopping list. 

If time had allowed I would have liked to visit a local grocery store and have them "shop", compare prices, looks for deals, avoid empty deals and see just what their money can or can't
buy.)

• time management worksheet (they projected how their time would be spent and  what job they might be able to have, number of hours worked, pay, etc.)
  
• play money to represent their monthly budget (they had to "pay" their bills with this and what was left over they could put into entertainment fund...there was not much left after expenses!

 
I included the "Easy College Recipes" that were posted to this list  (thanks!)

The girls seemed to enjoy the evening and hopefully left with some good information.  I opened the evening with a thought from conference this last weekend.  Elder Joe J. Christensen has said,  "Do not confuse wants with needs...live modestly and avoid debt.  In order to be self-reliant, people must acquire some resources.  That can only be done if they live within their means and avoid debt.  People who spend less than they receive, saving along the way, acquire wealth and are in a position to share."

Contributed by: AT in MN  star5mn@yahoo.com

I was asked to post to the list when our branch held its Real World survival challenge activity. We had it last night, it was very successful and a lot of fun. I think I had more fun watching the youth do this activity than anyone. Preparedness was the KEY!

The Seventeen magazine gave me the idea for this activity, but a few sisters from this list helped me refine exactly what we were going to do...thanks so much for your ideas. So here is what we did and hopefully this info will benefit you for a future activity. The kids had a great time and it went so fast. From the time we started to its competition, it took about 50 min. I was prepared for 3 teams, but we only had 2 teams, 6 youth on one team, 5 youth on another. The leaders were the "Team Leaders" who kept time for each activity. They were to observe and assist only if really needed. Each team was given a list of their assignments in the order they were to do them telling them exactly what room they were to go to.

I had 6 areas of assignments for the kids to complete.

IRONING: Each team had 2 shirts to iron and hang up. Everyone was to take a turn ironing

SEW BUTTON: They had to thread a needle, double thread it, sew on a button. It didn't matter how they sewed it, just so it stayed on. Some had more difficulty than others, especially the boys. It was fun to watch.  Timing stopped when all buttons were completed by the team. Each team member had a button to sew on a square piece of felt.

LOOK UP GOV'T LISTING: They had to look up the Social Security Admin, the local office and call the number and write down the first 2 sentences of the recording and write down the phone number. (THIS WAS HARD FOR ALL OF THEM, they needed assistance from the leader and me on this one)

PAYING BILLS: I created a scenario for them. Their income, created bills for them to pay, gave them a check register to balance and a few ATM withdrawals and fees to record. I made up fake checks for paying bills and they had to pay the bills, record them in register and balance their checkbook. This took the longest amount of time - about 10 min or so. The had to pay rent, utility bills, tithing, fast offering, have money left over for food etc. It was fun to watch.  They needed some guidance on this too, but the kids worked together addressing envelopes, writing checks etc. When all done, they had to mail the bills in a box marked mail box.

CHECK OIL LEVEL AND TIRE PRESSURE: Pretty self explanatory on this one. They had to write down if my car needed oil, and if it did how much and record the tire pressure on each tire.

SHUCK CORN: They had to shuck corn (outside) clean it, and look up in a cookbook how long it takes to cook the corn. One of the YW leaders stayed in the kitchen to cook the corn close to the end of the eve.\

We had corn on the cob for refreshments.  I had the assignments for the 2 teams set up so that they were never at the same assignment at the same time. It worked out very, very well.

If you have any questions, email me. Good luck

Contributed by: Bev in Fair Oaks bevtracy@telocity.com

1.. Iron a shirt
2.. Shuck corn (3 ears per team)
3.. Pare an apple (If they did not know what "pare" meant, they had to send a team member to find me and ask me. That cost them time and no one knew what it meant!)
4.. Sew on a button
5.. Look up 3 numbers in the government pages--Folsom City Zoo, Information about a passport and information for making an appointment with the DMV for a driver's license. Every team ended up starting with the yellow pages and had to be directed to the government listings.
6.. Pay a bill. I created a bill and gave specific instructions regarding how to pay it. They had to write a check to the appropriate payee with the account number on the check. Wells Fargo Bank made copies of checks for me.
7.. Balance a checkbook. I created a fictitious bank statement and check register. This was difficult for each team but those that really stuck with it were satisfied with their achievement.
8.. Check tire pressure. (I wish I had included oil level)
9.. Double a recipe (this one was easy for them)
10.. Look up a topic in the topical guide and include a scripture from each standard work. I picked a topic that included a reference from each.

I have MS Word files that I developed for these activities as well as an Excel spreadsheet for the bank reconciliation. If you would like copies of the files, email me privately and I will send them to you. bevtracy@telocity.com

I didn't have enough leaders there (another topic for another day) but I would have put a leader with each group to assist. We had three teams that tried to complete the tasks in the shortest amount of time. There were time penalties added for incorrect answers or incomplete tasks. It was fun and eye opening for some of the girls. I had one Laurel who is leaving for BYU in 2 months and she had never sewn on a button.

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