How Elk River high school students are learning about budgeting for adulthood

Minnesota students are getting an early taste of adulthood — from paying for rent and groceries to understanding daycare and debt — through a budgeting simulation called "Bite of Reality."

The resources and app are put together by Wings Credit Union. Students receive a persona, a job, income and family. Then they make their own spending choices.

"They walk into auto buying, they walk into housing, they walk into talking about how am I going to furnish my house, food budgets," explained Mike Zeman, principal of Elk River High School.

A new state law requires a personal finance course to graduate from Minnesota schools.

Zeman says the program helps students understand the realities waiting for them after high school.

"I think those real world skills and those real world experiences we need to simulate those as much as we can here in a school," he said.

Teens quickly learn how quickly expenses pile up, and some of the students discovered budgeting success. 

"I had to pick where my kids go to daycare and I had the choice of grandma and grandpa or I can go to a licensed daycare. And I chose grandma and grandpa and it gives me the total because they're still going to make us pay," said Kayleigh Wilson.

The system not only teaches the teens lasting lessons about finances, but it also hints at how much their parents do for them.

Wings officers a "Bite of Reality" free to schools.