Press

Metea Valley High School students experience “Mad City Money” budgeting simulation

AURORA, IL ( April 21, 2014) — Over 120 high school students from Metea Valley High School learned just how
complicated it is to make household budgetary choices when they participated in the recent Mad City Money
program facilitated by Great Lakes Credit Union (GLCU).

The program helps our young adults learn what it is like to try to budget and manage a real life salary and real
life situations. Students were given an occupation along with a salary, family, student loan debt, credit card
debt, and cost of medical insurance to create a monthly budget as they visited various merchants and made
decisions based on the management of their income.

“When young adults are provided with the ‘hands on’ tools and learn about resources available to them, they
will be able to have and retain a positive relationship with money that will provide a healthy financial balance
as they become adults,” said Vicki Schultz, GLCU’s AVP of Business Development, and the organizer of the
program. Students not only made decisions on whether to buy a house or rent an apartment, choosing
affordable day care and whether or not they could afford to go out to a restaurant for dinner, they also
experienced one financial windfall and one financial setback.

Great Lakes Credit Union has served the Chicagoland area for over 75 years. Currently GLCU has assets of
$635 million and serves over 56,000 members in Lake, McHenry, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Will and parts of
Cook Counties in Illinois, plus Kenosha County Wisconsin. For more information on Great Lakes Credit Union
and Mad City Money, please call 800.982.7850.

---