Mad City Money is a 3½ hour simulation for young adults 14-22 years old, to learn how to budget, save, and the importance of credit. Some of the volunteers helping with the training were Concord-Diablo Rotarians, Edi Birsan, Nancy Glenfield, Casilda Gonzales, Lee Koellermeier, and Kathy Lafferty, along with Eric Maldonado supervising everyone. The volunteers acted as merchants who were instructed to sell items to the students who were tasked with needing to buy necessary living expense items and stay within their budgets. The merchants, of course were to make it seem as if the students could not live without their items, cars, computers, clothes, vacations, dining out, furniture, homes, and baby necessities. At the end of the day it was the general consensus that the students learned very well the difference between “wants” and “needs”.
