Simulation for Being Poor

Robert Nolan sent me a great e-mail yesterday chalk full with lots of ideas for those of you who teach economics and personal finance.  I am going to feature some of his items over the next couple of weeks.  The first one is PlaySpent which has you pretend that you are down on your luck with no job and throws various life situations at you.  For example you see a few ads in the paper for low end jobs, should you also opt for insurance, then how will you afford rent and food and so on.  I had the good fortune of having grown up with a number of poor people around me (in Iran) and in a very very nice neighborhood in Paris, but not all our kids have those kinds of extremes so this might help the ones without the poorer upbringing see how tough it can be for some.