Making Sense out of Dollars and Cents – The Regions Financial Workout Program
10/7/2016 3:00:00 PM | General
Coming out of high school, not a lot of folks have the fine points of budgeting their money down. For most, it's a skills that's picked up along the way, often with some sizeable bumps in the road. That's why The University of Alabama Athletics Department's Student-Athlete Enhancement initiative, through the Crimson Tide's Life Skills program, asked Regions Bank to take Alabama's rookies through their Regions Financial Workout.
Freshman from all of Alabama's sports went through the hour-long program, which assigned each student-athlete a fixed income for the month and then sent them around to different stations to see how they would spend that money. There were even random "Life Happens" cards dropped on several of the students as they moved from station to station to anchor the experience in the reality of unforeseen expenses.
"The workshop taught me a lot about the fundamentals of money management through real life applications and experiences," Alabama soccer freshman Alex Plavin said. "I appreciated how realistic the scenarios were to my own life and future life choices."
Making sense out of managing your dollars and cents isn't easy. Bakari Miller, an assistant vice president at Regions and one of the presenters, admitted that even after graduating and working in the financial industry, he still struggled with personal budgeting early in his career.
"I learned how important it is to decide what your needs and wants are," freshman gymnasts Shea Mahoney said. "Now is the time to start making smart choices about where and what you spend your money on."
The University of Alabama Housing and Residential Communities and Bama Dining both had representatives manning reality stations, presenting different options on how the student-athletes could spend their money on such essentials as housing and food.
"It was nice to be reminded for example that it is important to always 'pay yourself' first at the beginning of a month to have savings on your side," rookie swimmer Daniel Kober said.
Having professionals on hand at each station to help explain the choices and the intricacies that may lie under the surface of one choice over another gave depth to the workshop.
"It was a great way to learn that managing and budgeting money throughout life is an important skill to have," baseball freshman Ty Sawka said.
Regions' Financial Workout program is part of Life Skills' series of workshops focused on instilling in Alabama student-athletes the skill set necessary to thrive in the world outside and athletics and academics and prepare them for a successful life after graduation.
