On Thursday, 1,300 teenagers from high schools in Alpine School District got a taste of how hard it might be to make ends meet -- and even afford food -- during the Financial Literacy Expo at Utah Valley State College.

"Some of the students realize they are going to have to downsize from their house to a townhouse, just in order to eat," said Rosemary Lindberg, a Family and Consumer Sciences teacher at Timpanogos High.

During their trip around the Sorensen Center commons area, students had to buy a home and a car, insurance, and plan for all of the little extras and the unexpected.

"Some of the students ask if they really have to do it," said Laura Redd, a volunteer helping with the "unexpected expenses" table. Students had to spin a wheel and hope for a leaky pipe instead of broken refrigerator or car accident.

"Their biggest unexpected expense at this point in their lives is when they've lost their chap stick and need to replace it," said April Redd, a volunteer who was also helping at the table.

Students were given a list of occupations to choose from based on their grade point average and a credit score drawn separately from their career.

"If you have a good credit score, life is easy," said Spencer Schwenke, a senior at Timpanogos High. He was a pharmacist for a day and had to visit "credit counseling" to raise his score by 50 points.

"I've just been trying to cope with how things are more expensive if you have bad credit," Schwenke said.

Other students, like Chett Whitten and Enjoli Mortensen, juniors at Lehi High School, went with the cheapest house and car to live within their budget and to have more options later down the road. The two also went to credit counseling to raise their credit scores from 675 and 655.

"They told us to be careful to pay everything on time, because it affects everything else we buy," said Whitten.

Jim Phelon, a mortgage loan officer at Beehive Credit Union, felt many of the students didn't understand what a credit score is, and how to build it.

"One student came up to me and said, 'My score is a 580 -- is that goodfi' " Phelon said. Credit scores range from 300-850 -- higher is better -- and most lenders base approval and interest rates on scores.

He and others at the expo were responsible for helping the students purchase a house based on what they could afford rather than what they found visually appealing.

More than 70 percent of college students use credit cards on food, clothes, books and supplies, and Utah undergrads combined owe more than $3.5 million in credit card debt, according to AAA Fair Credit Foundation, a non-profit organization that works to educate community members about financial literacy.

Brett Redd, the Utah County Jump$tart coalition chapter president, hopes this expo is the first of many to help high school students before it's too late. For most of the juniors and seniors, he said, the expo is a culmination of their financial literacy course in high school.

The Utah County Jump$tart coalition works to inform the county about finances and helps provide experts and speakers to financial literacy teachers.

The group, along with Mountain America Credit Union and WeXL Solutions, helped sponsor the expo along with the 80 vendors and 100 volunteers, Brett Redd said.

The financial literacy course is a state high school graduation requirement beginning with the class of 2008. In the course, students are taught about income, money management, spending and credit, saving and investing, consumer protection and risk management.

Brooke Barker is available at 344-2559 or bbarker@heraldextra.com.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page D1.