The amount of young people in the Netherlands getting into unmanageable debts is increasing. Many young people have small jobs while still living with their parents, yet they seem to spend their money mainly on unnecessary expenditures. Once they start living independently, they have no idea how to manage their finances, which often leads to debts among youngsters. Therefore, SIFE University of Groningen set up a project that focused on high-school students close to graduation. By means of workshops, we informed these students about the financial consequences of living independently. In addition, we made them conscious about their future expenditures so they could see whether their spending habits needed to be modified. The final goal of our project was to make a positive contribution in helping young people avoid getting into debt.

The students were informed about basic principles of living independently and managing their own life with a given and small budget. They were glad to be informed about this topic and some of them concluded that it would be less risky for their financial situation to stay with their family for a few more years. After the workshop, all students were certain to have a more realistic view of the financial aspect of their student lives. We received such positive feedback from the teachers as well as from the students and we can say that the project was really a huge success and we are sure that the students who participated will from now on think more carefully about their expenditures.