M&Ms may have come to the rescue of financial education.

NuMark Credit Union, based in Joliet, Ill. recently hosted aM&M Budgeting Simulation at St. Ann Elementary School inLansing, Ill. to help teach 6th, 7th and 8th graders the importanceof budgeting.

“One of the best waysto help a child learn is to be engaging,” Linda Krakora, trainingmanager/M&M budgeting facilitator at the $208 million creditunion. “Each student sees how quickly a budget gets spent andgets an opportunity to learn first hand an important moneymanagement skill.”

Here's how it works. Every student receives a bag of M&Ms astheir paycheck and the responsibility of spending the M&Ms onvarious goods at different merchants. Each color is linked to aspecific category, and each M&M is equal to five dollars. As away to teach students to buy within their own personal budget thebags of M&Ms are unique, like a paycheck.

After the shopping was completed, students were able tocalculate how much money they had saved for the future and whiledissussing what they learned they could finally eat their chocolatetreats.

“It was great to see a real world interaction brought into theclass room,” St. Ann Elementary Principal Bonnie Hall said. “Iliked when NuMark started with talking about savings and charity,which most people don't talk about right away.”