Assessment : Financial Budgeting

In this module, you have created a realistic personal budget that includes costs for education, savings,
housing, transportation, food, and other items. You have considered the how and why of staying (or getting)
out of debt, building credit, and saving for short and long term expenses. For your assessment, please show
that you have considered carefully all these items.

Part I: Net Salary

1. Please explain what you see as some of the benefits and challenges of creating and sticking to a budget.
I think that this is a cool activity because it shows that even on the lowest of wages, you can have hope that
there is a way to live and save money. I think that personaly it will be hard sticking to a budget because you
never know what life throws at you, so some months you might need more money than others. Also some
complications might be that I end up making less then the average amount. Although, a benefit is that my
wage might end up being higher than that given average.

2. Using the budget you created in the module as a guide, explain at least five items that should be part of a
budget and provide a brief explanation of why these items are important to include.
To know the percentage you are saving, the amount of saving for retirement, the average amount of
groceries, the amount of rent, and amount of student debt I feel are the five most important to know. I think
that knowing both of your savings is important to insure that you will never go fully broke and that you are
thinking of your future. Knowing the average amount you will spend on groceries is important because you
need to know how much and what type of food you can buy. Nutrition is important to me. Amount of rent is
good to know because you need to ensure that you have a place to live and student debt is important
because you need to know how much money you still have to pay back.

Part II: Savings Strategy

3. Using the budget you created in the module as a guide, explain why someone would save every month for both
short term and long term expenses. State how much is reasonable every month to save according to your
personal budget.
Saving short term is important because that can be used as emergency money or money just to ensure that
you won’t go fully broke. You never know what life might throw at you so it is important to save money incase
you need to unexpectantlly pay for a nessecity. Long term saving, mainly for retirement, is important so that
you don’t have to work till you die. As you get older medical cost usually rise add that to the usual cost of
daily living and you can see how life only gets more and more expensive. It is important to plan for the
expensive future so that you don’t have to be a full time worker when you are old.

Part III: Surplus or Deficit

4. In the end, does your budget end with a surplus or a deficit?
My budget surprisingly ends with a surplus which makes me relieved that my future will most likely be
successful.

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 5. What decisions did you make about your budget that led to that final outcome?

NOTE: If your budget ended with a deficit (you were spending more than you were taking home each month),
this is not sustainable. You would need to redo your budget until your net income covers all of your monthly
expenses.

My budget did not end in a decficit; however, I did change it once I saw my end results. I realized I had more
room to sped on things than I thought. This lead to me increasing the percentage I save and also other things
like preparing for the future so I bumped up my student debt to see the outcome. I still don’t exactly know
how much the schooling will cost, so I decided to prepare for reality and bump it up. I still had a decent
amount of money left so I left it that way, I don’t want to spend all of it.

Part V: Summary
6. Identify two lessons you learned by completing this salary-based budget.

I learned that budgetting money is a good way to prepare for the future and that it is also a good way to
manage your money in a smart way that will lead to more success. I also learned that you should start
bugetting your money by looking at the neccessities like rent, groceries, and saving then make your way to
the flexable things like a gym membership, spending money, and hair cuts.