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

Please explain what you see as some of the benefits and challenges of creating and sticking to a budget.

You can see what real life budgeting is going to be like for the career that you want. This can help you decide if you want to switch careers or figure out if you want a second job on top of the career that you want.

Some of the challenges with the budget is deciding what you really need and what are things that you think that you need but you actually just want it. Like going out all the time, right now it seems like no problem because that’s one of the few expenses that you pay but when you’re out of college you have to pay for a lot more and you might not have money to go out all the time as you do in college and high school.

Some of the benefits of making a budget are that you know how much you have to spend and you know where every dollar is going. You know what you have to pay for each month and then you can use the extra money of the month to buy something you want instead of need.

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.

5 items that should be in your budget are food, rent, electricity and gas, transportation, and health. All these things are necessities in order to live a semi-comfortable life. You need food to live and to fuel you throughout the day. Rent covers your shelter and saves you from living outside unless you decide to live with your parents if they allow that. Electricity and gas are your lights, water, electricity, AC and all the things that your apartment or house a good place to live. Transportation is what gets you to and from work which is the way you make money to pay for all of these things. Lastly, Health is what makes sure you don’t have to pay a ton of money if you ever end up getting hurt in some way. All these things are essential for living and is why these are the 5 things that are most important

Part II: Savings Strategy

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.

Some people might save for short and long term expenses because you probably won’t buy al these things every month. Some people get a hair cut every 2 or 3 months. Some people can get rides to work some days and don’t pay for transportation that day. Things like that are what make people able to not always spend everything on their budget.

Part III: Surplus or Deficit

In the end, does your budget end with a surplus or a deficit?

My budget Surpluses at the end of the month

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

On my budget, almost everything was the cheapest option. I also had 2 roommates and that cut all the rent and housing expenses into a third of what they would be if I lived alone. I took public transportation so that I wouldn’t have to buy a car and pay for insurance, checkups, gas, etc. Thins like this are what made a budget surplus.

Part V: Summary

Identify two lessons you learned by completing this salary-based budget.

I learned that for the career that I want, I won't be making a lot of money in the beginning and that I’ll probably need a second job to be able to buy some of the nicer things if I chose to want them. I also learned how expensive it actually is to be an adult who doesn’t live with their parents.

College Research Questions

Temple Video

UNH Video