• Are you on track for meeting your short-term goal? Why or why not?
My short-term goal was to save 2000$ for a summer trip to Europe. I definitely think that I have already met my goal as I have more money in my savings account than I anticipated.
• Did you stick to your budget? Why or why not? What are your budget variances? Based on this experience what would you do differently for your next budget?
Yes, I have stayed within my budget as I followed all of the previous rules that I set for myself such as;
- Prioritizing my money by making a list of needs and wants.
-Creating a budget list on how much I am willing to spend on necessities.
-Have an amount of my income automatically transfer into my savings
-Increase the amount that transfers into
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(P.S I did not even go Black Friday shopping)
By following these rules, I have saved a lot more money than I anticipated. I eliminating my spending money on majority of my entertainment, mostly because I was so busy this semester with school and sports. I was also very conscious on what necessities I needed and if I could price match or get the items on sale. Therefore, my budget variance was higher than expected, which means I am on the right path when it comes to managing my money. Based on this experience I would probably not do anything different as my plan has worked out accordingly.
• How did you cope with any financial emergencies you experienced?
I did not encounter any finical emergencies, but I did have a scare when I woke up in the morning and my car tire was popped. I was scared that I would have to buy a whole new tire which would cost me about 100-200 dollars depending on the tire. Luckily, I only had to get a patch done which was an easy fix for 20$. Although, I did not encounter any financial emergencies I had enough extra money in the bank that it would have not been an issue to pay for a new
b. Yes I have done it before, but now we just moved and we are now creating a new budget. Since the bills have changed we have to do a new budget and gather our bank statements, bills, and calculater our income to be more financially stable and save more money. We are currently going over a new budget as we speak.
“Keep a record of your expenditures. Record and review monthly income and expenses. Determine how to reduce what you spend for nonessentials….discipline yourself to live within your budget plan.”
As personal and life experiences with managing or budgeting money, I’ve purchased a house at low price and sold at a higher price. Also, I bought a brand-new luxury car and paid off in less than 5-year term. Balancing and budgeting the income was the key to my success of saving and building wealth.
Being raised in a single family home and seeing, not so financially savvy, family members make common mistakes with spending and credit, I've made a conscious decision do research on my own as soon as started my first internship on how to be financially smart. I learned about the concept of dividing your paycheck and the importance of opening a Roth IRA early. After learning about different money saving options and methods of being aware of your money, I decided to budget my paychecks;
Along with this we learned about money management, and how to live within our means as a student to avoid debt or have less debt than what has currently been predicted. As currently budgeting can make a difference for a student especially for my financial outlook. Being a college student tuition fluctuation continues to rise, budgeting can however lower and eliminate your financial debt you may fall into. Because of the amount of money required to spend on finances budgeting can help you manage this bump in the road. Having a monthly budget helps you with pre-planning so you can maintain a higher goal that is constantly evolving. Especially in your potential career in order to succeed in order
I was surprised that my spending was so little, I mean I knew it was gonna be a little but never that little. My spending has always been moderate I tend not
When budgeting for yourself you tend to fall into a “grove” which is your own spending/conservation trend, that depends on your wages or salaries. People adjust their spending patterns based on how much they make and what they can afford. In the market economy that we live in, changes in prices dictate and help guide decisions on where people should spend money or invest their
The baseline I have set out for my budget worked very well for me in the past month, but this month there was a large kink in it. There were just a couple different kinds of variances I met when adding up the totals of my real spending this month. When I was analyzing my budget, I went through and determined if the budget variances I had were good or bad for my needs. Most of my budget variances were positive except for one major one. What I mean by this is a good budget variance signified to me an outcome that was better than I expected. This one large bad budget variance I had consisted within my doctor’s expenses budget. The reason I had such a large variance of almost one thousand one hundred dollars within my doctor’s expenses is because I had to have surgery on my shoulder, and that was the amount of the co-pay. Within my budget I set an amount for my gas, clothing, and dining out, but it varies from month to month. For
Would analyzing my dollar diet closely, I spent $541.96 additional this month than I would not on a regular basis due to that I needed new tires for my car. Although at the beginning of this month I did put it in my budget because I was aware of this expense. When analyzing the actual from the budget the most I was off on recreation of 179.64 this was due to my dad's birthday. we all went to the casino in Lincoln City had dinner for his birthday. this was not in my budget, when writing it I totally forgot to add this in. Next time when I'm writing a monthly budget I will look at my calendar and see if there's any significant events that I will be attending this will help me have a better monthly budget. When you look at the actual compared to the budget the total amount that I was under for my budget to actual was $550.30. Another expense that I was not expecting with my electric bill was severely higher this month than it usually is which caused me to under budget living expenses of $109.63. Although the budget compared to actual was approximately off by 9.3%. majority of this was due to the birthday and higher utilities bills than expected. I believe next month I will have a higher savings rate due to that I will not obtain any new tires or car
When doing the budget part of the project, I realize I budget money that I don’t have. I spend way too much for food. I spend almost two-hundred for food, because at home my mother never cook, so we ate out all the time, that habit that I most broke, because eating out is very expense. I also, spend a lot of money on clothes, hair, and other personal items. I budget myself fifty dollars on clothes on money that I can be saving for later in life. I spend almost a hundred dollar for hair (fifth for the weave and fifth for someone to do my hair). With food, clothes, hair, and other personal items, I am at a total of almost four hundred dollars that I budget for those items.
The usual bills, and to deal with my paycheck that I had just gotten into my jars and split it up. But when I was calling, I found out somehow I had gone 10,000 dollars into debt with my credit card. I didn't understand how this could have happened, so being me, I added up everything multiple times, finally figuring out it was the couple of months with the down payment for the house, and then the problems I had to pay for to fix my car. So at first I didn't know how I would ever pay this off until I thought about bringing all my prices down lower that I would use for things like rent, and clothes, and food, and utilities and all of that. I kept some things the same like rent, cell phone, Internet. But I went down on my car payment, food, clothes, fun, retirement, safety savings, and for cable I just switched from cable at 80 dollars a month, and switched to Netflix which is 8 dollars a month. But in my credit card payment I went from 125 a month, to 700. And if I kept doing it this way and never went over and nothing else happened, I would have it paid off in about 20 months, which would be
During the beginning of the new year I will be on a strict budget. The spreadsheet shows that I will be in the negative, although during Christmas break, I will be picking up more hours at the Hospital and saving that money to pay for my books in January. I didn’t include that extra income because I don’t know how much it will be, and I wanted to have the most truthful spreadsheet as possible to see what I needed and what I didn’t. There isn’t much I can do to save more money in the month of January, therefore working more is the only way I will be able to afford my books for next semester. As for February – May it is pretty cut and dry. I will be going to school four days of the week (Monday – Thursday) and working the other 3 (Friday – Sunday). This doesn’t leave much for me to do extra during the week. If I were to happen to go to a movie or something once in a blue moon, I have the money set aside for shopping or savings to pay for it. Typically, when I do happen to go to an event I’m with my grandparents or boyfriend and they pay for me. I could save money every month if I found a work place closer to home, as I drive to the other side of Greenville for work twice 3 times a week.
Not counting savings, I was able to come in under budget by $11.03. It was really difficult to create a budget on such a low monthly income. The first thing I did was to locate an apartment. The upper range I had in mind for my apartment was $400, and the cheapest one I could find was $399 per month. It was also very difficult trying to determine whether I wanted to drive a car. Since the expenses for car insurance and gas would be really high, I decided to not use a car. Fortunately, I got a job as a cashier at a nearby Walmart. Thus, I could just walk to work. In addition, I found it difficult to find a relatively inexpensive after school activity for the kids until I got off work. The budget for groceries was also a tough amount to determine. Even if I use coupons, it would be difficult for my family to stay within the budget every month for groceries. Overall, I budgeted the bare minimum to my wants so that I could set aside money to my family’s needs. In order to meet all the expenses and live comfortably this family would need to be in the middle class.
Which five strategies did you choose in the game to bring down expenses? Which one strategy do you think would make the biggest difference? Why?to b ring your lunch to work everyday , Stop going to live concerts and sports events ,Never buy drinks with your meals. Drink water. It’s free. Ride your bicycle more and drive less to save gas money , Make snacks at home rather than buying them at restaurants
Personal budgeting is an important factor in regards to successful long term financial stability. Budgeting has many great aspects as well as showing areas of weakness. It can show the truth about your personal financial spending habits, areas that are not looked at enough, and if there are needs for a larger emergency fund. The reality of personal budgeting is that many people potentially do not keep a personal budget for one reason or another. People also don’t consider the negative effect that it could have on one personally and or how it effects the economy.