Personal Finance
Personal Finance is a class I’ve wanted to take for a while now. My major is Finance not because I want a career in finance but more to learn about finance for my own personal situation. This class taught me so much! During this class I was able to evaluate my financial situation and set financial goals for myself. The four topics that helped me the most were emergency savings, buying a car, purchasing a home, retirement, and estate planning. After completing this class I have a better understanding of these topics and how to achieve my financial goals.
Emergency savings Personal financial planning is important because it helps you prepare financially for the future. My first short-term financial goal is to have an 8-month emergency savings account. This class helped me understand the important steps needed to achieve my financial goals. “Successful financial planning requires specific goals combined with spending, saving, investing, and borrowing strategies based on your personal situation and various social and economic factors, especially inflation and interest rates” (Kapoor, Dlabay & Hughes, 2012). First I evaluated my spending habits. This allowed me to see where I was
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Some fixed costs are depreciation, interest, insurance, & fees. Some variable costs are gasoline, tires, and maintenance on the vehicle. “The largest fixed expense associated with a new automobile is depreciation, the loss in the vehicle’s value due to time and use”(Kapoor, Dlabay & Hughes, 2012). An automobile purchases price might be cheap but when factoring in the fixed and variable cost the automobile could possibly cost more than expected. Websites like Intellichoice.com can help research and compare vehicle costs. This website shows the shopper how much it cost to own the vehicle for 5 years. When researching a vehicle to purchase it is important to consider these costs in order to make a good
In Finance is Personal, Kim Stephenson and Ann B. Hutchins, explain concepts that support decision making around money. The authors base their concepts on personal values, attitudes, beliefs, and goals. Stephenson and Hutchins also teach the reader how to cope with thinking, feelings, and behaviors. In doing this, the author`s help the reader learn how they can handle their money to get what they want—not what someone else thinks they must have to be happy.
The course that I took this term on money and banking was of great value to me. It taught me some very important things. One of the most important things that I learned in this course was that the Federal Reserve is the best resource for information concerning the economy. Another important thing that I learned was that interest rates mean different things to different people. A third very important thing that I learned was how a financial crisis can start in the United States.
There may have some short term goal and long term goals depending on the time frame we set out. Setting a financial goal should be serious and a realistic goals because we could fall out with every goals if we have no outstanding set of goal. For example; I want to become a network security but I have no financial support or set of goal, I would not make my dream to come true. The finance follows everything that we do in order to success. Without a financial goal, it is like climbing on a tree without ladder. During my short term goal, I decided to save money as much as I could to support for myself. I also could get help from my families but I do not want to rely on them. I only accept their support for activities such as taking vacations. I decided to save money for my college and retirement plan by myself since I could able to work on full-time or part-time jobs. Financial goal also require prioritizing times and managing skills. As for myself, I need to know where the money come from and where it going in order to track my financial goal. I have to decide which is important or urgent, do I want or needed. I would not care if something that I do not seriously need for anything that doesn’t relate to my goal. I always have to figure out an accurate amount of money I spend and talk to my family if I need help. I could also go and talk to the Donnelly Financial Aid Advisor to let me know how my financial aid will reflect on the classes that I would take. I also set my retirement plan as a long-term goal, so I am going to start before reaching my short term goal by little as little. I believe I would be able to save money for retirement of the next fifty years if I save day to day or month to month
You’ll likely surprise yourself at how little you actually need. Another tip is to create a budget for yourself. Work on creating a realistic budget that you can stick to, incorporating any regular bills or payments. “It is implicit in the budgeting process that you ‘make the budget balance’” (Crary 40). A budget isn’t set in stone and often takes several attempts to get right – so keep working on it until you find the right balance. Another tip is to try different savings and budgeting methods to see what works for you. There are many savings and budgeting methods out there. Much like finding the right match, you need to find the right systems that work for your lifestyle. Don’t give up on the first, second or, even, fifth try – keep going until you find the method that works best for you. Another tip is to try to create a “rainy day fund,” just in case of emergencies. “It’s important to “pay yourself first” to ensure money is set aside for unexpected expenses--medical bills, rent if you get laid off, etc.” (Personal Finance 1). You never want to find yourself in a sticky financial situation with no way
This chapter covers several tools that can help in your financial planning. The first step is to create a budget. The textbook went into great detail on the different budgets that can be used and their benefits. A budget will review your current financial condition and help you to project realistic choices. These choices can be for immediate or longer term goals. While there are some uncertainties in future projections, your chances of reaching financial goals without one is like rolling the dice. One key is to be conservative in your planning; this helps address the unexpected when they occur.
Me, being a financial independent have experienced first hand how important it is to keep a financial plan. Using a financial plan I have elevated my savings abilities a long way. Knowing where each dollar is being spent helps the spender to manage each dollar in an uplifting way. In a ten-year plan my goal would have to be to save at least twelve hundred dollars a year which would one hundred dollars each month of that financial plan. Using the persona financial profile assigned by you at the beginning of the year this long-term goal would be possible.
Summary: The book “Complete Guide to Money” is written by a financial planning expert and a radio talk show Host Dave Ramsey. Mr. Ramsey also conducts “Financial Piece University”, where he teaches people how to be smart with their money. The book that I read is actually a textbook for one of the courses of the program that Dave teaches. The author introduces himself in the book as someone who was making good money at one point of his life and later lost it all because he made some foolish choices. A valuable life lesson that he learned that in order for “The money to work for you, you need to know how the money works”. Dave Ramsey received his degree in Personal Finances and got his life, as well as finances back in order to be able to teach others about managing money. The “Complete Guide to Money” discusses the Baby Steps of Savings, the importance of having a plan and sticking with it. It prepares the reader to manage finances in a family setting or as a single individual. Going over the income, expenses and the importance of the budget, makes it easy for the reader to understand how to create a budget (the actual template at the end of the book is also very valuable). The material also covers how to get rid of debt, the meaning of credit scores and functionality of the credit reports. It goes on to discuss different types of insurances, how to negotiate a good deal, and saving for the future. Each chapter has real life examples and quotes from the actual clients of the Financial Peace University, as well as their stories about how they got their finances in order by following the simple ...
all these type of things. I think financial literacy is a really good option to take especially
For a goal to be the most efficient it can be, it has to be S.M.A.R.T. as Siegel and Yacht (2009) explain in our textbook, Personal Finance. Personal finance is the way we conduct and work with our own household finances and how we make the best of what we have. Goals we make in doing that have to be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. Let me explain these five individually. We have to make our goals specific which means nothing general such as, "my goal is to succeed in life.” Those kinds of goals won 't work. Your goal has to be measurable and should be tracked in the process of accomplishing it. It should be attainable, shouldn 't be anything that you as a human being cannot accomplish and it also has to be realistic
I became an enthusiast of finance ever since I was at high school. At the political economy class, my teacher asked us: if you have a million RMB, how would you use it? She then introduced us the concept of investment, and I was intrigued specifically by the stock. For the latter two years of my high school, I have been reading books and articles regarding the stock market in the U.S. and in China. As one of the outstanding students ranked top 1% in College Entrance Exam in Hainan Province, China, I was accepted by the City University of Hong Kong with a full scholarship. With the strong interest in finance, I chose quantitative finance and risk management as my major.
I found several helpful strategies throughout this course but the ones I found to be most beneficial were the ones on setting goals and managing financial resources. By identifying my specific goals and then divi...
Management of personal finance is important as it enables appropriate plans for future activities. Smith’s family
Since I can remember my family has always struggled with money. My parents’ financial experience is like a box of assorted chocolate. Sometimes they make ends meet, sometimes they do not. My mother used to work for the state of Tennessee. She worked on computers and was married to my dad who was in a rock band that took tours overseas a lot. Momma worked full time and came home to do the exact same thing. They soon got a divorce and my mother was working her tail off for my sister and I to be able to live. Since then my mother has gotten remarried, has not been paid child support since I was seven years old or so, and is now trying to make ends meet and pay off a bunch of debt.
In conclusion always think about how to spend your money rather than how to earn. Be cautions of products and think of how much you want to spend on a specific product always asses what you need and this of how to refrain from impulse buying. Don’t deprive yourself from buying what you love, instead budget yourself and think according. Separate you necessities from other luxuries. If you balance out your spending and savings saving money would definitely get easier. Saving money is being able to control and know how to spend your money wisely.
A reflection of the work done to date in this course has given me much clarity on the goals that I wish to achieve in my life and the directions that I need to take to achieve them. In module three, I was able to start a financial planning process, in which I was able to determine my current financial situation concerning income, savings, living expenses, and debts through the utilization of a balance and income statement; financial objectives and personal goals sheet. I prepared a list of current asset and debt balances and amounts spent for various items providing me with a foundation for financial planning activities. In module Five, my financial process continued through the evaluation of a home affordability in which I used Maximum Mortgage