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.
Some of the benefits of creating and sticking to a budget are that you know how much money is coming in
and how much you will have left over each month. It is more organized than spending random amounts of
money on different categories. A challenge is that you can not over-spend on every category or else you will
end up in debt.

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.
One item that should be included is rent. You need to have enough money to pay your rent each month and
have somewhere to live. Another thing that is very important is groceries. You may not need to go out to eat,
but you do need to have food in the house to make yourself multiple times a day. Another extremely
important thing is transportation, whether it’s public or personal, you are going to need to be able to pay to
get yourself around. A fourth thing is health insurance, which is something you really need it just in case you
get injured and are unable to pay your bills. The last thing that is very important is hygiene items such as
shampoo, toothpaste, and toilet paper. These things are just a necessity to life.

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.
One may save every month for short term and long term because for short term, it is always helpful to have a
little bit of money left over in case you need to do some extra spending. For long term, you need to save
because you never know what your future holds and you could need the money at any time without knowing
until that specific time. For the personal budget that I made, I thought it was reasonable to save about $325
for long term and $165 for short term.

Part III: Surplus or Deficit

4. In the end, does your budget end with a surplus or a deficit?
It ends with a very small surplus.

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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.

I figured that I can’t spend excessive amounts on anything that I do not really need. I can spend a little bit less
on things like dining out and “wants”, and leave a little bit more money for bills and insurance.

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

I learned that if you do not budget properly, you will have a very hard time managing your money, no matter
how much you make. I also learned that there a lot more things that you have to spend money on each
month, and if you miss just one, It can potentially cause severe problems with the way you have to live.