Personal Finances

In this society, some of the most important things in your life have to deal with money. In Chad Foster’s book, Financial Literacy for Teens, he taught his readers how to save, spend, invest and give away your money. Reading this book has taught me to start saving when I’m young, know the differences of what I need to buy rather than what I want, to make money while I sleep and giving away some of your money will not only help yourself, but help many others as well.

Money was very short. We had to account for every penny. Every week, my mother wrote down in a leather-bound journal everything she earned and everything we spent in the household, down to the penny. Every week, from the time I was ten years old, she went through that with me. We lived on a cash basis. There was no credit card, no second mortgage. In that situation, budgeting became extremely important. Her comment to me was, “You can’t complain [about what you don’t have] unless you understand what’s happening.” Those were her ground rules.

* Create a budget- creating a budget will help you not spend more money than you have. Creating a budget will also help you stay out of debt.

One of my expenses is bowling every week at Bel-Air Bowl on Saturday mornings. It costs eleven dollars a week for the school year except during the school season. My family goes to the chiropractor occasionally, and buys vitamins there. Another big expense for me is church youth group functions. Summer camp alone costs around two or three hundred dollars, and we do events through the whole year. Car repairs and maintenance is a big expense, especially recently since the car accident. We also have random expenses at Christmas and birthdays, when we buy more gifts and spend more money than normal. Random expenses may not be large in dollar amounts, but they add up

c. Smaller payments mean more time in debt. d. Your lower interest loans also get rolled into the deal so you end up with minimal savings.

So often we hear about teaching the whole child. Today, more than ever, personal finance knowledge and awareness are a critical part of what it means to teach the whole child.

When going off to college many students become unaware of how much they are spending, or how much things actually cost. Budgeting for necessary day to day items is hard to do when sometimes we forget our priorities, and forget the difference between what we may want and what we need. Managing is one of the hardest things to do as a college student because, before going to college many students do not really understand or realize how much certain items are and how much we actually use; such as: groceries, soaps, laundry detergent, etc. This is why money management and budget is many times hard for college students to

things I used to find out my budget was groceries ($2,280 /yr), buying a car ($33,000), paying

My first learning experience is how we learned to manage and spend money wisely. Multiple times throughout the year we had to decide if we wanted to spend money from are budget or if we personally wanted to bring in money. From this I learned that sometimes you need to balance your money weather it be buying something with a debit or a credit card or to pay in cash. The next thing I learned was how to wisely spend money, for instance asking yourself do I really need this or is it a want. Also by choosing to buy high quality for more money or less money but having stuff last half the amount of time. The last thing I learned about money management was how to save money. Some of the ways I was taught was by looking for deals or giving up on some of the small things that I want. Say I

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

This is a problem that we all face at some point in our life when bills start piling up higher than the Empire State Building. We might even reach a point where we feel like all we do is work for the sake of bills. Well put all that behind you because I am here to give you the plan to success that you have been waiting for. This is a little plan I like to call the 10-30-60 plan to success and the way it works is pretty simple. What you basically do is take 60% of your paycheck and leave that aside for all your bills that you need to pay. Then you take 30% for savings (rule of thumb) and that is where you address the saving-for-the-future part of your paycheck. Finally, the last 10% of your check is all free for you to spend! Now it might sound too good to be true so let me go a

Fortunately, most people know what goals are and may have set some of their own in the past. However, many new college students have not had to support themselves financially or are not equipped with the knowledge it takes to form a realistic spending budget with allocation of saving. In order to determine one’s financial standing one must know their expense to income ratio. Kobliner provides a worksheet that breaks down sources of income and expenses, which allows one to see easily their monthly income and outcome. Unfortunately, the knowledge of what one spends and earns in a month is ineffective unless accompanied with guidelines to help appraise one’s current asset consumption. In order to service the worksheet she provides target ratios for debt, rent, and savings to total income. To finalize this chapter, she provides

Overcoming financial difficulties is not easy, but understanding where money comes from and where it goes would help ease budgeting in that the importance of financial security would prove itself to make life less chaotic in the long-run. Writing things down, organizing money appropriately, adapting to life’s changes, following things through, and actively seeking information is necessary for a “rich” life. For example, goals, as indicated in the book, are vital in determining one’s ability of spending, saving, or sharing. Without goals, the destination one reaches could potentially be financially devastating. Having goals would lay the foundation down for developing new skills in saving money. Saving money is heavily encouraged for good reasons; it gives people a peace of mind, emergency cushion, retirement, down payment on big-ticket items, and an increase in luxurious opportunities or items. Although, most the benefits that stem from saving are not shown immediately, their future-self would sincerely thank themselves for their financial

How to properly manage money is something that should be taught to young people because it is a very important asset in everyday life. “Total consumer debt in the United States stands at nearly $2.6 trillion dollars. That works out to be nearly $8,500 in debt for every man” (Anderson). Many times teenagers are known for “throwing away” their money by spending it on unnecessary things. This is something that could easily be avoided if students were taught the proper techniques on saving and spending money. There are many different skills that students could learn if personal finance was taught in the school system. Managing money is one of those very important skills and would help to lessen the number of young people spending irresponsibly instead of

While taking the personal finance course this past spring, I learned many valuable lessons that will greatly assist me throughout my life. One lesson I learned is the importance of paying yourself first. To put this into action, I will save money in an emergency fund to have enough money to live comfortably for 3 to 6 months, in case of emergency. Furthermore, this course has taught me the importance of budgeting. Using budgeting, I will make a plan for my money, so I can avoid over drafting and bouncing checks. Another lesson personal finance taught me is to pay all bills and loans on time to develop a good FICO credit score, which is what companies use to evaluate the risk of loaning to an individual. Knowing this information will help me