For your midterm portfolio project, you will develop and
reflect on a monthly household budget. Given your stage of life,
financial responsibilities, and unique needs, consider priorities
for your budget for expenses and expenditures over one month.
Briefly describe your life stage and responsibilities. Then, what
percentage of your annual income from all sources would be
appropriate for each of the following:
1) housing, food, clothes
2) transportation
3) consumer debt retirement
4) tuition, student loans
5) savings, investment, retirement
6) entertainment
7) charity, giving to God’s Kingdom
8) other?
Now that you have established net worth and financial goals,
build a monthly household budget based on your stage of life. Your
monthly budget should include an estimate of all your sources of
income, your deductions such as taxes and giving to God’s Kingdom,
then your essential living expenses and fixed debt payments. Your
discretionary budget for items such as entertainment, savings, and
investments follow, leaving you a net cash flow. From what’s left
over, you can save for your future or spend on your short-term,
intermediate, and long-term goals.
Please develop and submit your own household budget or a
suggested budget for someone similar to your own stage of life. You
may wish to use a different app or software program to develop and
track your actual plan, but use the provided Excel spreadsheet
(separate document) and submit it as part of your midterm project.
Customize the spreadsheet, if you like, by adding or ignoring any
of the rows and replacing with headings of your choosing.