Posted: June 16th, 2023
Personal Finance Turning Money into Wealth
Personal FinanceTurning Money into Wealth
NOTE: All items need to be in final presentable format, meaning if your submitted works were returned with corrections, you should incorporate the comments and make the necessary corrections to make the assignments substantially and linguistically better. If for some reason you had missed any of the following homework, then you should do it for the first time and include it in your submission. Start working on the project now before you get busy with the finals. By the way, it is very, very, very important that you put all the following items in ONE Microsoft Word file (Not Google doc). I will not grade any submission if it is not all in one Microsoft Word file, and you will get a zero for the project. If you need help with how to add everything into one document, then feel free to call the Help Desk at (936) 261-2525.
1) Prepare your personal statement:
In it tell me about yourself, make sure to share who you are, where do you come from, what are your values, what’s important to you, what drives you, what are your priorities, what do you want to be, and why do you want to be what you want to be.
Also, after finish studying chapter 1, apply the knowledge from the chapter to answer the following questions:
a) Where do you see yourself in 5 years? How are you going to get there (steps)? What is/are at stake if you don’t get there?
b) Where do you see yourself in 10 years? How are you going to get there (steps)? What is/are at stake if you don’t get there?
2) Monthly budget with actual numbers from the month of October:
Make sure the budget has three columns (Budgeted, Actual, and Variance) (see the example in the book):
a) Prepare a budget and fill in the “Actual” column for income and expenses for the month and then calculate your variances.
b) Explain how you would reconcile the budget variance. In other words, what would you do with the difference between what you thought you were going to spend versus what you ended up spending. Would you change any of your behavior, habits or lifestyle in the future to stay within your budget?
3) Global perspective topic: Socially responsible way to use credit card, invest and bank: Read the following articles:
1) https://www.greenamerica.org/sites/default/files/2021-04/2021%20Your%20Green%20Life%20-%20Better%20Banking.pdf
2) https://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/pick-socially_responsible-credit_card-1273/
3) https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/investing/socially-responsible-investing
After reading the articles, write a paragraph about Socially responsible way to use credit card, invest and bank while answering the following questions:
a) What does it mean to use credit, invest, and bank in a socially responsible way?
b) Why is it important that we learn to do that?
c) What steps can you take to participate in the cause and what available options are there to use credit, invest and bank in a socially responsible manner?
d) What can you do to promote the socially responsible way to use credit card, invest and bank?
4) The car you can afford:
a) Using the link https://www.moneyunder30.com/car-affordability-calculator to decide how expensive of a car you can afford given the monthly payments and down payment you can make. Input your information, and write a summary of the results and your observation on the results that you get if you finance an automobile at 3.5% over:
1) Three years
2) Four years
3) Five years.
b) Based on the result that you got for the three-year loan, using the internet, look for a car that fits your budget and tell me why you would choose that particular car. Use the knowledge you have gathered from the chapters in answering the question.
5) The house you can afford:
a) The https://www.fool.com/mortgages/how-much-house-can-i-afford.aspx site has a way to calculate how big of a mortgage one can afford based on some pertinent information about him/her. Use the site to calculate how big of a house you would be able to afford based on your current income or, in the absence of a current income, use a figure that you think you would be earning once you graduate. Use $2,400 for property tax, $1,800 for home insurance, and $6,000 for down payment. You can use the PDF button toward the bottom to print your results and insert them into your document. Make sure that it is formatted in a way that is easy to read.
1) Calculate the numbers you get for a 3%, 15-year mortgage.
2) Calculate the numbers you get for a 6%, 30-year mortgage.
The bottom two ratios on the page needs a little explanation. In general, lenders like to cap the maximum monthly housing allowance (including taxes and insurance) by the lesser of these two ratios: 28% and 36%. According to the Gurus, your monthly housing allowance may not exceed 28% of your total monthly income and your total monthly obligations (monthly housing allowance plus any other long-term obligations) may not exceed 36% of your monthly income. So, leave those numbers as they appear.
b) Using the “Mortgage amount” that you got for the 6%, 30-year mortgage, calculate your monthly payment for the loan? Show your calculation.
c) If you have five years to save $6,000 for down payment for your future house, what specific steps would you take to save the amount?
6) Investment profile:
If you are going to get into investing, you need to know how much risk that you can personally tolerate.
a) Copy and paste the link: https://njaes.rutgers.edu/money/assessment-tools/investment-risk-tolerance-quiz.pdf to take the risk tolerance quiz.
b) Write a paragraph about the results you got from taking the quizzes. Do they match with what you thought you would act as an investor?
c) Read the articles in the following links:
1) https://www.bankrate.com/personal-finance/smart-money/how-to-save-money-in-college/
2) https://www.bankrate.com/investing/saving-vs-investing/
3) https://www.bankrate.com/investing/best-investments/
d) Knowing what you know now about yourself from the quiz result and the knowledge that you gathered from the above articles, write a paragraph about your plan for investing? (i.e., when would you start, how would you find the money to invest, what would you invest in and why? etc.)