Quinn Morehouse-Picton
FIN 110 Sec 3
December 15, 2016
This course has helped me to realize how many things go into influencing the
success of your financial life, and the importance of paying attention to each of these
things. One of the first important topics we went over was budgeting. Budgets are helpful
because they organize how your money will be spent, typically by the month. By
budgeting your income, you’ll know exactly how much you can afford to spend in each
category of life, whether it be housing, transportation, food, health care, entertainment,
etc., and you’ll also know how much you need to be putting aside to save for long term
goals like vacations or retirement and how much you should be saving for emergencies.
By creating a fake budget for class, we learned how to go about the budgeting process.
Another important topic we covered was the ability to organize and manage your
financial life. This simply means that we discussed how managing your money will help
with avoiding missed payments, achieving your financial goals, and making you feel
organized and at peace with the money you have and whether you’ll have enough for any
unexpected costs. By staying organized and keeping track of how much money you have
and what it is going towards, you’ll be able to stay on top of any costs thrown your way
and feel good about knowing how much money you’re putting towards things like
retirement, your children’s education, or other large costs you anticipate.
Along with managing your money, it is important to realize how other people and
obstacles will affect the way you spend and save money. If you get married, you have to
know the financial habits of the person you are going to be with. Things like how much
they make and how much they typically spend in a month and what they’re spending it
on. Then, as mentioned before, you also have to consider whether you’ll have children,
how many, and what kind of schooling you’ll be able to support them in. You may even
have to consider your parents as a financial obstacle if they need to be placed in a
retirement home when they are older. Of course there are also obstacles that don’t directly
to start with a 50/50 split between the two, and invest more in bonds (which are less
risky) when nearing retirement.