Katlyn Clifton

4/6/19

Personal Budget

Common Sense Economics-

Common Sense Economics opened my eyes to budgeting money. I found a very

important quote, “If you do not take charge of your finances they will take charge of you.” I

agree with this, I think of it like if I didn’t have money saved up for emergencies, when an

emergency happened I would have to take out a loan and be in debt. But if I saved money, I

wouldn’t have to stress about not having the money and I wouldn’t have to be in debt. Another

great concept from this book is to budget effectively you should save regularly and spend your

money in an effective way. Just by saving a few dollars every day can get you thousands in no

time. Start saving at an early age because compound interest pays off later. You can also look

into stocks or bonds as a way of saving your money. Figure out which one will benefit you more.

Something that is important for everyone to know is that saving for your retirement is super

important: we all eventually retire and need money for food and travel after we retire. Another

interesting thing that I learned from the book is that it talks about being aware of your

investments you make and take time to research what you will be investing because people can

and will scam your money out of your pocket. Last but not least, teaching you r children how

they can make their own money and save it wisely is important to helping them to learn success

at a young age.

How does this relate to class? –

 Budgeting plays a huge role in everyday life. This book discusses the benefits of savings

and the different ways to save. This applies to finance 1380 because we talk about finances all

the time and things like compound interest that can really help someone’s savings. This project

really helped me to see how much I’m actually spending each month and how I could save my

money each month to help me save money for my baby and house. Reading this book really

helped me realize that I’m young and if I start saving a little each check by the time I retire I will

have way more money than seems possible, especially since I’m saving at a young age.

What I liked and didn’t like? –

There were a lot of educational teachings in this book. I liked how the beginning of the

chapter talks about, “If you don’t take charge of you r finances they will take charge of you.” I

also liked how the book talked about saving only three dollars a day can end up being over

$40,000 by the time you retire. This is super eye opening and I definitely want to save money

early in life. The fact that they brought up teaching your children how they can save early in life

is super smart and how it can help your children in school and they are more likely to go to

college if they budget.

My ideas?

Some ideas I have is instead of eating out, you can eat at home. This is way cheaper and

better for your health. You want to be healthy, if you’re not that ends up costing a lot of money,

so eating healthy at home meals is important. The money you save from eating at home will add

up and you could have a few extra thousand just by not eating out. Some challenges I have with

budgeting is when I’m hungry I go shopping and I tend to buy expensive junk food that I don’t

need just because I’m hungry. I’ve worked on making sure I eat before I shop so I can save
money. I also need to focus on buying foods in season because they are cheaper, this will save

me money.

How did this class help my budget?

I started thinking about waiting when there were sales going on at grocery sales .I would

look at different ads and see which store had the best deal for the foods I need. I also thought

about coupons and looked into using coupons. Or I decided to wait till an item was on sale to buy

it. I also put some money from each paycheck into my savings. I also buy clothes from T.J.Maxx

that is way cheaper and just as great of quality. I also want to start looking into putting my

money into a dedicated savings account.