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Financial planning and financial management
Financial planning and financial management
Financial planning and financial management
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Yes, I was being honest when I was charting my spending habits because I haven’t done a budget that lasted a week before, and I wanted to get an estimate of how much I spend in a week. It was an interesting task to be aware of how much I was actually spending by having real numbers to look at in an organized spreadsheet. The spreadsheet itself was very simple and direct which made it easier to analyze. By lying about my spending habits, this assignment would have been counterproductive since I would have been avoiding facing the truth about how much I spent that week. Instead of being dishonest and trying to avoid that amount of money I spent, I was honest when I was charting my expenses since I wanted to get an actual estimate, even if this …show more content…
A lot of the things I bought that I wanted include food and miscellaneous items I bought at Wal-Mart. I also bought food which depending on the circumstance, I would consider as a need. In my spreadsheet, I categorized certain foods as wants, and others as needs. This depended on the time of day and how much I spent. For example, I know that I did not need to spend at amount on a meal at a restaurant. However, I was with my friends and I wanted to. On the other hand, the day I bought a burger at A & W was more of a necessity, since I did not pack food from home to take to school so rather than stay hungry, I decided I needed to buy food so I wold no longer be hungry. I believe this is fairly representative of my usual spending habits. Although, I know I don’t spend this much in a week. I believe on average I spend around $20.00 a week, which I mostly spend on food. Since I went shopping with my friends and my family this week, I spent a lot more than I usually do. I would also like to point out that the $24.42 I spent at Wal-Mart was because my mom had not brought her money. If my parents are out shopping with me, they are the ones who will generally pay for items they need and items I want. This also depends on how desperately I want the item. If they don’t want to pay for an item they believe is unnecessary for me, …show more content…
However like most people, my relationship with money can still be improved. I do have moments when I may go on a spending spree like this week when I want to relieve myself from stressful situations. I believe it would be more beneficial to channel my stress in a more constructive manner rather than be impulsive when buying things. By the end of this week, I had mixed feelings when I realized how much I spent. I was aware of how much I was spending but, I was also aware that I don’t generally spend this much. Even though I felt somewhat guilty, I know that I will continue to save money as a way to pay up for all the spending I did this
By being on a budget and making a plan for each individual week of what I was going to eat for each meal it made grocery shopping go a lot faster, because I had a plan and I knew what I needed to buy and only got what was on the list due to the budget. The limitation changed what I ate by not being able to buy as much expensive healthier foods or as much food in general not allowing junk food or items to snack on in the household, which is a really good thing, but it limited what I ate because there wasn’t enough money in the budget to buy a bunch of food that wasn’t needed for that
Have you ever felt like you are spending too much money at a time, on pointless items? Statistics show that American’s consumption rate of goods has increased by forty-five percent in the last twenty years (Statistics-Consumption/quality of life pg. 194). Americans are experiencing a thing that is many times known as “Affluenza”, this is when someone buys more items, such as clothes, cars, houses, or any unnecessary items. Many people talk about this so-called “Affluenza”, like it is a medical term. The word Affluenza is pretty much saying that people make money and work hard for their money and they like to buy nice things, because they can and they have the money to. They are fortunate enough to be able to have these nice things for themselves because they work so hard for it. Many Americans are not satisfied with their positions because of false ads, selfishness, and jealousy. Some celebrities, some of the wealthiest people on the planet have committed suicide because they are not happy with what they have and they feel like they need more items, when really they have everything they need to be happy, but they suffer from Affluenza and make these bad decisions.
Several months ago I began to suspect that a new acquaintance had some unusual ideas about money. Her Facebook posts and conversation starters revolved around living a frugal lifestyle and her approach, at least at the time, seemed quite novel. The Great Recession has certainly forced all of us to reevaluate our spending behaviors and tighten up our proverbial belts a few notches. In fact, the National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC) conducted a poll in January that shows many of us are experiencing “frugal fatigue.” Cunningham, an NFCC spokesperson, says that “…66 percent (of respondents), indicated they were tired of pinching pennies… ,” but, “(t)he interesting finding is that more than 20 percent… had implemented financial lifestyle changes that they found to be positive and intended to keep them in place" ("Majority of Americans Have Frugal Fatigue”). I could not find any estimates about how many Americans have adopted extreme frugality, but the 20 percent of respondents in the NFCC’s poll that believe they will continue their frugal ways suggests the number may be very high indeed. At any rate, my new friend talked about her frugality with the same fervor as a religious convert. The only other person I knew who could rhapsodize so joyfully about reused plastic baggies and thrift store finds was my maternal grandmother. I was intrigued and inspired to research this co-culture, or perhaps counterculture, of extreme frugality.
In this paper I aim to tie the concepts of behavioral economics to issues in health economics. The goal is to use economics and psychology to explain how patients or physicians stray from the assumptions of the standard economic theory. In it through behavioral economic concepts that help researchers analyze and forecast patient or physician behavior. Behavioral economics has neumerous applications in the medical care field and these ideas can be used to create better health outcomes and stronger policies. I will be observing the economic issue of asymmetric information in certain spaces in the medical care field. According to the standard economic theory decision makers are fully informed have rational preferences with the aim to maximize utility. Behavioral economics literature examines patient and physician decision making through a variety of lenses such as the concepts of radical uncertainty and visceral factors. Through research and observation it is only “rational” to apply concepts of behavioral economics. In this sector uncertainty hovers above every decision where patients have limited information that influence decisions in the environment of fear make choices in the context of fear and trust in the physician. Every situation the medical field is unique to its own and this creates a great deal of uncertainties. These uncertainties can infiltrate decisions about diagnosis, treatment and prognosis. Since this is such a broad subject I will narrow it down to a few topics to explain the ideas. I will try to show patient and physician decision making capacity in risk situations and use the example of end of life care to make the argument tangible.
College debt is a universally known issue that remains one of society’s largest burdens today. Over the past ten years, high school students and graduates realized that they must seek a higher education in order to find a job that keeps food on the table. Attending a college or university is practically required in order to succeed in life today. Millions of people seek a higher education to pursue a degree, graduate, and acquire a quality job that supports their everyday needs. It often means a lot of money to pursue and earn a degree nowadays. What they don’t realize, is that paying their tuition and housing deposits is essentially signing a contract, costing them thousands of dollars in the near future and leading them down the dark path
Government has filled a spot in the American Society that once belonged to the churches. People regularly attended church throughout American history and use the church as a place of instruction, guidance, support, and charity. The government now fills a larger role in American’s lives and at the same time church attendance is diminishing. The government is growing at a rapid pace and the expanded social programs have more influence on Americans than the church. America is a nation of immigrants which most fled from large governments (sometime oppressive) and now the American government is poised to grow larger than ever. The ideas behind the growth of government can have noble intentions, but more often than not results in wasted money and harm to the peoples it intends to help, and is replacing the roles churches once filled as a guiding and supportive structure in peoples lives.
Student Loan Debt According to US news, “the average bachelor’s degree holder takes 21 years to pay off their student loans.” The authors of “The Student Loan Crisis” are persuading the readers to not be afraid of student loans. I strongly agree with the article “Here’s Your Crisis: Student Loan Debt Isn’t a Myth” because they give very compelling evidence that student loans are a very big deal. The total student debt is over $1 trillion now according to the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau.
For many people in the United States, going to college is considered a rite of passage. However, in recent years with student loan debt increasing, many believe that college is actually not the way to go anymore. Those who think that college is not a worthwhile investment are simply choosing to ignore the facts. A college degree in Americas today is becoming more and more necessary to be successful in the workforce. Student loan debts often intimidate people into believing that college is not the right path for them, but in today’s economy, a college degree is paramount.
After one month of tracking my income, I have learned a little more about my spending habits. I am already aware of most of my spending habits, and where I most often slip up. A little on the background of my spending, I rarely use cash. There are two reasons why I do this; the first reason is so that I am not tempted to spend bits of money here and there on snacks and small things. The other reason is that so I can more effectively track my spending with less effort. I have two checking accounts to keep this balanced since on the statements it does not say what the money is specifically spent on. I use one card on essentials and school needs, and the other account is more of a lifestyle account. Although I have done this financial tracking in the past, I was able to reaffirm that I still have some areas of weakness in my spending.
My budget was only three thousand four hundred fifteen dollars and eighty- two cents per month, with that we downsized a lot. We had to change apartments two to three times, but we settled down in San Francisco, California in an apartment that only cost six hundred and ten dollars every month. Go big or go home, right? Well you’d be surprised to learn going home is your only choice sometimes while balancing a budget. Just for the the record, cars cost way too much. My partners and I were searching for cars left and right, but only found a busted budget! After all of this complete chaos, we found a small, but under budget car. We elated to learn that we would not be
Budgeting is a multi-phased process. For the overall budgeting procedure to be successful, each phase of the process must be executed in the proper manner. Therefore, stringent administrative controls are imperative in the process. If a budget is prepared but no follow-up assessments and evaluations are carried out to establish effectiveness of its implementation, the whole process may go awry and negate the entire purpose of putting the budget in place (Cogan, Timothy, & Allen, 1994). Various types of controls are necessary for a budget to achieve its objectives; these include preventive controls, variance analyses, feedback controls, and internal controls. All these controls must be factored in for the administration and execution of the budget to be effective. Proficient personnel who can identify and mitigate sources of variances in the budget execution process are needed to oversee the process. Allowing the formulated budget to run itself would plunge an organization into a budget crisis. To prevent any such crisis from arising, this paper will look into the features of budget administration/execution that make an organizational budget successful (Lee & Ronald, 1998).
Money and Happiness are two things that we have all given a lot thought. We put lots of effort into these two things either trying to earn them or trying to increase them. The connection we make between money and happiness is strange because they are two very different concepts. Money is tangible, you can quantify it, and know exactly how much of it you have at any given time. Happiness, on the other hand, is subjective, elusive, has different meanings for different people and despite the efforts of behavioral scientist and psychologist alike, there is no definitive way to measure happiness. In other word, counting happiness is much more difficult than counting dollar bills. How can we possibly make this connection? Well, money, specifically in large quantity, allows for the freedom to do and have anything you want. And in simplest term, happiness can be thought of as life satisfaction and enjoyment. So wouldn’t it make sense that the ability to do everything you desire, result in greater satisfaction with your life.
The phenomenon of impulse buying is becoming increasingly commonplace in developed countries. Our culture of consumption makes us less likely to resist temptation and consider the consequences before purchasing things. The impacts could be varied dramatically depended on where it takes place. For instance, the things that you purchase impulsively could be a bar of chocolate; however, it could also be a Louis Vuitton handbag and the consequences would be much severe. Hence, a lot of researchers are interested in studying the causes of this phenomenon in terms of different parameters such as age and gender. In relation to gender, researchers attempted to find whether there will be a gender difference in impulse buying and the possible
Previously to taking this class, I had never given much thought to my eating habits. I always thought of the way I chose to eat as one of those things I didn’t need to concern myself with too heavily now because I’m a young broke college student. The way I eat is pretty similar to the way most of my friends eat and when you live away from home, that seems like the norm for people in college. However, after applying what I’ve learned in this class to my life, I’ve realized that the dietary choices I make now affect not only my current health, but my future health as well. So overall, I would say that my eating habits are pretty bad, but I’m working on making them better.
Saving money brings security for any future expenses. The earlier in life an individual begins to save, the better they will be set financially in the years to come. There are several reasons why it is important to save money. A few of these reasons are for emergencies, retirement, and simply for luxury spending. Having money will benefit each of these examples.