WEEK 09 APPLICATION ACTIVITY

PART 1: OPEN AND DOWNLOAD NEEDED FILES

1. Open your Expense Tracker Excel file. This is the document you downloaded in Week 04 to track your
expenses the past several weeks. You will only use this sheet as a reference to complete your budget.
2. Download the Budget Template Excel file. You will not turn in your actual budget but use it to honestly
answer the questions at the end of this document.

PART 2: ENTER INCOME SOURCES AND BUDGET CATEGORIES

1. On the budget sheet, enter the start and end dates for your budget. This is typically the first of the month
to the last day of the month or payday to payday. The budget needs to span one month.
2. In column A, starting in row 10, list all your income sources for the coming month.
3. Then in column B, give your best estimate of the amount of money you expect to earn from each source.
4. Consider the list of expense categories in column D, and the categories you used in your Expense Tracker.
Modify the categories to best fit your situation.
5. Once you have listed your expense categories in column D, use column E to indicate whether each is a
fixed or a variable expense. Your responses may differ from those in the example.
6. Now, use your previous month’s expenses (from the Expense Tracker) to create a budget for the coming
month. Enter the amount you plan to spend in each category in the appropriate cells in column F.

PART 3: BALANCE YOUR BUDGET

1. Review that the total income you expect to earn is given in cell B8 and the total expenses in cell F8. If the
number in cell F8 is more than the number in B8, it means that your planned expenses exceed your total
income. Your budget is not balanced.
2. Though there is likely not much you can do to adjust your fixed expenses, look over your variable
expenses and make necessary adjustments until your Total Income expected (cell B8) is equal to or only
slightly greater than the Total Expenses budgeted (cell F8).
o If you can’t balance your budget by adjusting the variable expenses, you will need to consider
what fixed expenses you can adjust (i.e. – reducing or canceling services, subscriptions, etc.) or
what other income you could acquire.
3. When you finish, your budget should look something like the following.
PART 4: ANSWER QUESTIONS AND REFLECT
Answer the following questions:

1. Did you download and complete your budget? Yes ☒ No ☐

2. Did you classify all your expenses as fixed or variable? Yes ☒ No ☐
3. Did you adjust your budget so your expenses did not exceed your net income?
☒ Yes
☐ I Didn’t Need To
☐ No
4. Comparing your old budget to your new aspirational one, what is one major difference that you notice?

I think is important to avoid wasting money in things that are not necessarily important. I did not have a
previous tracker of my expenses and also I did not have some budgets for certain things. I had to use a
different budget template that helped me to be more organized in comparison to the previous one.

5. Thinking back on everything that you have learned throughout this unit about wise financial stewardship,
what is the primary goal of your new budget? What are you currently working toward that you perhaps
weren’t before (i.e. tithes and offerings, emergency fund, eliminating debt, savings?
 I think that is important to have a category for emergencies. I just got married and me and my wife
support each other in different ways. Our new goal will be to have an emergency fund which help us to be
more free of any hard situation we can’t handle. It will be 6 months of income so we can survive during
hard times or if we lost our jobs.

6. How long until you reach that goal?

Based on my budget and expenses It will take about 1 year and a 5 months to reach that goal.
7. Once that goal is met, what is the next goal you hope to achieve in terms of your budget?

Once that goal has been completed We hope to start saving for a house we can be able to have a place
where our family can grow up.
8. What do you think will be the hardest thing about sticking to this new budget?

Unexpected expenses can quickly overwhelm me. They are very hard to predict and also it can seem very
stressful to deal with.

9. How do you plan to overcome this challenge?

1. Having a detailed past spending records.

2. Discuss any improvement in our family council meeting.
3. Learn about self-control, asking myself if something is actually a real “need” or just a “want”. If I can live
without it, then I pass it up.

PART 5: SAVE AND SUBMIT

After completing all the steps above, save this document to your device and follow the instructions in your course
to upload it into the assignment. You do not need to submit the budget you completed.

Complete the following steps in the coming months to continue to refine your budget

PART 6: TRACK YOUR EXPENSES FOR THE NEXT MONTH

Now, continue the pattern you have started by using the Income and Expense Tracker file to track your expenses
for the coming month. You can download a new copy of the file from the 'Student Resources' module in your
Course.

If we had more time in the semester, you would be required to track your expenses for the next month. Since
there is no time, you are not required to; but it is highly recommended that you continue to track your expenses
for the next month, then compare your actual expenditures to the goals you set for yourself.

Don’t forget to use either the digital or envelope tracking methods to help keep yourself on track. Also, don’t get
discouraged if you find it impossible to stick to your aspirational budget the first few times you try. Make
adjustments as necessary and keep trying. With prayer, faith, hard work, and self-control, you will become a wiser
steward of your finances.

PART 7: ADJUST YOUR BUDGET

As the month passes, you may find that you need to spend more in one budget category than you expected. This is
when you return to your budget and decrease the amount in another category to keep your budget balanced.
Over time, you will have a better understanding of your budget needs, so this should happen less often.

You can use the ‘Actual’ columns on the budget sheet to record the actual income and expenses in each category.
This will help you know where your budget needs to be adjusted.

PART 8: IMPLEMENT A LONG-TERM PLAN TO IMPROVE YOUR FINANCIAL

SITUATION
As time passes, continue to monitor your budget. Consider the principles from the course as you make
adjustments and council together with family as needed.