Figuring out how exactly to make ends meet and save to meet financial goals can be highly challenging, given the expenses of daily living. A financial plan helps you identify how you can reach your short- and long-term goals, and leverage planning and organization strategies to make meaningful, incremental progress toward realizing these goals. This assignment gives you the opportunity to apply what you’ve learned about personal financial planning, productivity strategies, and the use of Excel to develop a personal financial plan aligned to your financial goals.
Build your productivity skill by creating a plan for reaching a specific financial goal within an identified time frame. You will use productivity strategies to break financial planning into manageable, organized steps, and use Excel to develop a realistic plan that is aligned to your financial goal and considers economic drivers, requirements, and resources.
Preparation
Read the following scenario for assignment context. Look over the Week 5 Assignment Excel Template [XLSX] and Week 5 Assignment Word Template [DOCX]. Your completed templates will be the deliverables for this assignment; make sure you have finished all sections of the Excel template and have provided at least one paragraph of 4–7 sentences per section in the Word template.
Scenario
You were offered a promotion in another city. You need to consider whether to turn your home into an investment (rental) property or sell it. In both scenarios, consider the implications for your ability to purchase a new home in a new city. Do you need to rent first in your new city? Or can you buy a new home?
Congratulations on your promotion.
Instructions
Using what you have learned about budgeting, financial planning, and Excel, complete the Week 5 Assignment Excel Template [XLSX]. Take care to populate only those cells marked for your data entry. Then, complete the Week 5 Assignment Word Template [DOCX] to explain and reflect on your rationale for the choices you made in your financial plan, as well as reflect on the productivity strategies you used during the process. Remember to turn in both completed templates once you are finished.
Create a personal financial plan that estimates new salary and housing options: value of home, profit for sale of home, or profit from rental revenue:
1. Use the Week 5 Assignment Excel Template [XLSX] to create your financial plan. Important: Pay attention to cells with red triangles at the upper right corner. They contain helpful comments for your budgeting or data entry.
· Complete your annual budget in the Excel template. Remember to edit only the cells that have been designated for you to edit.
· Select one of the following goals:
· Buy a home in your new city.
· Use the Internet to find a home that you like and would fit your family's needs.
· Deduct the profit (from sale of home or rental property revenue). Enter that cost in expenditures.
· See comments (notes) in the cells about making this calculation.
· Rent a home in your new city.
· Use the Internet to find a home that you like and would fit your family's needs.
· Estimate this cost by deducting your profit (from sale of home or rental property revenue). Enter that cost in expenditures.
· See comments (notes) in the cells about making this calculation.
· Rent, then buy a home in your new city.
· Use the Internet to identify a suitable rental property as well as a property to purchase.
· Estimate how long you will be paying the expense of your original home plus the expense of your home or rental in the new city. Enter that cost in expenditures.
· Consider how many months you would be renting before purchasing a home.
· See comments (notes) in the cells about making this calculation.
· Consider the value of your home. This includes a fair market value estimate and potential profit from sale of your home or revenue from rent that you could expect.
· If you do not currently own a home, use the median home value for your area.
· Use the Internet to research median home values in your area.
· If you currently own a home, assume you still owe 65 percent of the home value on your mortgage.
· To determine the amount of rent you could expect to collect on your home, use the Internet to research rental prices of similar houses in your area.
· If you do not own a home, research potential rental income based on properties for rent that are similar to the average home in your area.
· Identify an annual income as a starting point for your financial plan. Use an annual income value that you feel comfortable using for this assignment.
· You can find the average or median income of career fields at and . Choose a career field and research that field and its salary information for your role.
2. Identify a realistic time frame for reaching your new housing goal.
· Use the Week 5 Assignment Word Template [DOCX] to complete this and next steps. Consider the housing goal from your financial plan. Report a realistic time frame for reaching this goal.
· What is your time frame for reaching your new housing goal?
· How did you determine the time frame? Think about how long you expect it to sell or rent your current home, the price of purchasing or renting in your new city, and so on.
· Use research from the course readings or outside sources to support your time frame.
3. Explain your choice of housing and how it supports achieving the selected financial goal based solely on expense consideration (both housing- and nonhousing-related expenses).
· Look at your goal, decision about what to do with your original home, and the other expenditures you chose in your financial plan.
· Explain why you chose the housing option you did (what you did with your original home as well as your housing goal in your new city).
· Discuss how your other expenditure decisions help you reach your housing goal in your new city.
4. Reflect on the productivity strategies used to break down the financial plan into smaller steps to help stay organized and productive.
· Think about the productivity resources that were presented in the course, then think about the process you used for completing your financial plan.
· Write about how you used one or more of the productivity strategies or resources to help you create a more effective and/or organized process for researching and completing your financial plan.
5. Convey purpose in an appropriate tone and style, incorporating supporting evidence and adhering to organizational, professional, and scholarly writing standards.
· Review your assignment to ensure your written responses are relevant, clear, and address the prompts in the template thoroughly.
Submit your completed Week 5 Assignment Excel Template and Week 5 Assignment Word Template.
Additional Requirements
· Written communication: Communicate in a manner that is scholarly, professional, respectful, and consistent with expectations for professional practice in education. Original work and critical thinking are required. Your writing must be free of errors that detract from the overall message.
· Font and font size: Times New Roman, 12 points.
· Sources: Two sources are required. One of these sources can be one of the course readings or videos. The second source must be obtained from the Capella library databases.
Review the scoring guide before submitting your assignment to ensure that you meet all criteria.
SCORING GUIDE
Your work will be evaluated using this criteria.
