Microsoft Excel Assignment #6 - Calculating Your Yearly Budget

Good Morning!  Today we will be working on creating a spreadsheet like the one above.  It will help you calculate what a yearly budget might look like if you choose to live here in the bay area!  While shocking to see the cost of living, it is also important to prepare for future success!

For your blog today, please post your final project similar to what I posted above.  While you also answered these questions on the spreadsheet itself, I want you to take a second to respond to them here on your blog also.  Start your blog by talking about the assignment, the skills you learned with Excel and what the goal/purpose of the assignment was in relation to preparing for future academic, career and life success.

Then, please respond to the following questions:

1. At $14/hr, how much money in debt are you at the end of the year?
2. What is the rate of pay required to end up with approximately 0 total savings at the end of the year?
3. What is the required rate of pay so that you end up with $500 in savings at the end of the year?
4. Something would happen if you got a roommate and shared the cost of rent evenly between you both.  Explain how that would affect your expenses and savings.
5. Besides increasing your rate of pay, what else could you do to increase your total income per year?
6. What rate of pay must you achieve in order for you to save $40,000 per year given all of your expenses?
7. Write a formula in cell A31 that will multiply this new rate of pay (cell H21) by 2080 (how many hours someone works in one year).
8. Which, if any, of the column heading numbers do you believe are wrong - is rent to high?  Do you believe you could save on entertainment expenses?  Discuss where you see room for saving or areas where costs may be higher in relation to the lifestyle you want to lead.
9. Let’s assume that you will not be a professional athlete, a successful musician, a supermodel, or that you simply will marry an extremely rich person.  Let’s also assume that like most Americans you will have to get a real job to survive in this world.  Based on the answer that you got for question 7 above, what level of education must you obtain in order to earn that much money by the time you are approximately 35 years old?  Take a look at the chart below.

Please take the time to respond to each of the questions thoughtfully and thoroughly (complete sentences). Remember, you need to explain to your audience what you learned so complete sentences are incredibly helpful. Also keep in mind we are talking about your future so a little extra time invested now may go a long way in the future!