Facing Reality

Today in class we used Excel to see the contrasts between our own family's income and expenses by creating Family budgets. A budget is a financial plan for saving and spending money. Excel is a great program to create these budgets in because it allows you to see and adjust your budgets to fit specific needs (i.e. monthly payments, savings, expense limits etc.)

Income: Money coming into the household
- Job
- Second Job
- Investments
- Alimony
- Pension

After figuring out the income and subtracting taxes, we calculate the expenses.

Expenses: Purchases being made from the income
- Rent/mortgage
- Insurance
- Electricity
- Cable
- Internet
- Food
- Phones (Cell phones)
- Transportation (Car, TTC...)
- Clothing
- Medical
- Education
- Entertainment: video games, music, movies, sports etc.
- Savings

When both the Expenses and the income has been calculated, you compare the totals. If the total expense amount is under the total income the budget is doing well if not the budget is in debt.

From doing this exercise in Excel I've learned that earning money, and making expense decisions can be really tough. It makes you realize just how hard your parents work to bring daily needs into the household, and for that I'm truly grateful to all my they have given me.