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Comprehensive Personal Budget Analysis

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Personal Finance – Unit Four Budgets A personal budget showing recurring and nonrecurring income and expenses, including living expenses, loan payments, savings and investment activity, and durable purchases, is a comprehensive personal budget. This type of budget shows all aspects of financial activities. It is an essential tool for managing your finances and strategizing for your financial future. With goals in mind, the comprehensive personal budget helps in determining how to effectively reach those goals with minimal financial impact. In a sense, a comprehensive personal budget is an ongoing health assessment for your finances (Siegel & Yacht, 2009). One component of the comprehensive budget is the operating budget. This component looks at short-term goals and consists of income and expenses that are recurring. All sources of income are included, as well as all recurring living expenses. The frequency of each occurrence must be considered, since not all recurring income and expenditures occur monthly. An annual operating budget captures all activity for the year, including those that occur with less frequency. Vehicle insurance may have a semiannual …show more content…

Family status could change during the course of the year, affecting the general cost of living. A job change or a promotion could occur, creating an income variance, or a medical procedure requiring a cash outflow above that of current health care payments could be on the horizon. There may be economic changes, such as a change in interest rates or an increase in health care costs. While macro factors cannot be predicted, they can be monitored. Many times there are indicators in the news outlets, or notices from a mortgage company or employer, advising that a change is imminent. Whether micro and macro factors are known ahead of time or unexpected, those changes are incorporated in the operating budget (Siegel & Yacht,

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