COMM 229 Fall 2023 Budget Assignment Guideline
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School
St. Joseph Catholic High School *
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Course
229
Subject
Communications
Date
Nov 24, 2024
Type
docx
Pages
4
Uploaded by BarristerHedgehog783
COMM 229 Fall 2023 Budget Assignment Guideline
Goal:
To help students plan, budget, and be resourceful and financially responsible after they graduate
from university.
Assumptions:
1.
You are a recent USask graduate and will be working in whatever city you plan to live in
once school is over. You will be working in whatever field you plan on working in once
you have graduated. (This does not necessarily have to coincide with your “Major” but it
must be realistic). Your start date is January 1, 2024. You have to research your salary.
2.
For sake of simplicity, you can assume that your total income tax rate is 17%. This how-
ever does not include CPP or EI (you need to compute those). For the purposes of this
budget, you can present your earnings on a monthly basis.
3.
You have $1,000 as an opening balance in your bank account on January 1, 2024.
4.
You will be living in an apartment of your choosing, for the entire year, and rent is due on
the 1st of every month. You must pay rent with cash/cheque. You need to find out how
much rent will be in the city you plan to live in. You will need to consider moving costs
and/or costs for décor upon moving and settling into your new apartment. You may have
a roommate(s) if you wish. If you are going to have a roommate you can factor this into
your budget but it MUST be realistic. If basic utilities aren’t included in the rental cost
(per the housing website you use) then you must estimate and include them. To help you
get started your parents have paid your “last month’s rental deposit” so you only have to
worry about paying rent on a month-by-month basis. (
Note: If you are planning on living
at home after school you must still include rent in your budget. The point of this exercise
is to try and show you what life will be like when you truly become financially indepen-
dent
).
5.
You have a credit limit of $2,000 on your only credit card, with a 2%/month APR (simple
interest). The minimum monthly credit card payment is 3% of the previous month's bal-
ance, interest included. You may pay the balance in full each month, but you don’t have
to. If you didn’t use the card, you owe nothing. You also don’t have to use the credit card
at all – it’s just an option.
6.
Because you are financially independent you will not borrow money from friends or fam-
ily. You may include however; any realistic gifts you think you may receive for your
birthday and/or holidays you observe where gifts may be given.
7.
Acquire at least 7 of the 10 items in the box below. You can obtain these items in any le-
gal way you choose, except you cannot be “given” any of them. To support your purchase
costs for these items, please provide a calculation/price quote or online/printed ad sup-
porting your budgeted/proposed purchase price, separately in your project. Hyperlinks
will not be accepted as support.
If you already own many of the items below,
you need to determine at least 7 items that you will need to purchase during the budget
period as a result of moving into your own place and starting your life and include those
purchases in your budget.
Casual Clothes
and Shoes
Couch or Comfy
Chair
TV
Work Clothing
and Shoes
Cleaning Sup-
plies and Vac-
uum
Bed Frame, Box
Spring and Mat-
tress
Kitchen Table
and Chairs
Computer and
Desk or Laptop
Dishes, Cutlery,
Pots and Pans
Chest of Draw-
ers or Desk
8.
Also include the following items in your monthly budget:
a.
Cell phone.
b.
Cable/Netflix and Internet (if not already included with rent or utilities above.)
c.
Food: All food, wherever you eat it. Please do not use any online estimates/food
guides to come up with your budgeted monthly food expenditures. Use your own cur-
rent food costs and extrapolate (i.e., you may eat more (or more expensive food) once
you have a job. You may also go to more restaurants than you do now.)
d.
Entertainment: Consider a wide variety of entertainment, including movies, sporting
events, travel….
e.
Insurance: Renters, health, other (as you deem appropriate)
f.
If you choose not to have a car, budget for other modes of transportation (transit pass,
Uber, Taxis, etc.)
g.
Medical Expenses: Consider prescriptions and co-pays for doctor visits, chiropractor,
massage, physio, etc.
h.
If you have student loans, include a reasonable monthly repayment based on your best
estimate. If your student loans have a grace period, ignore that and pretend you will
be paying them immediately. If you do not have student loans, include this as $0 so I
know you have not forgotten it.
i.
Emergency fund
j.
Savings (you decide what for. e.g., vacation, Christmas, large purchase, etc.)
k.
Retirement Contributions. These are separate from savings, since they are for the dis-
tant future.
l.
Charitable contributions. You have discretion on the amount and frequency, but con-
sider them. If you choose not to make charitable contributions, then indicate that. I
would otherwise think you had omitted it unintentionally.
m.
Gifts for others. You have discretion on the amount and frequency, but consider them.
If you don’t want to spend money on a particular item listed above (e.g. savings) you
must include it as $0 so I know you have not forgotten it.
9.
There are many other items you will incur in your real lives (hair cuts, salon visits, tolls,
parking fees, dry-cleaning, gym membership) and I will be looking for at least three addi-
tional items beyond the ones listed above. You are responsible for determining what these
are.
10. Car: If you have a car or will be given a car when you graduate you need to include all
associated costs in your budget. These include any financing/lease payments, gas, mainte-
nance, insurance, parking, etc. If you don’t own a car and don’t plan on having one then
say so in your assignment but be sure to include other appropriate transportation costs
(mass transit, taxis, uber, etc.).
EVERYONE, whether you own a car or not, has to research what car you would
buy/lease on January 1 if you HAD to get a car and had no other choice. The purpose of
this is to get you to see how buying/leasing a car impacts your budget! You need to figure
out what actual car you will acquire. New/Used? Lease/Buy? Then you need to figure out
the impact on your monthly budget.
You do NOT need to go back and adjust your budget for this requirement. You simply
need to write a few sentences to explain HOW you would change your budget if you
HAD to include these expenses. For example, say you now needed to come up with
$600/month to cover the cost of having a car. HOW would you adjust your budget to do
that?
Requirements and Deliverables:
1.
A document that includes 6 months of budgeted cash inflows and outflows. This must be
done using 6 columns (one for each month) in an excel spreadsheet. Please format your
6-column budget so that the width of all columns fits on one page and you must make
your budget the first page of your document. I have provided an example to assist you.
2.
Your name, student number and section number must be indicated clearly on your assign-
ment.
Missing items will result in a 10% penalty.
3.
You must include supporting documentation / assumptions / estimates / calculations / or
reasoning for all numbers. This may include clippings/screen captures from advertising
circulars or online specials, price quotes from online sources, and any and all calculations
you made in arriving at the numbers in your budgets. You do not need to have “proof” of
every item in your budget. For example, for medical/food/charity/gifts/etc. you can sim-
ply put in what you think you would spend based on your current costs. You do need to
have proof for major items such as your salary, rent, car expenses, cell phone, etc.
4.
You must “reference” each number included on your monthly budget to its related sup-
port/
documentation / assumption / calculation.
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Here’s how: next to the budgeted number on Page 1 of your assignment, write the page
number of your support/documentation for that budgeted amount, i.e., page 3. Then, on
that page 3 of your supporting documentation, highlight the number that is included on
the first page of your budget. All numbers on your budget should be tied to support and
clearly labeled. This makes grading more efficient if it’s easy to find support for your
budgeted numbers. See provided example.
5.
In a separate part of this assignment, in no more than 3 pages please include commentary
on the following:
a.
What choices or sacrifices (if any) did you have to make?
b.
What were your insights/observations/conclusions as a result of completing this as-
signment?
c.
Were you surprised by anything as a result of doing this exercise?
d.
Also include your response to the following scenario. On March 15, 2024, you open
the mail and find a $2,000 bill. The bill is due, in full, in 30 days. Be very specific
and tell me how you would pay it.
6.
This assignment must be typed, with all pages numbered. The assignment will be graded
for its overall presentation.
Provided Example:
To assist you and make your life a little easier I’m providing you with an EXAMPLE as to
how your budget assignment might be formatted. IT IS FOR EXAMPLE PURPOSES ONLY.
YOU ARE ULTIMATELY RESPONSBILE FOR 100% OF YOUR FINISHED ASSIGN-
MENT. As such, please make any/all changes to the examples as you deem necessary.