Your Financial Future

• Create three monthly budgets using Microsoft Excel for a financial analysis. Include realistic expenditures and allocate expenditures in response to changes in income and expenses.
• Present data visualizations showing the findings of a personal financial analysis using appropriate graphs or charts in Microsoft Excel.
• Explain why the chosen graphs or charts help someone to understand the presented financial data better than other potential graphs or charts.
• Discuss the results of a financial analysis, including progress toward savings goals, potential budget changes, and factors that could impact the budget.
• Reflect on what a financial analysis might reasonably look like in a year, considering income growth and inflation of consumer prices.

  using Excel as your technology tool to analyze personal financial data and display that data visually. There are many other available personal or professional technologies that can be used for this type of analysis. The approach to learning and working with Excel software in this course is one you can apply to other technology tools in your life and career. 

Read the scenario.

Scenario: After creating your financial plan, you decide to create monthly budgets to track your spending and monitor your progress toward your savings goal. In planning out your budgets for the first three months, you document some extra income that you will have coming in during months two and three. You also know that you have a medical bill to pay during month two and a school-related fee to pay during month three, so you plan for those expenses in your monthly budgets. After completing your budgets, you show them to a friend who is studying to become a financial advisor. Your friend is excited that you are pursuing your financial goals and suggests that you consider using your technology skill to create charts and graphs to visualize the information in a way that helps you to understand your spending and track your progress toward meeting your goals.