Budgeting. It is a scary word and something that students do not think about enough until it is senior year, close to entering “the real world” but NOW is a good time to start being smart with money. Since some of you couldn’t make it to the workshop, I will be your CP&R Correspondent. Here is a recap of what I learned.

During the workshop, our facilitator (Madeline (Maddie) Ripley ‘14) hit a couple different objectives

• Creating a Sample Monthly Budget
• Examine the Benefits of Saving, Investments, and Planning for Emergencies
• Identifying short- and long-term money goals
• Understanding how compound interest contributes to building long-term wealth
• Developing a conscientious spending plan

Whew… it seems like a lot, but she broke it down and it was a great overview. 

1. Create a monthly budget
   1. 20-30-50 Ratio
      1. With this ratio, the numbers stand for where a percent of your monthly earnings will be used for over the course of the month.
         1. 20% goes into savings/debt
         2. 30% goes into housing expenses
         3. 50% is spending money
      2. The percentages do not have to be 20-30-50, so this is just a starting point that as long as you adjust each area accordingly you will be fine.
      3. Once we are out of college, looking at our monthly earnings we will have to remember to subtract out taxes. At the moment, we can just take approximately what we make during a month instead of going from an annual salary.
         
2. The Differences between Saving, Investments, and Emergencies
   1. There are not enough women starting to save for retirement or take a high risk to achieve a good return
   2. First, an individual must identify their short and long-term goals
      1. Start with your priorities
      2. Develop a timeline (1 year, 3, 5, 7, 10)
      3. Develop an action plan to get to your goals
      4. Find an accountability partner because with someone keeping you on track you’re more likely to stay on your goals
3. Compound Interest
   1. The difference between putting money in a money market account and in Global Equities is important to understand
   2. Basically, the more you start saving in accounts that have high compound interest, the more money you will get in the long run.
      
4. Conscientious Spending
   1. Use one of the pre-built budget excel sheets or make your own to plan out your mouthly or annual spending.
   2. Use Apps to help you save or budget:
      1. YNAB, LearnVest, Pocket Guard, Quicken, Mint, Prism, Rize, Cleo

5. Conclusion and other useful tidbits
   1. Based on your current financial situation, develop:
      1. A cash flow statement
      2. A net worth statement
      3. A personal budget
   2.  Open a Roth IRA account as soon as possible
      1. You can invest that money later on and withdraw the money in that account later tax-free

If anyone has any questions about what I learned in this workshop, just email me. It is very important to start being smart with the money you make now and use it for things that truly matter to you. Do not feel like because you are saving, you cannot go out an have fun that is not what this means. It just means to save for the things you want and save for things that could possibly happen in the future (good or bad).