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Your Monthly Budget One of the most important aspects of being a consumer is developing a personalized budget that corresponds to your needs, wants, and resources.

This hypothetical situation could be you in the future. Based on your own area of interest, you will determine your income (money you have to spend) and your expenses (how much you do spend).

You will use the Internet and real-world situations to determine the estimation of your budget. The numbers you come up with have to be accurate to your situation and need to be substantiated by evidence (i.e. screen shots from the websites you use).

Your final budget will be recorded in two places. The data will be recorded in your Google Budget Spreadsheet. The evidence and explanation of your data will be recorded in your section of this wiki.

We will work through the steps of the budget process in class. Additional explanation of the process will be provided. You will be expected to take some notes and develop an understanding of some of your budget expenses that don't necessarily show up in the budget project but may be part of an in-class quiz or final exam test. Some of this will be review (i.e. resumes and taxes) and some of this will be new (i.e. insurance deductibles).

Consumer Economics Budget Advice The overall budget project has a simple objective: Pay for your needs using the money you have. You cannot eliminate the "needs" of this project but you can shop around for affordable choices.

 Each section has three basic steps:
 * 1) determine the cost of the budget item,
 * 2) post your "proof" on the wiki, and
 * 3) enter the dollar amount of the cost on the Google spreadsheet.

 Advice for determining the costs of each budget item: Follow the directions on each page. Links to resources are usually provided.

 Advice for posting your "proof" on the wiki:
 * Copying tables: Copy the entire table from the instructions page and paste it into your page. Save and then check to make sure the formatting worked. If you want to make changes to the table, click on it and select "row," "column," or "table" to find the options to add rows, delete rows, or delete the entire table.
 * Uploading images: Get your image using "command"-"shift"-"4". This will save a file called "Image#" on your desktop. Change that file name to start with your initials followed by a logical/useful name. Upload the image to the wiki. After the image is uploaded, you can find it easily (using your initials) and insert it onto your budget page.
 * <span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Uploading files: Uploading PDFs is the best practice. To make a PDF of any file, use the "Print" and "Save to PDF" procedure. Save with a file name that starts with your initials (just like the images). Upload and post just like the images.

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;"> Advice for entering the dollar amount of the cost on the Google spreadsheet:
 * <span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;"> Access the Google spreadsheet by clicking on the link provided to you in the email you received.
 * <span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;"> Bookmark the Google spreadsheet.
 * <span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;"> The Google spreadsheet will be visible in your budget wiki, but you will only be able to edit in Google.

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Final advice: Save often! Follow instructions! Be patient with the wiki!

<span style="color: #0000ff; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 140%; text-align: center;">Now, get started by putting a budget cartoon on the top of your page. Here's the instructions.