C38PF Source a budgeting spreadsheet or app and maintain and keep a weekly budget that has a: Personal Finance Course Work, UAE

You have to maintain a weekly budget of Income and expenditure and write up a Gibbs Reflective diary of your budget experience.

You need to:

·         Source a budgeting spreadsheet or app and maintain and keep a weekly budget that has a, Forecast budget for the week, and actual budget for the week, and a variance (the difference between the actual and forecast.

·         You need to write up an initial appraisal of your budget spreadsheet or app, outlining the features of the spreadsheet/app that appeals to you.

·         As the budget exercise continues you should write up your feedback on the budgeting spreadsheet/app – what are its strengths and weaknesses.  If you are disappointed with your spreadsheet app, you can switch to another one, but write this up as part of the process. Why did you want to switch, what were the negatives of the first spreadsheet/app and why is the new one better?

·         You need to keep a record of each week’s budget (income and expenditure) and you need to write up a short commentary on each week’s outcome in terms of the Gibbs Reflective framework. This will help you when you come to write up your main Budget Reflective diary.

·         At the end of September and end of October, you will write and submit (on to Canvas) a Gibbs Reflective diary for the period up to the end of the month. Address each of the points in the Gibbs framework. This will be a formative assessment (no mark to your final score for the coursework).

·         Budgeting is a life skill that is hard to build into your routine.  It is a very valuable skill and a key one that most students say they would have liked to have learned at university and continue with once they start a career.

·         this coursework exercise aims to get you to focus on what makes effective budgeting that can become part of your routine.

·         Try to start recognizing patterns in your expenditure, where you might want to cut some items out. Put your spending into categories, such as essentials, and discretionary, for example (you can make up your categories). 

·         Try to make changes to your spending pattern as you progress. Your aim should be to get to control your budget and be aware of your spending and financial decisions.

·         Your budget may be unexpectedly blown off target by an unexpected piece of expenditure (eg, a car repair). This should be included and how you managed to cover the cost of the expenditure – talk about this in your Reflective diary.

·         As you write up your Gibbs reflective diaries, you will be describing what you have done, your feelings about the exercise and your evaluation of it, an analysis of your budgeting behavior, and your conclusion at the end of the exercise, with an action plan for the future.