Assignment 3: Impact of Economics on Daily LivingDue: Week 10Points: 105

Skill(s) Being Assessed: Problem Solving

Criteria for Success: In this assignment, you will:

• Create three monthly budgets using Excel for a financial analysis.
• Summarize the change in expenditures between budgets.
• Show the findings of your personal financial analysis using appropriate graphs/charts in Excel.
• Explain how the chosen graphs/charts help someone to better understand the presented financial data better than other potential graphs/charts.
• Discuss the results of financial analysis including overall progress towards saving goals, potential changes in budget that can be made in the future, possible economic/life impacts that may affect their budget in the coming year.
• Reflect on what your financial analysis might reasonably look like in a year taking into account income growth and inflation of consumer prices.

What to submit/deliverables: A completed Assignment 3 XLS Template and a completed Assignment 3 Financial Analysis Explanation Word Template.

What is the value of doing this assignment? One way to check your progress towards your financial goals is to conduct a personal financial analysis. This will help you see how well you have stayed on track with your finances over a period of time. Using technology can help you stay organized throughout your analysis, as well as help visualize financial data. Displaying the data visually will allow you to observe general trends in your personal finances and to communicate about them effectively.

For this assignment you will be using Excel as your technology tool to analyze personal financial data and display that data visually. There are many other technologies available for personal or professional use 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.

Your goal for this assignment is to: Build your confidence and practice in the technology skill by conducting a personal financial analysis using a technology tool. You will use Excel to organize three monthly budgets, visualize this financial data using charts and graphs/charts, and discuss the results of your financial analysis, including progress towards your selected financial goal from Assignment 2.

Steps to complete: In Week 10, submit your assignment in BlackBoard by following these steps:

STEP 1:Read the following scenario and review the Assignment 3 XLS Template.

Scenario: Three months have passed since you created your initial Financial Plan (from Assignment 2). A friend who is studying to become a financial advisor recommends that you check in on your progress towards your saving goal. She volunteers to help you conduct a financial analysis of your personal budget over three months. You meet with your friend each month to go over your analysis. In her studies she is learning that people understand budget concepts better when they are represented as visuals, so she asks you to create some.

In this assignment, you will make three monthly budgets. Your income increases each month, as shown in the tables in theAssignment 3 XLS Template. Additionally, in months 2 and 3, some cells have been filled in with a formula to represent an unexpected expense in that expenditure category for the month. You will need to reallocate your budget around this.

STEP 2: Use the Assignment 3 XLS Template and take the income and expenditures from Assignment 2 to use as your starting point for your Month 1 Budget.

• Remember, that since this is a monthly budget, you will need to divide all of the values from your Assignment 2 annual plan by 12. After you have done this, you will notice that embedded formulas show that your income changes for months 2 and 3, because you received additional unexpected income from other sources.
• You will also notice an increase in your “Healthcare” expenditure in Month 2 as the result of an unexpected medical emergency, as well as an increase in your “Miscellaneous” expenditures in Month 3 because of an unplanned for repair expense.

STEP 3: Fill in the cells of each monthly budget table to show how you would choose to allocate your income each month.

STEP 4: Use formulas to fill in the percentage columns for each monthly budget.

STEP 5: Create three appropriate graphs/charts (one for each month) in Excel to show the findings of your personal financial analysis. Each should show how you have allocated your income among the various categories.

STEP 6: Create a graph that shows your progress towards your savings goal across all three monthly budgets.

STEP 7: In the Word template, explain the reason why you chose the graphs/charts you did. How do the graphs/charts you created help someone understand the financial data?

STEP 8: Also in the Word template, discuss the results of your financial analysis including overall progress towards saving goals, potential changes in your budget that can be made in the future, and possible economic or life impacts that may affect your budget in the coming year.

STEP 9: Finally, in the Word template reflect on what your financial analysis might reasonably look like in a year taking into account income growth and inflation of consumer prices.

STEP 10: After completing all questions in the Assignment 3 XLS Template, save your responses as a Excel file titled: Your Name, ECO110_Assignment 3 Personal Financial Analysis and upload to BlackBoard in Week 10. Do the same thing with the Word template. Make sure to also review the scoring rubric before submitting.

Grading for this assignment will be based on the following rubric:

Assignment 3 Rubric

Subject: ECONOMICS FROM A BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE

No plagiarism- Below 10%

Dead Line Dec- 10

This is a major paper and should be a minimum of 1500 words.•

Paper #2: Macroeconomics Country Forecast-worth

Forecasting the future is one of the most important things that economists are asked to do. Governments have a few macroeconomic tools that they can use to indicate how a country’s economy is doing. An important part of all macroeconomic courses is to develop an understanding of what these economic indicators are, as well as how they are created so that we can extrapolate into the future.

•All students must pick a country that is different from their country of residence, andcannot be from any of the following countries: Canada, United States, and UnitedKingdom.•This is a major paper and should be a minimum of 1500 words.•It is expected that the paper will be free of grammatical errors. This paper will be submittedthrough Turnitin to review for plagiarism. (DO NOT COPY THE QUESTIONS IN THESUBMITTED PAPER)•“Late submissions are not accepted under any circumstances, since it is the last paper, soplease plan accordingly.”

Specifically, you have to locate the macro-economic variables in your country of choice for four years starting with 2016 through 2019 and fill in the table below:

Variable/Year

2016

2017

2018

2019

4 year average

Real GDP/Person

Growth rate of Real GDP/Person

Inflation Rate

Unemployment Rate

Interest Rate

Variables:

1.Real GDP/Person (represented in the currency of the chosen country )2.The growth rate of Real GDP per person (% change per year)3.The inflation rate (%)4.The unemployment rate (%)5.Interest rates (In this case it is asking for the Mortgage rate)

Include the following sections in your paper. The breakdown of the marks will be:

1) Introduction (10%)

Explaining what you are going to write about.

2) Background and History, (10%)

What are the important key historic factors? (For example, did the country recently receive

independence or become a member of the World Trade Organization? What is the current economy

like? Was it going through some sort of economic crisis? Did a war occur during that period? Or

any other related important information regarding that specific period of 4 years)

3) General Definitions (15 %)

o Define each variable (1 through 5).

o Explain how they are determined.

o Explain why each variable is an important economic indicator?

4) Four Year Average Representation (10%)

Using the data from the table and Excel or any other software, create a diagram for each of the

five variables over a period of 4 years.

This is done to show the variable’s decline or growth. (Hand drawn charts are not accepted)

5) Explanation behind the values (30%)

The most important part of the paper is your explanation. Use your own words. You may wish to

use historical information from other resources, but make sure to use proper APA citation.

o Carefully explain the reasons behind the growth or decline of each of the variables in the

4 years period.

o Explain why these numbers are important to the people in that country?

6) Conclusion and self reflection (15%)

The conclusion must be a minimum of one paragraph and must include a self reflection of what

you have learned from writing this paper.

7) References (10%)

References must be current and from multiple sources (Minimum of 2 references)

Be sure to use APA and reference any quotations or web material that you use in your paper. The

various chartered banks and investment dealers also prepare macroeconomic forecasts which

may be useful as a source of ideas.