Incorporating time-value-of-money concepts and information from well-developed personal financial statements, identify your long-term financial goals and discuss the pertinent aspects for realizing these long-term financial goals. Explain the choices that you must make and how career planning will also fit into your plan.
My long term financial goal is to consolidate and pay off all my debts.
Opportunity Costs
Identify, quantify, and discuss the opportunity costs that arise from your decision to attend DeVry University. Using the concept of present value analysis, how would you justify your decision to acquire a college degree?
Disposable Income
Identify and present all taxes you pay during the course of a typical year. Include taxes that are called fees (such fees are really taxes by another name). Some of the taxes you pay may have to be estimated (i.e., sales taxes). What is the percentage proportion of these taxes in relation to your income, and—with respect to your disposable income (that is, income after taxes)—what are the implications insofar as your spending behavior is concerned?
Alternative Savings Vehicles
Identify the savings (investment) instruments you use or have used in the past (if you haven’t used any, identify those that you are most likely to use). Now, identify a number of alternative savings (investment) instruments that you have not used (or are least likely to use). Compare your two lists. Analyze the trade-offs that emerge. Why have you selected certain instruments in the past? Why may you use specific savings (investment) instruments in the future? Why will you decide to not use certain instruments in the future?
Hazardous to your Health!
Using the Internet, locate a source that identifies the number of personal bankruptcies that have occurred in the United States during a relatively recent time period. Locate and report the results of Internet (or other) sources that assess the role played by credit card debt in relation to personal bankruptcies declared. What are the general conclusions regarding the effects of credit card debt upon bankruptcy filings? Do you believe that credit card debt is the only cause of bankruptcy? Are there any additional factors that can lead a consumer to make a personal bankruptcy decision?
Credit Card Balances
As a proportion of your personal net worth (total assets minus total liabilities), identify the proportion of credit card debt you currently have outstanding (or have had outstanding at some point in your life). Identify the expenditures that have given rise to your credit card debt. Which expenditures were discretionary and which were not? Discuss the implications. Are there any strategies that you can implement in order to better manage and reduce credit card debt? What strategies have you used?
Portfolio Diversification
Identify any long-term investment instruments you use or have used in the past (if you haven’t used any, identify those that you are most likely to use). Include any retirement funds established at work and pension/retirement contributions made by your employer. Assess whether or not your overall investment portfolio is efficiently diversified. Why is there a lack of diversification? What steps can you take to modify this? If you plan to invest long term, what steps will you take towards diversification?
Portfolio Risk
Using the investment portfolio you identified for this week’s first discussion question, informally identify the beta for each of the asset components of this portfolio. Include your reasoning for the betas you have identified. (If you have not formally invested in a portfolio yet, find 3–5 asset components that you would want to invest in as a portfolio, and informally identify the beta for these asset components). Now, identify the overall beta of your investment portfolio and explain how you arrived at this result. What implications can you draw from this exercise? How does each component beta differ from the portfolio beta, and why?
