A personal financial plan includes many things, and while plans may be different for different people, most financial plans include a certain number of basics. Your semester long project is to develop your own personal financial action plan. I highly recommend that you work on this plan each week. If you do two paragraphs per week, by the end of the semester you will have 30 paragraphs. Below are suggestions for what you should consider including in your plan.

A. Describe your current life situation and what you expect in the future, providing details related to the household situation, marital status, occupation, income, current financial position (balance sheet and cash flow statement), living expenses (budget), and housing situation.

B. set goals related to the various aspects of personal financial planning, including:

- Career planning and development

- Spending plan/cash flow analysis

- Tax planning

- Use of credit

- Savings and investment program

- Changes in the housing situation

- Major consumer purchases

- Insurance needs

- Retirement and estate planning

C. Conduct research (library materials, online searches, analysis of advertisements, interviews with friends, relatives, and financial planning experts) to obtain methods for achieving these goals.

D. Present findings of research and your personal financial plan in a written report. The final report should include the following sections:

- Introduction/background of the persons/households situation

- Identification of financial goals

- Discussion of research techniques and findings

- Recommendations for specific actions to be taken as well as methods that could be used to monitor the suggested financial planning activities.

Note: Your submission should be no more than five or six pages.