Instructions:
Complete the two financial health activities (The True Cost of a New Car and The True Cost of Credit Card Use) presented in Unit 7 Topic “Financial Health” related to spending money you do not have.
Share your experience with “The True Cost of a New Car” activity with your peers
Change the size of the loan, years to pay it back, and the interest rate three (3) to four (4) times.
Start with the lowest loan amount you might need for your new care and increase by $5000 to $10000 each turn.
Start with a 3% loan (entered as .03) and increase by one (1) or two (2) percent each turn.
In each case choose between 5 and 7 years to pay it back.
Describe one of the monthly payments you would have to make based on your selections.
Loan amount?
Interest rate?
Years to pay it back?
Monthly payment?
Total car cost?
Discuss the potential impact a car payment of that size might have on your monthly budget.
Describe the other monthly expenses you would have to remove or reduce to make your payments.
Why Is or isn’t the car worth the sacrifices you might have to make given the size of the monthly payments?
What other options do you have to avoid taking out a car loan?
Share your experience with “ The True Cost of Credit Card Use” activity with your peers
Consider the following scenario:
You spend an extra $50 a month using a credit card for the first year after graduation to make ends meet.
The interest rate charged by the credit card company is 18%.
The minimum payment you are required to send each month is $20.
Now consider the real cost of that $50 dollars a month by the end of that first year provided to you in the exercise.
How might the continued use of a credit card to fund an extra $50 of spending per month affect your long-term financial health?
Describe two ways you could avoid the long-term consequences of spending more than you have on a regular basis.
Please be sure to validate your opinions and ideas with citations and references in APA format.
The post and responses are valued at 40 points. Please review post and response expectations. Please review the rubric to ensure that your response meets criteria.
Estimated time to complete: 2 hours
Peer Response: Unit 7, Due Sunday by 11:59 pm CT
Reflection on Financial Health
Please respond to one discussion post.
Instructions:
Car Loan
Consider your peer’s thoughts on what to remove or reduce to make the same monthly payment? In what ways does your response differ from theirs?
Share with your peer why you feel the car loan they would have to repay might or might not be worth their proposed sacrifices.
Suggest an additional option they could consider to avoid taking on that monthly car payment.
Credit Card Debt (Because you have used the same scenario information as your peers, you should have the same real cost at the end of the first year. If you did not, you might want to consider how your activity led to a different outcome).
Consider their thoughts on how continuing to add to their credit card debt affects long-term financial health.
Share one way your response was similar to theirs.
Share one way your response was different than theirs?
Suggest at least one additional way your peer could avoid harming their future financial health (by spending more than they earn every month).
Describe how you could use one of the options they shared to gain or maintain financial health.
Please be sure to validate your opinions and ideas with citations and references in APA format.
Estimated time to complete: 1 hour
