Projected Monthly Income And Expenses Worksheet: Fill & Download for Free

Maybe.In the-good-old-days the math worked:Tuition=$360, Typical hourly rate=$3, 360/3=120 hours of workToday the math doesn’t work:Tuition=$10,000, Typical hourly rate=$9, 10,000/9=1111 hours of workSo you are going to have to get creative.A Two + Two (two years of community college and a transfer to a four year college for two years) Strategy is a good way to cut the costs of a four year degree. However the devil is in the details. This is going to require very careful planning that is beyond the reach of most 17–18 year olds. You are probably going to need the help of a parent, teacher, or an adult friend (church?).Academic PlanYou need to identify a marketable major. Half of all graduates end up under employed or unemployed in today’s job market. You can tilt the scales in your favor by graduating with a strong major. (If you do end up needing student loans, you can’t make an intelligent decision about the amount if you don’t have a targeted job.)Verify the Articulation Agreements between the two schools. (Articulation Agreements are formal agreements—or some would call a partnership—between two or more Colleges and Universities documenting the transfer policies for a specific academic program or degree in general.) Ten percent of CC students who transfer end up with little or no credit for their CC studies.The majority (75%) of students require more than four years to earn a four year degree. One reason is changing majors. There is not much you can do about it if you feel that it is necessary. However you can do something about mapping out the availability of the classes you are going to need. Assuming that a class is going to be available can add an expensive semester to your plan. Plan.Another element of your plan is deadlines. There are going to be lots of deadlines: applying for financial aid, signing up for programs, signing up for classes, etc. If you are a procrastinator or careless, it will cost you money.Financial PlanNotes:I’ve worked on a lot of plans in the last three years. I’ve never seen a four year college with a tuition cost of $5000)/year??? Edit Now I’m looking at the California State University system. They have tuition in the $5000 ballpark.Your financial plan needs to encompass the term of your degree.Do not ignore the American Opportunity Tax Credit. This could be worth $4000–10,000. You can get “free” money here even if your mom doesn’t pay Federal income taxes.You haven’t mentioned financial aid. For purposes of planning you can estimate financial aid using the school’s net price calculator, FAFSA4caster, or the CollegeData tool. If you are starting CC in the fall you need to file your FAFSA now.If you end up needing loans, my recommendation is to limit your projected monthly loan payments to 8% of your targeted monthly salary. (The Eight Percent Rule) I do not recommend that parents ever take out loans.When calculating income use net income. You are going to be paying taxes probably including Federal income taxes.Create a budget for community college.Create a second budget for your two years at the four year college.You need to anticipate price increases (inflation).Here’s my favorite Excel template:College Student Budget WorksheetWhen you are done you should have a multi-year plan that shows total income and expenses related to earning a four year degree.SummaryYou should be able to work your way through CC. I suspect you’ll need loans to “bridge the gap” at the four year college, but that is why we spend all that time planning. No surprises!

Here are some good college planning tools from Edmit:Cost of CollegeCollege Student Budget TemplateHere’s how to figure out the appropriate amount of student loans.Is the “Rule of Thumb,”“It is reasonable to take out student loans equal to your targeted starting salary,”A good guideline?Taking out student loans equal to your targeted starting salary is a very bad idea.I have written about this extensively on Quora. The short answer is to limit your student loans to HALF your targeted starting salary.Let’s look at the issue from two different perspectives, using an example of a $50,000 a year job.If your targeted job (upon graduation) has a starting salary of $50,000, is it reasonable to take out $50,000 in student loans?”The obvious answer to that question is a resounding, “NO!”Because you are gambling:That you will graduate. (Forty percent don’t.)That you will graduate with the projected, marketable major. (Multivariable calculus has turned many a presumptive engineer ($65K) into a high school math teacher ($40K).That you will graduate on budget, in the number of semesters estimated.That your targeted job is available. (Ask those who graduated into the headwinds of the Great Recession of 2008.)That you will be a successful candidate for that job. (Forty percent of college grads end up underemployed.)Now, do you understand why there is a student loan crisis? Teenagers don’t understand risk. (I admit, why parents don’t grasp this, is beyond me.)Let’s look at the problem from another angle.How great a salary do you need to support the monthly payments on $50,000 of student loans?Assuming you qualify, you would be able to borrow $27,000 over four years in Federal Direct Student Loans at very attractive interest rates. The balance, $23,000, would be in private loans with much higher rates.Let’s assume you are going to live in the Midwest (Ohio) where the cost of living is very reasonable.Your BudgetMonthly gross income=$4166Taxes=$766Student loan payment=$600 (Ouch! That’s more than 14% of your gross monthly income.)Apartment rent (700 sq ft)=$1000Auto expenses=$500Net monthly income=$1300You should be able to afford three homecooked meals a day, but I hope you weren’t planning on dining out a lot, dating, or expensive travel.You are still going to be living like a student. It is going to be tight. You’ll need to consider a roommate, or perhaps a side-gig.ConclusionsInstead of beginning your search for a suitable college by comparing the heights of their respective climbing walls, start with an analysis of “affordability.”Limit your student loans to HALF your targeted starting salary.With your parent’s help, prepare a four-year financial plan.You need to have a targeted job and starting salary, in order to intelligently plan for the student loans in that financial plan.NoteEdmit missed The American Opportunity Tax Credit in their “affordability worksheet. That could be worth as much as $10K.

Easy! I'm just kidding, it isn't easy. However, while you do it - depending on your market - you may feel either giddy about the possibilities or disappointed if it isn't displaying a potential return on investment. Either way, you asked a loaded question and there may not be enough space on Quora's hard drive for the answer; However, I will try.The first thing you need before you begin the financials is a pretty solid indication of your target market. For instance, my company's target market is businesses in Florida with revenues between $5 Million and $20 Million and require software to operate. Without software, the businesses would not be able to function. This part would be your demographic. If you're targeting Business-to-Customer (B2C) like SnapChat, Twitter, etc., then you need to narrow down your demographic based on annual income, behaviors, personality, sex, race, religion, etc. If you're targeting Business-to-Business (B2B) like Amazon Web Services, FreshBooks, etc. then your demographic should be narrowed down based on annual revenue, industry, number of employees, etc. Again, this must be done first before moving forward. Investors need to know that you have seriously thought about your market and revenue potential.Now, let's say you narrowed down to a market size. For example, your app is for females between the ages of 18 - 25 that have internet access and are working professionals in the upper-class San Francisco area. Yes, you want to get that granular if not more. You've come up with a figure of a market size of 200,000. This is where you start to get busy. You plan on attacking the complete market over a span of a year, because you don't have the money at the moment, but you're building this plan to show the investors why you need their money.For the next 12 months, you will market to 16,667 (200,000/12) potential customers a month. If you use various forms of advertising and marketing, you would need to create a "sales funnel" assumption as to how many customers reach the purchasing point of your "sales funnel". To explain the sales funnel... You market to 10 potential customers (leads), 8 of 10 show interest by going to your website (prospects), 5 of the 8 request information (qualified prospects), 3 of the 5 have a need for your product (committed) and 1 of the 3 purchase your app (transacted). To read more about this process, checkout this MaRS post on sales funnel, Stages of the sales funnel | Entrepreneur's Toolkit | MaRS.Now, for each of the methods you use to market, there will be a "cost of customer acquisition." This is what it costs to acquire one customer. You need this number in order to determine your actual cost to get a customer to buy. In traditional businesses, you build a widget and for every widget there is a cost to build. However, in apps, the development of the app is part of your fixed costs or costs you incur from operations rather than on a per sale basis. Your true cost is in acquiring the users.So let's say that out of the 16,667 customers, you perform your funnel and statistically you can acquire only 1% or 166.67. If your monthly fee for the app is $20, that's a monthly estimated revenue (at least in your first month) of $3,333 per month. Usually, the acquisition percentage increases incrementally as your company becomes more well known. Next, you add up all of your "Costs of Customer Acquisition" amounts for all of your advertising methods. Let's say according to your calculations, it costs you $10 to acquire one customer. Multiply that with the 166.67 customers and you get an estimated $1667 in direct cost (cost to acquire a customer directly or Cost of Goods Sold). Subtract the cost from the revenue and you'll get an estimated Net Revenue of $1666 for your first month.The next step is to determine all of your fixed costs (costs that are necessary to operate day to day) for the month. These costs can include salaries, rent, utilities, etc. Add all of these up to come up with your fixed expenses that will be deducted from the Net Revenue. For example, you have rent at $1000 per month, utilities at $200 per month, salaries at $3000 per month, and other expenses at $200 per month. Add those up to approximately $4400 per month. Subtract that from your Net Revenue and you get -$2734 in Net Income (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes and Amortization). Don't worry about the terminology at the moment. As a startup, Interest and Amortization will not be something you'll have to deal with at first. However, you'll only have to deal with taxes if your Net Income is positive, but on your first month you should be in the negative. A key thing to realize and accept is that being in the negative on your first month is a reality. Investors question financial projections that show positive income on the first month. If that was the case, you wouldn't be looking for funding.Okay, so that was a look at one month. This is roughly what you should be looking at for the first month:Revenue $3333Cost of Goods Sold $1667Net Revenue $1666ExpensesRent $1000Utilities $ 200Salaries $3000Other $ 200Total Expenses $4400Net Income -($2734)You can download these template worksheets to guide you, Financial Projections Template.What I just showed you above is considered your income statement. However, how would you calculate your growth. The reality is it is all relative. What you can do is research another company that has built an app using a similar model. Research their growth trajectory and use that percentage as your month to month growth. Another method is to find out what the annual growth is in your industry and use that percentage as a track for your growth. Just be careful you convert the annual growth percentage to months so your growth numbers can be closer to accurate. Even if it is conservative, investors like to know that you're not throwing pie-in-the-sky numbers.Lastly, you would need to create a cash flow statement and a balance sheet as well. However, those projections are more complex and use a multitude of other assumptions like how much you've invested, how much equity you have, etc. If you use the Financial Projections Template above, you can surmise the balance sheet and cashflow statement. Remember, you will need to spread the monthly growth over those as well.In conclusion, when you complete all of your projections, you'll notice that at some point, your income statement will reach the "break-even" point where your Net Income is zero. This is your profit threshold, and if you've done your cashflow correctly, you should have a negative cashflow at that point in time (month). It's practical that when you're asking for investment dollars, you should at least ask for enough money to wash out the negative cashflow at that point in time. This provides you the opportunity to make it to profitability without running out of money.