✅ Checkpoint: Spending Awareness and Budget Control

By Better Wise

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Quiz

  1. During your first month of tracking spending, what should you do with your habits?
    • Only record large purchases, since small ones do not matter.
    • Cut all non-essential spending immediately so the record looks clean.
    • Change nothing yet and record honestly, because the first month is for collecting evidence.
    • Estimate your spending from memory to save time.
  2. You pay a $600 car insurance premium every six months. How should this appear in a monthly budget?
    • As a variable cost that changes with usage.
    • As a $600 fixed cost in the month the bill arrives.
    • As a $100 monthly sinking fund line.
    • It should be left out because it is not a monthly expense.
  3. Your take-home pay is $3,000. Fixed lines total $1,100, variable lines $900, and sinking funds $200. What does 'assign every dollar' require you to do with the remaining $800?
    • Spend it on fun, since the essentials are already covered.
    • Give it a deliberate job: savings, extra debt payment, and a small buffer.
    • Add it to the variable lines so those caps are higher.
    • Leave it unassigned so it stays flexible.
  4. A store shows a jacket at $120 next to a crossed-out $300, and you buy it because it 'looks cheap.' Which bias is at work?
    • Mental accounting
    • Anchoring
    • Present bias
    • Social proof
  5. You take home $3,000, spend $2,700, and save $300 (a 10% savings rate). You get a $400 raise and apply the save-the-raise rule of sending half to savings. What happens?
    • Spending rises to $2,900 and savings rise to $500, about a 15% savings rate.
    • Spending rises to $3,100 and savings stay at $300.
    • Spending rises to $3,000 and savings stay at $300.
    • Spending stays at $2,700 and savings rise to $700.
  6. A cost that is the same amount every month, such as rent or a phone plan, is called a ____ cost.
  7. The rule that says you should wait three days before buying anything above your threshold is called the ____ rule.
  8. Every $100 a month of permanent new spending costs ____ per year, for as long as it stays in your budget.
  9. Open your last 30 days of statements and build a mini budget from your own numbers. Then evaluate your work against the rubric.
  10. Review your last month for lifestyle inflation and impulse triggers. Name one bias that affected a real purchase and write the counter-rule you will use next time. Then evaluate your answer against the rubric.

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