Name:

Exponentially Living or dying

theAmerican Dream

JOB

  • Go to to take a personality test. This will give you job ideas based on your personality.
  • Go to and find a job. Scroll down and find the salary
  • JobSalary?1.$
  • You lose 30% of your income for taxes. = #1(.7)1.5$
  • Monthly salary = #1.5/121.6$

EDUCATION/TRAINING

  • College typically costs 80% of the salary of your job. What is 80% of your salary from #1?

2.$

  • Student loans carry 6.8% interest and take roughly 15 years to pay off. (exponentially growing) Figure out how much your loans will REALLY COST by using the calculator at
  • Change LOAN BALANCE to your #2 and change LOAN TERM to 15 years. Hit calculate.

This is the Cumulative Payments Total from the website3.$

This is your monthly payment4.$

HOUSE/RENT:

  • How much do you want to spend on a house? Find a reasonable price ($80,000 to $500,000) Selected house value
  • go to
  • Make the interest 5% and the payment term 30 years. What is your monthly payment? 5. $
  • Multiply #5 by 30*12 = 360 payments to get the total cost of the house 6.$

***you may choose to rent which will cost $1200 per month. You may put that in #6

TAKE NOTE OF HOW MUCH THINGS REALLY COST WHEN YOU FINISH PAYING FOR THEM. THAT IS THE POWER OF EXPONENTIAL GROWTH. IF NOT CONTROLLED, CAUSES BANKRUPTCY AND RUINS LIVES

CAR

  • Find a reasonable car from any website (new or used one) is a good site. Car type and year Cost? 7.
  • Actual cost of car = #7(1.032)8 = 8.
  • 8 Years would be 8*12 monthly payments so take #7/96 9.

WE WILL LEAVE OUT CREDIT CARD DEBT, BUT THE AVERAGE PERSON WITH CREDIT CARD DEBT OWES $16,000 WITH A 12-20% ANNUAL INTEREST RATE, THAT MEANS IT WOULD TURN INTO $18,500 IN ONE YEAR. NOT TO MENTION OTHER THINGS YOU CHARGE (to the credit card) IN THAT YEAR…

So…how did you do?

INCOME

First, how much do you make each month? #1.6

EXPENSES

Monthly student loan payment? #4

Monthly house payment? #5

Monthly car payment? #9

Monthly expenses, bills, food, etc? 20% of your monthly income = #1.6 (.2)

So…how did you do? Take your monthly income and subtract ALL of you expenses from it. Total left?

**

In order to retire, you should aim for saving 15% of your income. How did you do?

Compare ** to #1.5 ( .15) Do you have any money left for retirement?Yes or no

If you have money left each month, plug it into the retirement formula to find out how much you will have when you retire. If not, PRETEND you have $150 left each month.

Go to the monthly contribution to yours and change everything else to match this. Then calculate.

Fill in your results below:

What did you learn about the benefits of exponential growth?

What did you learn about the destructive power of exponential growth?

What surprised you about this project/overall thoughts?