| Course | MT421 Financial Planning |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 10 |
| Paper type | Personal financial plan |
| Length | About 1,280 words, 7 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | BS in Business Administration |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MT421 Unit 10
Five Actions in Order: An MT421 Unit 10 Personal Financial Plan That Reconciles a $250 Surplus
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
MT421: Financial Planning
Unit 10 Personal Financial Plan
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Kayla Brooks and her figures are a composite carried from Units 2 through 9; projections come from the scripts described in those units, and the sources cited are real. The plan is coursework analysis of the case client, not advice for any reader.
Your Plan on One Page
Kayla, this page lists what to do and when. The rest of the plan explains why.
First, starting with your next paycheck, move your 401(k) deferral up two points to 6 percent, and set it to rise by one point with each annual raise until it reaches 10 percent. Second, for the next five months, send $164 a month to savings until your emergency floor reaches $3,150; from the sixth month, send the same $164 to your debts above the minimums, highest rate first. Third, at open enrollment in November, sign up for your employer's voluntary long-term disability coverage. Fourth, at your next car insurance renewal, raise your liability limits above the state minimum. Fifth, leave buying a home until after year five, and rerun the rent versus buy comparison then.
The Rule of Priority
Each earlier paper made sense alone, but together they spent more than you have. The debt plan in Unit 5 sent the whole $250 surplus to debt. The retirement projection in Unit 9 assumed you had raised your 401(k) contribution, which costs about $86 a month in take-home pay. The seminar in Unit 6 added a larger savings floor. All three cannot come out of $250.
The plan settles this with one rule: take free money first, then protect against the shock that would undo everything else, then clear the most expensive debt, then build. Applied to your numbers, the rule divides the $250 this way. The first $86 goes to the 401(k) increase, because your employer adds 50 cents for every dollar up to 6 percent of pay, an immediate return no debt payment can match. Choi et al. (2011) found that employees regularly leave this kind of match unclaimed, and it is the costliest gap in your current finances. The remaining $164 goes first to the savings floor and then to debt.
A debt plan spending $250 and a retirement raise costing $86 cannot both come out of a $250 surplus, so the plan chooses, and says why.
Spending
Your revised budget from Unit 2 stays in place: $3,564 of monthly spending against $3,813.59 of take-home pay. The 401(k) increase lowers take-home by about $86, which is the first use of the surplus rather than a new cut. Two new insurance costs, described below, add about $30 a month. They are paid by trimming gifts from $60 to $45 and dropping one more streaming service, which together free $30. Nothing else in the budget changes, because a plan you cannot live with does not last.
Savings and the Emergency Floor
The $2,400 now in savings is no longer enough of a cushion, so the plan lifts the floor to $3,150, just above a month of your essential costs. Sending $164 a month for five months brings it to about $3,220. After that, the floor is never used for extra debt payments.
The shock rule from Unit 6 carries into the plan, adjusted to the new numbers. A surprise bill above $300 comes out of savings and never goes on a card. Whenever the balance dips under $3,150, the $164 stops going to debt and refills savings instead, while every required payment is still made on time.
Debt
From month six, $164 goes above the minimums in avalanche order: store card, Visa, personal loan, car loan, then student loans. Each paid-off debt's minimum rolls into the next. With $1,009 a month going to debt from month six, the store card closes in month 12, the Visa in month 27, the personal loan the same month, the car loan in month 33 and the student loans in month 47. Total interest is about $7,011. That is about $1,500 more than the Unit 5 plan, which spent the full $250 on debt and finished in month 41, and it is the price of claiming the match and building the floor first. Every date is written on the payment schedule inside your kitchen cabinet.
The federal student loans keep their required payment until everything else is gone, and they are not refinanced, so their income-based options and hardship protections stay available.
Housing
Keep renting your current apartment. Owning the $229,000 condominium studied in Unit 7 overtook renting only after about seven and a half years, and later still if prices rise slowly. You also do not have the $29,770 a purchase would require, and saving it would compete with the debt plan. After year five, with the debts nearly gone, rerun the comparison with that year's prices and mortgage rates.
Insurance
Long-term disability coverage is the most important gap. Your paycheck is worth more than everything you own put together, and federal disability figures put the odds that a worker now in her twenties becomes disabled before full retirement age at roughly 25 percent (Social Security Administration, 2025). For about $18 a month, your employer's voluntary plan would pay three fifths of your salary once a disability has lasted three months. Enroll at open enrollment.
Your car insurance carries Tennessee's minimum liability limits of $25,000 per person, $50,000 per accident and $25,000 for property. A serious accident could exceed those limits, leaving you responsible for the rest. Your insurer quoted about $12 a month more for limits four times higher on injuries to one person, six times higher per accident and four times higher for property.
Keep your renters insurance, which covers your belongings and includes personal liability. You do not need life insurance beyond the group coverage your employer provides. Life insurance protects people who depend on your income, and no one does. If that changes, this section should be revisited.
Retirement
Raising your contribution to 6 percent claims the full match and brings your total contributions to 9 percent of pay. The Unit 9 projection showed that this falls a little short of the $630,000 target, measured in today's money. The annual step-up closes most of the gap. Because each one-point increase is timed with a raise, your take-home pay still rises a little each year. Tying increases to future raises is the design Thaler and Benartzi (2004) tested, and the workers who signed up kept most of them in place for years. At a 7 percent return, the step-up to 10 percent would reach the target; at 5 percent, it would close more than half the gap, and the money freed when the debts are paid in month 47 can close the rest.
Net Worth Ahead
Your net worth was minus $5,260 on September 30. Following this plan, it rises by about $1,000 a month: debts fall, the 401(k) grows with contributions and the match, and the car loses some value. The projection crosses zero in the sixth month and reaches about $7,700 by the end of the first year.
Review Dates
Review the plan at three points each year. In November, at open enrollment, confirm the disability coverage and check the 401(k) step-up. In April, after filing taxes, adjust withholding if the refund or balance due was more than a few hundred dollars. In September, prepare a new net worth statement and compare it with the projection. Revisit the whole plan after any change in job, income, household or health.
References
Choi, J. J., Laibson, D., & Madrian, B. C. (2011). $100 bills on the sidewalk: Suboptimal investment in 401(k) plans. Review of Economics and Statistics, 93(3), 748-763. https://doi.org/10.1162/REST_a_00100
Social Security Administration. (2025). Disability benefits (Publication No. 05-10029). https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10029.pdf
Thaler, R. H., & Benartzi, S. (2004). Save More Tomorrow: Using behavioral economics to increase employee saving. Journal of Political Economy, 112(S1), S164-S187. https://doi.org/10.1086/380085
What the MT421 Unit 10 assignment asks for
MT421 closes with one financial plan for the case client, built from every analysis the term produced. Instructors expect a short summary of actions in order, with dates, followed by a section for each area: spending, savings, debt, housing, insurance and retirement. The earlier papers usually compete for the same money, so the plan must state a rule of priority and show that everything recommended fits the client's budget. Insurance needs amounts and reasons matched to the client's situation, not a list of coverage types. The plan should be written in plain language for the client, with technical work in appendices. Review dates turn advice into a plan. The work stays coursework about the case client, not advice for any real reader.
How the MT 421 Unit 10 example is put together
Page one of the sample gives Kayla five actions in order. The priority section shows why three earlier papers could not all be funded, applies the rule and divides the $250 into $86 and $164, citing Choi and colleagues on unclaimed matches, under a highlighted line on that division. Spending, savings and the shock rule follow. The debt section gives every payoff month at $1,009 and the cost of claiming the match first. Housing carries forward the Unit 7 break-even. Insurance covers disability with the federal estimate, auto limits and why life coverage is unneeded. Retirement explains a step-up timed with raises, after Thaler and Benartzi. A net worth projection crossing zero in month six and three review dates close the plan.
Where the points sit in the MT421 Unit 10 rubric
Final financial plans are typically marked on integration, a stated priority rule, recommendations that fit the budget, complete coverage of the areas and plain language for the client. Stapling earlier assignments together without reconciling them costs credibility fastest, because graders add up what the plan spends. Rubrics reward a rule of priority applied openly. Credit goes to insurance recommendations with amounts and reasons for this client. Dates and review points earn marks for turning advice into a schedule. Showing what a choice costs, such as the extra interest from claiming the match first, demonstrates honest tradeoffs. Writing for the client rather than the instructor meets the audience most prompts set, and APA 7 citations finish the grade.
MT421 Unit 10 help from the desk
The most common weak plan repeats each earlier paper in turn, so the debt plan and the retirement increase both spend the same surplus. Another frequent gap is an insurance section that names coverage types with no amounts or reasons. Students often recommend life insurance for a single person with no dependents, or skip disability coverage entirely. Plans written in technical language for the instructor miss the client audience. Many omit dates, leaving a list of good intentions. Some recommend actions to the reader rather than the case client, which goes beyond coursework. Before submitting, add every new monthly cost and saving in your plan and compare the total with the client's surplus. If it does not fit, your priority rule has not been applied yet.
Get an MT421 Unit 10 example written to your instructions
Bring the case client from your Unit 10 prompt, plus earlier analyses where you kept them, and a first personal financial plan is assembled free, reconciled across every area your rubric covers, within 24-48h. Everything in it speaks to the invented client; none of it counsels an actual person on money. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
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MT421 Unit 10 questions, answered
Should the final plan repeat all my earlier calculations?
No. Carry forward the conclusions and the key figures, and put full calculations in appendices. The plan's job is to show how the pieces fit together and in what order, which is new work. Where later thinking changes an earlier result, as the sample's debt plan changes, say so and show why.
How should the plan handle goals that compete for money?
State a rule for ranking them and apply it openly. Common rules put employer matching and basic insurance ahead of extra debt payments, and extra debt payments ahead of distant goals. Then show a reconciliation proving that everything recommended fits inside the client's actual monthly surplus. Where a lower-ranked goal is delayed, give the date it resumes, so the ranking reads as a sequence rather than a refusal.
Does an MT421 plan need an insurance section if the prompt barely mentions it?
A short one generally helps, because a plan that ignores a catastrophic risk is incomplete. Match coverage to the client's situation: a single renter without dependents needs disability and liability protection more than life insurance. Give amounts and reasons, even briefly, rather than a list of policy types, and note what the employer already provides.
Where can I find a free MT421 Unit 10 sample paper?
The complete MT421 Unit 10 financial plan is here, reconciling a Knoxville renter's $250 surplus across debt, savings, insurance and retirement.
How does the MT421 Unit 10 sample divide the $250 surplus?
It gives $86 to the 401(k) increase that claims the full match, and $164 to the savings floor for five months and then to debt.