Reading and listening are great ways to learn, but there is no substitute for doing. That is where the Personal Financial Portfolio (PFP) comes into play. The PFP is an interactive online tool you are going to use throughout the course to do some real hands-on learning.

• Using your own financial data
• To get the most out of the PFP, you are strongly encouraged to choose the workbook and instructions titled PFP – Your Profile and work with your personal financial data.
• Regardless of the financial issues you might have–credit card debt, IRS debt, inadequate insurance, and so forth–your financial situation is nothing to be ashamed of. Nobody’s perfect; everyone has problems. Working with your own financial data means you will be able to tweak, analyze, and learn from it so you can stand in your truth and get started down your path to financial freedom.
• Although it is true that you will submit your PFP to your facilitator, it will remain strictly confidential.
• Using the data from a fictitious profile
• If you are not comfortable sharing your personal financial data, that is okay. There are six fictitious PFP profiles you can work with instead, which are listed in the University of Phoenix Material: Fictitious PFP Profiles.
• Read the descriptions of the profiles in the Fictitious PFP Profiles document.
• Download the workbook and instructions corresponding to the fictitious profiles, but only if you do not want to use your personal financial data.
• Even if you choose to work with one of the fictitious profiles, you should also download and save the PFP – Your Profile workbook and its directions. You may not use it now, but because it is such a valuable tool to understanding your own personal financial situation, you will want it later.

Follow the Personal Cash-Flow Statement instructions in the PFP Lab to complete this week’s assignment.

Submit your completed Personal Financial Portfolio in the PFP Microsoft^® Excel^® workbook to the Assignments tab.