Take My Liberty BUSI 489 Class

Liberty's catalog describes BUSI 489 as the course where students create a written financial plan using the knowledge gained in earlier financial planning classes, with a software package used to incorporate every element of a successful plan for a case study client.

Grable and colleagues supply the case approach. Week one reads chapters one to three and fifteen, and chapter fifteen returns in most weeks, since it carries the integrative case the plans are built around.

The middle weeks read the chapters on each planning area in turn, chapter four in week two, chapters five to nine in week three, ten and eleven in week four, twelve in week five and thirteen in week six, and week seven closes with chapters fourteen and fifteen.

Lytton and colleagues' text runs beside it early on, chapters one, two and four to eight with an appendix in week one, chapter nine in week two and another appendix in week four, setting out how a plan is structured and written.

Each of the first six weeks brings a 100-point Targeted Financial Plan and, in most of them, a 25-point mini-case; forums worth 50 fall in weeks four and seven.

Week eight brings the 100-point Comprehensive Financial Plan and the 50-point Financial Plan Presentation, together with nothing else.

The undergraduate business program assessment in week one carries no points and measures the student's own learning.

BUSI 489 is carried as one client engagement, because each targeted plan covers one planning area for the same case client and the comprehensive plan in week eight combines them.

The early targeted plans usually establish the client's situation and goals, then work through cash flow and budgeting, debt, and insurance, following the chapters of each week.

The later plans turn to investments, education funding, retirement, taxes and estate planning, each with recommendations, their cost and how they fit the client's goals.

Mini-cases are shorter problems on the week's topic, solved with the calculations shown and a short recommendation.

Where your section requires the planning software, the inputs are prepared and organized for you to enter, and the plan is written around the output you send back; where it allows figures prepared outside the software, they are worked in a spreadsheet.

The comprehensive plan in week eight merges and revises the six targeted plans, and the presentation turns it into slides and a script you deliver.

Forum posts discuss planning questions the prompts set, such as balancing retirement and college savings, and a biblical view of stewardship where asked.

A BUSI 489 writer builds financial plans for a living, often as a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER professional or a paraplanner at an advisory firm, with experience in planning software such as MoneyGuide or eMoney.

That experience shows in the details students miss: an emergency fund sized to the client's real expenses, insurance needs calculated rather than guessed, retirement projections with realistic return and inflation assumptions, and tax effects noted for each recommendation.

They write plans for clients who are not planners, so the recommendations read clearly and explain why.

A second reviewer checks every calculation and recommendation before delivery.

The planner never learns your name; only the case household is shared.

If a planning area is unclear, such as how a Roth conversion affects taxes, a short plain explanation can be sent.

Faith prompts are answered with care, often through biblical stewardship, generosity and provision for family.

The pace is the first difficulty: a 100-point targeted plan every week for six weeks, usually with a mini-case beside it.

Integration is the second. Each planning area affects the others, so an insurance recommendation changes the cash flow, and a retirement plan changes the tax picture.

The software is the third, since entering a full client profile and reading its reports takes practice.

Assumptions are the fourth. Return, inflation and life expectancy figures must be stated and defensible, and plans that leave them out lose credibility.

The comprehensive plan is the fifth, merging six plans into one coherent document in the final week.

Week three is heavy reading, five chapters in one week, while a plan and a mini-case are due.

Week eight asks for the comprehensive plan and the presentation together.

Targeted Plan 1 and the first mini-case are due in week one, so an early handover keeps the household's story on track from the start.

Each targeted plan arrives several days before its week closes, and each mini-case with it.

Forum posts are ready early in weeks four and seven.

The comprehensive plan and the presentation slides and script arrive early in week eight.

The list shows six targeted plans, six mini-cases, two forums, the comprehensive plan and the presentation; the program assessment never appears.

Join in week three and the work begins at Targeted Plan 3, reading your first two plans so the numbers carry over.

The targeted plans are the largest share of the order, and the comprehensive plan the largest single line.