Budgeting your money may seem like a foreign language to some of you. I have been in the same boat as many of you for most of my adult life. God has always blessed our family so that our basic needs were always taken care of. Sometimes money gets tight, and sometimes there is more to go around. Instead of living a yo-yo life my family decided to budget our money.
If you Google budgeting your money, you can find over 230 million search results. It seems like everyone has an opinion or an idea to help you with budgeting your money. You might be wondering what works and what doesn't. I know numerous people that have used Dave Ramsey's system to help them plan their finances. I have watched some of Dave's podcasts, and he seems to know quite a bit about finances.
How to start budgeting your money.
In the business world, budgets are based on your projected sales minus expenses to get to your profit margin. In the consumer world, consider profit margin as your savings. Your expenses are everything that you need to spend money on to survive. Your sales would be your paycheck. To make this easier, we decided to create roughly a dozen categories. Most of our categories include things like: food, insurance, house payments, charitable giving, utilities, etc. Everyone will have different categories depending on their situation.
The first few months will be the hardest. Some of you may already be running behind on bills and living in panic mode. You have to start somewhere. The first things that I would recommend cutting back on are things like food, utility services such as TV, cell phone, and the internet. Now I am not saying that you cut these things out completely. More than likely, there is some fat that can be trimmed in these areas.
Proverbs 22:7 NASB The rich rules over the poor, And the borrower becomes the lender’s slave.
Shopping around for the best rates on insurance can save you some money as well. Refinancing loans can reduce interest rates and free up cash each month. Paying off these loans is ideal, but sometimes not feasible right away. If you are in a cash crunch, saving money by refinancing may allow you to free up cash to get your budget in order.
Budgeting your money in a Biblical way.
When we started our budgeting, one thing that I wanted to make sure that we did was budget Biblically. There are a right and a wrong way to go about budgeting. I wanted to make sure that our family was doing our best to honor what the Bible teaches us.
Proverbs 3:9 NASB Honor the Lord from your wealth And from the first of all your produce;
You would not believe the freedom and stress relief that comes with budgeting your money. Knowing where you are at financially every day and having the power to make smart decisions is priceless. You make poor decisions when you are stressed out about money. Help yourself by organizing your life and reducing the chains that are attached by finances.