We are in the middle of a significant financial transition. That is, planting a brand new church means cutting our paycheck almost in half. Thankfully, God has truly prepared us, and we can see His gracious hand over the past year preparing us for this adventure. I wouldn’t trade this for the world, or all the fortune in it.
Part of the preparation has been in our hearts. We certainly haven’t “arrived” but I can honestly say money does not have a hold on us. It is not our god. There is only One God and He has proved Himself so faithful again and again that there is no doubt in my mind that He will continue to provide. We need look no further than Scripture (or Rees Howells, Intercessor!) to see proof that we serve a God with all resources at His disposal and He is more than able to take care of us.
The other part of preparation has been in practical skills–good ‘ole fashioned budgeting. I love me a good budget. Now, I’ll share more later about how I believe God intends to take us beyond budgets into a truly relational model of spending (His voice, not just the excel spread sheet, determines what is spent where), but a workable budget is certainly a great place to start. And even if you’ve already created a budget, sometimes we need some refresher courses to keep us on track. This month has been a great opportunity to really evaluate our spending and make choices to live even more simply. Maybe this month is a great time for you to also re-evaluate your family budget and determine if you can slide a little more over into the “give” department and trust God even more for your daily bread.
When developing your budget, first determine your goals. For example, your two main goals might be:
- Give 10%
- Pay off debt (Debt-free plan here)
Awesome. Great place to start. There are lots of great tools for budgeting available, here are a few articles from Tsh on budgeting basics:
She uses pearbudget.com to create her budget. I just use an excel spreadsheet and break items down by paycheck, then put categories where we use cash in bold. Items that are put into savings as sinking funds are in italics and items that are automatic withdrawal are in regular font. I also make note of the dates each bill is automatically withdrawn. Here is an example of a budget, yours might look something like this:
Income: $3000
Giving: $500
Mortgage/Rent: $1,000
Utilities: $200
Cell phones: $150
Gas: $150
Food: $250
Medical/Dental: $300
Other insurance: $100
Savings: $300
Misc.: $50
The goal is to be the master of your money, and not let your money master you. We are to only have one Master, and anything that enables us to live more freely and obey Him more readily is a great goal. Plus, now that we’re getting first-hand experience with church finances, let me just say that it is a HUGE blessing to your pastors when you have a consistent giving habit. The more consistent you are, the more consistent their lives can be. 🙂 Turning our dollars toward the Kingdom really does turn our hearts there as well.
Happy budgeting! I pray you are blessed as you are diligent stewards and honor Him with every penny! Happy Friday and thanks for reading!
3 thoughts on “#28 Create a Regular Monthly Budget {52bites}”
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Timely tidbit friend. Big thanks!!!
Any tips on “fun” or “date” money?
We do budget $50/month under the category (and I quote) “Spicin’ it up and keepin’ things fun!” I get half of that in cash and Jeff gets half of that in cash, so we each have some to use under our own discretion to bless each other and our family.