Starting Prayer
Lord,
We come before You, the Heavenly King enthroned on high, as eager learners of truth, wisdom, and love for You above all else. God, You are the Ultimate Provider. In You, we lack no good thing. Would You teach us Your ways, Lord? Would You instruct Your children so that we could walk with full confidence and freedom as promised in Christ? God, I know that in so many ways, I fall short of my own goals and standards let alone Yours, but thank You for being so gracious and loving to each and everyone of us. You never give up on us even at our worst, You see us at our best. Please be with us as we prayerfully uncover truth and knowledge that only comes from You.
In Jesus Name, we pray
Amen.
I don’t know about you, but I’m loving starting and ending prayers for this blog series.
Budgeting Continued
Watch: Budgeting for Beginners - How to Make a Budget From Scratch 2021
So, I’m focusing on the crowd that doesn’t know what’s going on in their life at the moment, but they want to start making a budget.
Let’s talk about uncertainty:
“I don’t have a set monthly income (through a job for example), how can I budget?”
I think the trick here is to work backwards. Instead of focusing on how unsure you are about how much is coming in, look at how much you’re spending. This can work because you’re getting an idea of how much you’re using, over time seeing a pattern, and you’ll look at how to minimize expenses to a point where it matches your expected income (including how much your parents give you to spend or how much you take out in loans to spend for expenses).
Let’s look at my expenses the past 2 days:
$17 lunch
$6.5 coffee
$8 snacks
$5 ice cream from yesterday
$13.5 dinner
So I spent $50 on entertainment!
If I have an income of $100 a month for example, I’ve spent 50% of it already in two days on wants! It’s hard, I think for things like coffee, I’ll try to make it at home but when you’re out you just want to get one. I think I should put either a set limit to how many times I get a coffee outside or a solely coffee budget to make sure I’m not just spending it aimlessly.
For example, I could set my monthly “outside” coffee trips to twice a month.
I think I could go into detail for each and every section, but in the end I want to make sustainable changes for myself that don’t overwhelm me. If you have too many rules for yourself, you’ll eventually break one and then the rest of the rules will crumble.
A good idea is to keep track of your weekly expenses and cut down on one thing from the last week as you go into the next week. Having a budget also gives you restraint to think about how much you’re spending and if you have room for that. I’m honestly still in the process of learning how to budget, and you’re all - in real time - being part of that with me.
Challenge: look at your spending for the last week, list out each purchase, and see how you could make realistic budget changes whether less times going out for dessert after dinner or taking a walk (if it’s safe and possible) instead of taking an uber somewhere!
Don’t doubt the power of small changes, God uses the little things we do and makes them great. For me, I’ll be setting that coffee limit to twice a month or once every two weeks as an attainable goal for myself to still have fun within an allotted boundary. If I succeed, it’ll be time for me to make that a habit and work on another area of managing my finances.
Like any area of your life, compassion for yourself is key to keep growing and adapting.
Sorry for the short mini-blog, I have missions to prepare for and a small charity campaign where I’ll be selling the beaded bracelets I make and giving 100% of the proceeds to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund.
If you would like to get one fill out this form : https://forms.gle/xnLjaN6EbrjZGJ697
Much love!
Ending Prayer:
Thank You God,
You are the greatest good we will ever know. Thank You for your patience as we learn step by step and day by day. You look on us with love and adoration. Your children are Your joy, and You are ours. Lord, fill us with wisdom on how to budget faithfully. Create in us the space to learn and grow with grace-filled mistakes. Everyday we are made new in You. There is no area of our life we do not feel touched by You.
In Jesus name,
Amen
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