Reality Check 101

Financial Management Websites

Biblical Stewardship     http://biblicalstewardship.net/

Acts 17:11 Bible Studies      http://www.acts17-11.com/money.html

Back to the Bible      http://www.backtothebible.org/10-financial-principles-that-are-biblical.html

Open Bible     https://www.openbible.info/topics/money

ExploreGod.com     https://www.exploregod.com/what-the-bible-says-about-money-paper

Financial Management Ministries

Crown Ministries     https://www.crown.org/

Barnabas Ministries     https://www.barnabasfinancialministry.org/

This information is from the website of E Home Fellowship

Budgeting Tips For Christians

These Tips On Budgeting will help you control the most important part of your family financial program…outgo.  Almost all financial problems are due to outgo, not income.  If you feel you have an income problem, go to Employment and Christian Finances.  Chances are, even if it seems you don’t make enough, the problem is outgo.  This is very good news!  Why?  I’m glad you asked!  It’s good news because you can control outgo.  That’s what this page is all about.  We’ll show you some tips and tricks that make it easier to control your spending, pay down debt, and save for those big things in your future.  For more information, see the best-selling books on Family Budget and Finance. You can track your money using Family Budget Software.

What Is A Budget?

A budget is a spending plan that includes everything you will spend money on.  A good budget is a spending plan that includes everything you will spend money on and stays within your income.  A wise budget includes everything you will spend money on, savings for a ‘rainy day’, savings for large purchases, giving, savings for kids, and investment for retirement and still stays within your income.  I suspect the wise budget is a bit over the top for you if you’re new to budgeting.  Caution!  No matter how detailed your spending plan is, if it does not include everything you spend money on, or, if it does not address where you will get the money to cover all your expenses, it is not a budget.   

Why Budget?

I suspect you already know why or you wouldn’t be reading this.  If we don’t budget, we lose control of our expenses and can’t even figure out where the money went.  Worse, yet…we can’t figure out where we’ll get the money to cover that big bill we forgot was coming.

Tips On Budgeting:

Budgeting Tip 1:  Get the whole picture.  Start by collecting all checking account and credit card statements for the last year.  Collect all cash receipts for the last month (or next month if you don’t do this).  Don’t forget cash spent on co-payments, mocha’s, haircuts, etc.  Now collect all receipts for financial contributions to charity, including Girl Scout cookies, etc.  Collect all pay stubs, deposit receipts, etc.

Budgeting Tip 2:  Record the whole picture.  Use all the stuff you collected to record a ‘picture’ of what you spent last year (use a pencil and have a big eraser on hand.  You can print and use our Family Budget Worksheet to make this job easier.  Don’t be surprised if this takes a lot of time with a calculator and scratch paper.

Budgeting Tip 3:  Check off the lines on your documents as you account for them in a budget item.  That way you don’t put the same thing in more than one item and you don’t forget anything.

Budgeting Tip 4:  Formulas:
Convert regular weekly pay to monthly:  Weekly Pay x 4.333 = Monthly Pay
Convert bi-weekly pay to monthly:  Bi-Weekly Pay x 2.167 = Monthly Pay
Convert annual totals to monthly amounts by dividing the total by 12.

Budgeting Tip 5:  The Family Bills For Monthly Expenses part of the Worksheet is just for regular monthly bills, savings and investment.  If insurance, for instance, is billed monthly, it would go here.

Budgeting Tip 6:  If the insurance, however, is billed less often than monthly, the total annual amount would be divide by 12, and that number would be listed in the Impound Budget For Non-Monthly Expenses.  Don’t forget to list the month it’s due to be paid.  This ‘Impound’ section is a powerful and unique tool to save monthly for all your annual expenses and avoid those nasty surprises.

Budgeting Tip 7:  Include everything you regularly pay cash for in the Cash Budget-Monthly section.

Budgeting Tip 8:  After you total everything, you may be surprised to discover your expenses are larger than your income.  This is normal, I’m sad to say.  The amount your expenses exceed your income is the amount you add to your credit cards and other consumer credit balances every month.  Note:  When I did this the first time I discovered I was spending $ 250 more than my income each month.  If your income is larger than your expenses, the difference is the amount you can add to savings, etc.

Budgeting Tip 9:  Review your budget worksheet to see if you can spot any errors, to try and find areas where you feel your spending is excessive, and to consider if any expenses (maintenance, insurance, taxes, etc.) will increase over the next year…make necessary adjustments and re-total.

Budgeting Tip 10:  Make sure you keep a savings balance for a “rainy day” that matches 6 months of your net income.  After you’ve accumulated that, you can begin investing and buying some of those things you just want.

Budgeting Tip 11:  Giving or donating is as important as paying a bill.  Give this a try!  You should have an amount designated on your family budget for giving.  Even if you don’t take part in a regular charity or church giving program, make giving part of your budget.  There is a great deal of evidence, from 2,900 years ago right up to the present, that what you give comes back to you multiplied.  Do it for a year and see what happens.

Budgeting Tip 12:  Needs-vs-Wants:  One of the most powerful tools in budgeting is the ability to tell the difference between needs and wants.  We’ve designed the Family Budget Worksheet to show you things you are required to pay.  Don’t confuse this with needs.  A significant amount of consumer credit debt, and possibly some of house payment, maintenance, even food can be wants…not needs.  You must assess whether an item is a ‘need or want’ before you purchase it.  We’ll cover what you do with ‘wants’ a little later.  First, let’s look at some examples of ‘needs’.  The ‘need’ part of a house is minimum family/dining room, parent bedroom, 1 bath, and, if required, 1 bedroom for boys and 1 for girls.  The ‘need’ part of a car is what is minimally required for your regular transportation needs (some would argue that no car is a ‘need’).  The ‘need’ part of your groceries is what is minimally required to sustain you and allow your children to grow.  Even though I listed them as ‘not required’ expenses, cell phone and internet access are ‘needs’ only if they are required for your business and only if they are not provided by your employer.  Cell phones are never ‘needs’ for children of any age.  For all my spend-happy friends; cable TV, microwave, patio set, jewelry, second purse, fishing pole, Lexus, golf clubs, steak, and Christmas gifts are never ‘needs’.  If you have trouble assessing the difference between needs and wants, visit Compulsive Shopping Addiction.  Your spending problem may be more than a passing season.

Budgeting Tip 13:  Getting what you want:  If you’re saving for your future, you have ‘rainy day’ cash and your monthly income exceeds your expenses, I have good news…you can have all your wants.  If not, try this:  We keep a “Wannas” list for everything we want that we can’t pay cash for.  We list everything we want, along with an estimate of its price.  Then, we put the list in order of most important to least important.  Next, we put a regular amount in monthly special savings account for “wannas”.  When our wannas savings exceeds the value of the first item, we take the money out and buy the item with cash.  By saving and paying cash instead of using credit cards, you save 20% on the purchase of every item (17% credit card interest and 3% savings interest).  You get an added benefit, I call the ‘cooling off period.’  By the time you save enough money for the item, you often don’t feel you want it any more.  I’ll prove this to you.  You know how important the things you want to buy right now are.  You can name them, the color, the feel, the price.  I’ll bet you even know how some of your friends will react when you show them you own it.  If you think these things will be that important to you in a year, once you’ve saved for them, you’ll have no problem doing this:  Take your credit card statements out and total the balances.  Now, list the names and prices of the items you bought to make up those balances.  Most people are paying hundreds of dollars each month for things they no longer even know they have.  If I just described you, take a look at Debt Free Christian Life for instructions on how to use this budget system to eliminate your debt.

Budgeting Tip 14:  There is great power in budgeting future income…the increases in net income you receive due to promotion, etc.  I remember I used to figure out how much my pay was going to increase, then accept a new credit card so I could charge enough to make the minimum payment increase match the increase in my net pay.  This is NOT what I mean by budgeting future income.  Since your increases in pay are not spent, yet, there is no better time than now to budget for them.  Simply, put in writing a promise to yourself what percentage of future increases will go where.  For example:  20 % to donations, 20 % to savings, 40 % to pay down debt, 10 % to recreation, 10% to investment.  Until you’re debt-free, I’d suggest a large amount to pay down debt.

Budgeting Tip 15:  You need more than one bank account.  If everything stays in your checking account, it won’t stay long.  You need to stash money in accounts you don’t use for regular expenses.  In order for this budget system to work, in addition to your checking account, you need a separate account for Impound, Savings, Large Purchase Savings, and Investment.  Most banks or credit unions can split these off of your basic account and allow for transferring between them (they may have different names, like Christmas Club, Money market, etc.).  Have your pay go to your checking account.  Then, every month, transfer the budgeted amounts for savings, investment and impound total, etc. to their respective accounts.  Sometimes you can tell them how much to automatically transfer and you don’t have to worry about it.  When the Impound items are due (Christmas, for instance), transfer the total amount for that item out of Impound and back into checking to pay for the item.  When it’s time to buy that car, transfer the money from Large Purchase Savings to your checking account.  Imagine buying a new car with a check!  You will get there if you follow your budget.