[Note to my readers: I am sorry about being a little late on this weeks post! Hopefully you’ll forgive me and enjoy this post anyway. By the way, thanks for even being here and reading. I love writing and I’ve been so encouraged to receive comments and notes from all of you about all the stuff I’m writing! So THANKS!]

Part 2

If you feel at all overwhelmed by any of what I’ve written so far, or if you’re discouraged because your God-given disposition is not to be “boxed in” by a budget, or if you simply don’t know if you can keep a budget that you’ve perhaps already started…than I think you’re going to like this post!

Why? Because while there are some things every month that we have to pay for, there are a lot of things in our budget that are completely and totally…

Flexible!

So breathe a breath of fresh air!

Let’s just take a look at our sample budget from last week:

I’m going to cross off everything that’s not-so-flexible and we’ll take a look at all the line-items that don’t have to be “boxed in.”

Taxes: -$750.00
Tithe: -$350.00
Rent: -$700.00
Utilities: -$125.00
Car Repair: -$100.00*
Car Insurance: -$250.00
Fuel: -$200.00Phone: -$75.00
Groceries: -$200.00
Medical Expenses: -$50.00*
Clothing: -$100.00
Dates: -$50.00
Fluff: -$100.00
Christmas: -$50.00
Vacation: -$50.00
Goals: -$350.00

*As far as car repair and medical expenses go, I put these as non-negotiable items. Trust me, your car is going to break down (or you’ll need new tires, or windshield wipers, etc) and you are going to need to go the doctor. It’s gonna happen, so save now.

Now let’s simplify our list:

Groceries: -$200.00
Clothing: -$100.00
Dates: -$50.00
Fluff: -$100.00
Christmas: -$50.00
Vacation: -$50.00
Goals: -$350.00

All of the above is totally at your discretion and command!

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to discuss each of these so you can hear my advice on manipulating these categories. Here’s the line-up:

The Nuts & Bolts of our Budget: The Grocery Budget
The Nuts & Bolts of our Budget: Necessary AND Fun
The Nuts & Bolts of our Budget: Spending Money, short and long term

Until next week!

About a year ago, when we were so close to ending our engagement and beginning our marriage, Bryan and I took a class with our connection group called Financial Peace University. If you’ve heard of Dave Ramsey, you’ve likely heard most of what I’m about to go through as it’s similarly modeled after his class.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll use terms that Dave (we’re on a first name basis) would also use.

Part One.

We have a something of a zero-based budget (actually I’m not sure that name is correct, but trust me, I got all of this from Dave). This basically means, in Dave’s words, we “spend all of our money on paper before the month starts.”

Here’s how we did it:

Step 1: We tried to account for every expense we could possibly think of. Literally anything that could come up over the course of the year, not to mention those trusty bills that happen to come every month.

Step 2: We came up with a monthly budget to account for all of those expenses.

Step 3: At least for us, our ideal amount to spend each was more than we wanted it to be. It wasn’t more than we made, but we wanted to pay off our debts and start saving up for school so we shaved everything off we could. This relates quite a bit to the whole saying no thing. We didn’t add dates to our budget until we were debt free, for instance.

Step 4: So then we had our bottom number, our budget. It was less than our income each month, so the last step was to make a plan for all of the extra income we brought in. That’s where the goals come in, we funnel all of our extra money towards our goals.

So, in essence we have our income, which we tithe from first and foremost. Then we have our expenses, which are as little as they can possibly be right now. Then we have our goals, which we fuel with all of our extra income each month.

Here’s an example:
(please note this is not our actual budget, but if you want to know what I spend on whatever, just ask!)

Income: +$3,500.00
Taxes: -$750.00
Tithe: -$350.00
Sub-Total #1: +$2,400.00
Rent: -$700.00
Utilities: -$125.00
Car Repair: -$100.00
Car Insurance: -$250.00
Fuel: -$200.00
Phone: -$75.00
Groceries: -$200.00
Medical Expenses: -$50.00
Clothing: -$100.00
Dates: -$50.00
Fluff: -$100.00
Christmas: -$50.00
Vacation: -$50.00
Sub-Total #2: +350.00
Goals: -$350.00
TOTAL: $0.00

Last week, I argued that the most important step in personal financial success is to set goals for yourself. In the same way, I’ll argue that the hardest thing about personal financial success is, you guessed it, saying no.

My husband and I dialogue about our finances very regularly. He often “jokes” of how he feels like our budget is his parent. Just the other day he told me about an inner dialogue he was having with himself, it went something like this:

Wow, I feel like a popsicle. I really want one. Maybe I should just go buy some. But I don’t have any spending money right now and I know my wife is trying to stay under budget for groceries this month…Jeez, I’m a grown man and I’m debating whether or not to buy popsicles because of our tight budget this month!

I laughed when he was telling me this, but he was actually kind-of serious. Bryan loves shopping, much more than I do. He tends to be the spender and I’m the saver. That’s the way our awesome God made us. In light of the way we were created, it’s hard for Bryan to say “no” to the things he wants. And it’s really hard for me to say “no” to Bryan.

We both struggle, on a daily basis, to deny ourselves much of what we want. We say “no” a lot. So, if we struggle so much with it, why do it?

The Benefits of Saying “No”

1. Saying “no” to things like popsicles when we they don’t fit in our budget means saying “yes” to our goals. Goals usually end up requiring some sort of sacrifice.
2. Instant gratification isn’t a long-lasting feeling. While it might feel really good to eat a popsicle right when you’re craving it, I promise you’ll just want something else later. I can also promise it won’t feel as good as accomplishing one of your goals. Have you ever heard your grandparents say that you’ll always appreciate the things you worked hard for more than the things that you didn’t work hard for? Yeah, that’s true. Goals take hard work. Putting a box of popsicles on a credit card takes a swipe.
3. Saying “no” is counter-cultural. It’s possible that the most unifying behavior we in the western culture have is this instant gratification attitude. You want something? Get it NOW. I believe there’s a lot of biblical back-up for avoiding worldly behavior. Let’s avoid this behavior as followers of Christ and exercise patience in our spending.
4. Saying “no” is a surefire way to simplify. “Stuff” that piles up is usually a result of that instant gratification thing I mentioned above. I just read a book about simplicity and money was just as big of an issue as time was.
5. Finally, “Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.” (Matt. 5:37) If you’ve said, “Yes, I want to be wise with my finances, I want to meet my financial goals this year, I want to live below my means, etc,” then let your “yes” be “yes” and say “no” to the other stuff.

Just so you know, Bryan didn’t end up buying those popsicles. And right now I have $2.85 left in my grocery budget for the next week which means I have to wait to get some things we’re out of. But we’re making it work. And I’m definitely putting popsicles on the list for next month. : )

Next week: The Nuts and Bolts of our Budget.