This program will help
you undo financial bondage.
Making a budget and working it will enable you to obtain debt freedom
and shed financial burdens. It helps you overcome the irresponsible nature that
exists in all of us. Along with prayer, it crushes the heads of demonic spirits
(Mammon, etc.) that would otherwise lead you to be a bad steward through
selfish desires and loving things of the world. Writing your goals clearly, on
paper or computer, and detailing how you will utilize income allows you to
exercise financial prudence. It leads you to give, save, and spend in
accordance with the LORD’s will for Your life. Budgeting will ultimately change
the negative financial patterns that put you in bondage.
The process is not complicated. It will take a couple hours per day for
the first week or so. Afterward, you’ll spend a little time each week checking
in with your budget, recording expenditures, and ensuring that you’re following
through on your commitment to better stewardship. This is the budgeting
pattern.
1)
List
your net monthly income.
2)
Subtract
one-tenth of your income as the amount you will give to your local Church for
sharing the gospel and good works at home and around the world. This is
evidence of your love for the LORD and faith in His ability to take care of all
your need while you walk in accordance with His instruction.
3) Now show a
separate subtraction for the minimum payment due every creditor (mortgage
company, credit cards, car notes, student loan servicers, etc.). List them
by the due date (starting on the first of the month through the 31st
of the month) along with creditor name.
4)
Now
show separate subtractions for groceries & toiletries, personal money, gas
for car, and entertainment. You can either go back and add up what you spent
during the last month for such expenses or you can do a guestimate and tweak it
as you move forward repeating this process from month to month.
5) Discretionary
income is the remaining amount. It will either be surplus money (in the
black) or a deficit (in the red). If you do
not have a surplus you will need to reduce expenses and/or earn extra income (second
jobs, GIG work, entrepreneurial endeavors) that will allow you to have
enough of a surplus to build a first-tier emergency fund of at least $1,000 and
thereafter put extra money on your debt payments to eliminate them within the
next two to three years.
Discipline
yourself to spend within budget amounts and to never take on debt again, so you
will never again drown in a sea of debt.
When
you have a deficit and cannot quickly get extra money to cover everything,
prioritize (1) Shelter (house, apartment, room including necessary utilities
like natural gas and electricity), (2) Food (home prepared from low cost
grocers), and (3) Transportation (bus, commuter van, vehicle including
gas & reasonable repairs). Other bills should only get minimum
payments. If not possible to pay them all, then determine which ones will not
get paid until you have built the first-tier emergency fund and bring more
income home from other work.
Many
food pantries, thrift stores, family, and friends provide no cost, low cost
clothing and food when you don’t have income to obtain them. Also, most people
have enough clothes even when they’re in financial distress because these
former purchases helped distress their finances.
Always have drafted
budgets for at least six-consecutive months (January, February, March and so
on). Bills only due quarterly, semi-annually, or once per year should be
put in the budget for the months in which they are due. The base budget for
each successive month should be the figures in the budget for the month before
it because most monthly minimum payments don’t significantly change when one
refrains from taking on new debts and responsibilities.
While budgets are
designed to hold you accountable to a focused pattern of spending, they are
flexible in that you can change income and expense estimates when necessary. Do
not use this as a reason to constantly break your budget pattern. Otherwise,
you will wreck its ability to work as an accountability partner to enlarge your
future with greater wealth.
All the things you desire that are unnecessary can wait until you have
disciplined yourself to follow your budget and have built cash reserves to pay
for them without using credit. After a year or two of engaging such discipline,
you will enjoy fulfillment that comes from the process because it will help you
control your finances for greater employment of the purpose for which the LORD
created you.
Please pray for this ministry, email me with any
questions, and contact me to speak at your business or ministry conference or
workshop. May the LORD bless you richly as you follow His plan!
Proverbs 27:23-27, Ecclesiastes 10:17-19, Habakkuk 2:1-4,
Luke 14:28-30
Please forward these bondage-breaking articles to other
people who can use helpful insight!
You can find books authored by Randy Parlor and Karen
Parlor at
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