MoneyWalk 24a Organize Records & Balance Checkbooks

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

There are a number of ways you can organize records for purposes of making sure all financial data is in a few locations that can be quickly and easily accessed in order to know the data that should be used to periodically complete net worth statements and household budgets (giving-saving-spending plan), and to find current and past financial account information when needed.

1. Gather all the creditor billing statements (including utilities, etc.) that you have laying in piles on your tables and in drawers around your house. Make sure you at least have all the latest billing statements from all your creditors. For recordkeeping ease, put all billing statements in one filing system. Copy each billing statement creditors send you electronically each month. You may have to contact creditors to get copies of each billing statement so you have them all.

2. On a table, arrange each billing statement by day of each month on which payment is due from the 1st thru the 31st. When the payment due date fluctuates each month simply use the day of the month that tends to be the earliest ever requested by the creditor. For example, if your electric utility payment is generally due anywhere from the 12th to the 17th, then use the 12th as the payment due date for recordkeeping and budget (giving-saving-spending plan) purposes.

3. Once arranged in the above order, put all the bills in a filing system with tabs at the top of each folder / divider that shows the above noted day-of-the-month order for arranging records. The tab at the top of each folder / divider should be labeled with its own date from the 1st thru the 31st. as well as the name of one specific creditor’s billing statements that will be placed in that folder or behind that divider tab. When more than one creditor’s payment due date occurs on the same date then you should have that same number of folders / dividers with the same due date but different creditor names on them. For example, 1st-Home Mortgage, 1st-Car Note, and 1st-Cable subscription.

4. You only need days of the month recognized on folder / divider tabs when a payment is due on that date from at least one creditor. So, if the next date on which a payment is due is the 5th of each month, then your next folder / divider tab should be similar to 5th-MSUFCU Visa.

5. You should keep the billing statements for each creditor in January through December order during each billing year, so you know the last one received is always the one for which payment is due or payment has been made. Keep at least one year of consecutive billing statements and you can usually get rid of any billing statements older than one-year.

6. You should put a monthly recurring appointment reminder on your computer calendar or smart phone calendar that reminds you by email or text of each creditor’s payment due date at least seven days in advance of the payment each month to ensure you do not miss checking your budget and paying the bill on time.

7. When you get calendar email or text notification that a payment is due, immediately refer to the latest billing statement for that creditor in the filing system to either write a check and mail it, or use the phone payment option, or use an online payment option.

This recordkeeping system provided organization you need to identify (a) the consistency of each month’s payment due date for each creditor, (b) the amount due over the past year for each creditor, and (c) other data that will be helpful in charting your financial future via ongoing monthly budgets (giving-saving-spending plan) and periodic net worth statements. Without it or a similarly organize system you will make mistakes in timing and with money that will cost you dearly over the years by keeping you in financial bondage and outside of the wealth building process. Tune in to the next article to find out more about organizing other financial records.

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 27:23-24, Isaiah 55:10-11, Luke 14:28-30, 2Corinthians 8:12, 20-21, 9:10

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 www.Amazon.com

You can find many other MoneyWalk articles on Facebook by looking at the NOTES created by Randy Parlor at https://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=100000444069041&sk=notes.

You can connect with Randy Parlor on Twitter and Linkedin

You can also view and/or listen to MoneyWalk articles at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXnztOIesOKIrSd_H6c-8mQ

MoneyWalk 24 Organize Records & Balance Checkbooks

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

You must diligently organize financial records, balance checkbooks, and review all accounts to ensure errors are corrected (bank, credit card, investment accounts, etc.) in order to have a healthy financial life. At all times, good financial stewards know exactly how much money they have at their disposal or they are able to quickly find out from account ledgers. People who don’t organize and immediately record deposits and deduct withdrawals from account balances are usually in poor financial shape. They often write checks and take on debt payments for more than they can afford to spend.

Getting a current account balance from a teller or looking at your checking account online doesn’t show how much you really have to spend because many checks are cashed days or weeks after they're written. The fact that $1,000 was payroll deducted into your account on Friday doesn't mean that $1,000 is available for you to spend on desires until your next paycheck. You cannot know what you truly have available to spend unless you know what's in your account after you subtract all checks written and record monthly bills that still must be paid during the pay period. Also, you need to make sure there is room to save an adequate emergency fund for unexpected bills that will periodically arise. In addition, you need to make sure your account balance will allow you to have enough extra income each pay period to eliminate your debt within a couple of years or sooner if possible and thereafter to invest 10% or more in vehicles that will provide enough annual compound growth to build wealth.

It’s almost impossible to build an emergency fund, eliminate debt, and increase wealth without organizing financial records, balancing checkbooks, and reviewing accounts for errors. These practices help you know the state of your flocks and herds at all times so you can properly budget income, appropriately spend, save emergency funds, eliminate debt, and invest.

If you do not follow an organized accountability plan, financial institutions will rake you over the coals with non-sufficient fund fees, late fees, overdraft fees, and other account charges. In addition, you are likely to find yourself deeply in debt, possibly facing repossession, foreclosure, and/or bankruptcy. Open your eyes right now to see you can undo financial bondage, build wealth, and fulfill your God-given purpose when you properly manage money including organizing financial records, balancing your checkbooks, and reviewing all accounts to ensure errors are corrected.

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 27:23-24, Isaiah 55:10-11, Luke 14:28-30, 2Corinthians 8:12, 20-21, 9:10

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 www.Amazon.com

You can find many other MoneyWalk articles on Facebook by looking at the NOTES created by Randy Parlor at https://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=100000444069041&sk=notes.

You can connect with Randy Parlor on Twitter and Linkedin

You can also view and/or listen to MoneyWalk articles at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXnztOIesOKIrSd_H6c-8mQ

MoneyWalk 23 Manage Money By Love

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

In order to have a solid spiritual foundation, you must believe with all your heart that God loves you so much that He sent His only son Jesus Christ to die on the cross to eliminate the judgment due your sins in order that you, believing on Him, will have everlasting life.

He loves everyone equally in this same way and desires that everyone would choose to have relationship and fellowship with Him in Christ even though each one deserves eternal punishment for sins committed in this life. He already provided the blood sacrifice, mercy, and grace necessary to secure your salvation and eternal life. In addition, He provides every spiritual tool necessary to display faith in Christ and receive complete blessing & reward for your life so you can finish the race / journey prepared for you.

When you commit to Christ, the Holy Spirit lives in you and guides you to forsake sinful worldly ways of living by taking you through a continual maturity process (intimate worship / prayer time focused on Him followed by evangelism and disciple-making that incorporate good works). In order to obey His first and greatest commandment, you must love Him with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. This love motivates you to obey the second commandment, which is to love your neighbor as yourself. Together, these are the foundation for all He made you to be and do.

This means His love must guide management of your life, including finances according to His will and way expressed in the bible. Engage a plan for giving, saving, and spending money on earth that (a) leads people to Him, (b) teaches them to obey His commandments, (c) keeps you and family spiritually and naturally healthy, and (d) allows you to increase income and assets to, in a greater way, serve His aim for you and others on earth. This must be a much higher priority than seeking to increase your material lifestyle and comfort.

His love and loving Him leads to daily prayer and bible study filling your heart with the Word. It also leads to regular weekly fellowship with other believers that encourage you to love and minister to others. These love-based disciplines faithfully and constantly aim you in the direction of engaging biblically based good stewardship of income, assets, and resources entrusted to you. When engaged, this ensures you fulfill God-given purpose and ministry calling to be blessed in order to be a blessing to many others.

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!

Deuteronomy 7:13, Proverbs 8:21, John 14:21, and Romans 13:8

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 www.Amazon.com

You can find many other MoneyWalk articles on Facebook by looking at the NOTES created by Randy Parlor at https://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=100000444069041&sk=notes.

You can connect with Randy Parlor on Twitter and Linkedin

You can also view and/or listen to MoneyWalk articles at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXnztOIesOKIrSd_H6c-8mQ

MoneyWalk 22 What Is Your Net-Worth?

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

You must calculate net worth in order to determine the state of your finances. It is the value of all assets minus the amount of all liabilities. Assets are owned goods or properties that have a market value expressed in dollars. They are in bank or brokerage accounts, etc. that show cash values or property that could be sold for a realistic estimated dollar amount.

Bank and brokerage accounts (e.g., savings, checking, certificates of deposit, mutual funds, stocks, and bonds) are considered liquid assets, which means they can be quickly cashed in at a financial institution or sold quickly to obtain the cash value. Other assets are considered illiquid, which means they usually cannot be converted into cash very quickly (e.g., houses, land, cars, artwork, and artifacts). In fact, you may not get the amount you believe they’re worth or you might get more at the time of sale because their value is based on what a buyer is willing to pay a seller at the time of the transaction.

The best assets to own as a bulk of your portfolio is usually a diversified portfolio of company stocks, generally through no-load low-expense stock index mutual funds like an S&P 500 or a total stock market index fund. They have more historical data from which consistently larger positive grow trends can be shown over a ten or more-year investing cycle than any other type of investment. For one who needs short-term protection from the stock market ups and downs, a 25 to 30% portion of investible assets can be put in stable value funds and/or no-load low-expense intermediate bond index mutual funds. In addition, after one pays off all non-mortgage debt, a minimum $10,000 emergency fund should be built and maintained. You may need to build a larger emergency fund if you know that you will soon face an emergency (layoff, large uncovered medical expense, etc.) and will need to cover it and/or household expenses you will not be able to adequately cover based on income.

Other assets (e.g. investment real estate, antique cars, etc.) could be worthwhile but usually require more skill to purchase, properly maintain, and appropriately manage, and accurately determine annual average growth patterns. In addition, they might not provide much risk protection and investing stability when you cannot own enough of them to truly be diversified. Thus, it is recommended that you first build an adequate emergency fund, second build the mutual fund portfolio usually on a dollar cost averaging basis, and then invest in other assets on a debt-free basis.

Liabilities are debts you owe someone else for material goods, services, or loans. This includes such items as business loans, real estate mortgages, student loans, car notes, revolving charge card balances, personal loans, etc. You should engage a debt snowball plan to as quickly as possible pay off what you currently owe because they lead to future trouble due to high finance charges and accumulation of many loans over time. Many people find it hard to make all payments required and live a reasonably comfortable life. They also find that required minimum monthly payments do not stop loan totals from continuing to grow to be more than the amount originally borrowed. Scripture does not give a picture of good and bad debt. It simply tells you to avoid borrowing and co-signing because they make you a slave to the lender, are speculative in nature, and harm the vast majority of people who continually use such methods to fund lifestyle. It confirms assets will be taken from many due to inability to make required payments. Advertisements and temptations convince people debt is great to get everything desired out of life. Yet, every year we see millions of people thrust into poverty due to usurious interest charges (payday & substandard loans), repossession, foreclosure, and bankruptcy.

At least annually, you should calculate your net worth to measure how successful your financial plan or lack of one has been. This will give you an idea of how far into the future you could pay your current debts or expenses if all income stopped coming in. This measurement is necessary because two decades ago the economy changed and layoffs became commonplace in many industries. Today, we see this in a more extreme way in that it has encumbered many of our main economic engines (e.g., banking, mortgage, housing, commercial real estate, automobile, and retail industries).

The ‘lifetime employment with one company dream’ came to a screeching halt. This current trend of changing jobs every 5-7 years, bouts of unemployment, and untimely emergencies and catastrophes that occur in your life should help you understand you will suffer financial hardships and great amounts of stress that will negatively affect your relationships when you do not follow God’s plan for managing finances and building net worth.

A Christian who continuously uses good stewardship will accumulate a greater net worth throughout his life that will allow him to weather economic storms better than others. He will also be motivated to help more people and give more to ministry work than people who are poor stewards who spend all their money on consumer purchases and debt service and thus fail to build wealth.

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!

Genesis 13:2, Job 42:12 Luke 19:2-10, James 5:1-5

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 www.Amazon.com

You can find many other MoneyWalk articles on Facebook by looking at the NOTES created by Randy Parlor at https://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=100000444069041&sk=notes.

You can connect with Randy Parlor on Twitter and Linkedin

You can also view and/or listen to MoneyWalk articles at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXnztOIesOKIrSd_H6c-8mQ