Be Intentional with Your Bank Account
The highest use of capital is not to make more money but to make money do more for the betterment of life.
—HENRY FORD
Goal: Get your finances in order so you can spend, save, and give with purpose.
Strategy: Develop short-term and long-term financial goals and then create a plan to carry those goals out.
I well remember sitting on the floor in the living room of our rental home in Kansas City. I wept as I held our second child, a baby girl. Between heaving sobs, I lashed out at my husband. I threw at him all the feelings of frustration and hopelessness that had boiled up inside.
Jesse didn’t deserve to be berated. It wasn’t his fault that the job market was bad and that no one was hiring. He was trying wholeheartedly to find a job. But our bank account was quickly dwindling. And I was scared.
Was he ever going to find a job? How were we going to pay for the rent and utilities? Was he really trying hard enough to find work? I cried. I ranted. I even threatened to leave. Looking back, I realize I was acting overly dramatic, but at the time I was dead serious.
My husband and I are blessed to come from families who recognized the importance of making wise financial decisions. When we got engaged in 2002, the year before Jesse planned to enter law school, we discussed and prayed about finances. Both of us were debt-free and committed to living beneath our means. However, in crunching the numbers, we knew it would take some extreme creativity and frugality to stay out of debt through law school. We were determined but had no idea how hard the road would be.
We got married in January 2003, right before Jesse’s last semester of college, and we practiced frugality from the get-go. We honeymooned in an inexpensive hotel in a neighboring state, brought our own food, shopped at the dollar store to supplement, and only splurged once to eat out at Subway. Back from our honeymoon, we rented the cheapest apartment we could find and outfitted it with furniture hand-me-downs from friends and family, plus a used couch. We both worked as many hours as we could at our part-time jobs and saved every penny possible. We learned that a strong marriage is not built on how much money you have, but on the depth of your love and commitment to one another.
During Jesse’s first year of law school, we worked hard to make ends meet. I worked part-time for three different families as a nanny, plus had a regular babysitting gig. Jesse telecommuted part-time for his dad’s business. Between our incomes, we barely made enough to cover all our expenses. We needed a more stable, long-term source of income, and I didn’t want to be working so many jobs, so in my spare time, I started researching work-from-home jobs.
Sacrifice is a part of life. It’s supposed to be. It’s not something to regret. It’s something to aspire to.
—MITCH ALBOM
In 2004, soon after Jesse began his second semester of law school, we found out we were expecting. I was so sick during the pregnancy that I had to quit working. This cut our income by more than half and created quite a bit of anxiety. But it also gave me more incentive to look into creative ways to make money from home. I spent most of my days in bed with the laptop researching possibilities and experimenting with different ideas. Though I made many, many mistakes in the process (more on that in a little while), much of what I learned during those months laid the foundation for what would later become MoneySavingMom.com.
KNOW WHERE YOU’RE GOING
So many people dream of getting out of debt, paying cash for another vehicle, paying off their houses early, or giving more generously to others. Very few people, however, get beyond the dreaming stage. Instead, they drive around and around without a map, wishing they could go somewhere without ever determining where they want to go.
If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll never reach your destination. You have to set financial goals that are right for your family. Every family is in a different situation with different needs, different circumstances, and different short-term and long-term goals. For us, one of our first financial goals was to stay out of debt during law school. We couldn’t think or plan much beyond that because we had to make it through the three years of law school first. That was enough to focus on at that time.
If you’re married, you need to sit down with your spouse and develop these financial goals together. If you’re not on the same page in your marriage, it’s going to be hard to make much progress on your financial goals.
To determine your goals, ask yourselves: Where do we want to be financially a year from now? Five years from now? Ten?
Brainstorm answers. Your ideas may include getting out of credit card debt, paying off medical bills, paying off your vehicles, buying a new car, saving for your kids’ college fund, saving up for retirement, or putting aside money for a family vacation. Maybe right now you need to focus on staying out of debt—like we did while Jesse was in law school.
After the brainstorming session, look at your list of ideas and pick two or three to adopt as your financial goals. I recommend choosing one goal you think could be fairly easily accomplished in the next six months, one in the next year or two, and one that seems quite audacious (but doable with diligence, hard work, and commitment) with a five-year or more end date. Also, be sure you use the SMART principles (see chapter 3) when creating your goals.
Here are five examples of goals I recommend that you make your top priority (in this order), based upon recommendations you’ll find in Dave Ramsey’s book The Total Money Makeover1:
• Set up a small emergency fund of at least one month’s expenses (in case the unexpected happens, like a death in the family or a job loss).
• Pay off your credit cards and any outstanding medical debt.
• Increase your emergency fund to cover three to six months’ worth of expenses.
• Save to pay cash for your next large purchase (like a car).
• Save up to put a large down payment on a house, or aggressively work on paying off your current mortgage.
Once you determine your top two or three goals, write them down and post them where you’ll see them every day—maybe right next to where you posted your other goals you came up with in chapter 3.
Now, just like you did earlier, start breaking them down into bite-size chunks. For example, if you want to lower your credit card debt, you might consider setting aside two hundred dollars each month to go directly toward paying down your debt. If you want to beef up your savings, aim to save 10 percent of each paycheck.
No more pie-in-the-sky financial dreams. Now you have concrete goals to serve as the driving force for decisions your family makes.
I mentioned Dave Ramsey above, and I can’t recommend his radio show, events, or books enough. He’s a well-known financial expert who gives empowering and biblically based financial advice to help people get out of debt. During the last year of law school, Jesse discovered his radio show and kept coming to me all pumped about what he was learning.
I wasn’t too excited. After all, I stubbornly thought, weren’t we pretty smart when it came to finances? Did we really need some guru with a radio show telling us what to do? I mean, c’mon, we were debt-free, we were living on a budget, we were living beneath our means, and we were giving—even on a very small income. What more could some guy on the radio teach us about money?
But Jesse persisted in encouraging me to give this expert a chance. I finally gave in and begrudgingly agreed to go with my husband through Dave’s thirteen-week financial program, Financial Peace University.2
I was hooked after the first class. Dave taught me things like the pros and cons of different kinds of insurance, what mutual funds are, and how to prepare for retirement—and he did it all in an engaging and understandable way. Not only that, but going through Financial Peace University also caused me to have a complete paradigm shift in my thinking about money. Truth be told, I’d never really thought long term about financial goals. Our one goal was to stay out of debt and make it through law school. Beyond that, I didn’t have anything long range that I was shooting for.
Dave Ramsey gave us a vision. He inspired us to think big, plan ahead, and dream big dreams. Most of all, we were motivated to get our family in the best financial shape possible so that we could bless and help others by being generous givers. We finally began to learn what it meant to be intentional in how we handled money.
When Jesse and I were finished with Financial Peace University, we sat down and made some big goals (like the seemingly impossible one of buying a house with cash within five years of Jesse finishing law school). At the time, our goals were ambitious and some even far-fetched, but we decided to aim for the stars. We figured even if we didn’t hit them, we’d likely make more traction than if we hadn’t aimed at all!
PASSING ON GOOD FINANCIAL HABITS TO OUR CHILDREN
It’s important to pass on wisdom to your kids, especially as it concerns money. Here are three ways to instill in them a sound financial mind-set:
• Model financial stewardship. Children learn more by example than through our words.
• Introduce financial talk from the beginning. We started talking about debt, mortgages, credit cards, budgets, and giving with our children when they were only toddlers. Explain basic financial concepts in language they’ll understand.
• Give your children opportunities to earn, spend, and save. We have paid chores and unpaid chores at our house. Unpaid chores are those chores our children do because they’re members of our household (such as making their beds, cleaning their rooms, vacuuming, helping with the dishes, etc.). The paid chores are extra ones that our children can choose to do if they want to earn some extra money (such as cleaning the car or cleaning Mom and Dad’s bathroom).
A TIPPING POINT
When Jesse finished law school in 2006, by the grace of God we had no debt and a few thousand dollars in savings. Jesse passed the bar and got a great job. We were elated! For the first time since we were married, Jesse was making a good full-time income, and we finally felt like we had some financial stability.
Soon we were thrilled to find out we were expecting our second child. We started looking at the possibility of moving from our little basement apartment to a duplex. And we even began thinking of how fun it was going to be to be able to afford to splurge on little things every now and then.
But our elation was soon deflated as that great job Jesse had didn’t last long, and he was left looking for another position—something that was hard to come by with little experience and a tight job market. After many weeks of searching and praying, Jesse was offered a new position, albeit one he wasn’t thrilled about. But it was a job; it would pay the bills. And that’s what mattered most at that point. So we packed up and moved.
Jesse started his new job with high hopes. But within the first month, Jesse realized his new position was a lot harder than he had anticipated. The learning curve was steep, the hours were long, the work was stressful, and the office environment was tense.
PRESSURE STARTS TO BUILD
The job we had thought was a blessing began to wear on Jesse. He was almost always exhausted and stressed. He was given more big projects, which meant even longer hours. Easygoing and fun-loving Jesse was so overloaded at work that he rarely smiled or enjoyed life anymore. I tried to encourage him as best as I knew how, but the pressure he was dealing with at work was enormous.
The stress trickled down to me, and I began neglecting my own health. Soon I started experiencing issues in my pregnancy. I became severely anemic and ended up in the hospital for five days in my thirty-fourth week. My midwife and doctor were worried I was going to have to be induced early since my hemoglobin and platelet counts were so low. But God intervened, and I was able to carry Kaitlynn to thirty-eight weeks before being induced.
My health issues were a wake-up call to both of us. We finally admitted something major needed to happen in Jesse’s job situation, or he needed to quit. The thought of quitting was scary. It meant having no insurance and, of course, a loss of income. We felt trapped, but we prayed and thought about the situation long and hard.
More and more it felt like it was the right thing for Jesse to resign. But what about our financial goals and hopes and dreams? Were we defeating ourselves by cutting off most of our income? How would we survive if Jesse wasn’t able to get a new job right away? We only had enough in savings to live on for a few months. And my income from my online business was certainly not enough for us to survive on at that point.
Unexpectedly, Jesse was asked to resign. While this came as a shock, we took it as God’s clear direction for us. But we didn’t know what the next step might be, or how we were going to live if Jesse didn’t find a job quickly. So we were left without our primary income source in a new city with little support, few friends, and even fewer business contacts.
At first, we were pretty confident Jesse could find work that would at least pay the bills. How hard could it be? Apparently, a lot harder than we thought. Days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months.
Jesse applied for every job he was remotely qualified for. We prayed harder than we’d ever prayed. We contacted anyone and everyone who might have a possible job lead. We followed up with every application. But no one was calling to offer Jesse an interview, let alone a job.
That’s when our marriage hit a hard place. I wish I could say that I kept a cheerful attitude through all of this. On the contrary, I woke up every morning with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach wondering how much more we could take. Though I’m ashamed to admit it, I felt so alone, scared, and stressed that I often became angry with my husband.
Thankfully, because we didn’t have any debt and were still living on a strict budget, the job loss didn’t plunge us into complete financial ruin. I can’t even fathom what it would have been like had we piled up debt in law school or bought a house and lived more extravagantly after law school. The added financial strains may have further deteriorated or even destroyed our relationship.
Q: My husband recently got laid off, and we have to live on my income. I am now in charge of our budget. While I’m diligent in paying our bills on time and watching our spending habits so we stay afloat, he doesn’t seem to care as much. With our different views and attitudes about money, how can we work together to get on the same page?
A: I’m not a marriage counselor. I can only speak from my personal experience as to what has worked for my husband and me in our ten years of marriage. My advice may or may not work in your situation, so you may want to consider seeking professional counsel.
First, accept that you are different. You didn’t marry your clone, which is probably a good thing! We all need someone a little different to help balance us out. Instead of being discouraged or disheartened that your husband has different opinions, accept him as he is. Don’t try to change him or make him just like you; it won’t work. Believe me, I’ve tried.
Second, learn to appreciate the differences. I tend to be ultrafrugal, while my husband tends to be more extravagant (at least according to my standards). This can be a source of frustration for both of us, but we’ve also learned to appreciate these differences and learn from each other. Together, we make a much stronger, more balanced team than either of us would be on our own. That’s the beauty of learning to appreciate and build on differences instead of letting them get in the way of resolution.
Third, communicate openly. My husband does all the bill paying and budget tallying because he enjoys that sort of thing, while I find it tedious. But we work together on creating and maintaining our budget. I heartily encourage all couples to have regularly scheduled monthly budget accountability meetings to discuss your financial situation, create and revise your written budget, talk about financial issues that have come up, and review your financial goals. If you’ve never done this sort of thing before, it may be difficult or uncomfortable at first, but I promise it’s ultimately worth it.
There is one rule that must be followed at these meetings: they must include mutual discussions. Don’t try to force anything on your spouse. There should be give and take and open talk. You must both be willing to compromise and talk things through to come to a point of agreement.
Dragging your spouse to the meeting and berating him for his handling of money won’t get you anywhere except in the wrong direction. However, graciously explaining to your spouse how you’ve been struggling with the financial situation and feeling like there is constant tension in your life as a result of not being on the same page will probably get you somewhere. And showing that you are open to compromising and reaching an agreement that is mutually beneficial will go a long way too.
While our marriage was in bad shape, we did make one good decision—to be as creative and resourceful as we could to avoid accessing our emergency fund (an account where we had saved up almost three months’ worth of expenses). The idea for MoneySavingMom.com was born during this time. I’d learned a lot about blogging and monetizing a blog over the past few years. I’d written quite a bit on supermarket savings on the site I had, and these articles had been popular. People were constantly asking me for practical money-saving advice, so I figured starting a frugal, money-saving blog might work well. Jesse was excited about this new venture, and we launched the site in the fall of 2007.
While it seemed like we were getting nowhere in the job search, God was doing some amazing things behind the scenes. In fact, our lives were about to be turned upside down—in a wonderful way!
With the downturn of the economy, MoneySavingMom.com took off with a bang. In fact, within three months, the site was getting twelve to fifteen thousand page views every day. And it kept growing! After a year (and countless hours of work and experimenting), MoneySavingMom.com began to bring in a steady full-time income.
It was one of those instances of being in the right place at the right time, persevering, and God wildly blessing a project. I’d started the blog hoping it would someday provide a steady source of side income for our family. I never could have imagined that six years later, it would be one of the highest trafficked personal finance blogs on the web, read by more than a million people each month! And that side income I’d hoped for? Well, that goal got blown out of the water as it provides more than a full-time income for our family, pays the salaries of all my team members, and allows us to give generously to needs in our community and around the world. The whole thing still amazes me!
I wasn’t the only one reaping the rewards from years of hard work and struggle. In October 2008, we moved back home to be near our extended families, and Jesse realized a long-term dream of opening his own law firm. By God’s blessings, it was profitable from the get-go. During the prior year, Jesse had gotten a contract position and had also used that year researching, listening to, and reading everything about leadership and running a business. It has been so much fun to see him work hard and succeed in this venture.
It wasn’t an easy journey. But we can definitely say that making short-term sacrifices in order to accomplish long-term goals can be very rewarding—especially if you’re willing to stick with it when the going gets tough.
MAPPING OUT A PLAN FOR FINANCIAL FREEDOM
The financial crisis of recent years has affected most of us. Between layoffs, budget cuts, foreclosures, and the never-ending stream of bankruptcy filings, we are anxious about the state of our finances. But we don’t have to live with that kind of pressure. We can overcome financial worry by purposely managing our money.
Think about this: When you put yourself in the driver’s seat of your financial situation and tell your money where to go by sticking with your preplanned budget, it releases you from a major amount of stress. No longer do you have to fear whether you’ll have enough money at the end of the month. No longer do you have to wonder where your money went. You have already determined exactly where each dollar you make will go so all you have to do is follow the plan.
By making wise financial decisions, money doesn’t run through your fingers like sand. You’ll find that you have a lot more left over to save and give!
Yes, You Need a Budget
A lot of people cringe when I bring up the word budget. I know, the last thing you want to do is to add something else to your plate when you already have a really full life. But once you’ve followed the exercises we’ve talked about in the first few chapters to get your priorities and time management in better shape, you should have more breathing room to allow you the time and energy to tackle a budget. And I can guarantee you the work will be worth it.
It won’t be easy. In fact, it may be one of the hardest things you’ve ever done in your life. But I’ve never met anyone who has lived on a budget for a few years who has told me, “Man, I really wish we wouldn’t have been careful with our money. It just ruined our lives.”
Here’s the beautiful thing about a budget: while it’s hard and limiting at first, over time you’ll realize that it’s your means to enjoy life without headaches and worry. Ultimately, it’s a pathway to freedom. And when you tell your money how to work for you, you can be intentional about how you use it.
Start with a Bare-bones Budget
Here are my personal recommendations on creating what I like to call a bare-bones budget. This plan will include all your basic living necessities like food, utilities, shelter, transportation, credit card bills, and so on.
Get a Handle on Your Expenses
Write down all the above budget categories, and decide how much you need to set aside every month to adequately cover all your expenses. See if you can lower any expenses by cutting your grocery bill, asking for a discount on your utilities, moving to less expensive housing, or selling your car. Any decrease in expenses will help free more money to put toward your emergency fund and to pay off debt.
Follow this budget to a tee. As much as possible, don’t pay for anything that isn’t a complete necessity right now. It’s a short season and your sacrifices will pay off.
Build an Emergency Fund
Throw every extra penny you can toward building up your emergency fund. This will give you a cushion going forward on months that you come up short. If at all possible, I suggest including this as an expense in your budget and allocating whatever dollar amount you can afford. Increase as you go along.
Pay Off Your Debt
After your emergency fund is funded, it’s time to focus all your energies on knocking out your consumer debt as quickly as possible. Continue to live on your bare-bones budget, and put everything else that you can scrounge up toward your debt.
Be as aggressive and as creative as possible in attacking your debt and getting rid of it. The sooner it’s gone, the sooner you’ll be able to have some breathing room in your life again. You may need to get a part-time job or sell some items you can live without. If you have some hiccups along the way—and you probably will—don’t be discouraged. Stop and refund your emergency fund, if need be, and then get back to getting rid of your debt.
Create a Prioritized List of Additional Savings/Spending Goals
Finally, reevaluate your goals and track your progress on a monthly basis. If you’re married, sit down with your spouse at the end of every month and discuss your finances. As you pay off debt and/or your income increases, revise your budget and create more savings and spending goals. If your debt is gone and you have a good emergency fund in place, not only will you be able to put more into savings, you’ll also be able to enjoy some strategic splurging too (more on that in a bit).
Budget for Everything
One of the biggest mistakes people make when they approach budgeting is that they don’t give themselves enough wiggle room. Obviously, there are times when finances are so tight, you may not have a choice. But if you have a decent income, you need to make sure that you don’t make your budget categories so slim that it’s too hard to stick with them. That’s a surefire way to set yourself up for failure.
I was talking with a reporter from New York City not long ago, and she was asking me for specific dollar amounts for different budget categories. I explained that it’s different for every family. She pressed me further, though, so I threw out some numbers for her. I told her that some people budget anywhere from twenty to one hundred dollars a month per adult for extra spending cash.
She was aghast at such low numbers and told me that she can’t even walk across the street in New York City without spending ten dollars! When I asked her to explain, she began by sharing how expensive cab rates were.
“Oh,” I said. “Well, then you would have a budget category for the approximate amount you’d spend on cabs each month.” I went on to explain how budgeting works for us. Namely, we budget for every category that we spend in each year. If we regularly spent money on cabs, we’d budget for that. Nothing comes as a surprise. This caused her to heave a huge sigh of relief. For the first time, she realized she could live on a budget too, because it didn’t mean she would never be able to spend money; a budget means she would start planning ahead of time for how she was going to spend her money.
Don’t Forget the Blow Category!
In addition to budgeting for everything, we also include a category in our budget that we call “blow money.” It’s our extra spending category. You will probably not have one when you start budgeting on a tight income, but as you gain financial stability, I highly recommend that you include this category.
Blow money is just that—money we can blow on whatever we want to. We can also save it to make a large purchase, like my husband often does. This category is vitally important, especially for spenders who are trying to stick with a budget. (I know this because I’m married to a spender. I love him to pieces, but he’s definitely cut from a different cloth than I am!)
Spenders find joy in spending money, so a budget can be restrictive to them. However, blow money can offer the freedom they crave without ruining the overall financial picture in the process. Be wise when you allot a dollar amount to this category. Don’t let it defeat the purpose of a budget.
RESOURCE CENTRAL
If you’ve never had a budget before, I highly recommend checking out Dave Ramsey’s materials and radio show (more details at DaveRamsey.com). In addition to giving you step-by-step help for getting out of debt, he offers a free online budgeting tool that walks you through the details of setting up a realistic budget.
Also, the following websites offer valuable information as well as free budgeting worksheets and software to help you develop and stick with a budget:
• ChristianPersonalFinance.com
• Mint.com
• YouNeedaBudget.com
FOLLOW-UP IS THE SUREST WAY TO FOLLOW THROUGH
As you create and follow your budget, be patient. It takes at least a few months to get the hang of it, so keep tweaking until you get it right. You’ll also need to keep tweaking it as circumstances and life change.
It’s important to be consistent and check in with your progress on a monthly basis. Being accountable to someone is one of the most effective ways to get something done. You may already have an accountability partner when it comes to your career or health goals. I encourage you to do the same for your finances. Find someone who has similar goals and a comparable outlook (such as your spouse, a friend, or even an accountant) to help you stay on track. Meet regularly and review your goals. Talk about the progress you are making and the struggles you are having. Ask for his or her input and suggestions on how you can improve. Continue to follow up on a regular basis.
Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.
—EPICTETUS
SPEND SMART
Financially living with intention is not just about following helpful guidelines. It’s about living out a particular mind-set. It’s about learning to enjoy what you have and not compromising under societal pressures. While we’ve made plenty of mistakes individually and as a family, we have zero regrets that we’ve chosen to live beneath our means, make sacrifices, delay purchases until we can pay cash for them, and live on a strict, written budget.
To some people, not getting what you want right away or doing without might seem like a miserable existence. But truthfully, we’ve found it to be the opposite. We love the peace that comes from knowing we don’t have to worry about how we’re going to pay for things next week or next month because we are telling our money where to go. Yes, this means that we have to delay purchases or not buy some items at all. But not having to live in fear over our financial future is worth giving up some of the things that would be nice to have. Plus, we’ve found there’s a lot of fulfillment that comes from waiting and saving up to pay cash for something.
If you want to get and stay out of debt, save more or give more, it’s likely going to mean making some sacrifices, especially in the short term. You can’t change your financial situation unless you also change the way you’re doing something.
You’ll have to be willing to cut back, start paying cash instead of credit, eat less than gourmet meals, or not have the latest and greatest gadget or gizmo. How willing you are to make changes is directly dependent upon how motivated you are to reach your financial goals. It won’t always be easy, fun, or glamorous to make short-term sacrifices. But it will be worth it, because it will put you in a position to tell your money how to work for you. You’ll have the freedom to save up and pay cash for things, and to give generously to the needs in your community and around the world. And ultimately, by being wise in how you use your money, you can change lives—or even save lives. All because you didn’t buy something just because you wanted it, but you planned ahead, thought about the future, and were careful in what you spent today so that you would be in a position to make a difference in lives tomorrow.
THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT OF THE SPLURGE
I’m pretty sure most of us agree that having a purpose behind our frugality gives much more meaning and motivation for saving money. However, I don’t think this means we shouldn’t ever splurge, that we should always buy the cheapest of everything, or that we should go without everything unnecessary lest we spend a penny more than we need to.
On the contrary, I think it’s important that we have balance and breathing room in our lives—and in our budgets. If we pack our schedules so full that we never take time to stop and smell the roses, we’ll likely end up rushing through life and missing out on some great moments. We’ll also be frazzled, stressed, and exhausted much or all of the time.
In the same way, I believe it’s important that we find a healthy balance when it comes to our finances. It’s wonderful to be focused and aggressive when it comes to paying off debt or saving to pay cash for something. And it’s absolutely life-changing to be in a position where you can give generously.
I also want to encourage you not to become so frugal that you forget to give yourself space in your budget to splurge strategically. If we scrimp and save so much that we never have any room to enjoy and savor life, it can lead to a miserable existence.
That said, strategic splurging doesn’t have to mean spending hundreds of dollars. It could be something as simple as ordering pizza once a month with a coupon. Or browsing your favorite bookstore every other week with a latte. Or having a fun family outing. Or getting a spa treatment using a Groupon voucher.
What matters most is not how much or how little money you spend, but that you choose to splurge strategically on something that is important for your family, that you love and enjoy, or that will boost your morale and will not disrupt your frugal journey.
When you make your money work for you, you have more to work with. Budgeting for fun makes it more enjoyable because you know that going out to dinner or that occasional coffee at Starbucks is something you planned for, and it won’t wreck your finances or keep you from being able to pay your electric bill.
For most of us, there will be seasons in life when our budgets are fixed because things are really tight financially. If you’re in one of those seasons, don’t lose heart. Constantly remind yourself that the frugal decisions you are making will ultimately pay off. And be encouraged that you are doing so much better than you would be doing if you weren’t being so budget-conscious.
NOT SPENDING FOOLISHLY + SAVING = GIVING
My husband and I believe that the reason we feel fulfilled and passionate about life—even though we’ve made counter-cultural choices—is because frugality is a means to an end for us. If we were frugal for frugality’s sake, we’d quickly burn out or give up.
For us, it’s not about saving money so we can continuously upgrade our lifestyles and always be buying bigger and better things. We want to live beneath our means so that we are able to give generously to others (more on this in chapter 8!).
There’s a world of need around us. The more we steward our money well, the more abundance we will have to meet those needs. The more we save, the more we have to give. Your efforts and my efforts might seem like a drop in the bucket when compared to all the need that’s out there. But collectively, we can make a huge impact.
Let’s live simply so that others can simply live. Because truly, there is nothing more fulfilling than living a life with outstretched arms.
GET PRACTICAL
Sit down somewhere quiet, and spend a few minutes thinking about what living financially on purpose means to you. Does it mean breaking free from debt so you can start saving for retirement? Does it mean setting aside money each month to donate to your church, a local food pantry, or another charitable organization? Does it mean setting priorities on what you spend so you have plenty of margin in your budget? Use these thoughts to create a few written, financial goals and a purpose behind those goals. Then find an accountability partner to regularly meet with and help you keep on track with your goals. And don’t forget to celebrate your milestones along the way!