Last Spring my wife and I finally decided to do something we had talked about from our pre-marital counseling. Truth be told if I wasn’t so stubborn we’d have done it ten years ago. But I was timid and fearful. What is that thing?
We put together a responsible budget.
We’d always tried budgeting…sort of. But it never was responsible. We would simply list our bills. And when I say “bills” I mean things that you’ll get in trouble if you don’t pay. Things like insurance, saving for the eye doctor, clothes budgets, etc. I always assumed where for rich people.
After writing down all those bills we took what was left and tried to do things like the envelope system. But nothing ever worked, truthfully because of me. I wanted to have a big fat line item called miscellaneous that I could use on anything. Truth be told I didn’t want to feel broke. I wanted to feel like I could buy my wife and kids stuff.
But the Lord stopped me dead in my tracks and exposed my terrible stewardship. I wasn’t leading my family well. I wasn’t truly providing. And I was stressed out. It’s stressful trying to do all of this math in your head—trying to figure out if you really can afford to buy that toy for your kids.
And so we decided to put together a responsible budget. We used a program called YNAB. And it has been life changing.
YNAB makes you account for every dollar. You can put a line item called miscellaneous but it is discouraged. At first I felt very restricted. It was eye-opening to see how much we really didn’t have. But we were able to track places where we were just bleeding money and spending money stupidly. I felt silly putting $3 in a new car fund. But we did it.
A little over a year later there has been a drastic change. I can feel it right now because with our move and everything we’ve gotten behind on YNAB. (How silly of me not to be budgeting like crazy during this transition time, eh?). This upcoming week we are going to start over with a new budget and I can’t wait.
Here is what has happened for us along the way. I’ve went from feeling as if I have money to spend to actually having money to spend. When I say “having money to spend” I don’t mean that we can simply go pay cash for a new car. But what I do mean is that when the kids get really excited about a toy, or we find a cheap piece of furniture somewhere, we know exactly what we can spend.
And though it feels silly to set aside $3 here or $7 there that little bit of money adds up. So, when you have to make an emergency trip to Wal-Mart because a tire on your van is about to explode, you’ve got a bit in a fund to pay for it.
All the excuses I once used were flimsy. Budgeting is for people who actually have money, I once thought. No, budgeting is even more important for the majority of us who pretty much live pay check to pay check.
So I encourage you to start something like YNAB today.
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