Pinching Pennies Hurts!
It’s not always a good feeling when you’re scouring sofas and chairs sticking your hands between the cushions hoping to find change that may have fallen out at one time or another. Or getting into some weird contortionist positions while searching for loose change in your vehicle, either. However, day by day many people do this very thing in order to find just a little bit extra to add into the “pay the bills” pile because they’re short on this bill or that bill, or even scraping up just enough to put some food on the table. Familiar? Yea, we’ve all been there at one time or another…and it’s never fun.
Did you know that you don’t have to do that for the rest of your life? (Even if it feels like it) There’s a way out and that starts with learning how to manage your money and to control your money, telling it where to go and what to do, instead of being controlled by it (or the lack of it!). You don’t have to stay stuck in the pit of pinching pennies just to make ends meet, and all it will take is some change (see what I did there…).
Forget the Coins and Check Your Brain!
Instead of groping for pocket change, we have to get a change in our brain first. What that means is that we have to train our brain or “renew our minds according to the Word” as the Bible says to look at money how God sees it. Now you may have heard that God doesn’t like money or that it’s better to be poor or only have very little- this is further from the Truth! The Lord loves us so much and desires that we “…prosper and be in health, just as our soul prospers.” (See Psalm 35:27 & 3 John 2) Most of the time because we live and grow up in the world and only know the worlds way of finance and economics and since there’s been too little teaching on money or finances from the Word of God, many people (Christians included) do not know what to do with what God has given them and are stuck in a perpetual cycle of poverty, lack and debt. It’s time to renew our minds to what God says on money, how to handle it so that He can trust us with more later on. Because let’s face it, what you do with what money you have now is what you will do with it if you had more of it, unless you make the decision to change for real. (This isn’t a diet fad, this decision is for life-a better one!)
Start Small but Start!
First off take a look at your spending, do you know what it is? Have no clue? Yea, I’ve been there, too. So here’s a list of starting points that will help you to begin again and start off on the right track to financial freedom and to break the chain of poverty in your own life, then you can help others do the same thing in theirs!
#ChainBreakerFTW #ImAChainBreaker
Write down all your monthly expenses, add them up and then subtract the expenses from your monthly income. If you are over budget look through that list and see where you can cut costs or extras for a time (sorry Netflix!). If eating out, reduce or eliminate that luxury expense for a few months in order to capitalize on that income lost.
Reduce Expenses & Track Your Money for 1-2 Months. It’s necessary to cut out some luxuries (not all, but some) for a short period of time usually for about 2-3 months to increase your cash, this way you can put that extra towards bills or savings.
There’s an App for That!– there are some great (and free) apps for you iPhone or Android on the app stores for both that will help you track your spending. Mint, EveryDollar by Dave Ramsey, and Envelopes. If you don’t fancy the smart phone and app way of doing things and prefer hands on approach, use an envelope system (separate envelopes for bills, etc to hold your money in and use it only for that purpose), an excel sheet or even a hand written ledger (they’re pretty cheap at Walmart) to keep track of your spending. Whichever way is the easiest and most efficient way for you to track your spending, then use that.
Plastic Surgery or Stash.
If you have a credit card, keep making your payments (or start making them even if it’s a little at a time) and cut up the card or stash it away somewhere out of sight until you can gain control on your spending and master that impulse to buy over budget. It may hurt to do that, but you’re learning to rely on God as your Source and not that card and you’re also learning how to be a good Steward of what He has given you in the mean time.
Study the Word & Renew Your Mind– Here are some scriptures to help you through this process. It’s helpful to keep these where you can see them daily, put them on a 3″ x 5″ card and post them around the house or at work, save them to your phone or whatever you do best to keep them in your mind to meditate on them. This is how you renew your mind and change your mindset.
Scriptures to Study
#Header God Loves You, He WILL Provide FOR You!
Philippians 4:19: “And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus.”
Proverbs 10:22: “The blessing of the Lord makes a person rich, and he adds no sorrow with it.”
2 Corinthians 9:8: “And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others.”
Jeremiah 17:7-8: “But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit.”
Our Financial Responsibility
1 Timothy 5:8: “But those who won’t care for their relatives, especially those in their own household, have denied the true faith. Such people are worse than unbelievers.”
Luke 16:11: “And if you are untrustworthy about worldly wealth, who will trust you with the true riches of heaven?”
Proverbs 13:22: “Good people leave an inheritance to their grandchildren, but the sinner’s wealth passes to the godly.”
Proverbs 21:20: “The wise have wealth and luxury, but fools spend whatever they get.”
Debt isn’t Your Friend
Proverbs 22:7: “Just as the rich rule the poor, so the borrower is servant to the lender.”
Romans 13:8: “Owe nothing to anyone—except for your obligation to love one another. If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill the requirements of God’s law.”