April | 2020 | MoneyWalk

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.

List your net monthly income.
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.
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 31^st of the month) along with creditor name.
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.
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 few 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

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https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Karen+Parlor&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss

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