God Help Me Gain and Maintain a Personal Budget

SUMMARY

God grant me His wisdom for personal budgeting and self discipline to use it consistently.

WEAKNESS

One of my greatest weaknesses is that I have not consistently used a personal budget to manage my finances.

I am retired at 64 years old. I have a modest retirement income that barely covers my basic needs.

Over the decades I have attempted to use all kinds of budgeting systems including those that were paper based, software based and online based. I rarely continued what I began for more than 2 or 3 months.

I have come to a season when gaining and maintaining personal budget is essential for three reasons.

REASONS

First, it is just smart to know how to allocate my money. It is better to have a simple and flexible plan to make sure that needs are met and there are no surprises. Planning and preparing ahead financially is good stewardship contrasted to just bumping along and hoping for the best.

Second, I moved into an apartment a month ago from a homeless shelter where I had lived for 3 years. Years before I moved into the homeless shelter I lived in an apartment for decades. But I was terminated from my job of 12 years. I sold or gave away most of my things.

There are many needs and wants that I have listed. My current challenge is to prioritize those lists. I am looking to God by faith make provisions in His timing. So a budget will help me keep the gradual acquisition of those things in perspective. I will be less tempted to make impulse purchases if I stick with the line item for each category.

Third, where I reside now is in a super peaceful senior living apartment complex in a small town. It is an excellent setting to focus on my dream of Christian lessons online. I have an abundance of outlines, rough drafts and some completed lessons. I seek to publish online short videos with worksheets as well as ebooks and ecourses. As I publish more educational modules and grow my email subscription base then that will lead to income streams. I trust that God will motivate people to donate generously. Then I must have a separate budget for the ministry. I would not be a good steward of those funds without learning to apply the basic skills of budgeting.

CONCLUSION

I have consistently given the first fruits of my income into various ministries and churches over the decades. And I will continue to do that until my last day.

Long ago I setup my online budget at Every Dollar www.everydollar.com It is a super simple system. I did not continue with it. I am going back into my free account to update matters. Please pray for me to use Every Dollar consistently.

God has blessed me with a gift card and a check to help equip my apartment. May I use those funds effectively. May I be faithful with what He supplied and wait patiently for the other provisions.

Shalom

Brother John

Running Low on Electricity and Groceries - Please Pray

Running Low on Electricity and Groceries - Please Pray

SUMMARY

I only have a few more days on my prepaid electric bill.

I am running moderately low on groceries.

There are many things on the attached Wish List that I can use to help me equip this apartment. Most of those could be used items from the kitchen or home office, that you have and could ship to me.

I request your prayers for God to guide and provide.

May God guide me to ask the right people in the right ways. And may the Lord prepare them to give generously.

May I have grace, faith and patience during this transition.

You are invited to come visit me anytime.

My address for visiting, mailing and shipping is:

John S. Oliver

1600 W Lake Bardwell Drive #137

Ennis, TX 75119

Here is the Paypal link http://www.freewebs.com/jsohub/give.htm

There are those that dislike sending money online and they can just mail a personal check.

The Wish List includes many items from Amazon so a Gift Card there is always useful.

https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-1-US-Email-eGift-Card/dp/B004LLIKVU/

THANKS again for EACH of your prayers that got me this far.

God will not leave me nor forsake me.

What follows are the details that some people like.

INTRODUCTION

It is my belief that some of the people that have been tracking with me for years want to know the stories behind the parts of the Wish List.

There are those that have lots of things in their kitchen and home office that could greatly help me to lay a good foundation. Otherwise I will need to stretch my funds to cover these needs and wants for a long time into the future.

What I have on the Wish List is an abundance of items. If I had lots of money then I would buy them all and not ask for any help.

I have no way to know what others have extras in their possession; so I included all that I will really use.

Some people offered to give me things that I would not use and I said no. I seek to both build up a basic base while also minimizing clutter.

As God provides a ride, I will attend the missional community gathering on Sunday evenings in East Dallas. Some of those in that community mentioned a plan to come visit me the evening of the first Saturday in August, if their calendars will line up.

If you are going to ship anything or bring it here on a visit, then please let me know so that I can use a strikethrough on the Wish List to minimize duplications. If there are duplications then I will give those to a Christian thrift store.

If you are not familiar with shipping things then consider a FedEx store near you https://www.fedex.com/us/index.html They have all the shipping materials right there. The other alternatives are UPS store https://www.theupsstore.com/  or the Post Office https://www.usps.com/welcome.htm

When you ship there is no need to rush anything. Slower is cheaper.

BACKGROUND

By the grace of God, He answered many prayers to get me this far.

I moved into this section 8 apartment 2 weeks ago. I pay a small percent of the rent and the government agency pays the rest.

This is a senior living community for those 55 plus. I am one of the youngest at 64. Most residents are women in their 70s and 80s. Plus there are a few in their 90s. This is super quiet and peaceful which I love. It helps to be online day and night plus pray many times per day.

I had been in a homeless shelter for 3 years. The main dorm for single men held more than 100 men. Most men stayed there for a few days or weeks. There were 3 decent meals and a hot shower. At night some men talked loudly until lights-out at 1030. Lights were on a 5 AM and breakfast was at 530. Lunch was at noon and dinner was at 5 PM. I spent my days at the library using my laptop to go online using their WIFI. That was a wonderful provision for a long season. And I do not miss it at all.

I moved here with a backpack and duffle bag.

Plus my church provided a bed, dresser, table and a few kitchen items.

Thankfully my most basic needs are met

My next income is at the end of the month when I get my social security retirement direct deposit.

I think that some people would like to give money or things if they were asked and knew what I would use.

ELECTRICITY

I just got a courtesy call from the electricity company today to remind me that my prepaid electricity will run out in a few days.

I knew that. But I had been hesitating to send out this message to ask for help. Partly that is due to pride, that I feel ashamed to admit that I am not self reliant. Partly it is due to perfectionism, because I have attached a prioritized Wish List. I wanted to get just right. Partly it is due to my not wanting to bother people to read such a long message and to disrupt their already busy life. But that call was a wake up call to just do it.

On the one hand, I spent more that I had expected to get started here and I underestimated the cost of power. I have used about 35 dollars in 2 weeks. I have been as careful as I could to minimize uses. On the other hand, my retirement funds arrive in the 4th Wednesday that is June 26 this month. I will have a better idea how to estimate my uses.

GROCERIES

I bought what I thought would be a month's worth of groceries. But I was wrong. A few items have run out and I am low on others.

There were some baseline pantry items that I got plus things to equip the kitchen.

During these 2 weeks I have shopped at Brookshires that is going out of business locally as well as Walmart. What I liked the most was the farmer’s market on Saturdays. I greatly value the farm fresh produce and home baked goods at the farmer’s market. As I have more money I will surely spend more from the local people that are super friendly.

In fact one of the vendors is a Mennonite lady that has amazing baked goods. She invited me to come visit her family. I was there last night for a home style meal with their 5 children. I rode the horse of the daughter who also raises adorable puppies for sale.  They have 10 acres in the tiny town of Kemp, Texas.

A new friend took me the 45 minutes to visit the Mennonites and she takes me to the farmer’s market.

I have not yet shopped at HEB but I am sure they have good deals. Here is a link to their email gift card https://www.heb.com/giftcards/egiftcard

Here is the link to the Walmart email gift card where I could buy both groceries and other items https://www.walmart.com/ip/Blue-Box-Walmart-eGift-Card/3223403

CONCUSION

The bottomline is that I now choose humble myself and ask for help.

I am making gradual progress in getting ready online lessons that I hope to start sharing soon.

The long term solution to my barely getting by is to consistently present high value educational modules online. While also wisely promoting them to gain a larger email list of those who like my free things and will eventually pay for my retail things.

I have been investing most of my time to get this ready. I have an abundance of preparations in terms of outlines, rough drafts and partial products. I have preached for many hours and kept those notes. I have given dozens of meditations for Holy Communion the kept those notes. Plus there are lots of online articles and blog posts that I have in archive.

I have spent many dozens of hours here in Ennis just gathering and organizing the titles of those lessons on a giant online mind map. My challenge is to sketch out a system that I will follow in the coming months. Then there will be order and synergies while I share the short videos and short text lessons. Today they are mostly ordered. And then I put my focus on completing the few that will get the ball rolling.

I am also studying from 2 online companies that have helped people like me both get started and later grow their online operations.

Your best prayers are requested to keep this moving forward.  

Shalom

Brother John

972-948-4014

Go here for latest spreadsheet

Short URL

http://bit.ly/Ennis-apt   

Long URL

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QNVE8Bo0lR5rZOayVoeXMHvVR-mvJOHccN6q-CRI8i0/edit?usp=sharing