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