BUDGETING?!?!

When we moved to IN we were paying for an apartment & our mortgage from our house in Lexington.  It was terrible.  It was basically like paying two mortgages for 6 months.  (Apartments aren't cheap if you only sign a 3 month lease).  It drained our savings, but it really allowed us to completely rely on the Lord's provision.  I believe we became better stewards of the Lord's money & became better spenders/savers.  (I just typed "our money" and had to use the backspace.  I am trying to remember that everything we own and have is the Lord's.  It helps me to desire less & to share more.  When YL kids come over and raid our pantry Seth reminds me that those are the Lord's Oreos.  And when my sweet bible study girls drink a crap ton of OJ I remind Seth that that is the Lord's juice.  And He would share it with anyone.)

Anywho, it all makes me think of Jesus' parable in Luke 16.  At the end he said this geniousness:

" 'Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own?  No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.'

The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, 'You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight.' "


We had been living in our new house for about a month when I realized that I could EASILY continue to buy things I don't have money for & dream of things I don't need.  Sometimes owning things is worse for you than you realize.  I quickly learned that we really needed to adjust our budgets & pay closer attention to our finances.  We aren't crazy spenders & don't really make a lot of money (which helps with point #1), but it still doesn't help that sometimes my desires to go on crazy vacations & buy unneeded items for our home rule my thoughts.  I mean RULE.  It's super easy to dream up a bunch of ideas and convince yourself that you NEED them.  I like to replace the Pharisee statement with "Julie, who loved STUFF, heard all this and started ignoring Jesus."  That last sentence will getcha.  "WHAT IS HIGHLY VALUED AMONG MEN IS DETESTABLE IN GOD'S SIGHT."


YIKES!


I really need to check my heart about what I need & what I want.  And then I need to be reminded that everything we "own" really belongs to the Lord, so I should have no qualms about sharing, lending, or giving things away.


All of that to say, a practical way that helps me stay on track with my expenses & finances is to use Mint.com.

It's wonderful.  Imagine a budget website that’s ridiculously easy to use and doesn’t force you to really do any leg work at all except input all your credit cards and bank accounts (don’t freak out like my husband did– it’s super safe). Next, sit back and watch the magic happen. Mint tracks all your money, creates you a budget based on your previous spending, categorizes all your purchases (even a $1 Redbox rental), and shows it all to you in pretty pie charts and bar graphs. You don’t have to do a thing. Unless you want to.  It updates itself daily. They even send you e-mail updates when you’ve gone over budget or if you have a credit card payment due this week. And did I mention it’s free? Yeah--It’s amazing!! It's a pretty good reality check when you see it all in front of you.  Although, it really works best when you use cards instead of cash.  Unless you manually enter your expenses, which can be annoying.  This is a simple tool to keep me accountable & in check. 


Good luck out there, budgeting buddies!