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Your Budget

At the conclusion of my January article (Starting 2007 Under Control, archived in the Estate Planning Resource link), I was quite explicit that when handling God's Assets, you must look at every aspect of maintaining Financial Stability.

God provides all that we need, and in most cases, our cup runneth over. However, when some of us look at the cup, it is empty, and we still have bills to pay. We are trying to make ends meet, needing prescriptions, funds for education, money for utility bills, and many more expenses. There is just not enough money to go around.

How do we stretch the dollars to cover the needs? By creating a budget!

I've given the word Budget an acronym, which might help you understand why it is a necessity.

B.....Building
U.....Understanding
D.....During
G.....Great
E.....Economic
T.....Turmoil

Does that spell out your circumstances?

If you are trying to come to some decisions about how to handle the expenses you have, and you struggle to pay or don’t pay at all, here's a basic approach to creating a budget and getting on the road to recovery.

Get yourself a pad of paper............

Begin by writing down all the INCOME that you and your spouse receive on a weekly/bi-weekly/monthly basis. This will allow you to determine how much money you have available to work with. If you receive bonuses or any special income, include it. This is usually the EASY part.

Second, (the tough part), pull out a copy of each of your MONTHLY bills, (every one). On the pad, make a list of these bills. When you complete the listing, you will know how much money is needed each month to cover them. When you total the "expenses," you will then be able to determine how much of your income it will take to ensure that you have enough to pay all the bills. You may not have enough, but we'll address that a little later.

Third, now that you have the MONTHLY bills listed, let's take a look at other bills, which come due quarterly/semi-annually or annually. List each of those so that you can divide by the number of months for your monthly amount. Add that into your monthly budget factor.

Do you see what we are doing here? Total Income versus Total Bills =? How do we compare?

I'm going to stop here to allow you a couple of weeks to complete the above homework. We can then go on, looking at how we're going to control the amount of income versus your expenses.

Some of you may have used money management books or even have them available to pull out and refresh your memory.

If you wish to purchase educational material, I would highly recommend it, especially from your local Christian bookstore, which will give you God's perspective as we follow through with this process.

Anyone who might want to ask questions as we progress may get in touch with me by phone at 574.267.6622 or email EstatePlanning@cenational.org.

Bud Barger
Financal & Estate Planning Consultant
CE National