THINGS I LEARNED:
~ Some people recommend having an allotment for A LOT of categories. Moneysavingmom.com has 12 categories! I can't even imagine what they might be! We have 7 categories, and it covers about everything we need. Here's what they are: food (to include eating out), Walmart/Goodwill (2 of the places we shop at the most - this also has included Dollar General and Kmart for things like household items), house/car maintenance, fuel, hair/make-up/clothes, school/church activities, gifts/cards/postage. What am I missing?? Anything?
~ Having an index card in each category helps me track our spending by always having the running total of the balance left in each envelope.
~ Keep receipts for one month - helps you remember where you spent your dollars when the month is over & you are wondering what happened! :)
~ God provides. I honestly don't think we would have / could have stayed within our budgeted amounts this month - BUT God provided some unexpected blessings to help us through. That sounds like we can't live within our means - and that's not what I mean. I am budgeting for LESS than we make so that there might be money left over at the end of each month. We have "emergency" cash, but I don't want to touch it if I don't have to. May's allotted envelopes look somewhat different - and maybe this month we can make it through without a "bail-out" from the Lord - though I'd definitely welcome one if He did it again! :)
~ God is faithful. I wish I could share a blessing I experienced in April - a lesson I learned - without giving all the details because it is SO awesome to me ... but I know my husband would NOT want me to tell this to the whole internet world. So, in short, let me just say that I was considering altering something in our budget that would have shown some major lack of faith on my part (and no, it has nothing to do with tithe). I argued with God (one-sidedly) about why I should do this and why it was ok and why maybe He could honor this change because He wants us to not struggle financially, right?! Altering this thing could have potentially helped us have more money to spend on .... well, ourselves. Before I had a chance to act on my own selfishness though, the provision of God came through for the month ... and it was almost like God was saying, "Don't change anything! I can provide for you!" That probably makes no sense - but let's just leave it at the fact that when we do the RIGHT thing, God honors it. If I had gone on and made the changes I was considering, I would have completely missed out on His blessing. That's definitely not to pat myself on the back because I was going to make a potentially selfish choice, but I am so thankful for the gracious way God dealt with me.
Now, even though I've seen God's hand in our finances in April - I've experienced His provision in an amazing way (down to the provision of free medication the day we needed it!) - I am looking at May with a little trepidation. Can we have another good month? Can God still work even though we've used up our "bail out" in April already!!? Is there more provision available? Of course, I know God's resources are abundant -but I somewhere in the back of my head wonder if He'll just let us stumble around on our own sometimes to teach us a lesson?! I know that's probably not the right thinking or perspective - but as a "realist", I prefer to consider worst case scenario - and be pleasantly surprised if things turn out better than I hoped! As a control freak, it is hard to let go of my independence and self-reliance - even though I know God is way more capable than I am to take care of things - OBVIOUSLY! In any case, I am taking a big proverbial gulp and jumping into this month with my cash distributed into each envelope - and praying God will continue to help me trust Him in this area of my life!
2 comments:
You probably don't want to know how many envelopes we have. :) I don't carry them all around with me though. We have many of the ones we wouldn't use while out and about at home in a safe place.
I can send you the list of the ones we have if you email back. :) Going cash almost 6 years ago was one of the best things we did!
Jolanthe
homeschoolcreations AT gmail
I would really like to try this method sometime, but my husband is good at budgeting and he has been weekly going through all that we spend. This keeps me on the straight path and we have definately seen God's supply. He's such a good God and we have so much to be thankful for. I was raised in a missionary family and already knew of God's care this way, but my husband was not raised in a Christian home, so it's exciting to see his reactions when God supplies little things we need or have been praying for.
As a for instance. My daughter is coming to visit. She will be staying with her sister, my other daughter Joanna. Joanna needed bedding. I didn't really know that she had this need, but we went to the dump on Saturday and someone had dropped off a brand new comforter, pillow sham, bed pillow, and window treatment set all packaged in a plastic zipper bag. I snatched it up thinking someone I knew probably would be able to use it. The set all matched Joanna's "decor" and was really quite pretty (brown with aqua trim). When I told Joanna about it, she told me she needed some bedding 'cause her dog has chewed holes in all her blankets.
Even if we had shopped the thrift stores we probably would not have found anything quite as nice.
God is so good. We could have made do with "holey" blankets, but He provided a really pretty one.
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