Budgeting is the most restrictive thing you could possibly do to yourself and it's way too much work. It's definitely not possible when you live off of an irregular or commission based income. These are thoughts I have had before. Have you?
Prior to stepping into ministry I was a personal trainer and group fitness instructor. I got paid from three different gyms and I had my own side business going too. My pay was always changing depending on if a class was cancelled or clients showed up. I never really budgeted during this season of my life as I didn't have a lot of money and so I just made sure I never spent more than I made. I never really got ahead either. I was always just getting by and surviving.
Then I got married and we had two incomes coming in. We paid off my car debt and school loan debt quickly and no kids. We would look at the bank account and say hey we have plenty of money let's go shopping. And that we would. We would go shopping almost every weekend for something. We would spend money easily. We had it, so we would spend it. It was the feeling after I bought something that I didn't like. I would feel guilty or just weird trying to justify whether I needed that article of clothing or not. Then, birthdays or holidays would come and we weren't prepared to buy gifts. HOA fees, income taxes, and property taxes would pop up and drain our account over night or, we weren't prepared for them at all. A year would go buy and we would realize we didn't have any money set aside for vacation. We had money, but we didn't know how much we could spend so we didn't know where we could go or for how long. We also didn't know how generous we could be because we didn't have a plan. This created a lot of stress in our life and in our marriage. I didn't like where we were headed.
We talked for weeks and months about how our spending was making us feel and how we didn't have a plan for where we wanted to be in 5, 10, or 40 years from now. Kara started doing some research into what kind of budgeting tools there were available and what made the most sense to us. We wanted something that was very intuitive, easy to use, and helped us create a plan for our finances. After trying 3-5 different tools she landed on YNAB, which stands for You Need a Budget. This tool has been a game changer for us.
Kara, being the learner and investigator in our relationship, got our accounts all hooked up and figured out how to use the tool. She taught me how to use it and I surprisingly picked it up rather quickly. We created a budget around our lifestyle and our goals that worked for us. The thoughts about this being restrictive or keeping us from having fun were all not true. We found that budgeting created freedom to spend what we budgeted for in each particular category. This helped me not stress about having enough money for taxes, HOA fees, or gifts at the end of the year, because now I budget for those each month. I can buy the new outfit without any guilt, because I have the money. I can be generous each month because I plan for it and I'm not guessing if I have enough money to be generous. I am able to save for a car, so I can pay cash when I'm ready and I won't have to go into debt or pay more in interest fees than the car is worth.
Budgeting is, and will keep us from ever going into debt again. We will never owe anyone money ever again (that's the plan). What is ours is ours. We can be generous to our local church and non-profits we care about. Budgeting has even helped us live off one income while Kara starts her own private practice. Without that, she may have had to work for someone else and never been able to pursue her dream of owning her own business. Budgeting has set us free. Don't believe the lie that budgeting is a trap or will restrict you from living. Budgeting will set you free to become the person that you want to be. #nostress.
