Count The Cost = Budget

For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it—

Luke 14:28 (NKJV)

This scripture is the motivation for our BLOG name. But, it is also the motivation for an important habit of being a good steward of God’s resources. That habit is a written budget, also called the written spending plan. Check out this short article for more information.

We highly recommend the “Zero balance budget.” Before we learned about this type of budget, our budget was an estimate of our income compared to an estimate or average of all of our monthly bills. As long as our income was more than our average bills for the month, we thought we were fine. We did this anytime we changed jobs or bought a new house or new vehicle, just to make sure we were not over extending ourselves.

Then we learned an even better method. This better method was to do a zero balance budget every month or every pay period. It works like this: each pay period we write our exact income for that period at the top of the page. Next, we gather all bills due for that pay period and pay them on paper before the pay period begins. When the bills are done and hopefully we have some money left, we spend each and every dollar that remains on paper, until we have a zero balance.

Here’s an example:

INCOME:                  $1,000

     Tithe:                       $100   ($990) 

     Mortgage/Rent:     $200   ($790)

     Groceries:                 $90    ($700)

     Car Loans:              $150    ($550)

     Insurance:                $50    ($500)

     Utilities:                  $100    ($400)

     Gas:                         $100    ($300)

     Clothing:                   $20    ($280)

     Taxes:                       $50     ($230)

     Retirement:            $100    ($130)

     School Loan:            $50      ($80)

     Credit Card:             $40      ($40)

     Entertainment:       $40        ($0)

This should be done for each pay period, depending on the frequency of which you get paid. This habit was key for us getting out of debt. We were able to see where we spent money and we had a plan. When you start doing a written budget, it will seem as if you received a raise.

Hopefully, if you are on the road to getting out of debt, you will be able to find ways to cut back and sacrifice TEMPORARILY, in order to put more money toward paying down debt.

Why pay off debt? Because the borrower is servant to the lender! Check out this article for more information.