Today, I spent the day budgeting. There are a couple of ways to manage your life – moment by moment, and planned and on purpose. The truth is, you either manage your life, or it will manage you.
There are a lot of ways that budgeting helps us in life.
Budget time.
Every one of us has 168 hours a week. With 8 hours of sleep a night, and 9 hours of work, this leaves us with 49 hours a week. What do you do with your 49 hours a week? How do you make sure that you use those hours to move your life forward instead of just existing? Here are some options that you might try:
- Make a list of what needs to be daily.
- Journal daily to mark time and help yourself let go of extra stress. Built up stress can cause you to lose time doing mindless activities
- Prioritize exercise for the same reason.
- Take five minutes at the beginning of the week to review your calendar. You will be amazed at how just a few moments can help order your week.
- Celebrate. Don’t push all the time. Take time to relax and celebrate on purpose – otherwise your body and mind will shut down and do it anyway, probably right when you have a deadline.
Budget Money
Rivers run, snow falls, pudding clumps and money disappears. Seriously. I don’t know anything that can disappear as fast as money. If you just let things flow, you will find your pockets empty on a regular basis.
- Keep track of what you have coming in.
- Know what has to go out and when.
- Much like budgeting your free time, you need to also plan ahead on what you will spend your excess money. After bills and gas, how much will you have left?
- Plan ahead. What will you do if you have a financial emergency? What expenses only happen occasionally? Prepare for the unexpected by shifting some of your excess cash to savings.
- Keep the reins on. There are some parts of your budget that can get away from you if you don’t watch them. Food and entertainment are two of these categories. Many people suggest that you use envelopes to control your spending – put your budgeted amount in the envelope and stop spending when it is gone.
Invest in Relationships
God. How do you relate to God? I am on a spiritual journey with a group of women this year. This week, our director sent us this link. The Sacred Pathways LifeSurvey is designed to help you figure out how you relate to God and see how He made you for relationship.
Others. Your real wealth is in the people around you. Get to know them. Be part of their lives and invite them to be part of yours. Relationships will be the space where you become comfortable with who you are and are challenged to be more. Relationships will spur you on to greatness and help you focus on the essentials.
Family. You know them, you love them, and you sometimes wish they weren’t so close. These are the people God gave you. God will use them to be your sandpaper, your fertilizer, your pruners, and your sunshine. Relax and enjoy the journey.
3 Responses
Good one. There’s often too much mindless “getting through the day” for me; I lose sight of the mission of God-with-us. Sometimes I wonder if He’ll ask us, “What have you done for Me lately?” and if we’ll be surprised at how much living was invested, spoiled, or wasted on things that mattered least.
Living “WITH” God must be a purposeful relationship, not meaningless wandering through obligations and chores, hoping He’s pleased with (or tolerates) us. Our checklist could include an ongoing task: “Check in for my alignment with God and his mission.”
Love you additional item. I’m getting towards the end of With, and am reminded that living With God is less a task, and more relaxing and trusting.
These same principles can apply to many areas of life, and though we may have learned to do these things long ago, for some odd reason we need reminded of them every so often. Thanks for the post.