How To Create A Financial Plan For Your Money, Honor God & Build Wealth With A Christian Budget

You may think that budgeting is just about money. However, it's also about your values, goals, and the way you want to live. Christian budgeting is all about balancing your needs with God's desires for your life--not just for now, but for the long term. Budgeting may not be the most exciting thing to do. Still, it will take you one step closer to living a healthy financial lifestyle that pleases God. This article shares some pointers to create a plan for your money and live out your faith in Christ through budgeting and planning.

The Difference Between Christian Budgeting and Traditional Budgeting

In traditional budgeting, the focus is on keeping your expenditures lower than your income. This strategy can work well if you're trying to pay off debt or if you need to minimize the risk of becoming overdrawn. But this may cause limitations in other areas of life--like going to college or getting a new job.

Christian budgeting is a lot more than just gathering your income and expenditures and balancing the two. It's really about living your values and goals in a way that follows God's desires for you. 

The purpose of Christian budgeting is to make sure that both your needs and God's desires are met while abiding by His Word. A Christian budget is a tool that helps you work with God to honor Him and meet your needs. It's also a tool that can help you avoid temptation and sin regarding spending or underspending.

To maintain a Christian budgeting plan, you need to be intentional with your finances. You need to think about what you're doing with your money and how it honors God. If you're not intentional with your finances, you could be robbing yourself of opportunities to use your money for good.

Creating A Budget Plan

It may sound cliche, but having a budget plan can be a radical experience. It will give you a sense of what's going on with your money. You will stop living from paycheck to paycheck.

A large part of creating a budget plan is understanding your actual income. It's a good idea to know how much you make from all sources before setting up a plan. Knowing this information will help you determine the actual money you have to spend. 

Your income for budgeting purposes includes your salary plus any RELIABLE hustle income. Refrain from including "wish" income. "Wish" income is money you hope to have, but there are no guarantees. Too many people mistake overestimating their income based upon "checks coming in" or "gifts expected." Hustle income includes a reasonable estimate of future income based upon prior side hustle invoices for your services. Of course, you can include overtime pay, but only if you are reasonably sure your hours will be approved.

Understanding your income will also help you determine what budget is most appropriate for your needs. For instance, if you have a fixed amount each month, a fixed budget would be the most appropriate. But if you have a variable number of hustle sources per month, a variable budget would be more effective.

Determining Basic Needs vs. Wants

Next, take a moment to think about your basic needs and your wants. You can't have both, so you might want to prioritize your needs first. This will help you live within your means and save for the future.

By breaking down your expenses into needs and wants, you control your finances. You'll know how much you're making and all the expenses that come with it. It gives you a chance to make choices for your financial future and realize what kind of lifestyle you want to live.

As you label your expenses as needs versus wants, it will become clear where you can make sacrifices and cuts. Always cut wants from expenses first. Typically, there can be no cuts to needs. Be careful not to categorize your $154 streaming bill as a need. While you may want to watch streaming, you really don't need to; at least you don't need to watch a $154 streaming content a month!

By doing this, you will also have a clear picture of how much money you have going out each month.

Setting Realistic Financial Goals

Next, you should set some goals. 

There are a few things you need to consider when creating goals for a financial plan:

• What do you want to accomplish with your finances? 

• How much should I save for retirement? 

• What does my monthly budget look like (income vs. expenses)?

This is a great place to start. 

Once you've determined your goals, make a plan for how you will get there. Create an action plan with the steps you need to take and the resources you need to invest to accomplish your goals.

Start Saving up for future goals

There are many reasons you should save up for future goals, not just emergencies. For example, suppose you have a set amount of money you're putting into your retirement account every month. In that case, it's going to be a lot more than if you have a set amount of money you're saving for a vacation.

If you're planning a vacation in a few years, you might put away $150 a month for the next five years. But if you're planning to retire in 10 years, you would need to save $2,000 a month.

This is just one example of how important it is to save up for your future goals. You might want to start saving up for your child's college education or your own retirement. Saving up now will make these things much easier later on, and it is the best form of stewardship.

Honoring God

Christians should always start with the end in mind when it comes to a financial plan. That means asking yourself, "How would I like to live? What does God want me to experience?" These questions will guide you as you make decisions about your money.

For example, say you plan to pay off credit card debt and save for a vacation and new car all at once. You might be tempted to put that goal off because of the short-term sacrifices required. But if those things bring you happiness and closer to God's plans for your life, then those sacrifices are worth it. You will build your faith by using your faith!

To create a financial plan, find out what God has planned for your life. Seek out guidance from local pastors, prayer partners or listen to sermons online on how people have overcome financial struggles using faith as their guide.

Be patient and have faith!

It's not always easy to have faith when trying to maintain a budget. But it's essential to maintain a faithful attitude. If you feel pessimistic about your budget, try to take a break for a few days or weeks. 

When you come back, reevaluate your budget with a more faithful attitude. 

Remind yourself of the benefits of sticking with your budget—how pleased God will be with you. By practicing faithful stewardship, you'll be able to pay for things you need, go on vacations, and enjoy life in general.

Faith will help you in the long run. You may not see immediate results when sticking to your budget and financial plan, but in the end, it will be worth the effort!

Conclusion

Christian budgeting and financial planning are not just about money. It's also about your values, goals, and how you want to live. Christian budgeting and financial planning are all about balancing your needs with God's desires for your life, not just for now but also for the long term. Budgeting and planning may not be the most exciting thing to do. Still, they will take you one step closer to living a healthy financial lifestyle. 

You have a plan for your money, you have a plan to honor God, and now it's time to build some wealth. The process is simple with the proper budgeting but is worth the effort. It's time to get your finances in order!