Reflections on God and Money: Creating a Budget (6)

I said in my heart, ‘Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself’. But behold, this also was vanity… I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem…

So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil.

Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 2:1-11

Examine and then re-examine your budget.

Can you reduce what you spend on survival costs? For some years, research has indicated that an ‘average’ household in the UK will throw away about one-third of its groceries unused. This seems to imply that households could be spending as much as 20-25% more than they need to. I will put some shopping tips into a later Reflection but, in the meantime, just being alert to the sales pressure on you to buy more than you can use will help you reduce what you spend.

Are you spending your money on lifestyle choices that are not important to you? Are you paying subscriptions to clubs and gyms you never attend or for books and magazines that you never read?

Do you regret buying things on impulse? Are you in the habit of, say, buying a coffee on the way to work or a drink while you wait for the train home in the evening? Do you buy magazines because the covers catch your eye but then never finish reading one article? Do you buy clothes that, within 24 hours, you realise that you will never wear? I suppose we all do this from time to time but it can easily become a very expensive habit that keeps us from things that are more important.

Could you be saving more? Or giving? Are you as generous as you thought you were?

Go over your budget, giving the priority to spending that you think it deserves, cutting out the spending that is not important to you. Do not stop when you can afford to save for a special purchase, a special occasion or just for some unforeseen emergency. Do not stop when you can afford to give something to charity. Use the money you have, whether it is much or little, to be true to yourself.

It is tragic that King Solomon’s great wealth corrupted him, in spite of his God-given wisdom. He expressed this when he wrote Ecclesiastes, a book about the vanity of life when it is lived as if what is in this world is all that matters. As I said in the original Advent Reflections, one of the purposes of my financial capability courses is to encourage people to think more about God than money.

Next weekend: how banking accounts can help control budgets.

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Handling money and dealing with debt can be complicated and neither the author nor anyone else involved in the production of these Reflections is responsible for any action you take, or fail to take, based on what is written here. You are invited to put a link on your website to these Reflections. You are welcome to copy these Reflections for personal study or for circulation to family and friends on a non-profit basis. For any other purpose, whether or not for profit, you will require written permission in advance from the author before copying, reproducing or transmitting extracts in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or using any information storage and retrieval system.

Saturday 9 February 2013

Creating a Budget (6)