OK, you now understand the principles of effective financial stewardship and have established your financial priorities, so it's time to develop your budget - your roadmap to using or expending the financial blessings God is bringing into your life.
This is process and not an event, so it will take time and effort on your part. But if you don't have a plan for using those blessings based on God's Will, you will squander those blessings and not see the additional blessings God has for you (financial and otherwise) manifest in your life. That's why it is so important to establish your financial priorities before developing your budget. Developing your budget is also something husbands and wives should work and be in agreement on together, as one flesh.
So where do you start? Make a list of every expenditure you have to make including bills, household expenses, personal expenses and so on. For each item list any current balance, how frequently any payments need to be made (weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually), and the minimum payment that has to be made. Be sure to include items related to your financial priorities like tithes & offerings, a seed account, savings, money to bless others with, etc. At this point don't worry about how much you have coming in.
Next make a list of all of your income including your paycheck, retirement check if applicable, rental income, bonuses, etc. Just like your expenses, list the frequency of each item of income and both the gross and net amounts.
Now you are ready to match your expenses up with your income by pay period or when you have income coming in, along with when outlays are due. For each pay period you can then see the surplus or shortfall of income needed to cover bills, and cumulatively over the time frame for which you are budgeting (suggest a two month period to start). This is your first view of your budget, and you will most likely have shortfalls for certain pay periods and possibly over the entire budgeting period. That's why this is an iterative process that will take several sets of revisions before you are done. We'll cover what to do to address the shortfalls or surpluses after your first cut of your budget in the next Post.
In my book, Kingdom Prosperity, there are examples of what I have covered above and will cover in a simple Excel spreadsheet format.
So, take a crack at the first cut of your budget if you haven't done so already.
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