#69 - Kingdom Prosperity #35

If you're like me, that first cut of your budget might not look too good or has some shortfalls in some places. So let's talk about how to fix that.

This is where your financial priorities come into play, helping you make decisions on which allocations of your income to cover your expenses you can cut back on or defer to a future pay period. I really can't do this process justice on this blog, so I encourage you to check out the examples in my book, Kingdom Prosperity. But I will cover a few points here.

Some things to keep in mind as you attempt to balance your budget:
1) Your #1 financial priority should be to finance the Kingdom work here on Earth, so don't cut back on your tithes, and only on your offerings as a last resort.
2) Identify any outlays of money that can be moved to a future pay period or reduced, without missing any payments or compromising your financial priorities.
3) What outlays of money are discresionary that you really don't have to spend, or spend now? This is where you have to separate your wants from your needs, and takes a lot of discipline. This might include money you have in your budget for shopping/clothes, dinning out/entertainment, vacations, etc.
4) What outlays of money can be spread differently across the pay periods you are budgeting for, and even across future pay periods, without missing any payments.
5) Where you have installment payments, check to see where you have budgeted more than the minimum payments and reduce outlays to the minimum payments.
6) In some cases it may be worthwhile to contact some or all of your creditors to work out payment arrangements that fit into your budget. You'll be surprised how many will be willing to work with you.

Again, I go into much more detail on balancing your budget in my book, but the bottom line is that this takes time, discipline, sacrifice and keeping your financial priorities in front of you at all times.

It also will usually take several revisions before your budget is balanced. It took you some time to get into your current financial condition, and it will take you some time to turn it around (hopfully not as long as it did to get into it).

But it does work! Just have faith and trust God to guide you. And once you've gone through the process of balancing your budget a few times, it will get easier.

So now, go balance your budget.