I have shared before that it is EZ to win with your money.

Today, I would love to get the conversation going about YOUR budget.

Answer these two questions:

1.  What is working well?

2.  What is causing you problems?

Haven't started a budget yet?  You can take your finances to the next level by doing so!  It's EZ!  Just click on "TOOLS" at the top of the page to obtain your free easy-to-use EZ budget tools!

I am PUMPED UP to be in Dayton, Ohio this coming SATURDAY to teach the Financial Learning Experience!!!  If you are anywhere near the Dayton area, I would love to meet you there!  You can sign up for the event HERE.

Looking for additional Personal Finance Resources?  You can obtain free tools by clicking HERE and purchase books/materials by clicking HERE.

I provide one-on-one financial counseling for 10 to 15 people each week.  In this counseling, we usually put together a spending plan for the upcoming month.  This is usually a VERY eye-opening experience!  The words "WOW!" and "Oh my goodness!" and "That's insane!" are commonly said (No - I am not the one saying that!).

Folks then leave with their spending planned for the next month.  They have spent every dollar on paper.  If they follow the plan, they will start winning in a way they never have before.  Two or three months pass and we meet again - only to find out that they are still trying to use the same spending plan we had put together!

THIS WILL NOT WORK WELL!

Why?  Well, every single month is different.  Now, some costs are fixed (or close to being fixed) like the mortgage, rent, insurance, car payment, student loan payment, etc.  However, many expenses are variable - they don't happen every month.  Items like vacation, Christmas, weddings, baby showers, graduations, weekend getaways, etc.  If you do not plan your spending every month, you will not maximize the use of your money!

Let me give you a practical month.  In this month of May, Jenn and I traveled to Atlanta the weekend of 5/5.  This past weekend?  Wow!  We traveled to seven states, 2000 miles, for two graduations (Jenn's sisters) and a wedding shower.  This next weekend, we are going to another graduation - my twin is graduating from medical school.  Is that a typical month?  I HOPE NOT!  The "gifts" part of our budget for May is HUGE!  Next month will be calmer in the gift category, but the vacation line item will be boosted.

Get the picture? 

Every month is different.  It only takes 15 minutes to tweak the budget and make it work fabulously well EVERY SINGLE MONTH!

I received a letter of encouragement from someone who took the Financial Freedom Class that I teach at NewSpring Church in Anderson, SC.

The author wrote the most incredible line in it.  A line that jars me each time I read it.

"For the longest time, I am ashamed to say, I thought "poor people" were on budgets.  I now realize it is "rich people" who are on budgets, and the reason they are rich is because of having a budget and staying on a budget." 

That, my friends, is TRUTH.

Are you planning your spending every single month?  Free tools are available to help you by clicking "Tools" at the top of the page. 

My life has been impacted greatly through education and learning.  I remember a specific article I read from the Harvard Business Review about Toyota.  Now, in case you have not noticed, Toyota has it going on in the automotive world.  This particular article was discussing how Toyota develops its people.

There was a single line in this multi-page article that just blew me out of the water!  It just reached up and smacked me around!  I love it when I learn something!

What was the line?  It said "There is no substitute for direct observation!"  They explained that when they hire a new engineer, they would take them to the manufacturing floor and make them stand in one spot for an entire day.  Why?  Well, there is no substitute for direct observation!

Have you been there?  Have you had the person who had NO CLUE come tell you how you should be doing your job?  Isn't that annoying!!!  By ensuring that their employees are directly observing the process, Toyota helps ensure that people will know what is going on.

Have you observed what is going on with your finances lately?  What about grocery shopping?  Instead of complaining about how much is spent at the grocery store, maybe it would help for you to actually go along with your spouse for a trip or two.  There is no substitute for direct observation!

Have you participated in the budgeting of your family's finances?  Instead of wondering where all of the money is going and having NO CLUE, how about directly observing the process?

What about obtaining insurance, preparing a will, investing, eliminating debt?  If you don't get in the game, you will be that annoying know-it-all who actually knows jack crap about what is going on.  We know who you are! 

There is NO SUBSTITUTE for direct observation!

I am a HUGE fan of cash envelopes because they are a key reason that Jenn and I started winning with our finances.

Here is how we use cash envelopes:

Every month BEFORE the money comes in, Jenn and I work together to spend all of our money on paper.  We FORCE our money to behave by making it follow the INCOME - OUTGO = EXACTLY ZERO formula.  This usually takes less than 20 minutes per month!!!  After we have completed the budget, we figure out how much needs pulled out for the cash envelopes.

How do we decide how much to put in cash envelopes?  Well, it is something that has been developed over time.  We have learned that there are certain categories that we are more likely to impulse on.  These categories are where we are quite likely to overspend if we use the debit card.  As a result, we pull out the amount of cash that we budgeted and put it into a labeled envelope.

Here are some categories that Jenn and I use cash envelopes for (because these are categories we could overspend otherwise):

GROCERIES

DINING OUT

CLOTHING

BLOW MONEY

ENTERTAINMENT

Think about these categories for a minute.  It is pretty easy to go crazy and overspend these categories isn't it?!  By using cash envelopes, we KNOW FOR SURE that we will NOT overspend.  We will only spend the amount we budgeted!

Guess what?  I have never overspent a cash envelope in 4 years!!!  If I were using a debit card, I can guarantee you that I would have overspent at least 24 of the past 48 months!!!  Why?  The debit card doesn't allow me to keep a running amount of how much I have left to spend for each category.  The cash envelopes? - Yeah, I can just open it up and count.  Presto!  I immediately know how much I have left for the month!

Try it!  If you are nervous, try just one envelope - GROCERIES!!!  It can quite possibly change your life! 

Wow!  I remember our 1st-ever budget.  My fine bride, Jenn, came into the living room with this scrawled out budget on a piece of lined paper.  She had been trying to get me to budget for the past 6 months or so, but I was not playing along!

You see, I thought that budgets were controlling, restricting, live-in-a-Maytag-refrigerator-box pieces of trash.  I wanted no part of that!

STOP!  There we were, ME managing the money, with $4.13 in our checking account and our credit cards run up with a balance for the third time!  There we were, 105% financed car, 100% financed truck, and nothing in our short-term savings account.  There I was, B-R-O-K-E, and in COMPLETE DENIAL!

Folks, I can not write it strong enough!  I was B-R-O-K-E and telling my wife, "NO!" to doing something different!  At that MOMENT, something happened to me that changed my life and marriage forever.  I turned off the TV and looked at the budget she had drawn out.  It was amazing!  It actually balanced without incurring any additional debt!

LIFE-CHANGING does not describe the next few minutes.  I moved on into the computer room and started entering the expenses into Microsoft Excel.  As I was putting together the formula to subtract expenses from the income, I realized that all of this time I could have been managing my money with a 1st-grader's math ability.  INCOME - OUTGO = EXACTLY ZERO!  After a few minutes, we had a budget that was EXACTLY ZERO.

My life and marriage have been changed forever because we discovered that a budget is NOT restricting!  It IS controlling!  It is YOU telling your money what to do!  It allows you to pay off debt, save up for known, upcoming expenses, save money for emergencies, and fund your dreams.

The first budget - yeah, it was tough.  Not everything went according to our plan.  I mean, every month we were spending an enormous amount of cash at Wal-Mart and really did not know what we had spent it on.  As a result, month one was a little tough.  Month two - that was a bit easier.  Month three - that was even easier.

Listen to your feelings as I write this next line:  We don't worry about money ANY MORE.  We did something different.  We applied God's word and Grandma's advice to our money and our lives have never been the same.

You CAN do this!  You CAN get through the 1st month's budget!  What have you got to lose?!  Click on "TOOLS" at the top of the page or click HERE to download your FREE budget form and get started!

Behind the question "How do I put together a budget that actually works?", the most popular question is, "How do I actually keep doing this every single day?"

"How do I actually keep doing this every single day?"

Great question!

Dave Ramsey has said it this way => "When the pain of same is greater than the pain of change."

I believe that the number one thing that will keep you "doing this" for the long-haul is a written plan for your life that uses your God-given passions, skills, and abilities.  If you are motivated, then you will be WAY less likely to blow up your budget in a horrible fit of "I-want-this-now-itis"!  Your life plan will motivate you!

Part of my life's plan was to be able to go do this personal finance thing full-time.  Now, Jenn and I knew that this would require substantial modifications to our lifestyle and budget.  Guess what?  We did it!  We changed our financial behavior FOUR YEARS before we finally embarked on this dream of working with people and their finances full-time.  This dream motivated us.  It helped guide most of our decisions.  It kept us in the game and focused on the prize at the end..

Now, we are living the dream.  It is awesome!  We are PUMPED up to be here!

So guess what?  It is time to write out the next phase of our life plan.  We will ensure that it uses our God-given passions, skills, and abilities.  We will ensure that the things we are doing NOW will be preparing us for those things we embark on THEN.

Have a plan for your life, and let your dreams put wind in your sails to keep up with this budget month-after-month-after-month.

You can do this!