Living Within Our Means: The Great Balancing Act

Go to the Ando sluggard, observe her ways and be wise, which having no chief, officer, or ruler, prepares her food in the summer and gathers her provision in the harvest." What's the reason for having that there? They're planning ahead. They're doing something now to deal with the future need. Another one here, and this has to do with perspective on debt. We're going to talk explicitly about debt and what are the biblical principles, borrowing, lending, things of that sort. But just a brief perspective here coming out of Proverbs. The rich rules over the poor and the borrower becomes the lender's slave. And you may have experienced that.

Proverbs 27.12, a prudent man sees evil and hides himself, the naive proceed and pay the penalty. So this is talking about looking ahead, seeing something that says, you know, I think I better avoid that and dealing with it.

Proverbs 30.25 is reference to the ant principle. And we will talk, by the way, about savings separately. That will be another topic we will pick up. But not today. In Luke 14, and I'll just kind of summarize it here, the Lord is presenting just kind of considerations for discipleship. and is basically a counting the cost kind of principle.

And so he gives two circumstances in which one of you wanting to build a tower doesn't sit down first and see if he has enough to complete it. It's this kind of thing that basically is giving the perspective It is biblically normal to think ahead about needs that are going to come up or things you might want to do and to sit down and to kind of count out, do I have what it takes to make it work? Do I have what it takes to complete it and finish it off? The flip side of that in the second half is what king starts a battle without first sitting down, figuring out, see whether he has enough to make it happen.

Otherwise he's going to go to plan B which is We better settle this thing, okay? The point being in there that we're looking at, there is a need and it is biblically fine to look ahead and anticipate a need to kind of calculate it out and to figure out, am I going to have what it takes when the time comes? Okay? That's fine. And I bring that up because there are people who go around teaching Christians, well, don't plan ahead, don't think, the Lord will just, you know, drop it in your lap.

These passages Communicate the opposite okay the idea that it's just fine as a believer To look ahead to a future need and to try to plan in anticipation of that need that's fine, and that's biblical Sure yeah the Lord may the Lord may Be explicit about doing it differently, but he will make it very clear that that's what he has in mind Yes, good point 2 Corinthians 12.14 is another one, and here Paul is actually trying to illustrate something else, but he just kind of makes it clear his perspective on it. The last half of that verse, he says, for children are not responsible to save up for their parents, but parents for the children. So here again is a matter of saving up, looking ahead, and again, we'll talk more in detail about biblical principles for saving. But for now, we just want to kind of establish, it is biblical to look ahead and anticipate. And then finally in James 4, 13-16, James addresses what was kind of a merchant's perspective.

He says, you know, you go and you just say, we're going to go here and there and make this much money. He says, don't do that. He says, if the Lord wills, we'll go here and there and make this much money. And it's recognizing God's sovereignty in a situation, which is also important for us to take a look at. It doesn't mean we don't plan. Notice he doesn't say don't even think that way. What he prefaces it with is the Lord wills. Recognizing God's sovereignty in everything. And the first question is, what does God have in mind here?

And not just what do I want to do and taking off right into the sunset based on just what we think we want to do. Okay, now, with that as a start, Scripture in both the Old and the New Testaments encourages planning and saving for anticipated future needs, but does so while giving us the perspective that God is sovereign. And I think that's the key point.

In other words, we look ahead to these needs recognizing God can do something different, and the Lord may indeed Kind of put something in the middle of your path, as Helmut pointed out, and indicating, no, I have something else in mind. And the Lord can certainly do that, can't he?

Now, there are some ways in which budgeting can be a valuable tool for the following biblical purposes. And notice, we'll get to this point later, I call it a valuable tool. There is a place where it can be applied where it becomes a problem, and we will get to that, but as a valuable tool. Here are some examples. A budget can be valuable as a means of husbands and wives communicating with one another about all the ways in which money will have an involvement in their lives. It's a medium for the husband to understand his wife.

Remember, 1 Peter 3.7 says, Husbands, live in an understanding way with your wives. How about even according to money? Hey, well, now there's a way to go. The captain's wife.

Next quarter we're looking at addressing marriage specifically, but we're really addressing a lot of issues here that come to... You'll find in this section, here particularly, a lot of marriage issues will come up. One of the other things to note here is one of the ways in which a husband can be the head of the household loving his wife sacrificially. This goes back to what Phil was saying. And his wife submitting to the husband is the head. I lost that in the laughs. The wife submitting to the husband is the head.

A budget allows discussion of all financial... Now here's an important point. A budget allows discussion of all financial needs in advance of the need. Before the month starts, we take a look at it. What frequently starts the wrestle and tussle, and where it really gets to be high pressure, is where the discussion takes place after the expenditure has already been made. That's where it's a problem. And that's where the blood pressure goes up and the volume goes up and the discussion goes out the window. So what happens is you can have a chance to look at things ahead of time together and deal with the issues before the thing gets to a point where all of a sudden now we're into it and the dollars are committed.

Here's another thing. Budgeting quickly sets aside many conflicts with children that arise from a lack of understanding of family finances. Nancy and I will talk about that in a minute. We found it to be immensely helpful in this area. The next thing, a budget allows one or a couple to plan for needs and anticipated expenditures that are within the next month, within the next several months, a year, or many years into the future. It makes that planning, whether it's a month ahead, months ahead, years ahead, or many years ahead, it makes that planning break down into a reasonable sequence, one step at a time.

A budget also prevents a family from arriving by neglect at financial circumstances that aren't wise, accumulating debt or lack of savings for a particular need. We'll be getting into this family budget issue later on when we get into debt and savings and those kinds of issues specifically. But we want to talk about having a monthly budget and here are some circumstances where it would be well advised where a person just might want to have one. Point one, if savings aren't accumulating to meet future needs, you say, gee, I need to be saving, I know I need to be saving, but it isn't happening. A budget can be useful for that. The flip side, if a debt is accumulating, and I show some instances because sometimes people don't realize it, credit card bills aren't paid off every month. bills that are paid late consistently or chronically, bill collectors calling and writing, mounting debts, etc. Getting out of debt will almost certainly require a budget.

Nancy and I for the last 13 years have been doing financial counseling with different couples and we'll share how we got into that. But staying out of debt or getting out of debt frequently is Budgeting is almost a necessity if a person has already gone into that mood. Now, next one on page 28.

If chronic delay of expenditures for maintenance for substantial items is turning into the equivalent of debt. You see that? Example, I've got something in the car that, boy, this car just needs something and it needs it and it needs it and finally it gets to the point where, boy, it really needs it. and something breaks down. That's essentially the same as debt, isn't it?

Because you've gotten to the point where, and it can get more and more expensive the more you delay something. For example, you might initially on a house say, well, I'm going to put off painting it. And then eventually what happens, you have to replace the siding, you know, that kind of a thing. Delay putting the roof on. Need a new roof, need a new roof, and eventually you need a new house.

The point being that delayed maintenance is the same as debt. I'm not talking about something minor and inconsequential, but delayed maintenance can be the same as just accumulating debt because it's something that needs to be dealt with and eventually is putting you in the hole. Another reason might be fear of reasonable expenditures causing reluctance or dread of spending.

And Nancy and I will talk about that in a bit. If the husband and wife are chronically either in conflict over money expenditures or fail to talk about matters involving money by reason of fear or conflict. We don't want to talk about that because we know we'll get in an argument so we just won't talk about it. Or we will talk about it and the neighbors know about it. Matter of fact, everybody for several blocks know we talk about it.

That might be a signal you need to do something. All right, enough. If need arises of monthly expenditure are chronically left out or shorted, something that really ought to be dealt with and isn't, that would be an example of an instance. I give some examples. It might take the form of short or late payment of taxes, necessary insurance, postponement of medical or dental checkups, that kind of thing.

The next one down, if a husband and wife find that they're in a parent-child relationship because of one spouse over-controlling the money. Do you know what I'm talking about? What happens is a husband and wife, instead of being husband and wife, can fall into a situation where one is trying to keep the money from getting out of control. As a consequence, that person who's trying to hold on to the money puts the other spouse in a child relationship where they're just constantly coming asking for permission and pretty soon it's parent-child instead of husband and wife.

That's a problem, by the way. A budget for the sake of the finances might be helpful for that. And then the last one, if children display a lack of discernment between their needs and their wants. You know any kids like that? Nagging or pleading for various purchases or in conflict over money expenditure. They don't agree with the parents in the way they're doing it.

Now, what I'd like to do is to have Nancy come up here. You have a budget form in the next couple of pages. I'm going to pin the tail on the Nancy here. Here we go. Let me give you a little bit of background here. About roughly 13 years ago, the last part of the 1980s, the Lord just kind of put his finger on us and just said, Vern and Nancy, I want you to learn some things about finances.

And it happened this way. For one thing, I had been working for this company as an engineer. I had been there for about a year, a little more than a year. One Monday morning, we had these management meetings. They had the meeting. It was kind of brief. I was a little puzzled. They dismissed everybody. As soon as everybody started getting up, they said, Brendan, not so fast. So, okay.

So anyway, as soon as the door closed, I mean not but a second or two, they said, Vern, you're now the controller, the financial controller of the firm. Apparently what had happened is the bookkeeper and the office manager said, if you don't make Vern the controller, we quit. The company was in difficult straits. So anyway, now about the same period of time, I was an elder at a church and I had only come into that position not that long before, and as it turned out, the Church's outside accountant had advised some of the pastors that they were categorically exempt from paying Social Security. They aren't, by the way. Okay? And so, what happened is they got several years out on this thing, and I found out about it. I said, they're what? You know?

Because they had basically not paid on their Social Security. And I said, this is a problem, because, you know, and I start totaling the numbers, I said, you, between the three of you guys, owe about $24,000. And, So you have to catch up on that and you've got to now start paying 15% of your income into Social Security and we hope the IRS doesn't double it with penalties and add interest too.

So I said, we've got a problem. So anyway, I had to deal with that and convince the accountants that they need to correct this. Anyway, that was a mess. Same time. Nancy and I began to recognize that Hey, you know, we need to deal with our own finances.

We had moved from the Silicon Valley area where it's very expensive to live. During that time, we accumulated about $20,000 in consumer debt, non-mortgage debt. Plus our mortgage was up pretty high. So I said, you know, we need to get on top of that. So at any rate, then we, over a period of about 18 months, paid off the $20,000 in debt and then began making some progress and other things.

Anyway, I asked Nancy up here because I wanted to get Nancy's perspective on this. Now, Nancy, when we went on this budget, you were just having a horrible time, right? Before we went on the budget? Yeah. No, actually going on the budget was a really good thing. It was very, very freeing. In fact, I had talked to my sister-in-law about maybe a month after we were on it and I was telling her we went on this budget and she goes, don't you have more money now than you ever did before? And I said, yes, because it was accounted for and we knew where we were spending our money and what we had to spend.

So I actually felt like we had more money even though the numbers or the income was the same. Okay. And what about the relationship with the kids? What happened there? What was going on before and what happened afterwards? Well, our kids were just starting into their teen years, the boys, and our oldest especially would come to me and say, I need new guitar strings.

I need this. I need that. And everything was a need. Nothing was just a want or a desire. He needed a recording studio too. Still needs it. He's still asking for that for Christmas. In fact, I think one day I said to you, gee, I feel terrible. We can't provide for their needs. And you asked me what that was all about. And when I explained it, he goes, no, no, no, no, no. He needs to understand the difference between need and want. I would have to come to you to ask for money for shoes or jeans or whatever was necessary.

How did it change afterwards once we started the kids on the budget and they were recognizing what was going on? How did things deal with when it came to, you know, it's time to buy clothing, that kind of thing? The way we set it up was we had a certain amount for clothing each month and then we would give each individual in the family a page in the budget book with the amount of money that was allotted for the month. The kids learned in real short order that they could go directly to the budget book and say, oh, I only have $12 left.

I guess I can't go buy a pair of Levi's jeans for $40. I'll have to save it up. Or they knew that they could accrue it over whatever period of time. Just wait longer. Or they could earn it. They could add to it. But then they didn't ask, I need this and I need that anymore. No. It just went away. Yeah. And it wasn't just clothing, but entertainment or whatever.

There must have been a few interesting moments a little past that because there must have been some instances where the kids saw something you guys didn't see and say, gotcha. I'm trying to think. Yeah, I'm trying to think. I'm not so sure we saw much of that. He's pretty good at mathematics. They just didn't take the differential equation of it.

One of the questions, I guess, I mean you went on a budget. Did you feel like we were just living tighter than a drum or how did that go? No, because as I said before, we knew now where the money was going, where it was being spent, and so it was not hand-to-mouth at all. And someone said the other night, well you must have cut back in some areas or felt restricted in some areas.

I think we probably kept our entertainment budget lower than a lot of people like to do because we were paying debt off. And then we started saving at the same time. So once the debt was paid off, we could bump up the entertainment budget. We could bump up the clothing budget or whatever it was.

But by saving up for a new set of tires and saving up for Christmas ahead of time, different things like that, there's money in the bank so that if an emergency came up, there were funds there for it and then you could pay yourself back. What about, were there things that didn't happen before that started happening with the budget?

What are some of the things like that? I felt like we were able to do better maintenance on vehicles and on the house and even on ourselves. We started taking the kids to the dentist more regularly and things like that, which sounds absurd. Every parent wants to take good care of their children's teeth and their health, but going to have your teeth cleaned and fillings put in can be expensive.

I guess one of the things I remember is right in the middle of this time paying all the debt off, we went on a vacation we hadn't done for a while. Paid off debt, started a savings account, and went on vacation. And I might add that this was with about a 25% pay cut. Moving from the Silicon Valley to Carson City. Well good, well thank you. You're welcome. Now, having said that, there's some important things to make note of. I bring this thing of a budget up and you notice I said here are some instances where it's helpful.

What I don't want to imply at all is this is law or this is required. The reason I don't want to do that is law is never good. Law is a ministry of death. Law is a curse. You don't want to take something that could be a useful tool and end up turning it into a toxic poison.

If a budget becomes, this is now law, we got to do this because this is the righteous thing to do. If a budget becomes a means of a husband and wife beating each other over the head with it, it's no good. That's not what we're suggesting it for at all. Now, in the end, This budget is something that is a useful tool, but not a substitute for one's personal walk with the Lord. It's to be helpful, not a replacement for.

Now, let's take a look. I'd like to just kind of quickly go through this, just so that you have an idea of how we went through it. You'll have a couple of sheets here. The one I'm looking at is the budget summary sheet, is the primary one. And what I'll do is, we're going to be talking later about debt and savings and biblical principles for some of these, as well as just some suggestions for your consideration. But what we'd like to do is just kind of breeze through how we did this and then obviously we can talk to you some more if you'd like some more detail on something. But let's just walk our way through it. The first thing we would do is take our gross income, that's before anything was taken out, before insurance, taxes, anything else. And we'd add that.

For people who are on an unsteady income, if you've got a commission thing or you've got a billing situation where things get paid when they get paid, what we typically suggest to folks is they take an average and then take 90% of that and budget on that. Take 90% of the average and that way you make sure you're kind of within something where you're not going to pop over the top. The next thing, of course, we've talked about giving and taxes. The summary statement is we don't suggest or recommend some fixed percentage. That's between you and the Lord. The taxes, we suggest you pay them. After that, you're going to have your net spendable income.

And one of the things you'll notice is that the total line is across from the heading. That's a little bit different from usual, but it's just so your housing has a number right across from it that's the total for your housing. Your automobile expenses have a total across from it that's your debt category. What you'll do is go through each of these things, for example, under the housing, if you've got mortgage or rent.

There's a typo here. It's not tax ex, it's tax says. People in Texas keep switching the E's and the A's too, you know, state of taxes. All right. Mortgage and rent, some people have insurance and taxes combined with that. However, your utilities happen to work out. If it doesn't fit, just draw a line through it. That's fine.

But notice one of the things we have there is maintenance. It's not just the monthly bills, but it's also maintenance so that you're planning for things that have to happen, including putting some money in for some surprises. While we were doing this, we had to go through a water heater. All of a sudden you find this river of warm water coming out under your garage door. Something's wrong. And you need to be able to accommodate that. You don't want to wait until next month to budget it in. You want to be able to plan some money ahead.

Food and groceries. Typically what we suggest for most folks to keep it simple is that whatever you buy at the grocery store, put it there. Even if it's something else, because we're not trying to get technical, you're trying to just keep the total under control. The automobiles, notice we've got the typical stuff in there, payments, oil.

Money for maintenance and repair, and if you think about it, unless you have a real big bad oops, and a lot of that can happen because of deferred maintenance, a lot of the automobile expenses, even some of the bigger ones, can be planned for. You know that your tires aren't going to last forever. We get to last forever, but not the tires. You know, for example, a lot of these cars have these timing belts that have to be replaced at intervals or else you really cob up the engine. That kind of thing.

Plan for that. And most of those, even more substantial expenses can be planned for. It includes your oil changes and all that. Notice the last line there, replacement. Unless you happen to be really fortunate, you have a car that goes up in value over time, what typically happens is it goes down in value and you have to replace it, right? And so putting money in to set aside for that time of replacement, to get to a point where you're not making the car payment. That's the key there, the strategy. Allow for the payment if you got it, but work towards not having it.

Make sense? Okay. The insurance, I get different categories there, you know, life, medical, and we'll have some suggestions on that. Tom? Yes? It was such a relief, and a relief to just pay cash for a car and work toward the next car looking at, okay, this thing still will eventually fall apart, whether it's my chair or waistline. Yes. Yeah. Right, and work that way.

The numbers have changed now with the 0% financing and all that, which who knows how long that will last, but I know some guys went through this thing and they figured out at the time, interest rates being what they were, that you could either save up for the car for 28 months or pay for it for 28 months.

That's the difference in interest. Obviously these days with special financing it can be the other way a little bit, but the point being You don't have to pay all the interest that goes along with the rest of it. Plus, people very quickly get upside down the payments.

That's the term for where you owe more than the car is worth. That can happen real easily. This avoids that. Next one, debt reduction. This is aside from your car, aside from your mortgage, if you've got any debts to contend with, planning to get rid of it. That's what that's for.

Some people, Nancy and I have had to go through a whole back page of a piece of paper to list all the debts, but the point being, and we'll talk about that some more, but that's what that's for, is getting rid of those debts, getting them out of the way. The next column over is entertainment and recreation.

One of the things when we talk with folks, we say, you don't want to get to a point where this whole thing is such a bitter pill that you can't stand it. Like Nancy and I said, we ended up eating out more regularly and having vacations and things like that.

We never had when we finally started budgeting. But nonetheless, it's an area where people need to be reasonable, not go to extremes. Nancy and I also counseled one couple, and I only share this because this is a couple in another state that I know you'll never know who it is or meet them.

The husband demanded that he personally have $700 a month entertainment money, okay? He just had to have it. And, you know, hopefully you're not in that spot. But the point being, you know, people can get in trouble by going to either extreme... Dave, I know you're ready for that, but okay, here we go. Clothing.

What we did was we had a general category for clothing but then, as we'll talk about in a minute, we kept separate sheets for each of the people in the family so that it wasn't, hey I don't get clothes because he bought his. So that's something you want to avoid. But you can just have one category. Savings we'll get into in more detail but the idea here is that you have different categories of savings.

One of the things that Nancy and I counseled people towards is if you don't have some contingency money, begin saving for it. And that was one of the items that we want to make sure that got put in here. People will save for college funds, for a yacht, gold-plated rollerblades, whatever you want, but you can put the savings in there.

Yes, the bearings you budget for. But you do not recommend gold-plated parasails, right? Not yet, okay. The medical expenses thing is to cover anything not covered by any insurance that you may have, okay? And that was one thing where we actually had money to go to the dentist, you know. Miscellaneous category, be sure to include everything in there, including the bottom line there with paper clips and that sort of thing. The one thing that you'll notice we have is gifts general and gifts Christmas.

We found that real helpful because the usual American pattern is to load up the credit card and then be into the spring paying it off. That's the classical American pattern. and dieting during that time. So this is the pattern. What this does, you have one category that allows for all the stuff to spread throughout the year, unless you're like our family where everybody's born in September. But the usual thing is these birthdays, anniversaries kind of get spread throughout the year and you have one category for that. And then you have another category for Christmas which is a once a year shot. So you need to be able to budget for those differently so that you can handle it. And you know how much you have to spend for Christmas.

The other thing that we found is if we found a really good deal on something in April, we had the money for it. Go ahead and buy it. We've got the money set aside for it. No big deal. The idea with this is when you total all those expenses, that your expenditures don't exceed your income. That's really good. It helps. Now, let me give you a for instance, somebody may say, does this stuff really matter? I don't think I have any problem with this. I went through the calculations.

If you were to overspend by $1 a day, just $1 a day, and put that $1, just carry it over on your credit card. Just overspend with $1? It's not much. At the end of 30 years, you'd have several hundred thousand dollars in debt because of the accumulation. And that's just $1 a day.

So just keeping the income and the outgo balance does matter, even down to the point of small amounts. Okay, now, what we would do is you've got this individual account page. And if you've got something that's just the money comes in and the money goes out in the same amount, don't try to keep track of it. That'll drive you nuts. The idea is to keep something like this for any one of these where the amount goes up and down or there's a risk of overspending. And that way you keep things balanced.

And like I say, we got to the place where our kids didn't even ask us, you know, hey, can I buy some shoes? They went and looked over at their budget sheet. I guess not this month or yeah, I think so or whatever. But they just got to, so they were regulating themselves using this as the means of doing so. Things that we were saving up for. See, this is not just stuff like groceries. It's things we're saving up for. We know, for example, how much money from this we've saved up to replace the car. So you're keeping track of that.

Now, here's the thing that blew our circuits. We couldn't believe it. Here we were, you know, struggling before within two or three months. We were finding our checkbook balance bouncing between $3,000 and $6,000. What it was was expenditures that before just kind of happened, we were looking ahead saving for this and that, you know, the tires and the oil change and the, you know, maintenance and all that. And just anticipating those things and planning for them ended up accumulating. So we had to start doing something different with our checking account because the amount started getting up there where it was wise to do so. It means you have so much money that you could pay an accountant to keep track of it.

Oh boy. But you don't want to show them the budget because they'll spend whatever you give them, right? Now, this is something, again, I want to reiterate a few things. I'm not saying everybody here in the church has to get on a budget. That's not the point.

The point is there are places where it's a helpful tool, and I'll give you some examples there. There are places where it's a helpful tool, it's not law, it doesn't make a person more righteous if they do or if they don't. But it is something that can be useful for the circumstances and conditions that you see there. We found that it helped our relationship and our relationship with our kids immensely. So we would share it from that standpoint. It's been a real benefit for us to have gone through that.

Another thing that was neat was before I was always trying to tightly control things and it wasn't working. I have no idea. Somebody asked in the Wednesday night class, which basically covers similar material, somebody says, well, what were you spending the money on before? I don't know. I didn't keep a budget sheet before. I budgeted stuff out, but I didn't keep track of where it went. So the consequence was, I can't tell you where it went, but I can tell you it did it a whole lot better after we started out on a budget and kept track of things.

And it kept Nancy and I from being in a parent-child relationship. Instead we could be husband and wife, and that was tremendously freeing. The thing is, instead of my sitting there trying to control every little jot and tittle to get this thing back into control, since we had sat down together and agreed on what things were going to be like over this next month, she didn't have to worry and I didn't have to worry about how money was going to get spent. She didn't say, gee, I'm not sure I can go out to lunch with my friends or something like that. She knew if she had the money and she could say yes or no right off. Things that we got kind of nail-bitey about before, wondering should we do this, can we do this, no longer a question, no longer an issue.

But in the end, keep in mind, this is a tool. This is something that if it gets implemented as law, it will bring death. So a caution is really good, but there's no recommendation to use it as law. It can be something that's good turned into something toxic if it becomes that.

We're going to be talking more about savings. We're going to be talking more about debt, and I've got some suggestions for some of these different categories that I'll be distributing as well in terms of here's an area where you can save some money or check this out and that kind of thing.

I was wondering, that was my thinking, are there percentages that you went through to allow percentages? Yeah, there are various percentages. We would sometimes use that if people just had no idea what they should do. The bottom line is, if you look at the percentages, the percentages aren't out of the Bible, right?

So it's not like you're some righteous percentage. What you'll see is that people in this category tend to have this or tend to have that, but you can have individual circumstances that vary that. One person may have an ongoing expense because of maybe a diabetic condition or something like that. The next person doesn't. They'll give percentages, but one area has really high real estate expenses and another area doesn't.

Yes, you can come up with percentages, but part of the problem is how you make it fit. Didn't you find that his percentages were pretty close It was a starting point, but we actually didn't use that. Nancy and I have sat down with lots of people and gone over personal budgets, and what we would find is after we go through this, people would sit down and say, oh, the total's fine. Looks like you're in a good spot. Other people would say, well, you're a thousand bucks a month overspent.

And then the point is not, you know, okay, you've got to bring this in this percentage and this in that percentage, but just tell them, all right, we need to balance this, so what's that going to take? And so we just kind of make suggestions to them, okay, how about this, consider that, you know, and never telling them what to do, but just kind of walking them through, here's areas where you might think about cutting, you know, eating out $500 a month, maybe cut that back, you know, that kind of stuff. So, you know, things like that. We'd make various suggestions and to help people just to, you know, massage things back in line.

So, at any rate, there are percentages. I can bring those in. I wouldn't necessarily... I hesitate because I don't want people to see that as gospels. It's the same problem. As soon as this becomes law, it's just, you know, and so it can be helpful, but it can just as easily be hurtful if you're not careful.

Yeah, that's one of them. And, Frank, Nancy mentioned this Larry Burkett stuff. If you've been to Christian bookstores or listened to it, you know, he's got a radio program and things like that. We did go through his training and material. There are reasons why I wouldn't just You know, Carte Blanche say, you know, I recommend it because he doesn't make the distinction between law and grace very well. He does speak, for example, about tithing and you'll see his sample budgets and it'll say, you know, 10% that you're giving.

And, you know, so, pardon? Yes. Yeah. And, and so, so at any rate, helpful, yes. But, but I think it's far more important to look at this. This is a, this is a grace issue, not a law issue. Okay. And you still have to ask, is this helpful? Not is it legal? Any other questions? Comments? Yeah, Bill. You mentioned you started out with grosses, didn't you? Yeah.

Do you allow for taxes on that? Well, typically when you're giving in taxes, I put that in there, so I do it that way. That way you recognize your taxes. My reason for doing that is that you look at your taxes. instead of just ignoring it because it may be something that somebody needs to pay some attention to. Something that helped us over the years, we just wrote down what we spent over the three months. We just throw a category in that helps you out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. That tells you where it is. Yep. Okay.

Again, we'll address some of these, you know, the debt and the savings category and look at, you know, how to look at, you know, trimming certain areas and that kind of thing. And that'll be some subsequent weeks here, but I wanted to have the chance to present this.

Let's say that you look down this thing and you say, well, you know, We don't have a problem or I don't have a problem with this and so it's not really an issue. That's fine You know again, it's a tool. This isn't a law However, I don't don't toss this out. Here's the reason You you may be helpful to somebody else Run into somebody else who says boy I'm really struggling with this thing or I find myself in a real problem and you here you have a tool with you that you can show them and And so even if you're not in a spot where you say, well, I really need to get, you know, get something going with this, that's fine. But keep it around and keep it handy because there may well be others that, you know, when you look at the list of here's the situations where it's advisable or you may want to, you may run into people who are in that spot.

And then you've got something that you can work with them on. Nancy and I have enjoyed sitting down with dozens and dozens of couples going over this over the last better than a dozen years. And they're still doing that. Even within the last month, we've continued to meet with folks over this and find it real helpful.

Okay? Anyway, feel free to talk to us more afterwards. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for just the fact that we can depend upon your marvelous grace. And you've given us all these resources to manage and to be stewards of for a time. And keep us in the midst of it and all the numbers and things to be dealt with. Keep our eyes focused on you, Lord. Draw our hearts to you. We just pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.