Balancing the Family Budget and being Good Stewards

Household money management tasks are traditionally relegated to one member of the home while everyone else tends to trust it’s all being taken care of. Unfortunately when it’s left to one person to take care of the major things, other family members often tend to overlook some spending patterns that can threaten family goals.

Creating a family budget can help make your financial future much smoother, but when you work together as a family to discuss the budget you may find there are several positive side-effects.

In most families, a family budget is usually just a simple list of bills that need to be paid and the amount of income that is available to be allocated for spending money. By sitting down one evening each month as a family and talking through the financial obligations that must be met, you instill a sense of awareness within your children of the responsibilities you face.

When you include your children in family financial discussions they can often develop an awareness of how their own spending patterns can affect the entire family unit. Many teenagers learn to modify their spending behavior when they understand the implications of their actions and see the size of the bills they helped to generate.

You also have the benefit of including the entire family in setting some goals for debt reduction and building savings. It’s much easier to work on important money management tactics when you have the full support and enthusiasm of your loved ones behind you.

If sitting down as a family to work through a family budget together is a new concept, you may initially feel some discomfort talking about bills and debts that are usually hidden away and dealt with alone. Your children may also find talking about money a little boring or complain that it’s not their responsibility.

To help alleviate some of their boredom, discuss their own financial contributions to the household. This might mean completing some simple chores in order to help out around the home, which creates a little extra free time for mom or dad. It might mean helping them to understand how their actions can affect the size of your utility bills. No matter what tactic you use, include them and their responsibilities into the family discussion and they’ll be more interested as they become aware of their place within a loving Christian family unit.

God has called us to be good stewards of the gifts he provides us.

Learning to be good stewards of money begins at a young age, so try to find ways to include feedback from all family members. All suggestions into money management decisions should be considered valid and any kind of input should be encouraged. However the final decisions for major purchases should be reached by consensus and discussion with the entire family given a voice.

Your children’s opinions and suggestions are valid and if they have questions about why the family budget is so important, take time to answer their questions. You’re all a part of a loving Christian family and you each have the right to contribute to making the financial decisions that affect all of you.

Perhaps the biggest benefit of creating time to discuss the money management decisions of the family budget is building a stronger bond within your family. When you’re all working together on common goals, you develop a sense of unity that can strengthen the family unit.

Finish Strong.

Work Life Balance Accountability

Finding a good work life balance can seem impossible, especially when you want to honor God in both areas. It can be a struggle to structure your work and your life so that you don’t neglect either.

But there’s good news for those struggling in this area! There are a lot of things you can do to set good boundaries between your work and the rest of life and to help yourself stick to them.

1.  Find a Christian Mentor

A Christian mentor is the key to creating a good work life balance. Who better to help you find your way than someone who has gone before you and found out which paths work?

Your mentor should be someone who has faced the same questions you have about the work life balance and answered them successfully. Often, your mentor will be older than you are, so that they have had time to grow in the faith and mature in these areas.

Approach your potential mentor gently, inviting them out for coffee or for breakfast. Tell them about your struggle to find a way to balance the important aspects of your life and ask if they would be willing to help you find a solution. Most people will be flattered that you have asked and glad to help you out.

2.  Set Appropriate Boundaries

Ask your Christian mentor to help you set some good boundaries between your work and the rest of life. It will help if you can think, before the meeting, about what elements of the work life balance cause you to struggle the most.

Your mentor will probably ask you some questions, listen to your answers, then make some suggestions about what might work for you. They may want to take some time between sessions to pray about what would be best for you.

When your mentor makes suggestions, listen to what they have to say. Some of it may be difficult to hear, but you can know that this person is speaking to you with your own best interests at heart.

Even if you feel skeptical about your mentor’s suggestions, try to implement them. Your mentor may see parts of your life more objectively than you can and you may discover things about yourself in the process.

3.  Be Accountable

Once you’ve agreed on the boundaries to set, make an agreement to be accountable to your Christian mentor. This accountability agreement will help you stick to the boundaries you’ve set up, even when you’re tempted not to.

Accountability can be as simple as your mentor checking in with you once a week and can be as complex as you reporting your progress on a daily basis. The structure you choose should be based on your own convictions and the distance you feel like you have to go between where you are and where you want to be.

Whatever agreement you come up with between you and your mentor, be sure to stick to it. Growing in anything (creating a healthy work life balance included), involves changing deeply ingrained habits. This can be difficult for many people to do, but sustained accountability over time helps immensely. Gradually, you will find yourself becoming more and more the person you want to be.

Finish Strong.

Finding a Better Work Life Balance through Goal Setting

Finding a good balance between work and the rest of life can feel like standing in the middle of a teeter-totter. Sometimes one end is up, but before long that end is on the ground with the other in the air. Trying to make this work life balance happen can be frustrating, overwhelming, and exhausting.

Fortunately, God has given us some ways to achieve this balance. One of these ways is through the Holy Spirit and human will, which we use to choose where we put our time and energy. To focus our wills, we have a specific tool: goal setting.

What is a Goal?

A goal is anything we invest time and energy into attaining, whether we make it explicit or not. When we make it through a workday by telling ourselves that lunch is just around the corner, that next meal is our goal.

As a Christian, it’s important that you make sure your goals are in line with what God desires for your life.

 Philippians 4:8 tells us, “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

 Thus, if any of your goals focus on something untrue or unjust, they are not taking you towards God.

Goals and the Work Life Balance

Goal setting is the key to achieving a healthy work life balance. Since God calls most of us to many things, this is an important balance to attain. Setting goals helps us decide what is considered a priority and how those priorities stack up against one another. Achieve your goals and you will become more and more the person God created you to be.

It’s important that your goals are realistic. If they aren’t, you won’t be able to achieve your goals and they will only frustrate you. So look at the things you believe God is calling you towards. This can include, but is not limited to, work, family, church, and various ministries where you serve others.

Once you have these priorities, look to the future. Ask yourself where you want to be in your work life balance in 1 month, 6 months, 1 year, and 5 years. Set a goal for each priority and within each time period. Examine these to make sure you can really achieve your goals in the time you’ve given yourself, particularly in light of each of the other goals. Change any goals that seem unrealistic in light of reality.

With your list of goals in hand, think of some solid steps you can take toward each one and note these next to the goal. These steps are your daily or weekly goals. When you achieve each of the smaller stages along the way, you’re one step closer to achieving your longer term goals.

After you go through this goal setting process several times, you will have a refined list of goals and steps to get there. Stick to them, and you will be able to not only achieve your goals, but find a solid work life balance as well.

Finish Strong.

Mat Kearney – Closer To Love

MercyMe – Bring The Rain

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