Living Financially Worry Free
Many of you are back in college and probably finishing your first month at school. How have you done so far? You might have worked all summer saving for books, any other expenses, and you are trying to manage the money left over to make it through the rest of the semester.
For some of you, budgeting your money is easy to do. You are naturally frugal, some people even call you tight. For others, this is a little struggle, okay a BIG struggle! You see a huge bank account number, probably bigger than you have ever had at one time. So you begin thinking about all the things you need: homecoming outfit for the game and dress for the party. You start thinking about outfits for the numerous football games and parties afterward, and you decide you have options when you don’t like what is being served for lunch or dinner at the cafeteria, as you have money to order pizza, or grab a sandwich. It doesn’t take long for your spending to catch up with you and by the time you get the monthly statement, half of your savings is gone!
Proverbs 21:20 says: “In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil, but a foolish man devours all he has.” All this is saying is wise people save or spend carefully what they have while foolish people spend all they have. So you realize you have to do something and fast. But budgeting seems so confining and restrictive. A budget only tells you that you cannot do anything! Right?!
While that is the extreme, the purpose of a budget is to help you decide what is most important and make sure you have the money for those things. For example, if going to football games is more important than eating out every day, then you take a little more time in the cafeteria finding something that you like to eat before spending the money on pizza. If you don’t budget and spend all your money on eating out, you will be sitting at home while everyone else is enjoying the game. A budget is simply writing down what you spend and making sure you plan on having the money for the high priority choices. So take some time today to start planning your spending so you will have a financially worry free semester.
