Pennies

It's December 1st, and the Follman family 2011 annual budget is coming to an end.

Yes, you read me right. I said budget. And I'm writing about it. AND I'm excited about it!

Budget is not a word that many get excited about, and we are not unlike that. But it's been over a year now since we started tracking just about every penny that goes in and out of our pocketbook. After we started tracking our income and expenses last year, we rolled out the Follman Family Annual Budget 2011 (sounds pretty official!).

Where sometimes budget can seem like prison, it has meant liberation for us. If you are anything like our family, over the years I have looked at our finances like is was a mystery... an enigma! There was no making sense of it. Money came in and out of our possession and it seemed as if I could never really get a hold of where it all was going. It's all simple math, yet I am dumbfounded and can only shake my confused noggin when I try to determine what we have done with our finances over the years.

Then we began writing it down. ALL down. I'm not even sure why except that we were trying to figure out how we were going to make it! I was starting a new job and we needed to determine how we were going to do this (financially), and the habit of writing it down stuck.

After several months, the enigma turned into enlightenment as we were able to see where everything was going and what our true income and expenses were. Sounds so simple, yet it was so profound. The single most influential factor for us getting a hold of our finances and tasting freedom has been writing it all down. From that, we could make our spending plan (budget), and determine if we were sticking to it, blowing it, and how we needed to adjust.

A wise man once told me, if you take care of your pennies, the dollars will take care of themselves. I didn't understand what he meant at first. I also didn't have good control of our finances at that point. What he said has a couple of meanings to me now.

First, every penny matters. Where and how I spend my (which is really God's) money adds up. Be thoughtful and purposeful about everything your spend. Every penny matters.

And, the other way this speaks to me is similar - tracking our pennies. Tracking every penny has helped us to get a better hold of our dollars.

We have a long way to go as a family. We have debt like many Americans, but we are working hard to release ourselves from that bondage as well. We have much to learn when it comes to our personal finances. And... we have made progress.

If there is one thing I could encourage anyone struggling getting a grip of their finances, it would be to write it all down. To the penny. Every penny matters. And from their you will be able to see what needs to be done in your finances and make the appropriate changes, like we did and are still doing. Until you write it down, it stays a mystery, and your money floats into la la land and control of your spending slips through your fingers like sand from the seashore.

May I also suggest two excellent resources on getting a hold of your finances, and secondly yet more importantly, getting God's vision of them? (Sure you say!) Try Crown Financial Ministries or Dave Ramsey.

As you gear up for the new year, try something new with your finances. Count your pennies, and write them all down. See if the dollars begin taking care of themselves...