The New Year comes with a lot of excitement and expectations. We always believe that what we were unable to achieve in the past years, “the appointed time to favour Zion has come”. We go to church on the 1st of January, most of the time with “New Year’s Clothes” to thank God and make resolutions that we will not adhere to! Many of us go to church to pray the prayer of Jacob: “I will never let you go unless you bless me, Lord.” The article examines budgeting.
Learn from Paul and Apollos
Although all these are good and desirable, as individuals, you and I still need to take them a step further. If we continue to do the same thing over and over and we expect a different result, that will amount to a high level of insanity. Surely, I know God is the giver of wisdom to create wealth. I also know that if Paul plants and Apollos waters, without the blessing of the Lord, it will all be in vain. But then, the richest man who ever lived, King Solomon, encouraged us to sow to expect a harvest.
Sowing versus Praying
Your prayer is to make what you have sown and produce a bountiful harvest. If you decided to pray and fast for 80 days for a harvest of what you did not sow, such fasting would only amount to just an ordinary hunger strike/ I am yet Manna because of the 72-hour marathon prayer of the people of God. Listen to me, dear reader, God can make naira to drop, but He will not do that. God has created the apple; it is left unto man to make the apple juice.
Be Cautious about Your Spending
Suffice it to say that, because budgeting is one of the paths to financial freedom, many people will not achieve financial freedom. As you plan to buy new clothes for the family, new shoes, and to refurbish the furniture, give a facelift to the apartment, purchase bulk recharge cards to make calls…remember to cut your coat according to the size of your clothes.
My message to you is that you should spend a little bit less than your income. If you think that because we are in a festive period, you go all out to impress your church members and friends, remember, January has 31 days…and if you resort to borrowing early in the New Year, the borrower will ever be a servant to the lender.
Planning a Budget
I know most of us do not have a budget; we are like those disciples Paul found in Ephesus. When he asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” They answered, “We have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.
There is always a first time. Why not make this year the first time you will have a plan of how you intend to spend your money; that plan is what we call a budget.
Living a Disciplined Life
Long before now, we were made to believe that teachers were either stingy or strict spenders. Jokes were rampant about teachers measuring yams and cups of rice before they cook. Before a teacher would spend, he would write it down and apply BODMAS to know if the expense was justified.
Are you aware that anyone who wants to experience financial freedom should live a disciplined and financially responsible life? This is not saying that one should be tight-fisted, far from it. But there should be a plan for one’s expenses. A disciplined financial life starts with your budget.
Calculating Your Income
I have come to discover that many people do not think it is necessary to have a budget; they console themselves by asking, “Of what use is a budget that one would not follow?” The budget is just a plan of how you intend to spend what you expect as income. Let me ask you sincerely, when was the last time you had a budget, be it for a month or a year?
Are you aware that the money that has passed through your hands in the past few years is worth more than a million naira? You may not know unless you sit back and calculate your income.
Many of us just spend our salary without any written budget, which will definitely lead us to “impulse buying”; this is not too good. I should, however, emphasise that a flexible budget is more appropriate than a rigid one.
Positions of Your Children in Budgeting
I was invited to a two-day seminar by an association in Lagos West Conference, and I saw two books on the stand: The Millionaire Mindset and The Millionaire Next Door.
Even though I did not budget for it, I bought the books. Much as I would have loved to justify my actions, it was still not right. My best bet is to have a column for the purchase of books, magazines, journals, and so on, in my budget.
What should be the position of your children in your budget? I am aware that you have a column for your children’s school fees/education, it is necessary to also earmark a monthly token that will serve as an egg nest later in future. Do you know that a monthly stipend of N100 for each child can become a mighty ocean with time?
Opening a Savings Account
I recommend that you open a savings account for each of your children (if you have not done that), pay at least N1,200 into each of the accounts for the 2010 allowance. If you have been doing that ever since you gave birth to your child, how much would you have saved by now? The road to financial freedom is less-travelled; it is only very few wise ones who take it.
Facts about Salary
Many times, workers complain that the salary they receive is not enough to meet all their expenses; what is your view about that? Let me tell you a bitter truth: there is no amount of money you receive as salary that can meet all your expenses. I worked as a teacher in Lagos State in 1996.
My salary then was less than N3,000 as a level 8 step 2 officer. Towards the end of 1997, I got another teaching job in a private school, and my monthly salary jumped to about N13,000. I enjoyed that “booty” for just a few months before I started with the same old song, “This school is wicked, why has the management not increased our salary?”
Thinking about other Sources of Income
What I am saying in essence is that you are the one who will work on your budget to a point that it will match up with your income. If the salary is not enough, can you think of another stream of income? Can you think of a vacuum in the area where you live and devise a way of filling the vacuum?
It is your budget that will show you clearly the shortfall in your income and your proposed expenditure. Procrastination, they say, is a thief of time; do not allow the thief to rob you of this valuable asset to financial freedom-BUDGET!
Viewing a Teacher’s Budget
Permit me to speak as a teacher.
Let us assume Adamu earns N40,000 in a month, and his proposed budget is as stated below:
- Tithe 4000
- Offering in church 1000
- House rent 3000
- PHCN 1500
- Fuel (Generator) 1500
- Children’s school fees (2 children) 6000
- Feeding (family of 4) 10000
- Toiletries/provision 1000
- Transportation to work 3000
- Personal savings (10 per cent of salary) 4000
- Travelling 1500
- Gifts 1000
- Various purchases 2500
(clothes, books, newspapers, undies, and so on)
Total 40000
Assignment
- Do a critique of Adamu’s budget.
- Draw a budget for your December income.
- What other stream of income do you think you can give a second thought to?
Food for thought
For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it; lest after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, “This man began to build and was not able to finish” (NKJV).
As you begin to lay the foundation of your financial freedom, may God give you the grace to do a thorough assessment of the cost so that people will not mock you. Read further on this page.
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Editors
