Provident Living Project: Money Management

Who likes to save money? Ok not this gal, it’s not my favorite thing to do, I much rather buy a new pair of boots, go on a trip, or take the family out for dinner and give myself a break. But in this assignment as well as many from last year in the Pathways we learned why money management is important, and it is also a commandment. The following are my posts with my goals and my experiences. October 18: Money Management. I want to set the goal to look at what I am spending at the end of everyday and at the end of every week. At the end of the month when I look back at my account it seems like the money has just gone to un-needed things. One of my goals from last week that I also want to carry forward is not eating out as I realize that I spend and increasing amount on food. I think that by watching what I am spending each week, I will be able to set a realistic budget for my self. I also know that if I have to actually look and analyze my spending I will want to spend less and save more. October 23rd: Wow this week I caught myself early on spending money picking up lunch because I did not remember to pack a lunch. I quickly got this under control and packed lunch from home. I can easily spend 50 dollars a week doing this, and that could be $200 I could put away each month to pay bills or put in my savings. I think that taking the time to look at my spending daily helps me recognize my spending patterns, and where I need to make changes. One other thought was that I should stop carrying my debt card and only carry cash, something to think about. October 28th: Well since my last post things got a little out of control. I thought I was doing a good job budgeting my money usage, but quick little stops for this and that and also having to make some purchases for a recent YW activity made it a little tougher to stay on budget. I will get reimbursed for church expenses, but this does deduct from my current budget for the time being. My husband has talked about not carrying our debit cards and paying with cash only, after this week this does not seem like a bad idea. October 31st: 1) What did you learn throughout the course of this project? I think that the biggest thing I learned is that I spend a lot of money eating out or picking up dinner when I am running late. I also realized that using my debit card makes it very easy to make purchases without thinking about how much you really are spending. I think after talking with my husband we need to sit down and create a budget together that consists of using cash only or to carry cash only, much like the Dave Ramsey financial freedom teaches. 2) How would you adjust the project in the future? I want to prepare a menu for the month of meals so that when I grocery shop I can be better at only purchasing food that I will be need to prepare those meals for the next 2 weeks. Having a menu that spans over a month will make it easier to have prep work done and avoid stopping to pick up dinner because I am running late or do not have enough time to prepare dinner. Also as I mentioned above I will carry only cash to help stop against impulse buying or being tempted to stop and pick up dinner. 3) What are your goals for maintaining provident living habits? My first goal is to sit down and create a budget with my husband who includes putting away additional money into savings for emergencies, and extra payments to help pay off loans for cars and home. I really think the thing that is going to help me be more provident is the meal planning and prep work. This will take a little extra time once a week, but well worth the cost savings. 4) How can this specific habit bless your life and the lives of your friends and family members? This can bless my life by being financially free from the burden of owing money and the potential for coming into a financial nightmare if I was to loose my job or be injured and unable to work. This will also bless me by following the commandments of the Lord and the Prophets who have asked us to be debt free, and live provident; when we are obedient the Lord will bless us in many ways. I feel like I keep beating my head against the wall expecting a different result. I keep having this lessen about Money Management. I know that we need to sit down and take the time to create a formal budget for our family so we can start building a good savings for emergencies. When Marco lost his job when we were first married we were debt free, and had a good savings. This was such a blessing to our family and I know that the Lord blessed us in many ways for being obedient to the commandment of living providently. We were able to pay our bills including COBRA insurance of over 600 dollars a month and pay for hospital bills from the birth of our daughter Tieran. Just a year and a half later we moved into our current home. There are some great tools and advice for anyone who wants to learn how to get out of debt or why we should live debt free. You can go to here and read “One for the Money” https://www.lds.org/bc/content/shared/content/english/pdf/language-materials/33293_eng.pdf