These habits may even be interfering with your spiritual growth and your relationship to God. Perhaps these habits may affect the way you take care of your loved ones. This information is also an important tool for discovering bad or lazy habits you may unknowingly practice. First, it can show where discretionary spending can be controlled, thereby eventually providing money for more important things such as buying a home or starting a college fund. This process is important for several reasons. Using reason and moderation, add the appropriate occasional luxuries to your basic budget. However, a close look will probably show a lot of unnecessary spending of which you are not aware. Some Non-Necessity items are good to have, such as moderate entertainment and occasional splurges like a meal out or a latte. Most people find that the Non-Necessity column represents a lot of impulse buying and wasted money. When complete, the Necessity column is your basic monthly budget. Include in the Necessity column a figure for savings (for example, 10% of monthly income after taxes) and a figure for tithing to your church (10% is a traditional tithe, but the amount is up to you), even if you currently do neither. Closely examine each monthly expenditure and mark it down in the appropriate column. This will show how well you are currently handling your money.ĭivide another sheet of paper into two columns, one for Necessities and the other for Non-Necessities. Break each column down by month and deduct total expenses from total income. If you use credit and debit cards for a large amount of your spending, you can look at your statements. You can keep track of all your receipts for a month. Then in the second column (and this may be a difficult and painful thing), honestly, objectively, and completely write down every penny you spend and exactly what you spend it on. In the first column write down, honestly and objectively, all your income from every source. One way to do this is to ensure the economic health of our families and our churches by setting up a realistic budget.Ī good way to do this is to divide a sheet of paper into two columns. How do we handle the nuts and bolts of daily money management in an Orthodox Christian manner? We strive to glorify our Lord in all things, especially when it comes to money. This tool in wise and morally responsible ways. We can use money to do His will, or we can use it for financial sin. The need for money and how we handle it also affects our relationship with God. It affects us and those we love in a myriad of ways. The beds we sleep in, what we eat and drink, everything we use during the day, the buildings we enter, especially our homes, cost us or someone else money. From the moment we get up and perform our morning ablutions, everything from the water and toiletry products we use to the last item we use at night was bought and paid for by someone. As doctors swear to do, we should all try to “first do no harm” and strive to do God’s will in all our financial dealings.Įveryone-men, women and children (of appropriate age)-should know that every moment of our lives costs someone money. Once we know how and why money works, and when to use it, then we can make moral decisions in our money matters. It is our actions regarding money that become good or evil, so we should learn to use it rightly. As a tool, money is neither good nor evil. In other words, money is just a tool we use for trade. We agree to give it value in order to trade it for goods and services that have real, or intrinsic, value. So what is money? Simply, it is a symbol. It is nothing to fear or be nervous about. Money is not magic, mysterious, or difficult to understand. The reason it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to go to heaven is his attachment to wealth-his reverence for it and all it means in this world. That distinction goes to the lust for money. Contrary to popular belief, money is not the root of all evil.
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