All right, we're continuing looking at this whole area of personal finances. You  have to take control of your own personal finances before you can ever hope to  expand towards enterprise. So in this session, we're going to look at probably  one of the most famous and well followed gurus in the whole personal finance  world, Dave Ramsey. If you're from the United States and Canada, you've  already heard his name. A lot of seminars are put on in churches. I think he has  his own radio program where he talks about personal finances, but you can just  google him and go right online. It's really basic stuff. The seven things that I'm  going to tell you, these are sort of his seven key things that you have to do with  your personal finances are probably seven things that you would come up with if you if you just sat down and asked yourself, okay, what? How could I take care  of my personal finances better? These are the kind of the things that you would  probably come up with. So we're going to just briefly look at them, and then  we're going to talk about the whole budgeting thing, and how you might set up  your own personal budget. So there's seven baby steps. That's what he calls the Baby steps. Baby step number one is to establish an emergency fund. Proverbs, 10:5, this is one of my favorite proverbs. A wise youth makes hay while the sun  shines, but what a shame to see a lad who sleeps away his hour of opportunity. I grew up in the city, Grand Rapids, Michigan, but when I was in ninth grade, my  father bought a farm, so I went from living into the city to all of a sudden on the  farm. One day, I'm getting up at like nine o'clock in the morning. Next day, I'm  getting up at five o'clock in the morning to milk the cows. And we had 100 acres, and we had a tractor and we had a plow and we had to plant. And probably my  least favorite thing was haying season. You had to go out and cut the hay, to  bale the hay, and then is usually like 95 degrees out Fahrenheit to humidity, and  you had to stick the hay into the barn. You had to do haying at a particular time  and a particular part of the season. If you missed your opportunity to do the hay  and get too long and get too wet, it had to be dry for three or four days. Then  you would do the haying if you missed it. You missed it. Well, this is a metaphor  for people's finances. The first thing that you need to establish is an emergency  fund. You can't live paycheck to paycheck. You can't you know people when  they figure out their expenses, you know they have their monthly bills, they have their phone, they have the internet the other house, they have the car, they have one thing after another, and then they add all of them up, and then they see their monthly income, and they go, well, it matches. Yeah, it matches, as long as  some emergency doesn't happen. All of a sudden, something breaks, something goes wrong, and now you're behind. So Dave Ramsey says you should first  establish an emergency fund. What is how much would that be? It depends on  where you live and what the general income that people have, what people  need to survive in your area. But you need at least, least a month or so of  income. Or, you know, if you didn't make any money for a month, you should be  able to survive, at least for a month. Baby Step number two, this is a big one, 

pay off all debt using the Debt Snowball debt, the only debt that you should  really have is on a house. When you buy a house, it's it's a huge investment.  You buy it over time. Sometimes people will spend 30 years paying for their  house, but everything else, you should really buy only when you have the  money. But that's not how people operate. They get themselves into debt. The  problem with debt is you now have the debt that you have to pay, plus you have  all the stuff that you need to do to live before you got into debt. You were just  living, and then you ended up spending more and you got into debt. So now you have everything you did before, plus the debt and that just drags you down. So  he talks about how you should attack debt. Now, the logical way to attack attack  debt is to look at all the things that you own. Here he gives an example, $500  medical bill, $2,500 credit card debt, $7,000 car loan and $10,000 student loan.  Now, again, these are probably American examples. You'd have to think about  the examples in your own culture. Okay, now, logically, how I would approach  this is to pay off the debt that has the highest interest rate, regardless of whether it's it's a high thing, or $7,000 car loan, or the $2,500 credit card, probably the  credit card is going to be a high interest I would pay first of all the credit card,  because it's the highest interest. Too much of my money is just going for  interest. But Dave Ramsey says, Yeah, well, that's a logical thing to do, but  we're but people need to psychologically attack this whole debt thing. So what  he suggests is you start with the smallest debt. So he's suggesting you start with the $500 medical bill. And what he's also suggesting is that for a brief time, it's  like you're going to really work at this. You're going to go gangbusters on your  debt. You're going to pay it off. And he's suggesting that you find an extra $500  somehow, that you save $500 you get a part time job, you do something, you do whatever it takes to add $500 to your debt. So if you start with the easiest one or the smallest one, you pay off that medical bill gone. Now you were paying $50 a  month. So now you have the $500 that you want to use to pay things off. But  now you have the $50 too. So now you have 550 so now you attack the credit  card thing. This is how he says it goes in the Debt Snowball. We would list the  debts in that order. Remember, ignore the interest rates start by making  minimum payments on everything but the medical bill. For this example, let's say you find an extra $500 each month to go toward that debt by getting an extra  job, slashing your lifestyle to nothing or going crazy, that's very doable. He says, since you're paying 550 a month on the medical bill, the $50 payment, plus the  $500 extra, that medical bill won't even last a month, so now it's gone. Now take the 550 and then attack the credit card debt. When that happens, you'll be  paying $613 on the credit card. The freed up 550 and the $63 that you were  paying already in about four months. You wave goodbye to the credit card debt.  You paid it off. Now we're attacking the car debt. Start paying off the car note to  the tune of $748 a month. And what is that made up of? It's the freed 613 plus,  the $135 monthly payment that you would have to pay other anyway, in 10 

months, you'll be done with that one once you've gotten to the student loan,  you'll be putting $844 a month on it. It will last only 12 months because of your  hard work and sacrifice, you have paid off 20,000 in debt and only 27 months  using the Debt Snowball. Congratulations. See, I hope you understand what  he's saying. You have all these debts and you're making monthly payments.  That's something you have to do now go out and try to find $500 and put that  $500 on the smallest one. Once the smallest one is taken care of, you now have the $500 plus that monthly payment that you no longer have to use, and you  attack the second one. And when you're done with the second one, you have  the monthly payment that you were making on the first one and the second one  plus the $500 you attack the third one. And so your ability to pay off is just  growing and growing and growing. And finally, the whole thing is paid off. Paying off your debts really, really works. I had an associate pastor working for me, and  he was always behind in his finances. I didn't understand it. He had a good job.  He's making enough money. And I looked at his finances. And finally, I figured  out, you know that Ford Bronco that you love so much it's killing you. If you  would just sell that Ford Bronco, all your troubles would be gone, and in three  years you could buy it back. He was unwilling to sell his Ford Bronco, and so he  still has financial problems. Baby step number three, save three to six months of expenses in savings. Okay, to have enough cushion for life and to feel confident  and secure about your finances, you really need some money in the bank. And  the reason people don't have. Money in the Bank is because whenever they get  money in the bank, they think, Well, I've got all this money in the bank. I want to  finally buy that thing that I want. Maybe it's a car. Maybe it's a drone. Drones are very popular today. I have one, but I waited until I had enough money before I  could buy one. Frank, inside joke. So try to save three to six months of  expenses. What does that mean? That means evaluate how much money you  need for every single month, and then you need to save that much money times  six. And that money goes into the bank and that money you can't touch. It's not  just sitting there so you can do whatever you want with it. It's there in case you  absolutely need it. Number four, invest 15% income into a Roth IRA or pre tax  retirement. In the United States, we have these investment things that you if you put money into them, they can accumulate interest the rest of your life. And  when you retire, you can take that money out, and you don't pay any taxes on it. So if you put $10,000 in in over 40 years, that becomes worth $30,000 one day,  when you retire, you can take all that money out, and you made $20,000 on  your $10,000 and you don't have to pay any taxes on that's a huge advantage.  In other words, start thinking about your retirement. Instead of living off the  government or living off your family. What can you save? What can you do that  will help you with your retirement. Baby step five fund college savings for  children. Okay, this is this has become more and more necessary. I went to  college back in the day, and it wasn't that expensive, really. And my father was 

the kind that said, you know, you want to go to college, pay for it yourself. So  that's what I did. I paid for it myself. But in those days, you could work enough in the summer to actually pay your college debt. So when I graduated four years  later, I didn't have any debt, and I went to four years in seminary again, I made  enough money on the side to pay for it. Now today, people are getting into huge  debts. They graduate from four years of school and they have $50,000 in debt.  Now my first advice to you would be to just go to CLI. It's free. If CLI had  existed, when I went to school, I went to Calvin College for four years. I don't  know what today, it would cost you 50, 60, $70,000 to go and do that today. I  could go to CLI get my degree, and then from there, I could go to Calvin  seminary, which is what I did, and I could save myself $60,000 with my children,  I have four boys, we decided to save $5,000 for each of them a year. So that's  what we said to them. This is what we're going to give you. The rest is your  problem, just giving your kids all the money to do something, probably not the  way to go. They don't appreciate it, they don't work. They don't have the  understanding of what things are worth, the value of things. So that's just what  we do. Baby step six, pay off your house early. I know a lot of you don't own a  house. Some of you do. Some of you wish you did. But this is just, you know,  just you think about how money works. If you bought a house, for example, here in the United States, for $100,000 or let's say, you bought a house for $120,000  you put $20,000 down, and now you have a loan for $100,000 your monthly  payment is $477 not counting taxes or insurance. It cost you $144 every single  month and $333 is interest. You're taking all the money from the bank, and the  bank says, Hey, we want some money back from you. You know, holding on to  our money, $333 a month is what it costs you. So you're paying the bank $144  actually reduces your debt. So instead of owing $100,000 you now own 999,000 some $800 $850 so after a month, after one payment, you only, you've only paid off $144 so if, when you pay your monthly thing of $447 if you just added $144  whatever you add to your payment goes off. The interest goes off the principal.  So if you can make an extra payment of $100 every month, you could actually,  you know, on a 30 year mortgage, you could actually pay it off in 25 years. You  can get rid of years of paying just by adding a little bit to your house payment.  When I moved to Canada, that's where I bought my first house. Bought it for  $114,000 interest rates were at 12% at that time, so I was motivated to pay it off. So for the next nine years, I added to it, added to it. And when I left, I only owed  $20,000 in the whole thing. Get motivated to pay off your home early number  seven. Build wealth and give I've read other people talk about other Christian  authors talk about finances, and the one I like said something like the there's the 80-10-10 rule that you 100% of your income, 80% goes for taking care of your  life. 10% goes to God, and 10% goes towards your future, towards investments  and thinking about your own retirement. That's just sort of a rule of thumb. In the Bible, there's this thing called 10% or the tithe. Maybe you've heard of the tithe, 

and so a lot of people will do that. They will tithe. They'll take 10% of their  interest, 10% of their income, and give it back to God, the church or whatever  organization that they want to give it to. Now I think tithing is good. I personally, I do tithe, but I don't think it's the biblical norm, per se. If you read the Bible,  tithing is talked about in the Old Testament, but it's never mentioned in the New  Testament. Tithing is not mentioned in the New Testament. In the Old  Testament, the tithe was in a theocracy, so it's the government. Is the  government then and the religion were all one thing, and your tithe paid for both  the government and the religion. Well, today we separate those things, we have  more than 10% going to our government, and then we pay our churches  separately. So the whole system is different. As I said, the word tithe is not  mentioned in the New Testament, but let me tell you what is mentioned in the  New Testament was to offer our bodies, everything that we are to God. God  deserves not just 10% he deserves 100% 100% of my income is his. 100% of  what I own is his. Every financial decision that I make is not mine alone. It's for  the Kingdom. The car that I buy, the clothes that I buy, everything that I do is  connected to God and His kingdom. So what some people do with this whole  tithe thing is they think, Well, okay, I owe 10% back to God, so I pay my 10%  and the other 90% I can do whatever I want. I'm off the hook with God with 10%  no, you may give it to church. You may give it to organizations, but whatever you keep is still connected to God. How can I use my house? How can I use the  things that I buy, the toys that I buy, everything that I buy? One day I will stand  before God, and God will say, what did you do with it? I gave you all these  things. I gave you the ability to make money. I gave you these things that you  bought. What did you do with these things for my kingdom? So, you know, I  don't, you know now, I don't want to, I don't want to be negative on the tithe,  because I actually I tithe. I think 10% is a good amount giving towards other  things. But the reality is, everything that I do, all my money, needs to be thought  of as giving towards God. All the things that I give to my kids. Am I investing in  my kids earn? Am I investing in my kids who are investing in the kingdom. It's  always about God's kingdom. Okay, so that's the Dave Ramsey thing. You can  Google it. You can watch videos of him. And there's more details with these  things, but I want to talk a little bit about a budget for the rest of our time here  together. What about a budget? A budget is where you sort of figure out how  much you're making and how much you want to spend, and hopefully those  things work out. Now, the problem with a budget is most people don't do it. It's  the number one way to get in control of your finances, but most people. Will not  do it. They don't have the discipline. They don't well, let's see what the problem  is. Where to begin with a budget? Let's just talk about where you would begin if  you were going to do it. Start the budgeting process by keeping track of all your  income and all your expenses for two or three months. Okay, just try an  experiment for three months, keep track of everything that goes up, every dime 

that you spend, every dollar that you spend, and then keep track of all the  income that you get for three months. So income? What's income? You might  have a job, and they pay you every couple of weeks your job pay maybe you got some United States, we sometimes get tax credits. The government gives you  money back. I know it's crazy. Live in the United States, and the government  gives you money back. Number three, gifts. Someone may give you money, or  they give you something that you sell, and then you get the money. You may  have a side job that you do, and someone pays you that money. That's income.  All the money that comes to you in one way or another, is income, okay, then  expenses. Here I just give you a whole list your housing, your mortgage, your  property tax, repairs, rent, however it is that you're doing your housing. Then  there's utilities. Here in the United States, here in the north part, we have snow  and so we have heating and gas, electric, water, sewer, trash, number three  insurance, insurance on your house, insurance on your life, insurance on your  car, health insurance, food, groceries, Restaurant, your clothes, transportation,  taxi, bus, car payments, gas, phone, internet, haircut. You get your hair cut  every couple of months. That's an expense, television, cable, whatever internet  thing that you have going on, education, entertainment. So just you have to think about all the things every time you spend anything, you gotta have a category  that it goes into giving. If you give to your church, that's an expense. It's money  going out saving. Let's say you save money and put it in a special account, or  you put it in the jar. That's money going out hobbies, stuff that you buy  miscellaneous. So in other words, keep track of everything. Every time you  spend any money for it, you buy a thing of pop that has to go under something,  groceries, entertainment, whatever. It doesn't matter what it is. You put it under  some category Next, try to anticipate your income for each month of the coming  year, 12 months. Now, if you have a job, and it's a regular paycheck, and the  paycheck is the same, it's very easy, very easy to go, I know it next month and  the next month. Now, if you're self employed, you have no idea. You have to sort of go on an average over the last few years on average, this is the kind of  income that I get every single month. Next try to anticipate your expenses for  each month based on your anticipated income. Your anticipated anticipated  expenses cannot exceed your anticipated income. Then write out your  anticipated budget for the coming year and monthly installments. So you make  your best guess as to what your income is going to be for this month, the next  month, the next month, the next month, and for 12 months out, and then based  on the last three months of taking care of things and then keeping track of the  expenses going out, you try to write down for each month. Here's my expenses,  here's my mortgage, here's my heating, here's my cooling, here's my food,  here's my transportation. You put all those things and you anticipate for the next  12 months, so you end up with 12 pieces of paper, or you can do it on the  computer, whatever you want to do, where you are estimating your income and 

you're estimating your expenses next now keep track of your actual income and  expenses for each month and compare your anticipated or budgeted income  and expenses for each month. So a budget is really a guess. You're thinking  ahead for the next year, and you're guessing for each month the expenses and  the income. Now you live the actual month, and you write down right next to it,  okay, this is what I thought I would get an income, but this is what I really got.  This is what I thought I would spend on things. This is what I really spent. And  you compare, and what you'll find is sometimes they'll be different. Sometimes  you'll spend more than you thought on a particular thing. But see now you know  you have to make up for that money, because your expenses and your income  should balance out. And if they don't, then you're going in reverse. So if one  month you spend more than you should, then the next month maybe you better  save more than you should. So that's the that's the way the budget keeps track  and helps you stay motivated. Why most people fail at this. This is, this is the  number one way that people can actually get on top of their finances. But people fail left, right and center, and actually doing a budget why is that number one  lack of discipline. I have a wallet, and I have some money. You know, I actually  have money. My wife doesn't always let me have money, but I have some  money in my wallet. Now, this money will be gone in a month, or who knows  how long it will last, and I'll just pay for things, and I won't write it down. It takes  discipline that every time I buy something on the way home, I buy a bottle of pop and write it down, well, there's $1 unaccounted for and and for me to write it  down and to figure out where to put it takes some discipline. Now, the credit  card, at least when I use that, I get a monthly statement, but it's got all these  things, and I have to be able to sit down and figure out and write it down and put it into a category, and I had to add it all up. It takes discipline to do it. You have  to really say I got to do this. Or, number two, lack of tools. How do I write it  down? What's the best way? And so there's programs, but people get into the  program and it's so complicated they can't figure it out. Or some people like to  use Excel, but then you have to go home and use Excel. You know, what you  can do is just have a pad of paper. You can put it in your pocket, and you just,  you just have to keep track of each one of these things. Or number three, really,  this is what it is, lack of motivation. People just not motivated. Instead of me  getting control of my personal finances, I'm going to let the bank keep track of  my finances. I'm going to let the debt keep track and motivate me. I'm going to  let the bank tell me when I should work hard, when I can take it easy, and when I can splurge and when I can blow money, because all of a sudden, bank tells me  I have more money than I thought I did, so I can now blow it. You can let  someone else manage your money, or you can figure out now I want to manage  my money. So ultimately, what you really need is motivation. Why do I want to  manage my money? Why do I want my personal finances to be better? And if  you're thinking about why you're taking this class, it's so that you can do 

ministry, see, if you have an eye on the prize, you know why you want to do  this? So you want little story, my wife and I were both going to school. I was in  seminary, she was in college, and so we had all that debt, and we were living in  an upstairs apartment. We had one little heater, and we found it for $80 a month. It's unbelievable. That year, I said to my father, I think we can live on $10 a  month or a week, $10 a week. And my father said, No way. You cannot live on  $10 a week. That's for the food, soap, all those kinds of things, two people. And I said, I think we can. So I kept track of it that whole year. In that whole year, we  went out to eat one time, one time we went out to McDonald's. In that whole  year, I bought, I love ice cream. I bought one half gallon of ice cream. We were  going to do this, and I kept I wrote it all down, $10 $9 $3 whatever, whatever we  spent on gas, everything I rode my bike to school, and at the end of the year, we did it. And you know what? It wasn't hard. And let me tell you why it wasn't hard.  It wasn't hard because both of us are going to school to eventually be able to do  the ministry that we felt God was calling us to. Do you see, that grand vision  made the sacrifice and whatever it took to live a certain way and made it easy. It  wasn't a sacrifice at all. And you know, because we did it that year, if I lost  everything tomorrow, I know I'd be okay. Because, you know, having more is  nicer, nice, but it's not. It's not what my life is all about. My life is about what God is calling me to do, and if that is what I'm called to do, that's what I do. We I  remember we bought a couch, and the couch, we got it for five. Dollars. We got  it for $5 because it didn't have legs. We bought a couch with no legs. We just  put them on bricks. They have a little skirt covered up the bricks anyway, no big  deal. We'll take a couch without legs. Why? Because we're on the way to a  mission. Why you should be one of those people who actually succeeds at this  whole budget thing. Number one, making a budget and sticking with it is the  most successful strategy and getting on top of your finances. Number two, if you cannot follow a budget in your personal life, you will never be able to follow a  budget in your enterprise business life, and that's why you're taking this class.  Finally, number three, why should you be one of those people that actually  succeed this? Because, you know, you're a steward. Genesis 2:15, The Lord  took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.  Not own it. you are a steward of your money, of your time, of your talents,  whatever it is that you do, you don't own it. Number I Corinthians 4 for what  gives you the right to make such a judgment? What do you have that God hasn't given you? And if everything you have is from God, why do you boast as though  it were not a gift? Everything we have is God. We are the stewards of these  things, Deuteronomy 8. Be careful not to say, my own ability and skill have  gotten me this wealth. You must remember the Lord your God, for He is the one  who gives ability to get wealth. And if you do this, you will confirm His covenant  that he made by oath to your ancestors, even as he has to this day again, that  whole notion God owns my whole life, 100% of it, not 10% I mean, you can give 

10% to church, but that other 90% is God's too everything you save for your  future is God your time, Your ability, the classes that you're taking here at CLI,  all the plans, everything that you want to do, all the ministry, everything is about  God's kingdom. And once you see that, see that will provide the motivation to do everything.



Last modified: Tuesday, November 12, 2024, 9:37 AM