Getting Out of Debt 2: Budgeting for Needs and Wants

Is your budget tight? Ours is. It has been for years. It is getting better, but I have noticed that after doing without for so long, there is a long list of things that we need or high priority wants that can really make saving a difficult challenge.

To help us in this endeavor, I created a spreadsheet to allow us to prioritize those important needs, wants, dreams, and includes blessings, as well.

I started the spreadsheet with just prioritizing needs and wants for the family. A priority 10 need was life or death – or close to it and it went down from there. For example, I prioritized Sweet Pea's swimming lessons at a 10 and Pumpkin's at an 8 because Sweet Pea had never had swimming lessons before and loved the water, but Pumpkin had had swimming lessons. It was important to have Sweet Pea learn to swim for her own safety.

I “had” to add a Blessed item to Wants and Needs after we were blessed with God's provision through our friends for things we needed. I highly recommend including this for those times that there is no way you can do what you need to do on your own, but God comes through for you as a reminder of God's love and provision. It has certainly been helpful for us. It is especially helpful to be reminded of these things if you have just encountered a downturn in your family income. It is so easy to try to fix it or figure it out on your own and be self-sufficient, but when you realize that your best efforts cannot do what God can do, it is humbling and ever so helpful to strengthen you in doing what you are called to do and remain faithful to Him.

Please feel free to use this for your own benefit. I hope it proves helpful to you. To use most effectively, highlight the active cells, choose Data, Sort, then sort by Need/Want – ascending; Priority – descending; and Cost – ascending. It works out nicely this way in that your blessings are listed first, followed by “done” items, your needs next, wants come third, and dreams (Zzzz) are last. It is also nice because if you have two competing priorities, the least expensive one comes first so that you feel that you are making progress.

How do you prioritize your needs and wants in your family's budget?

Getting Out of Debt 1: Family Finance

Family Finance

If you, like me, are the keeper of the budget, you may know just how challenging it is to get your spouse involved in making the budget and working together. If you cannot stand making budgets and they bore you out of your skull, then your personality matches my husband's. He hates it, also.

I worked with the Crown Financial Ministries program that started with Larry Burkett. I really liked the program, but I could not engage my husband or teenage / young adult son in the matter. It made working on a family budget really challenging.

Enter, Dave Ramsey. I had wanted to take the class, but in our community, the church that offered it offered it on a night we were not available. Fortunately, one of my dear friends and her husband took the course. She offered it to her friends in and outside of her church. My husband, son, and I took the course. The first DVD of the program (this is the just older program, not the newest 2012 version) got my husband and son's attention. YEA!

Is he teaching anything different from Crown Financial Ministries? No, not really. The only “big” difference is the order in which Dave Ramsey recommends paying off debt. What Dave Ramsey does well is showmanship. This is what my husband and son needed. He gave them a reason to be interested in making a budget. He gave them a reason to save, especially showing the numbers for a young man starting to save $2000 per year at age 20 versus waiting until age 26 to do the same. Lucky Charms got that message. The only downside is that Lucky Charms is rather impulsive still and wants things “now” rather than saving, so he leans toward wanting to get a loan, though fortunately, when he does, it tends to be short-term loans. He is contemplating consequences and costs more thoroughly, though.

If you and your spouse, if you are married, (or fiancée / financé if  engaged) have not yet taken this course, I highly recommend taking it. It may take time to get the program to work for your family with ups and downs in family financial circumstances, but keep working at it. You will be blessed and you will see those debts dwindle down and your capacity for providing for your needs and wants – and long-term future – increase.

What has been your most successful method for getting your family on a budget? Who inspires you?