This post is going to be a little different from most of my past posts. I decided to share some of my tips and words of wisdom I’ve learned over the past few years since losing not one but three jobs in the course of the time between 2009 and 2016. When your financial world is ripped out from under you and you blow through all your savings to stay afloat, you tend to learn a thing or two, so here we go and don’t bail on me after the first one.
One – Tithe
If you are a believer in Jesus, then you need to tithe. No ifs ands or butts, you need to tithe. In my opinion, tithing is the number one thing as a believer you need to do for your finances to prosper. Money is a hard thing for us. Us as in myself included. I struggled with tithing so much and fought it for years until I finally obeyed but when I finally did God started doing miraculous things in my finances with 90% of my income that 100% never did. People still say tithing is Old Testament, but Jesus came to fulfill the Law, not abolish it. As a believer though, you don’t do this in your own power. You must lean on God.
Bring all the tithes (the tenth) into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this,” says the Lord of hosts, “if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you [so great] a blessing until there is no more room to receive it. Malachi 3:10 (AMP)
Two – Save
According to a Motley Fool article in 2016, more than six out of every ten Americans have less than $1000 in savings. Let that set in. More than 60% of us in America have little to no savings.
You can setup savings so easily now that you really have no excuse not to save. You can have $10 every paycheck dumped into a savings account or $20 put in a 401k or other retirement account the same way. If you do automatic savings, you easily get used to living on less and you really don’t feel a pinch in your pocketbook after a while.
Three – Cut Where You Can
The biggest thing I did when I was let go the second time from employment since 2009 was to cut small things and reap rewards in having lower bills which resulted in me not going into the red every month which is what I was doing and living off credit cards to stay afloat. Here’s the big three things I learned to do then and still do today. I have been told by people that these don’t make a difference, but they do.
• Cut off your electronics at night. I have a power strip on my entertainment center and I flip the switch off every night before bed. Most TV’s and electronics use some amount of electricity when off. Per Green Energy Efficient Homes, some TV’s use as much as 50 watts when turned off just to be in standby mode! Just flipping off the electronics every night saved about $5 the first month. That’s $60 per year!
• Cancel satellite, cable or other paid TV providers. I was paying $40+ per month for satellite and it was basic channels! I finally cut satellite off and got a digital antenna (about $50 one-time purchase) and got subscriptions to Hulu and Netflix (about $20 per month total). After paying for the antenna, I save $240 per year just from cutting satellite and frankly I have so much more to watch now via Hulu and Netflix than I ever did before via satellite.
• Watch your HVAC unit like a hawk! I’ve been shocked at how many people let their heat and air units run all year long and don’t bother to ever cut them off. For me, my electricity bill is mostly from my heat pump. When temperatures are nice, I keep the unit off and use ceiling fans or small fans in the house if needed. Only when it gets in the mid 80’s do I really need the air conditioning on. Not only will keeping the unit off until really needed save you a ton of money monthly on power bills, it will save you a lot on maintenance on the unit. HVAC units are like cars,if you maintenance them on a regular basis, they will probably run for years, maybe even a decade or two. The unit in my first house was about fifteen years old when I sold the house and it still worked.
Four – Always Be Willing To Learn
Even if you are great with money, you can always learn new things. I’m still getting a handle on some areas of my financesbut I’m on a five year plan now and if all goes well I should be almost completely debt free after five years. That will be amazing to be debt free!
Five – Dream And Set Goals
A friend of mine who has gone on to be with the Lord always envied me for traveling to Israel in 1998. She would say things like, oh I wish I could do that. Finally I told her she could! I told her that if she set aside a little money each month, eventually she would have the money to travel to Israel.
Sadly she never took my advice and as time went by she retired and never had the money to travel. She died not long after she retired without ever visiting a place that meant so much to her. I don’t want to live like that.
I want to visit Europe, I want to visit Asia and Australia. Will I make it there? I don’t know. But I hope to make it at least to Europe next year. I’m planning to save money and do my best to make that happen and trust the rest to God. You may not be able to save but $1 a month but start there. Who knows, in a few years you have may have a few thousand in the bank and can go on vacation! You never know until you try. We all have areas where we need to grow and I hope you will get some encouragement out of this post.
Until next time.
