Why make a spending plan

People hate budgets. They're worse than diets. You start out with the best intentions only to give up the first time your budget doesn't fit your wants.

It doesn't really have to be that painful if you remember that you control your budget, it doesn't control you. Its your money, you get to decide!! There's one tiny, tiny catch, however, you can't do or have everything.

And that's the problem. Too many people want what they want (not need) right now, this instant. Isn't that the reason God created credit?? (A whole different debate is who did create credit)

A good budget is really nothing more than a plan, created either by you or with your unique imput, about how to spend your money but no more. It avoids credit. It teaches patience and intentionality. It distinguishes between wants and needs. It creates priorities, and when those priorities are driven by Godly principles, the spending plan will bring us closer to God.

If you take it a step further and assume that you pay what you have to pay first, that is giving, savings and fixed expenses, that all you really have to plan for is how to spend your discretionary income. For most of us, that isn't a whole lot to worry about.