BUDGETING

I read a book titled ‘More Money Now’. It is a secular book but it has nuggets of truth to learn from. One of my takeaways was about budgeting. The author said that most millionaires don’t keep a budget. Because budgeting will never make you rich. Budgeting focuses on tactic without understanding that good personal finance is 80% mindset and behaviour, 20% tactic. It was when she stopped using a budget that she discovered a better way to manage her money that she started to see real change.

A budget may give us instant benefit but this creates a false sense of security that prevents us from looking at the reasons why we are overspending in the first place. To break out of this the first thing we need to do is acknowledge that a budget limits our control. You need to learn what is important to you and to think critically about what you are spending and why. But society doesn’t want us thinking, it wants us following a set of rules and norms. 

 

She sought to understand more about why she did the things and how she could empower herself to do the things necessary to bring her closer to her goals. To know where her thoughts about money came from, how those shaped her life and how to rewrite them. To create a simple way to manage her money that didn’t involve shame, blame, restriction or anxiety. Create new money rules to run her life that would provide the opposite effect of budgeting.

 

She needed to learn how to seek happiness in what she bought and stop buying stuff that didn’t satisfy. Instead of trying to conform to some predetermined plan that didn’t work, she had to rewrite the rules and make them work for her. Finally she was ready to truly learn about saving, investing and growing her money without sacrificing her happiness to get there. She talked about money gauge, which is simply the amount of money that feels normal and natural to you. Your comfort zone with money. 

 

I just wanted to process what she said at this point. Now budgeting is my area of strength. It was a tool that served me well all those years. It helped me to better track my household finances. At least I knew where the money was coming from and where it was going. I had a good grasp on our cash flow and our savings level. I don’t have a savings goal though. I only used the tool to track my spending, to make sure that we are not overspending. 

 

I also don’t apportion our savings into various categories because I felt it was too restrictive. And I don’t take note of every single thing we spent on. Just the baseline items like dining, groceries, others etc. Even so I felt it was getting a little onerous recently. Yet I must say that budgeting served me very well. I am proud of my household budget. It also gave me a sense of security to see that our bank accounts are growing. It was like a sacred cow to me. 

 

Unlike the author, I actually enjoyed budgeting. I enjoyed tracking where our money went to. It worked very well for me in the past few years. But somehow lately I sensed God telling me that my budget could be limiting me. It started in Jun 2023, when I realised our spending had been higher in the last few months and I felt that we should tighten our belts. I didn’t like this feeling of spending out of control. I was also cautious of lifestyle creep. But no, we didn’t spend excessively. 

 

It could be due to inflation and higher cost of living that our household expenses went up. This also caused some anxiety because I began to wonder if inflation would put a strain on our savings in future. Which was why I became more careful with our spending. To a point that it was limiting me. It really does limit my control of my finances. Not only that, it was focusing me on the demand side, trying to cut down costs when God is enlarging my vision regarding the supply. 

 

So then, the poverty mentality within me surfaced. I am the kind of person who enjoys saving and at times I will try not to spend if I can go without something. I know that spending money makes most people happy but not me. Saving money makes me happy. I knew I was going overboard when I had nothing to save up for but yet I was still saving. I don’t know what I am saving up for. Definitely not retirement. It could be to build the buffer to pay our home loan mortgage in cash.

 

When this poverty mindset came up again, I realised God was trying to get a message across to me. The mindset has got to do with everything: personal finance and savings. Firstly where was my security about money? Is it in my ability to control my budget well or is my trust in God to provide? Secondly is this budgeting empowering me or limiting me in this new season? It might have worked well in the last season but it could be old wineskin that limits my potential in this new season. 

 

The Lord was also teaching me about saving, investing and growing my money without sacrificing my happiness to get there. So while I began to sense less ‘life’ or enjoyment when doing budgeting, I sense more ‘life’ when God was teaching me how to increase our passive income. I wasn’t looking forward to tracking our expenses every month. In fact I would get stressed and cringe when I realised it was more than previous months. Then I would avoid activities that require us to spend money. It became too restrictive. 

 

So yes in the new season I believe God wants me to spend more time on increasing our income. Be it through doing some business or other forms of investment. Maybe less on reducing our expenses. Because we are already very lean. A lot of our expenses could not be cut down further like taxes, utilities, mobile bills, tithing, parents’ allowance, insurance, maintenance etc. We already spent lesser on petrol and parking this year because we don’t drive as often. 

FINANCIAL FREEDOM

Since last Oct, God has been renewing my mind about abundance mentality. Which brings me to the topic I want to discuss today. Financial freedom. Yes, this is my pet topic. The key point about financial freedom is people spend money to buy ‘time’ and freedom for their lives. The freedom to do what they want to do, not having to work in order to pay the bills. This concept is very liberating. At some point though there is passive income, these people are still doing some part-time work.

In a sense, financial freedom is more like a freedom of thought. The freedom to choose not to build your life around certain brands or advertisements. Freedom from the need to show off your status in society with flashy status symbols. Freedom to be curious about how money flows and how to invest it properly. Of course the freedom to believe that it’s ok to live a happy life without working hard for money but to make money work hard for you. The freedom to quit their job at some point, overcoming the fear of lack or facing insecurity over the uncertainty of their future.

 

Many people are very busy spending their hard-earned money. People are so caught up in this cycle of consumption that we not longer even realise how enslaved we are. Trap of consumerism. We deserve it after all. We work hard for our money so we are entitled to a little reward. That’s probably why God had to address our financial roadmap because most of us didn’t put much thought into it. Just follow the world’s system. So God wanted to pull us out of that system and teach us to rely on Him for provision.

 

Now, let’s talk about reducing our cost of living. Getting used to living a frugal lifestyle which will help us once we are financially free because we will need relatively less investment income to cover our expenses. But this means we have to change our habits which is tougher. The major recurring costs in our lives are key. How we handle such costs linked to lifestyle choices makes a huge difference to our finances. Hence there is a need to get these expenses under control while young or while it is still relatively manageable.

 

Of course we can decide how much we want to increase them later on in our lives. Many people tend not to watch their budget when on holiday. After all, how often do we get to travel? But if that is how they feel, holidays will necessarily become a big expense. If they plan two or three holidays a year, the cost of these holidays can quickly become a major expense in their overall budget. Of course holidays don’t have to be expensive. You can lower your standards, intentionally choose less expensive countries, take fewer trips etc.

 

I think for most millennials, holidays are a major expense in their lives. Because they plan for at least a few trips a year. One expensive trip and two in the neighbouring countries. It might be tougher for them to save money because they prefer to spend on things that could improve their lives now, rather than to save up for retirement. Their desire is to enjoy the good life, the executive living right now and not have to wait till retirement. Nothing wrong but they might be a bit myopic at times.

 

There was a survey that asked how people want to spend their credit cards with no limits in five years’ time, and few people chose boundless luxury. Sure, at first most people want to take a good break, go on nice holiday, travel around the world etc. But after a while monotony sets in and soon it would not be as exciting or fun as the beginning. At some point, people would like to be involved in meaningful work like helping people or growing a farm etc. Which is why being financially free is good because we have control over our time. 

 

We don’t have to drive ourselves crazy over projects or jobs or timelines anymore. We can do things in small doses. See if it works for us. Some days less, some days more. If I don’t have to work for money, I can still choose to do so if it seems worthwhile. I can negotiate more freely with clients and not be afraid to lose a client.  I can give myself the space to think about what God wants me to focus on in each season when I am not pressured to make money. It is a relaxed attitude about my work. 

Most people do not support the FIRE movement because they felt it was for lazy people. People who did not want to work for the rest of their lives. However, I believe for some people, they just did not want to feel bound to a job they did not like. For me, financial freedom is very precious. The ability to choose is also very powerful. But it would require God to renew our minds (from poverty to abundance) and lots of courage on our part. And wise financial planning too. 

BLESSED 2024!

Here’s wishing all of you a most blessed and joyful 2024! We are truly crossing over into a new season and it is an exciting journey of seeing God do new things in our lives. Isaiah 43:19 says ‘See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up to you; do you not perceive it?’ Many prophetic words had been released over 2024 and I believe it is a good year for those who are in Christ. 

In this new season, I sense the Holy Spirit leading me to a different focus for my blog. It will still be biblical but the emphasis would be on the financial aspects. Because this had been an area the Lord was teaching me for many years and an area of my research so I thought about sharing some of my thoughts that might bless my readers. 

I believe that a good starting point to approach the financial issue would be your values and principles in life. Then you build your financial goals around it. I read a book from Mario Singh titled ‘The Magical Rule of Thre3’ and he talked about the value of money. What money represents to different people. 

Mario came up with a ‘Love Triangle’. Freedom, security and power. Money can certainly buy many forms of freedom. Freedom of travel and freedom of work. Freedom of travel isn’t dependent on how much money you have. People who are far from rich can travel extensively if they make it a priority to do so. 

Most of us work not because we want to but because we have to. Pay the bills, home mortgage, support aged parents and kids‘ education etc. Money gives us freedom from work means we can leave the workplace. These people are finally free from dismal wages, workplace discrimination and bad bosses. Many can choose to do something they really enjoy or start a new business. Yet another reason people want to have money is for financial security.

 

They focus so much on long term financial security because of rising costs of living and inflation. Even rich people are not spared from this. Financial concerns are top of the priority even for people in Singapore who are considered rich in the world’s views. Money worries are common in everyone regardless of their wealth status. Hence most people were likely to see money as providing a peace of mind and ensuring protection for themselves and their loved ones. 

 

Lastly some people are addicted to making more money because they wanted more power. They don’t necessarily want more stuff. What they want is the influence and respect that having more money brings. Money becomes a status symbol. Thus many people who seek influence and respect attain it by seeking money. The ultimate advantage of money is that it offers us choices in life. It increases our options. Money is what you pay but value is what pays you. For me, money to me means freedom. 

 

I don’t need money for security because my security comes from the Lord. He has proven Himself to be my Jehovah Jireh. Which is why I don’t plan for retirement. Having said that, I would like to have financial freedom (debt free). The ability to choose how I can use my time without beholden to making money. Besides I already know the unstable nature of wealth and riches. Having money may not necessarily provide that peace of mind and protection in these last days where things are being shaken. 

This would be all for now but in future posts I would talk about the topic of ‘Financial Independence, Retire Early’ or FIRE in short. I am not sure if many people subscribe to this movement but I felt the concepts discussed in FIRE were quite interesting. So yes, I will be covering this.