Steps To Personal Financial Management

We need to have enough money and resources to make life what it should be without jeopardizing our mental, social and spiritual needs. Most people today are in paid employment or work on salary for someone else. If you are in this situation, your chances for sudden increase of income by a large amount may not be particularly promising. You may receive automatic but small raises based on your company formula or union-management agreement.

If there is a possibility of "moving up" financially, you will have to demonstrate your usefulness. Make yourself more valuable to your boss or company. Put the emphasis on helping your organization earn more money, save more money or improve its product or performance and secure a pay raise.

What if you cannot do better financially even though you work harder and smarter? You have two options. Stay put on that job or move to another job or company. Do not consider quitting your present job, however, until you know a better and more secure position awaits you somewhere.

Perhaps your type of employment has only limited monetary value. And you have achieved the highest pay possible. Can you educate yourself and improve your value in the job marketplace? Perhaps you have the ability to create your own job by starting a small business. To succeed, you will have to make your product or service valuable and desirable to the consumer. Beware of the immense amount of paperwork involved in being self-employed.

Simply put, being able to earn more depends on your attitude of service to others. It also means making the most of your abilities and situation.

Again, in terms of financial goals, we must first plan for today. But we must also carefully consider the future. If we include a regular savings plan in our budget, we can build up a sizable amount of savings over a period of time. It is important to think through your goals in life as early as possible. However, it is never too late to do so. Consider your long-term financial goals. Make these a part of your spending and saving plan. What about a possible home purchase, the cost of educating your children, and money for retirement?

Perhaps your income is not that large. Can you save at least a small portion of it each month? If you do this over a period of time, placing the money in a wise investment like buying shares, you would be surprised at how much you would have for the later years of your lives. From this saving, you could draw an income, upon retirement, from the interest you receive on your monthly investment.

So far, you can consider several options on increasing your income and spending it wisely. Now, let's turn to the most important consideration in managing your personal finances.

Make God Your Partner: Strange as it may sound, what we are able to earn depends little on us. Any income we produce depends on assets we did not create. And they don't really belong to any human being, corporation or government.

The fact is that a personal Creator God made and sustains all that exists. Would not this God, by virtue of having created everything, have good reason to claim that everything — including ourselves — belongs to him? God does make such a claim. "The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it" (Psalm 24:1). He says the wild animals and cattle are his (Psalm 50:10-12), and so is all the silver and gold (Haggai 2:8).