The following message was given at Emmanuel Baptist Church, Coconut Creek, Florida. Good to see you here today. I hope everyone has had a nice weekend. We have a great A great Lord's Day today to be able to come together and worship the Lord Jesus and we're always thankful for every opportunity we have to gather as his people. I want to pray real quick and then we will jump right into our Sunday school hour. Father, we are so very grateful for every Lord's Day, for every opportunity we have to be with your people, to take a rest from our earthly cares and concerns and our earthly labors, and to be able to focus all of our hearts, all of our attention upon Christ. And Lord, may we always see the Lord's Day as a gift from you. And may we always cherish our brothers and sisters in Christ and the relationships that we have and the love that we share because of Christ. And so we pray that today, not only from our teaching, from hearing the Word of God, from enjoying all of the means of grace that are present as we gather, but also, Lord, that our fellowship with one another would be sweet, encouraging, edifying, and that we would delight all the more in what you have given to us as your people, as your church. We do pray, Lord, for our time in Sunday school, for not only here in this class, but also for our children's classes, for the teachers. And for the students, Lord, our great plea, our great desire is that our young children would hear from your word, would know that it is true, and that they would believe in their hearts and confess with their mouths that Jesus Christ is Lord. May there never be a day of their lives when they do not trust the Lord Jesus. And may you use this time in Sunday school each and every week to be a blessing to them to that very end. But we do pray for our time, Lord, that it would be helpful and encouraging. And Lord, particularly as we talk about finances, there may be many who are discouraged by this very matter. And so as we seek to orient our lives to your word and the wisdom you've provided, May it be a guide to us, may it be the truth that we want to align ourselves with, and may you help us to patiently, trustingly follow what you have given to us, that we might be good stewards of what you have provided. And so we ask for your help now, and we ask it all in Jesus' name, amen. Well, session five today, we're going to talk about balancing the budget. talking about how much is coming in and how much is going out. And in my pastoral experience, I would say that of all the Christians I've talked to who've had financial difficulties where they weren't able to pay their bills or where they were growing debt beyond their ability to pay it off, thus far, after 17 years of being a pastor, 100% of the time, these are individuals who have not had a personal budget. It may not always be the case, but it has been my experience in talking with Christians. Now, we've spent several weeks talking about biblical principles related to various aspects of our financial stewardship as God's money managers, so this morning we're going to get very practical and look at the budget. Now, I know that many of you probably have very well-ordered budgets, and you use them, and you stick to them, and things are going well. So this may not be new to you, but hopefully for those who do not use a personal budget, this will be the push that you need to help you get started. And I will say that no matter how much money you make, no matter how little money you spend, a budget is always a good idea. I think when you start using a budget, you start to realize where you're spending money that you didn't think you were spending it, or you realize how much of the little items that you're purchasing start to add up into a bigger cost. And so even if you're making enough money to pay all of your bills and still have a lot left over at the end of the month, a budget is still a wonderful idea so you can figure out where it's all going, how it's all being used, and maybe figure out how you can be investing or redirecting your funds in more meaningful places. So that being said, hopefully, on some level, this is helpful for everyone, regardless of your current financial situation. Now, since we're primarily focused on personal finance, we're going to talk about a personal or a household budget. Some of these principles are a little different than if you're running a business. or if you're in accounting in a business office or something like that, most families aren't working off of profit and loss statements or tracking their quarterly growth and loss or projecting 5- and 10-year gains, so business budgeting is a bit more complex, but nevertheless, a lot of the same principles do apply. So what is a personal budget? A personal budget is a tool. It's just that, a tool, and it's used to track income and expenditures for a set period of time. Now, I emphasize that it's a tool because, like any tool, it's useful if you use it, but if you have it and don't use it, it really makes no difference at all that you had it in the first place. And so I've known several people that have set up a budget and they felt really good about setting it up, but then they don't use it. And so what was the point? It is a tool and we have to use it if it's going to be useful to us. So what does the Bible say about budgeting? Well, we've covered a lot of biblical texts dealing with our financial situations, and many of them certainly apply here, but we're not gonna go back over all of those. But as you know, the Bible is filled with wisdom for everyday practical living, and so we shouldn't be surprised to find that the Bible does give us guidance about budgeting within the pages of scripture. And since we've established that we, as God's people, are God's money managers, is there a scenario, I wonder, that you can imagine that if you were a boss and you hired someone to manage your funds, and when you ask for an accounting of how those funds were being spent, they aren't able to tell you how they're being spent, and that you, as the business owner, just simply says, okay, no big deal. And if so, I would suggest that you don't need to run a business. We have to eliminate the mentality up front, we've talked about this a lot, that this is my money. and always remind ourselves that what we have is what God has entrusted to us and so we need to be able to account for it. Remember we looked at the parable of the talents and God's rebuke on those who didn't seek to be the best stewards of what he gave them. and as compared to those who were. And so we need to think this is God's gift to me in order to manage it, in order that I can be the best steward of it because it all belongs to him. And so how do I keep track of it? How do I account for it? That's what we're trying to do. Luke 14, 28 through 30 says, for which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, this man began to build and was not able to finish. Now I want to be clear, the context of this is not about stewardship directly, but rather about counting the cost of following Jesus as his disciple. However, within this text, Jesus does give us a principle that's related to stewardship. His point is, why would you ever go about doing something that comes with a cost without first determining whether or not you'll be able to pay for it? And when we think about something like building a tower or a building or a house or some other big, expensive thing, we can look at this and say, well, that's just foolish. Jesus, you're right, that's foolish. Who would do that? If you've traveled the world much, you can find many, many examples of projects that have been started and never finished because the person building it ran out of money. I know a very famous landmark in Orlando, Florida, that big cash register looking building that's never been used. It was built and never used because they never found any use for it or they didn't count the cost in order to finish it. But this isn't just about major expenses, this is about all of the little expenses. And I see this with Christians all the time. Those daily trips to Starbucks, that bag of chips at the gas station, your new flip flops at Target, the new golf hat, your Netflix subscription. And what is one of the most common things that goes into every one of those purchases in terms of our thinking? It's only a few dollars. And only spending a few dollars may not hurt you on this individual purchase, but when you're only spending a few dollars over and over and over again, eventually you run out and realize, I can't pay the electric bill this month. And so budgeting is a tool that we can use, and I'd say the primary tool that we should use to alleviate this problem. You may have money in the bank today to pay for that meal out with friends, or the new fuzzy dice you're going to hang from your rearview mirror, but do you have enough to also cover your water bill in three weeks? How about your HOA payment in six months? Or what about replacing your balding tires next year? Did you forget the fact that your kids don't stop growing and abusing their clothing and their shoes, and they'll need new ones before school starts in a few weeks? That bag of Cheetos might have tasted really good in the moment, but what did it cost you in the long run, financially, not to mention your physical health? A budget will help you keep track of all of these things so that you're not like the foolish man who set out to build a tower, who set out to build a building without counting the cost before he ever got started. Proverbs 21 five says, the plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty. This is important wisdom, isn't it? Budgeting can be a cumbersome job, but if we want to be like the diligent, we must take the time to do a careful accounting of how we are using what God has entrusted to us. Hasty financial decisions that are not part of a good financial plan will lead to financial ruin. One of the things I see often with people who don't have a budget is that they also don't have any savings. day to day and week to week, they see what's in the account, they pay what they can, they just sort of are limping along without any thought of saving for the future or saving for unexpected expenses, saving for emergencies that might arise. And I hear it over and over again. that people are living paycheck to paycheck, but they're doing so without a budget. And as they told us all the time when I was in the Army, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. 20% of Americans have no savings at all. And the average American account balance, including checking and savings across all age groups, is $5,300. Now, that might work for a while in North Dakota, but $5,300 doesn't go very far in South Florida, does it? And one major incident can wipe that out. So, as a result, what does the average American do? put the expense on a credit card, add to the debt, so then their net worth as an individual or a family is actually negative because they don't have the cash to pay off the expense, and it just continues to build. So when you use a budget, and if you do it correctly, there's nowhere for any expenditures to hide. What I mean is most of us have different things that we're paying for each month, and without a plan, you are sure to forget some of those expenses that are upcoming, or you may not remember certain things that you paid for because maybe they haven't cleared your account yet. Maybe today your balance is $500. But if you forget that you paid a bill for $300 two weeks ago, and it hasn't cleared the bank yet, and so you look at your account, you see that $500, and you go ahead and pay another $300 bill. Well, what now? You've overextended by $100. Both checks are deposited, one of them bounces, and now you have to not only pay that again, but now you have a fee from the bank, and oftentimes that other entity will charge you a fee for that. You'll have return checks, late fees. All these problems could be solved with a budget. Diligent financial planning can keep you from financial disaster and incurring even more expenses in the long run. Proverbs 22, 23 through 27 says, When the grass is gone and the new growth appears and the vegetation of the mountains is gathered, the lambs will provide you with clothing and the goats the price of a field. There will be enough goat's milk for your food, for the food of your household, and maintenance for your girls." More wisdom here from Proverbs pertaining to budgeting. The writer's point here is that one's flocks and herds will not last forever. So if you just get the ball rolling with them and you sort of sit back without paying any attention to how they're doing, eventually they're going to die off and you're not going to have anything left. However, if you do well to plan and you prepare to stay on top of it, you will have enough for clothing, for food, for maintenance of your girls, And that's not suggesting that women are more expensive than men, or women are more high-maintenance, so guys, stop giving your wives the side-eye right now. That's not what it means. This is referring to maidservants. And the point is, that when you are wise with the resources that God has given you, they too will have their needs met along with yours. Now, I don't think any of us have maidservants, but the principle is understood. Plan your resources, take care to watch over your resources, do not be hasty with your resources, and in time, your resources can be used to take care of you in abundance, as well as those around you. And so here's the bottom line. Budgeting will help you relieve some of the financial pressure that you may be feeling. You don't have to wonder if you're going to have enough. You know what's coming in, you know what's going out. Taking the guesswork out of your finances will relieve stress and improve your overall financial situation and alleviate strain on your relationships. Among the top three reasons why couples end up in counseling and why there is a lot of stress in a lot of marriages is always listed financially. Financial stress wreaks havoc on many, many relationships. And so this is one way to alleviate that. Now I could go on, but hopefully you're convinced about the wisdom that comes with budgeting. So I want to get really practical with this and answer a lot of questions that might come up with regard to this. And hopefully we'll have time at the end if you have any more. So how can we get started? Perhaps you're hearing this and you say, that sounds great. I think I need to do that. I've not been budgeting. I don't really know how. So how do we get started? Well, there's various methods that could be used. But most household budgets, as I mentioned, are monthly, because most families don't have enough excess income to do a budget annually, like you might see with a business, for example. So what should we do to get started? First, make a list of every source of regular income and every category of expense to include your irregular expenses. So I don't assume that most of us are buying things like clothing every single month or that we're putting money into vehicle maintenance every single month or home repair or car registration or HOA. Fees, all of these things. But these are part of your budget. They have to be paid for. That's money out of your account. And so you need to make a list and include those things. Think of anything and everything that you would pay for throughout the course of the year and put it on your list. The very first budget item that you should account for are your first fruits, your tie that we talked about last time. Look at your income. Determine what that amount is going to be. That amount of money is eliminated from the overall amount that you have to allot to other areas of your budget. But don't forget that. That's your first fruits, the first thing that you should do. The next thing to do is to figure out what the monthly cost is for each of these categories. For example, what is your average cost of your electric bill? What is the average cost of your water bill? What is the cost of your cell phone bill? And on and on. And try to estimate from there things that may vary from month to month. How much do you spend on things like food or entertainment or haircuts or pedicures or miscellaneous expenses like all the times you add to your cart on Amazon or you take trips to Target? How much does all of that generally cost on a month-to-month basis? You want to account for every category of expenditure, especially at first, as you're just getting started with the budget. Most people underestimate how much money they're spending in any given category, and they have a very unrealistic idea about how much money they need to allot. It's better to overestimate and have money remaining than to underestimate and come up short. And this is gonna help you. Budgeting will help you find areas where you need to make cuts, or maybe you need to move money from one category to another. Maybe you allotted too much for entertainment, and maybe some of that needs to be moved to food to cover up a shortfall there. But in time, as you do this, you get a better idea of what your month-to-month expenses are going to be, even in those varying categories. This is very important. Make sure you have a budget category for savings. It doesn't have to be a lot of money at first, but everyone needs to budget to save money. As quickly as possible, you want to have at least $1,000 saved so that you can use it in case of an emergency. It may not cover the entire cost of whatever that emergency might be, but it's at least a starting place so that you're not in a bigger hole. Ideally, in time, your goal for savings should be a minimum of six to 12 months' worth of expenses in your savings account. So, if your family's six months' worth of expenses is $60,000, your first savings goal should be to get $60,000 into your savings account. Now, that sounds like a lot of money, and it is a lot of money. But you want to keep that money in your savings account and not spend it. And this is for situations for like when perhaps you might lose your job, or there is another global pandemic, and the government inexplicably shuts down the entire economy. We have situations that we can't plan for, we don't know are coming, and we need to be able to continue to persevere through those times financially and having Several months' worth of living expenses saved will relieve the stress of those situations while we're looking for a new job or while we're getting through a pandemic or whatever it may be. But we need to budget for savings or we simply won't save. That's the reality of it. Be patient. If you've never tracked your income, if you've never tracked your expenses in a budget, it will take time to get accurate numbers for each of these categories. And part of this is that a budget is useful, as I said before, only if you use it. I will be very honest with you up front. As you're getting started with this, if you've never done it before, it's going to seem like something that takes a lot of time and a lot of effort. But it is worth it. And it gets easier in time because you know exactly where things go or how to do it. But my recommendation all the time when I talk to people about this is to make sure you spend a little bit of time, maybe every two or three days, inputting all of your expenses so you don't miss anything. And at the end of each month, make sure you prepare everything for the next month. So as you get into next month, you're not starting from behind. The more ahead you can get, the better off you will be. Perhaps you have Saturday afternoon nothing else to do be a great idea to plan out three or four months worth and you can start to see how How today's purchases are going to affect where you are in three months or four months? We don't often think about what's going to happen in the future. We just want to get to the end of the month because maybe I know I'm going to get paid on the first and we'll start all over. And that may work for a while but eventually something's going to come up and we're just not ready for it when that time comes. So be patient though. It takes time. It takes effort. It's not the most fun you'll probably have on a Saturday afternoon, but it is certainly worth it. And the fun comes later when you're able to live comfortably on what God has given you instead of stressing about this all of the time. So let's think about some practical questions regarding budgeting. What do we do if our expenses exceed our income? Now, that may sound like a silly question, right? There's an old, I might send out a little video clip, and this couple sits down with a financial counselor, and they're baffled because this is their issue. And he says, what you need to do is spend less money than you make. And they're really surprised by this. And they go over it and over it and over it. And they say, man, that sounds so easy. Why didn't we think about that? Well, this is the reality, right? It's that simple. However, in theory, it's simple. But in reality, we get to a place oftentimes in our own financial decisions where we have so many obligations. their debts we owe or bills that have to be paid, and we've not thought about it for so long, and now we're not in a position where we can simply just say, well, I only make this much, I have to pay this much, and so I'm just going to spend less. Well, what if spending less means you don't eat or you don't get your medication or whatever else? So we need to think through how we can alleviate this situation. There's really two main things you can do. First is to find a way to make more income. And that may mean you need to have a side hustle, you need to have some kind of passive income source. And maybe not for long term, but maybe over the next six months or over the next year. You find a way to make a little bit more money to pay things down and to get your budget balanced so that you can have some breathing room. And of course, the other is to find areas where you can cut expenses. Now again, I know I'm talking in very absolute terms here, but 100% of the time when I've helped people look at their own personal budget, we have found areas where they can cut expenses where initially they thought there was nothing that they could cut. Your food budget may be significant, for example, because you like to go out and eat. I'm with you, I love it. Maybe for a while you need to spend some of that money on a cookbook, look for coupons, take advantage of sales at the grocery store, cut back on eating out, take a free cooking class on YouTube, whatever it takes, but you can cut back a tremendous amount of expense just by not going out to eat at a restaurant three or four days a week. Instead of spending $1,000 on gas every month, see if there's ways that you can ride with someone or figure out how to cut down your travel expenses. Limit how many times you allow yourself to go look for something that you kind of want on Amazon. Cancel a subscription service like Netflix or Hulu. There are a lot of ways that you can cut your budget that you may not like, But remember, this is for long-term gains that lead to abundance through diligent effort, as the proverb says, as opposed to hasty financial decisions that lead to poverty. Budgeting is something that people often avoid because they don't want to face the reality. But putting the numbers down on paper or putting the numbers down on your computer screen will give you the cold, hard facts of what you're looking at so you can begin to live within your means. Short-term pain will mean long-term gain. And so maybe your trip to Turks and Caicos may need to wait another year or two, but when you go, you won't have the stress of trying to figure out how to pay it all off on the credit card for the next three years when you end up paying double for a trip that has already happened. And so if you're in this situation where you're saying, I don't really know where to cut. I've tried to cut as much as possible. My suggestion always is to look at your long list of expenses and then prioritize them. Start with number one. What's your top priority? And work through all of your expenses all the way to the bottom. And when it's time to cut, start at the bottom of the list and figure out, I need to cut this. I need to cut that. And you begin to work up the list until your income exceeds your expenses. Some may ask, do I make enough money to even bother with a budget? Quite simply, if you have an income, you should have a budget no matter what that income is. We all have expenses, so there's no dollar amount of income that should preclude any of us from budgeting. Again, we want to be wise money managers, and as wise money managers, no matter how much you use or no matter how little you have, we need to account for everything that comes in and everything that goes out. Again, remember the illustration. If the boss man comes to you and says, how have you spent my money? You don't want to say, I don't really know. It came in and it went out, but I have no way of telling you what it was spent on. A few things here and a few things there. So no matter how much you make, you should have a budget. And hopefully, in time, you will gain more income, but you're already in the habit. You already know what to do. You already know what your means are. A lot of times people might get a raise, they might have a new source of income, and if they're not budgeting, they think, great, more money, and so they just spend more. They have no idea how that's being done, and all of a sudden their lifestyle has advanced, and yet they're still struggling day by day like they were when they had less income. What if my income is cut or the cost of goods and services increases? This seems fairly relevant today, right? We're all asking that question right now. So I'll give you an example from my own personal budget. In May 2021, on my personal budget, I went back and looked. We spent $461.38 on gas for our two cars. That's two vehicles. We've always driven quite a bit to get to work and to get our kids to school. In May of 2022, this year, we spent $1,215.23 on gas. That's a significant increase. Admittedly, part of that was a trip down here from Savannah. That includes the significantly increased gas prices and goes to show that some of these categories are going to fluctuate from month to month and year to year. So we need to be prepared for that. And if we're not prepared for that, all of a sudden the things that are daily expenditures or weekly expenditures might begin to bury us. So when the cost of everyday necessities increase, we have to remember that some, not all, but some of our budget categories are not set in stone. Some of your categories can be flexible. So if you need to move money, for example, from your food budget to your gas budget, you can do that. But remember, that doesn't mean you magically have more money. It just means you're reallocating those funds. So you don't have as much to spend on food this month because you had to spend it on your gas instead. Very simple concept. Think of your budget, it's you have this total amount of money, you give your first fruits, and then the rest of it can be fairly flexible. Now obviously, there's certain dollar amounts that you have to pay every month, but there are categories that can be flexible. If that means for the month that you don't get to go out to eat at all, so be it. Right, again, it's not about today's comfort, it's about long-term, the long-term ability to live within our means, and so we may have to have a little bit of discomfort and struggle for a while in order to get on track. But this is a big reality, and unfortunately, I'm not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet, but I do work for a non-profit, so. I can, I think, say confidently that this isn't going to come down. We're going to continue to have to adjust for the increase of the cost of goods and services. It's just the reality. Even the average increase in wages does not keep up with the average of inflation. 9% is the current number, which is wildly lower than true inflation. Gas alone has gone up 50% over the last year. And so if nationally we continue to pursue the same financial approaches, inflation will increase rapidly, and it doesn't seem to be slowing down at all. And so we need to think about this. Where can I adjust in order to make up for the difference? How do I budget for an irregular income? Perhaps you have a job where you're paid hourly, or the primary source of your income is things like tips. It'll take time to figure out. But the best way to do this is to figure out a monthly average. So to get started on this, gather up as many of your pay stubs as you can find from your current job, add them all together, and then divide that number by the number of paychecks that you have included, and you'll get an average. Keep doing this for a while until you get a bigger pool of paychecks and you can establish your average and you will have a much better number to work with while you're budgeting. Now, I will tell you, having a salary versus working hourly, it makes budgeting a whole lot easier. But nevertheless, there is a way you can do this. So get an average of how much you make on a monthly basis. And the longer you go, the better you can figure out that average. The other great thing to do is you can set a number. This is how much income I have to have this month. And you work your hourly job, and as you're working it, you come toward the end of the month and realize I'm not going to hit my number, so I need to find another way to maybe bring in some other income to fill that gap. Maybe I need to pick up another shift or two. Maybe I need to put a little more effort into my side hustle. Maybe I need to sell something on eBay or whatever it might be that you can make up for that shortcoming. But in time, with an irregular income, you can figure out the average and have a helpful estimate in order to plan. How do I budget for infrequent expenses? So these would be things like your clothing. Determine an amount that you think you will spend annually, and then divide that by 12 to get a monthly amount. Now, this doesn't mean that you're going to spend the money that you budget in that month for that category, but you can have it available as a part of your budget that increases each month if you don't use it. It simply stays there in your checking account. And so if you budget, say, $100 a month for car repairs, and you don't spend that $100 at all in July, if August you've budgeted $100, well, now you have $200 that can be used. And that continues to roll over from month to month. So in eight or nine months, you'll be able to have enough money to buy a new set of tires without putting that on your credit card. Some budgeting applications, and I'll show you a few here in a moment, they help with this where you can set a category as a fund and it keeps a running total of how much you spend out of that fund and how much is in there based on what you do and don't spend. It's a very helpful way to keep track of those categories for infrequent expenses. Those are the things we forget to budget for. And then when they come up, we are panicked as to what to do, or we have to move a bunch of money out of savings if we've saved enough to be able to do that. It's better to simply budget for those things. We know they're going to happen. We know they're going to come up, and so we need to be ready for it. Should I budget for every dollar of income and expense? It seems like a lot. It seems like a tedious task. Well, at first, this is the best approach. Now, in time, you get a sense of what you need to allocate to certain items so you can be more general in your budget, but I would say even then, you should indicate every income and expense. For example, Now, I have a budget category that I simply call miscellaneous. And I have a certain dollar amount tied to this. And I use this category when I buy things like books, or movie tickets, or whatever sort of little thing that I may not know what it's going to be that month. But I have a certain amount of money that is our allowance, if you will, for miscellaneous items. But it's helpful at first. to be more specific about the amounts you're spending on certain items or certain things that you like to do so you can figure out the trends and there figure out where maybe you're overspending. But eventually, in time, you can get a little bit more general in your planning so it doesn't become something you have to dedicate time to every single day. It's a good thing to account for everything you spend and everything that comes in. And what you'll find probably is that you can do much better than you really are when you keep track of it. What about cash? Well, if cash is part of your regular income, say, again, you have tips or you work cash jobs, whatever that may be, you should include that in your budget. If cash is not a part of your regular income, but you get it from time to time, I would say that's up to you. I personally don't include cash that I might receive in my personal budget. And so I just have it for things like tips or to buy a meal that I don't have to put into my budget. That's sort of a budget-free meal that I have because I had the cash to pay for it. But I do have a category in my budget for the cash that I would draw from my account so that it's there when I need it. You're accounting for everything that's going through that account. And so I can know where it's going and where it's coming from. Budget tracking. What should I use to keep track of my budget? There are several services. I think the best free service that you can use online is EveryDollar. It's everydollar.com. You can go and set up a free account, and it's very helpful and very intuitive. It's straightforward. It's simple, it offers helpful organization, so you're not spending a lot of time trying to format it. You can do it on your computer, but they also have a mobile app, so if you wanna track expenses immediately, as soon as you hang that pump up at the gas station, you can get in your car and put that in the app, so you don't forget about it. You can do it right there from your cell phone. So, everydollar.com, a very helpful resource. I recommend that quite often. They also have a paid subscription. personally not found any use for that. But nevertheless, it's there if you want to see what those resources are as well. Crown Financial has a budget worksheet, and the nice thing about this worksheet is it lists out all kinds of expenses to include things you would never even maybe think to include in your budget. And that's a good starting place. If you've never had a budget before, you can use this worksheet to kind of work through those categories and figure out What's the monthly, what's the annual expenses on these categories? And I will send an email out and include this on there, another free resource that's available to anyone, but I'll point you in the right direction if you want to use something like the worksheet to work through this on your own. Of course, if you want to be old school, you can just use a spreadsheet. If you have Excel or something like that, you can look online. There are templates for this, or if you like doing that for some odd reason, working with all the formulas and everything else, do that. The bottom line is, whatever method you use, do something. When my wife and I first started budgeting, we just had a chalkboard in our kitchen and we would write everything down on there. It got really messy, but we were able to keep track of it for a while until I realized I have this really neat thing called a computer and can do it much easier there. Whatever your method is, the bottom line is this. Keep track of all of your income, keep track of all of your expenses, and you will begin to see how you're able to live within your means. That may be the push you need to figure out there are things in our life that we need to cut. There are things that we may need to do that will be uncomfortable for a time. But again, it's worth it for the long-term gains. A little, if you've ever done athletics or you work out in the gym, short-term pain leads to long-term gain. And that's certainly what we want to do and certainly how budgeting helps. So, I've got two minutes. any questions or comments that you want to offer with regard to budgeting. Or maybe someone has a testimony of their own life in budgeting. So thank you for this time, Lord. We pray now that you would be at work preparing our hearts to come before you in worship. And we look forward to all that you have for us. And we ask this all in Jesus name. Amen. We hope you were edified by this message. For additional sermons, as well as information on giving to the ministry of Emmanuel Baptist Church and on our current building project, you can visit us online at ebcfl.org. That's ebcfl.org.