Sunday, March 19, 2006
Live Within Your Means
How many times have you heard from a financial advisor that you should live within your means? If not a financial advisor, you may have heard this from your parents, or a friend, or even your spouse! A few weeks ago, my husband and I began co-leading a Crown Financial Ministries Bible study group. We are studying the Bible to learn how to handle money God's way, and this past week, the emphasis was on debt reduction.
My husband has a strong passion for financial stewardship, and I have an equal passion for stewardship with health. So, in the middle of our debt reduction discussion, I started thinking about all the excess fat around my middle in terms of debt. An energy debt. To pay off this energy debt, I need to budget the energy I take into my body, and I need to start paying off the interest with more exercise.
Think about how difficult it is once you have gotten into debt with credit cards and multiple loans to get out of debt. It's the same way with our energy budget.
All of those extra cookies I've eaten in my lifetime is similar to shopping on a credit card. Just as we plan to pay it off later, we plan to burn off the calories later.
My husband and I, just like everyone else in our Bible study group, completed a plan to reduce our debt and to pay it off. There's a simple equation. It starts by living within our means, but when paying off debt, we actually have to live below our means in order for some of that means to apply to the debt. While we're working on this, it's reminds me that I need to eat within my body's means. My poor body has means to burn and use a certain amount of fuel from my food. If I eat within my means, this means I won't have to carry the excess energy around in the form of a big fat energy debt!
My husband has a strong passion for financial stewardship, and I have an equal passion for stewardship with health. So, in the middle of our debt reduction discussion, I started thinking about all the excess fat around my middle in terms of debt. An energy debt. To pay off this energy debt, I need to budget the energy I take into my body, and I need to start paying off the interest with more exercise.
Think about how difficult it is once you have gotten into debt with credit cards and multiple loans to get out of debt. It's the same way with our energy budget.
All of those extra cookies I've eaten in my lifetime is similar to shopping on a credit card. Just as we plan to pay it off later, we plan to burn off the calories later.
My husband and I, just like everyone else in our Bible study group, completed a plan to reduce our debt and to pay it off. There's a simple equation. It starts by living within our means, but when paying off debt, we actually have to live below our means in order for some of that means to apply to the debt. While we're working on this, it's reminds me that I need to eat within my body's means. My poor body has means to burn and use a certain amount of fuel from my food. If I eat within my means, this means I won't have to carry the excess energy around in the form of a big fat energy debt!
# posted by Karen Whitson @ 8:59 PM 
