That said, I will be enjoying the cleaning of the cabinets as I attend the annual Shrove Tuesday Pancake Dinner tonight at church as well as the cookies and paczki (new for me) that some of our generous staff have brought in for our impromptu carry-in lunch. Living up to the Fat Tuesday theme.
Preparations for the Lenten season take on many different facets. For me this year, it was a whole new venture. Fortunately I am not alone.
This year – I think it started as a dare – several on our CCA Staff are putting our money where our mouth is, leading by example and any other cliché you may want to add as we adopt the budgeting concept that our Spring Valley Participants have to adhere to.
In a nutshell, during their weekly case manager meetings, participants must account for every penny of income and expenses with receipts, stubs and whatever else it takes to balance. For a couple of years now, I have said that I should put myself through the program, but I couldn’t imagine actually doing it.
No need to imagine now…
I began preparing for the program a couple weekends ago. Initially, I thought I was in pretty good shape after reviewing my monthly income and expenses. Then I read a bit more – I have been consulting Dave Ramsey’s materials (www.daveramsey.com) – and realized I needed to account for irregular and annual expenses. That would mean I would have to earmark and save money to be spent at a later time so it wouldn’t disrupt my budget at that time. Ramsey says that if you don’t allocate every dollar at the beginning of the month, you can’t accurately track it when it’s gone.
That may not be new to you – and really the concept isn’t new to me – but the putting into practice thing sure shines the bright light of reality into dark corners of what I pretended to be reality.
Thankfully, there are several of us going through this together so we can keep each other on track and focused on the big prize, which for me is multi-fold:
- Make solid progress into debt reduction
- Provide a better example for my children
- Give me the freedom to do more to help my church and others in the community
The Bible is clear about serving two masters – you can’t. Personally, I know that I have spent a lot of lost time worrying about finances; how to ends were going to meet and what the financial future holds for me and my family. This Lenten season, I am giving up something that has been running my life, whether I was cognitive of it or not. I know long beyond this 40-day (plus Sundays) journey, the planned, diligent process of managing money will put me in a better place.
I hope you will join us. Follow our progress via our website and this blog. We invite you to share your comments and progress too.
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