Book Study
Lesson 1

Spend brightly

Your daily spending can be:

Image Slide 1
Brightly Shining
I actively track my spending
My spending is planned
I show my spending to Jesus
My spending tends to be enjoyable
I tend to under-spend
Shadow
OR
The following are benefits of being bright with daily spending.
Slide 1
Shielded from costly consumer debt.
Image is not available
Slide 2
Express daily gratitude for your daily bread from God.
Image is not available
Slide 3
Remind myself that I am a steward of God's money.
Image is not available
Slide 3
Restful with a little spending margin.
Image is not available
previous arrowprevious arrow
next arrownext arrow

Right now, how brightly do you shine a light on your spending?

1: In the dark.......10: Brightly Shining

Spend Brightly Video

What stood out to you while watching the video?

Proactively shine light

Shining a light on our spending is best done by “tracking” our spending. To track is to simply keep record of what you are doing.

There are 4 primary reasons we should proactively shine a light on our spending through tracking our spending:

(1) Spending Exposed by Light Becomes Light

“But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light.” Ephesians 5:13, NIV

Bad habits fester in the darkness. The more we make our spending habits visible to the light, the more likely we will make better spendings where we are not spending more than we earn.

(2) We can cultivate gratitude for our daily bread

A simple regular exercise of looking and tracking our income and expenses can help us realize and express gratitude for Jesus’s daily provisions. Without daily recognizing how Jesus is providing for us, it will become more and more tempting to view ourselves as the source of our daily bread.

(3) We are Managers

“Imagine a father who decided to give his 21-year-old son some responsibility to manage a part of the family business. The father sits the son down and explains that $6,000 will be given to him every month. The father did not give much guidance about how to spend the money, and the son did not ask. 

Six months pass, and the father calls the son into his office and asks him what he has done with the family money. The son is surprised by the question, and sulks a bit. Without raising his eyes, the son quietly says, “I don’t know.” The father is shocked, “how can this be?” But the son shrugs and says, “I haven’t been paying attention.”

“One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own?” Luke 16:10-13, ESV.
  • If God asked you today how you have been spending His money, could you quickly provide an accurate account?

(4) We gain valuable information for making a spending plan

As we track over a long period of time, we get to know our habits and patterns. This will allow us to make more accurate spending plans that go with our actual behavior, not our wishful thinking.

Which of the 4 benefits of tracking is most exciting to you?

Case study: Brock

Brock is going to begin his semester hoping for the best.

Aug 30: +$3,400 deposited into his checking account from a paycheck.
Sep 1: ($800) is taken out for rent.
Sep 3: ($500) is taken out for textbooks.
Sep 17: ($200) concert.
Sept 30: ($400) road trip with the bros to San Diego.
Sept 1-30: ($400) Brock enjoyed lots fancy food delivery.
Oct 1: ($900) is taken out for rent (notice of increase in rent sent 15 days ago).
Oct 15: ($500) for textbooks is DENIED; checking funds were insufficient.
Oct 31: ($0) His church was fundraising to send kids to camp, but Brock couldn’t give because he had no money.

Brock decides to get a credit card to buy his textbooks since school is the most important thing.

What could Brock have done differently?

3 Steps

Brock could more skillfully manage his money to “spend more brightly” if he did the following 3 things with new money:

  1. Imprint it as alive in Christ.
  2. Envelope it where it should go.
  3. Track with gratitude where it went.

STEP 1: Imprint

When a chick hatches, it deems whatever it first sees as its parent. This is called imprinting. In the same way, when money first comes into your possession, it will imprint to either:

  • your old self that is dead to sin but still tries to ruin everything for you, OR
  • your new self in Christ.

In the first case, the money is instantly deposited into your personal vault as “my precious money,” for your use alone. Giving will be very difficult, because it will be like giving away a part of yourself.

In the second scenario, the money will naturally be imprinted as “money from my precious Father.” It will be placed in your heart as something that has been given to you in the context of the church community, where the Father is the head of your household. Giving is much easier since this money was never fully imprinted to your personal vault, so giving is not like losing yourself.

How hard is giving for you?

Do you believe that doing this imprinting exercise before you receive money could help you enjoy giving more?

STEP 2: Envelope

You can simply deposit money into checking/saving.

It will be 1 big lump sum then.

Or you can plan to set the new money aside into digital envelopes.

Think of your next eat out time. Do you have money set-aside for it?

IMPORTANT PRINCIPLE:

  • Only spend money out of these digital envelopes.

Example of using digital envelopes for family lifestyle expenses:

Notes:

  • The middle column are actual expenses this month drawn from the digital envelopes.
  • $22 every month of monthly income has been going to ‘Apple Watches’ in order to replace husband and wife’s apple watches every 3 years. This bucket has grown to $280, and is big enough now to replace the wife’s Apple watch. Since her watch is still working, this envelope does not need any new money each month.
  • An iPad is replaced every 5 years ($400/60 months) so $7 of the family’s paycheck is put in iPad digital envelope every month.

What is one expense that you would most want to “envelope”? (shoes, clothes, vacations, car repair…)

STEP 3: Grateful Tracking

Keep track of all your spending in one place.

  • Keeping an account of what you are doing is the most basic duty of a steward of someone else’s money.
  • If you do not keep track, you likely believe that all your money belongs to you.
  • To keep track, each expense should be logged and categorized.
  • Budget apps make this easy.

In addition, this will not feel like a chore, if you track with gratitude.

With every expense you track, consider:

  1. What need you had that this expense helped you meet.
  2. How grateful you are for God’s daily care of you.
Regularly keeping track with gratitude will be a financial liturgy that will daily form you into becoming more Christ-centered.

One easy way to enter into the right “grateful tracking” mentality is to read the following liturgy from Every Moment Holy before, or after, you track and categorize your expenses,

O God who does provide all things necessary for our lives, be present with us now
For there is little in this life that will so starkly reveal our insecurities and our struggle to trust your tender care
As will the state of our hearts when we consider
The state of our finances –
When we are anxious about money, O Lord,
We can slip so easily into the downward spiral of believing that simply having more of it would guarantee our security.
As if our security could ever rest anywhere outside of you, O God.
So guard our hearts against that lie.
Let us learn to view money and all material things as an arena in which to learn and practice a more faithful stewardship,
And as a means by which to invest in things eternal – But never as ends in themselves.

Month-to-month you are teaching us –
In this paying of bills – the slow vocation of trust.
Do not abandon us to our anxieties over finances, O Lord,
But use those worries to turn our hearts and thoughts to you – then teach us both a greater contentment and a greater confidence in your constant care.
Amen.
from “A Liturgy for the Paying of the Bills,” Every Moment Holy (Rabbit Room Press) by Douglas Kaine McKelvey; Used with permission

Regarding the liturgy, what stood out to you?

New Brock

STEP 1: Imprint

Brock worked through his identity in Christ. He then presented himself and his $3,400 paycheck as dead to sin and alive in Christ.

STEP 2: Envelope

On Aug 30, Brock was paid and then set aside his new money into digital envelopes.

Please note that Brock’s imprinting has led him to seek to “excel in the act of grace of giving” through setting-aside giving for $400, which will discourage him from spending so much on unnecessary food delivery services.

STEP 3: Grateful Tracking

Once-a-week, Brock automatically imports his transactions into his budget app account. He spent about 8 total minutes during the month importing and categorizing the following transactions.

Brock reads the liturgy from Every Moment Holy liturgy before he opens up his budget app.

With each transaction, Brock is growing in his ability to recognize God’s great provision for Him and grow in gratitude for how God provides His daily bread.

Because Brock is regularly tracking and planning, he notices from his landlord on 9/15 that rent is going up by $100. Brock’s envelopes must be adjusted because he does not have enough money to pay this increase.

  • His San Diego trip is going to happen in 2 weeks, but it looks like he will only have $100 instead of $200 for this trip.
  • Brock gets together with his friends and talks through the situation. They say, “we got you bro.”
  • Crisis averted, Brock gets to go on his trip and pay for his textbooks without needing a credit card.

On October 31, the church reveals their need to fund campers and Brock is thrilled that God had directed him to set aside $400. He gives cheerfully and is honored that the Lord would use him in this way.

Activity: Spending Bright Habit

You may complete activity on PDF Worksheet

(1) Imprint

Don’t let any new money you receive IMPRINT to your old self!

  • Estimate how much you will receive next:

Gift/Refund $________

Paycheck $________

  • KNOW You and all that you possess are dead to sin and alive in Christ. What does this mean to you?
  • COUNT Reflect on how you will count it true that you are “dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
  • PRESENT Just like a bride and groom present themselves as newly married, imagine that you are presenting yourself and this new money as: dead to sin and alive in Christ

(2) Choose flashlight

  • Cash every paycheck and place money into designated spending envelopes (e.g., groceries, gas, restaurants, etc..)
  • Many studies have shown this will save you 30% since you become more sensitive to the price of everything.
  • Hard to maintain since society is moving towards a cash-less system and carrying lots of cash and change around is not ideal.
  • Digital envelope system.
  • Reasonable monthly subscription (free for a year as a student; ynab.com/college)
  • Highly recommended. I personally have saved hundreds of dollars from this service.
  • Reasonable monthly subscription.
  • Very similar to YNAB with a digital envelope system.
  • Has faith-based budgeting resources.
  • Beautiful visualizations, but not great digital envelope system.
  • Highly innovative digital envelope solution (monthly subscription required):

Steps:

  1. Open up banking account with them and receive a Qube debit card.
  2. Put money into your Qube banking account and allocate your money into different digital enveloped (i.e., Qubes).
  3. You are not able to use your Qube debit card until you designate what digital envelope you will be drawing money from.
  4. This is the closest thing to using actual cash available.
  • Free for manual tracking, but subscription for automatic importing of transactions.
  • Free and highly customizable.
  • Labor intense.
Track Spending with Paper PDF

(3) Find time

Find a time to import and categorize expenses:

3 minutes a day OR

15 minutes a week

(4) Savor

Treat the daily habit of categorizing expenses in a tracking software like a spiritual discipline, since you want to take seriously your role as manager of God’s money and also put yourself in a position to be generous through avoiding future debt. As you see God’s hand in every income and expense that you categorize, savor God’s goodness and care for you.

Consider reading the following liturgy from Every Moment Holy before, or after, you track and categorize your expenses,

O God who does provide all things necessary for our lives, be present with us now
For there is little in this life that will so starkly reveal our insecurities and our struggle to trust your tender care
As will the state of our hearts when we consider
The state of our finances –
When we are anxious about money, O Lord,
We can slip so easily into the downward spiral of believing that simply having more of it would guarantee our security.
As if our security could ever rest anywhere outside of you, O God.
So guard our hearts against that lie.
Let us learn to view money and all material things as an arena in which to learn and practice a more faithful stewardship,
And as a means by which to invest in things eternal – But never as ends in themselves.

Month-to-month you are teaching us –
In this paying of bills – the slow vocation of trust.
Do not abandon us to our anxieties over finances, O Lord,
But use those worries to turn our hearts and thoughts to you – then teach us both a greater contentment and a greater confidence in your constant care.
Amen.

(5) Consider using digital envelopes

If you want to go “next-level” in how you manage your daily spending, slowly putting money into digital envelopes is a powerful way to create more financial resilience and stability.

STEPS:

  1. Identify your top five lifestyle expenses that are not every month, but happen regularly enough where it would be very useful for you to have digital envelopes with cash set aside (shoes, clothing, vacations, car maint., etc.).

    _______________________

    _______________________

    _______________________

    _______________________

    _______________________

  2. Determine the monthly expense for these items. For example, if you only get running shoes once-a-year for $120, the monthly expense would be $10. If you tend to replace your computer every four years for roughly $1,500, then your monthly expense for having a computer would be $1,500/(48 months) = $31.25
  3. After every monthly paycheck, allocate these monthly expenses to each relevant digital envelope.
  4. Only pay for things out of your digital envelopes. If your envelope is empty, then don’t buy it.
  5. Make your envelope names as specific as possible. The more you personalize the bucket, the less likely you will raid it (e.g., “Kindle” instead of “electronics” or “Florence trip 2023” instead of “vacation”).

Transition

The greatest enemy to a spending plan is the misuse of credit. In the next lesson, we will explore the dangers and benefits of credit.

Next Lesson