OR

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Find a time to import and categorize expenses:

3 minutes a day OR

15 minutes a week

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.

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”).