A Season of Expectation

Why do we limit our vision and excitement to just the holidays? Well, let’s talk about that...it’s Thomas Joyner with Business on Purpose I hope you’re having a great Thursday!

It is November 19th! Yep...you heard that right. November 19th! If your household is anything like mine, you’re fighting over 1 thing and 1 thing only currently...is it time to put up the Christmas Tree???

I’m dead serious. Every year, it never fails, we go back and forth about when we can start decorating for Christmas. Now, I’m a firm believer that no decorations can go up until after Thanksgiving. I know, I know...I’m a Scrooge at heart...jump in the comments and tell me how horrible I am.

But seriously, I put my foot down on decorating before thanksgiving. My wife has already told me her plans for decorating and where we’re going to put the tree, how excited she is about the stockings and what she gets to put in the stockings. When we’re going to hang the lights and are there any new decorations that we can grab on the cheap to make this Christmas the BEST EVER...well that is until Christmas 2021, at least.

I have to admit, though, her excitement is contagious. All the things she wants to do and the picture she paints is so vivid that it gets me excited, too!

It should be no different for the year 2021. Why do we limit our vision and our excitement and planning to holidays? It’s ridiculous! If excitement and energy are contagious around the Christmas season, don’t you think it would work the same way around the rest of the year?

Absolutely! And THAT is why we put together the financial barn.

So, what is the financial barn? Well, it’s a conversation between you and your spouse, or just you if you’re not married. It’s setting your sights on what you want to do with your finances in 2021. Now, we at BOP firmly believe we are stewards of the resources we’ve been blessed with, so this is not meant to be a shopping spree or a 2021 wish list. No, it’s a system built to look at all of the things you want to spend money on in the next year and then formulating the plan for how to reach that goal.

It starts with simply drawing a barn on a piece of paper and listing the things you spend money on in different rooms in the barn. Things like Living expenses, travel, hobbies, savings, retirement, kids college, charitable giving...subdivide it however you want! Here’s the beautiful thing. When you list out how much you will need to comfortably chase after those things, you set your sights on a goal and can put a plan in place for how to reach it.

So what are the things you get excited about? Is it taking a trip as a family? Is it maybe finally doing a home renovation or getting a car upgrade? Is it giving to a ministry above and beyond what you normally do and really making an impact with your finances? Is it setting aside a chunk for your kids college or maybe investing in something along the way? Whatever it is, write it down so you can know what your all in number needs to be.

Once you add up all the things you would need in 2021, you know what you need to earn to reach those goals…

Now I’ll break from here for a second to remind you that these goals need to be realistic. If your household income is currently $75k and you look at your all in number and it says you need 125k to reach it, you may  need to trim some things...or trim a lot! But if your number is close, then it’s finding ways for your business to support you in the ways it needs to.

Here’s the best part about this. It puts a bullseye on the board, so if you do wildy better than you had hoped for financially, you can put a plan in place for what to do with it. It frees you to be wildly generous with your funds as you already hit the bullseye. It keeps you from hoarding your cash in a way that only benefits you as you see how incredibly blessed you have been.

That’s the reason behind all of this. Set up reasonable goals for each category and then allow that to push you to be generous in every area of your life.

At the end of all this, the message is clear. Life is not about stockpiling assets. It’s just not. There will always be another room to fill in our barn or another toy to buy. Life is found in stewarding the things you have and earn to make the lives of those around you that much better.

The FInancial Barn! Do it...do it with your spouse. Feel free to reach back out and tell us how that conversation goes! We’d love to hear about it.

As always, you can check out more about this at mybusinessonpurpose.com

Have a great week!