A budget can seem more restricting than liberating, but that may just be because you haven’t built your budget to fit your lifestyle. There is great freedom within parameters, especially when you determine what truly matters to you and you attribute the greatest parts of your budget to what matters most. Sometimes our perceived control over our money can replace our actual control over our money. Therefore, we end up ditching the budget instead of having the opportunity to build [Margin] by telling our money where to go.

We have covered 12 themes on debt, saving, taxes and income, transportation, lifestyle, education, recharge, shelter, essentials, care, insurance and legacy, and now giving. This has taken a tremendous amount of time, effort, and focus in order to deliver this content each day to you. I hope this has helped you establish a foundation for your personal finances and life that you can then build upon.

Now that you have shown gratitude for what has happened in the past, let’s look forward. Looking forward into the next year can give you a glimpse of hope or it can be a bit daunting. We must always have something to look forward to, to work toward, or to even be excited about.

Gratitude should be something that you do daily as it gives you the ability to reflect in real-time, see all that you have, take your eyes off who you may be comparing yourself to, or what you may not have, and truly be grateful for what you do.

Steady consistent giving is key to your financial picture. Let’s put that steady plan from last episode to action. So let’s say that you have defined what events merit a gift, you have specified who you plan to give to, how often and how much you will give in the form of other planned and spontaneous giving opportunities. Now what? It’s now time to put this plan into action.

I don’t know about you, but for me it is so easy to get into a rhythm whereas I have good intentions to be a giving person and even have viable giving opportunities, but then get distracted with all the other demands of life. I think this is why giving is so important, especially setting up a rhythm for giving. It’s easy to miss the opportunity if you’re always running from one thing to the next. This is why it’s so important to stop and figure out what rhythm you need to set up, so that you slow down, see the needs around you, figure out how you need to be involved and then take action. This will give you the ability to put life back in perspective, realizing what’s important.

When giving back, you need to identify who or what is your best means of giving back. Is it something that pulls at you like an orphanage, animal shelter, or preservation society? Is it a mission-based organization that sends missionaries to other parts of the world? This is the part that can be so difficult because there are always so many needs to give to.

Most people walk through life with no plan, except putting one foot in front of the other. Don’t be that person. Be resolute in building a financial plan for where your money will come from and what you plan to do with it.

When we have gone through the process of building a Plan to Spend or budget there was a line item designated to giving. Oftentimes people give when the dust settles and they see what is leftover, but you don’t want to wait until this point in order to have a plan and follow through on it in order to give to what matters most to you.

When we have gone through the process of building a Plan to Spend or budget there was a line item designated to giving. Oftentimes people give when the dust settles and they see what is leftover, but you don’t want to wait until this point in order to have a plan and follow through on it in order to give to what matters most to you.