Sister Sanders’ Budgeting Tips

A Healthy budget is a huge factor in creating a happy marriage, a happy, secure family, and personal self-worth.

• Husbands and wives should discuss and work together to create a family budget.

-  Before you get married, make sure your future spouse has the same idea of a budget as you do and will help you work towards self-reliance.  What is important to you should be important to them. 

-  Those that care the most are at the mercy of those that care the least.

• “Successful family finances begin with the payment of an honest tithe and the giving of a generous fast offering. The Lord has promised to open the windows of heaven and pour out great blessings upon those who pay tithes and offerings faithfully (see Malachi 3:10 and Isaiah 58:6–12).” www.lds.org/topics/finances

-  “The purpose of both temporal and spiritual self-reliance is to get ourselves on higher ground so that we can lift other in need.” – Elder Robert D. Hales

• Spend less than you make. 

-  “Reasonable debt for the purchase of an affordable home and perhaps for a few other necessary things is acceptable. But from where I sit, I see in a very vivid way the terrible tragedies of many who have unwisely borrowed for things they really do not need.” – President Hinckley

-  If you budget carefully you can avoid debt for cars and for a college education.

-  “Even if you are going into debt for a home or an education, you should still use prayer and wisdom to make good decisions about debt. If you do go into debt, you should pay your debts off as soon as you can.” - http://personalfinance.byu.edu/?q=node/88

• Learn about and understand interest. 

-  “Those who understand interest -- EARN it. Those who don't -- PAY IT!" - Albert Einstein

-  “Interest never sleeps nor sickens nor dies; it never goes to the hospital; it works on Sundays and holidays; it never takes a vacation; it never visits nor travels; it takes no pleasure; it is never laid off work nor discharged from employment; it never works on reduced hours; it never has short crops nor droughts; it never pays taxes; it buys no food; it wears no clothes; it is unhoused and without home and so has no repairs; it has neither wife, children, father, mother, nor kinfolk to watch over and care for; it has no expense of living; it has neither weddings nor births nor deaths; it has no love, no sympathy; it is as hard and soulless as a granite cliff. Once in debt, interest is your companion every minute of the day and night; you cannot shun it or slip away from it; you cannot dismiss it; it yields neither to entreaties, demands, or orders; and whenever you get in its way or cross its course or fail to meet its demands, it crushes you.” (President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., In Conference Report, April 1938, page 103.)

•   Save some money from every paycheck.

-  A healthy budget will have 5-10% disposable income.

-  There will always be unexpected bills or repairs that come up.  Budget for them.  Learn to expect the unexpected!

•   Build and keep good credit

-  Good credit is necessary if you want to purchase a home.

-  You do not need to go into debt to build credit.  You can build credit by getting a low balance credit card, making a few small purchases with it, and paying them off every month.

-  If you don’t have the self-control to only buy things with a credit card that you already have the money set aside for, you shouldn’t use a credit card.

•   Read and live the principles taught on the church finances website. www.lds.org/topics/finances