Recently, my husband and I sat down to do our absolute favorite thing: Budgeting!
Ya, right.
The fact is, we’ve been a little neglectful of this area lately. We don’t spend a lot of money and we have pretty low overhead, so we just figured things were fine.
Then I began taking bills and other expenses, adding them together in my head, and comparing that number to our income. Suddenly, our situation didn’t seem so great. As much as I would just like to try a little harder and hope for the best, I know that would not be wise.
On top of that, I’m pretty sure it was our neglect that was beginning to give me anxiety over our finances. Then the more anxious I felt, the more I wanted to avoid it.
I knew we couldn’t avoid it any longer, so my husband and I sat down and went through all the numbers. It wasn’t fun–actually, it was downright unpleasant–but it was necessary.
As I ran through our expenses, there were several charges I didn’t recognize. After a little digging, we realized we had not canceled an old online subscription. I also noticed that I was being unnecessarily charged $20/month for a service I’m not using.
*Sigh*
Catch for us the foxes,
the little foxes
that ruin the vineyards,
our vineyards that are in bloom.
Proverbs 2:15
These unnoticed charges were the little foxes in our vineyard. While they were relatively small, they had the potential of slowly eating away at our fruit.
After going through all the paperwork, my husband and I were able to knock off a few unnecessary expenses and set some guidelines on spending. After everything, we felt pretty accomplished. We had a new plan and vision for our finances.
While everyone may not have issues with finances in particular, I think most people can admit that there are certain areas in their lives that they’ve neglected.
What’s your area of concern? Where have you allowed the foxes in?