Episode 1055: Paying Attention to Money

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1055 of the inspired stewardship podcast. I'm

[00:00:07] Sharon Hughes: Sharon Hughes. I challenged you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling, having the ability to believe the truth of who you really are, is key.

[00:00:25] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott May.

[00:00:34] Scott Maderer: the truth is when you look at a budget category, if you consistently go over or under in a particular budget category, either one, you need to think about it. You need to look at it and go, wait a minute. Did I consistently go over and groceries? Because I've just grossly underestimated how much it costs to buy groceries for my.

[00:00:55] I'm putting a budget of $500, but it's just not realistic. Welcome. [00:01:00] And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling and the inspired stewardship podcast who will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence.

[00:01:21] So that. Can impact the world

[00:01:25] in today's episode about impacting the world through stewarding your treasures. I talk with you about why it's important to pay attention to how you use your money. I talk about why attention is the real economy of money, both personally, and on a larger scale. And I also share why paying attention to our money is something we really don't.

[00:01:47] As we talk about stewarding your treasures. Wouldn't it be great. If you could support this podcast and do it without costing yourself an extra dime, it turns out you can. All you have to do is use [00:02:00] inspired stewardship.com/amazon. When you're ready to make a purchase via Amazon and a small commission, we'll come back to support the show.

[00:02:09] If you enjoy the show, when you're ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. Just like time, money is a finite resource, no matter how much you make, you can only have so much. I've talked to people that make $35,000 a year. I've talked to people that make $350,000 a year. I've even talked to people that make three or four or $5 million a year.

[00:02:37] And the truth is there's always limits. There's always a decision about how. They spend their money. One of the biggest differences I've found is in general, those people who pay attention to how they use their money are happier about how they use their money. They're able to look at it and go, am I using my [00:03:00] money in a way that gets me the values and the freedom and the energy and the things that I want in my life.

[00:03:08] Most of us will talk about money in terms of the stuff it gets us. But the truth is real happiness. With money comes from alignment, taking your money and looking to make sure that you're using it in ways that are aligned with your priorities and your values. Are you using your money in a way that gets you more of what you really want?

[00:03:31] The deeper wants and needs the things beyond. Just the stuff, the things that gets you, an emotional experience, the things that gets you a value experience around things that you find important and commitment to the truth is attention to money. Paying attention to what we're doing is the real economy of both our personal budget, as [00:04:00] well as the larger.

[00:04:02] The larger economy think about it. What happens whenever all the sudden there's a tension brought in a community to some need, maybe the fire department isn't funded well enough, or maybe the roads are damaged. That's when people start talking about what do we need to spend to fix this? If there's a problem in a community and it doesn't get press, it doesn't get attention.

[00:04:29] It's not something that's talked about. Then we don't tend to put money in alignment with that, even if it's something that we would all agree is important. The fact that we're not paying attention to it means it doesn't get monetary attention either. Now personally, when we look at it in our life, what usually happens is the money comes in and the money goes out and only the names are changed in between.

[00:04:55] We don't really even know where our money goes. I talk to people all [00:05:00] the time that tell me I spend money, but I really don't have a great grasp on where it goes. I know I buy groceries. I know I go out to eat. I know I spend some money on fun and entertainment, but I don't actually have any idea when they, when you ask them, how much did you spend on groceries last month?

[00:05:17] They have no clue. And that's because it's not something that they've ever paid attention to. We've talked before about tracking where you spend your money. And I talk about the fact that first you have to budget or plan where you're going to spend it. So you have something to compare that tracking to whether you're on track or not.

[00:05:36] Because if all you do is track, you're not really yet paying attention to your money because you're simply going. Yep. That's where it went. It went. That's what I spent last month, but you're not doing any reflection against a goal. And so you don't know how to evaluate what happened with your money. The truth is when you look at a budget category, if you consistently go over or under in a [00:06:00] particular budget category, either one, you need to think about it.

[00:06:03] You need to look at it and go wait. Did I consistently go over and groceries because I've just grossly underestimated, how much it costs to buy groceries for my family, I'm putting a budget of $500, but it's just not realistic. I've got a family of six or seven, and this is just not a realistic amount for our family.

[00:06:24] Given what we do. In which case you need to just admit that and increase the budget. And if that means you have to say no to some other areas, or you have to find a way to bring in more income, you need to do that because it's the reality that you're living with. On the other hand, you may look at it and you may say no, I've got a really good amount for groceries.

[00:06:44] But in reality, we're not planning meals, we're throwing away food. We're wasting money going out to eat when we don't have to, we're doing other things that are causing that food budget to be out of alignment with our values, it's a behavior issue. We're [00:07:00] not really paying attention to how we use our money.

[00:07:03] We put a number down on the budget, but then we're not actually trying to live to that number. Now it's a behavior issue. It's something that we have to do about ourselves. And every once in awhile, you may find an area that you go over under in, and it's just a fluke. It's just one of those one-off events that's going to happen every once in a while you were working towards having an emergency fund or you were working towards having a car maintenance savings.

[00:07:30] And then an event happened that caused you to have to spend more money than you expected. And so you went over budget, but it wasn't going to happen. If you'd had more time, if you'd been able to finish out building the emergency fund, you would have had the savings. It's a fluke, it's a one-off event and you're already doing the behavior that will get you in a place where if that happens again in a year or two years, you'll be just fine.

[00:07:54] You'll be protected from it. Those are the kinds of thinkings that you have to [00:08:00] do when you're really reflecting on what's happening with your money. You have to look through your budget and you have to say. Where I'm spending my money. Is this an alignment with what is most important to me? What will get me where I really want to go?

[00:08:14] Is this an alignment with what I'm being called to do with my money? And of course, my time, like we talked about on Tuesday and if the answer is no, then what can I do to begin to change? To either spend less in certain areas or to spend more in others, because at the end of the day, the money is finite.

[00:08:32] There's always an opportunity cost. If you spend a dollar in one place, it means you didn't spend it somewhere else. There's always a choice, no matter how much you make, there's always some level of making a decision about where your dollars go and to do that. You have to pay attention to your. Thanks for listening.

[00:08:57] Thanks so much for listening to the inspired [00:09:00] stewardship podcast as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you like this episode on the stewardship of treasury. You can sign up for our treasures tips by going to inspired stewardship.com/treasures or text in the U S 4 4 2 2 2 treasures tips.

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