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Why Does Every Budget I Start Fall Apart by Week Two? · Becoming Financially Confident

• 0:37
  You started a budget more times than you can count, and every single time it's in pieces by the second week, sometimes by the second day.
• 0:45
  You're not lazy and you're not bad at this.
• 0:48
  Your budget itself is built wrong.
• 0:50
  And there's a better way to build, one that survives real life.
• 0:54
  The reason that budgets fail is almost never willpower.
• 0:57
  And the fix is simpler than starting over for the hundredth time.
• 1:01
  So stay with me today and.
• 1:03
  And let's build a budget that lasts past Friday.
• 1:15
  Hello and welcome to Financially Confident Christian.
• 1:17
  I'm Ralph Estep Jr.
• 1:19
  And I just want to thank you for joining me today.
• 1:21
  Today's one of those episodes that builds so much frustration in people and that's why your budgets keep collapsing and how to build when it actually sticks.
• 1:31
  We got a listener question.
• 1:32
  And this person starts that budget full of hope, like so many of us.
• 1:36
  And like so many of us, it falls apart within two weeks every single time.
• 1:41
  And they're starting to think they're just incapable.
• 1:44
  But there's a special kind of discouragement in failing at the same thing over and over.
• 1:49
  But I want to assure you something.
• 1:51
  For most people, the failure is the method.
• 1:54
  It's not you.
• 1:55
  Now, if you've got a question like budgeting or finance of some sort, I would love to answer your question.
• 2:01
  You can send me your question by going to financiallyconfidentchristian.com/question We'll put a link in the show notes, but again, that's financiallyconfidentchristian.com/question Let's get to today's listener question.
• 2:15
  Now, today I'm going to start with the subject line again because this is a doozy.
• 2:19
  The subject said, I've started a budget a dozen times and it never lasts.
• 2:24
  What's wrong with me?
• 2:26
  Now, before I read the question, there's nothing wrong with you.
• 2:29
  The system's broken.
• 2:30
  But here's the question.
• 2:31
  Hi, Ralph.
• 2:32
  I feel a little ridiculous even asking this.
• 2:35
  First of all, on this show, there are no ridiculous questions.
• 2:38
  But let me continue.
• 2:39
  I've started a budget so many times, I've lost count.
• 2:43
  New Year, New month.
• 2:44
  Hey, even a new app.
• 2:45
  I get excited, I write it all out, and I'm motivated for about a week and a half.
• 2:51
  But then something happens.
• 2:53
  That birthday I forgot about.
• 2:55
  The car needs an oil change.
• 2:57
  My kid needs cleats.
• 2:59
  It's getting to be that season again, isn't it?
• 3:01
  And suddenly the budget doesn't match reality anymore, and I just give up.
• 3:06
  And I tell myself I'll start fresh next month.
• 3:09
  And the whole thing repeats itself.
• 3:11
  Ralph, I've watched videos.
• 3:13
  I know the percentages.
• 3:15
  It's not that I don't understand budgeting.
• 3:17
  It's that I can't seem to keep one alive past two weeks.
• 3:21
  What am I doing wrong?
• 3:23
  Is there a way to make one that doesn't fall apart the second life happens?
• 3:27
  Thank you.
• 3:28
  Yes.
• 3:29
  The answer to your question is yes, and I've got the answer today.
• 3:33
  But I want to start with a basic thing here.
• 3:36
  Budgets don't fail because you're undisciplined.
• 3:38
  You've already said it.
• 3:39
  You know what to do.
• 3:40
  You know the percentages.
• 3:42
  The problem with most people's budgets, they fail because they're built for a perfect month, and perfect months never come.
• 3:50
  And a budget that can't survive surprises was never going to survive at all.
• 3:53
  It was dead on arrival.
• 3:56
  You got to build one with the dents already hammered in.
• 3:58
  You go to the car lot, you buy a car, you don't want it with a lot of dents hammered in.
• 4:02
  But with a budget, that's what you want.
• 4:04
  So let's get to how to do that.
• 4:06
  Number one thing, you got to stop budgeting for a perfect month.
• 4:10
  Most people who budget, they assume nothing unexpected is going to happen.
• 4:15
  Well, you know about life.
• 4:17
  Something unexpected always happens.
• 4:20
  Like you mentioned in your Klistner call the birthday.
• 4:22
  The oil change.
• 4:24
  Yes.
• 4:24
  The cleats for football or soccer.
• 4:27
  Those aren't emergencies, though.
• 4:28
  They're life.
• 4:30
  And if you've got a budget that breaks the moment real life shows up, that isn't a real budget.
• 4:35
  The goal isn't some flawless plan like some shining city on a hill.
• 4:40
  It's a flexible one.
• 4:42
  And when you expect the bumps, when you expect the short things, you expect the unexpected.
• 4:47
  Those things stop wrecking you if you've got a budget that can't survive a surprise that was never built for real life.
• 4:54
  So we got to start thinking about building something for real life in reality.
• 4:59
  So how do you make this work?
• 5:00
  You got to build in something that I call sinking funds.
• 5:03
  That's the stuff that you keep on forgetting.
• 5:06
  In your listener question, you mentioned a couple things.
• 5:08
  You said birthdays and oil changes and stuff for kids.
• 5:12
  Those are the things that blow up your budget.
• 5:14
  And they're not random.
• 5:15
  I'm sorry?
• 5:16
  They're predictable.
• 5:17
  You just forget about them.
• 5:19
  So one of the key things you can do right now is make a list of those irregular expenses.
• 5:25
  They're not emergencies.
• 5:27
  Those are those surprise things.
• 5:29
  Things like birthdays, Christmas, your car maintenance.
• 5:33
  Yes.
• 5:33
  Those kids Activities and those annual subscriptions that just kind of sneak up on you.
• 5:39
  Add up the yearly cost of Those, divide by 12, and set that aside every month in a sinking fund.
• 5:45
  And then when that cost does hit, because it's going to happen, the money is already there.
• 5:50
  There's no scramble, there's no collapse.
• 5:52
  There's no, I can't budget anymore.
• 5:55
  This one move, trust me on this, this one move is going to fix the most common reasons that most budgets die.
• 6:02
  Those expenses aren't a surprise.
• 6:04
  You just haven't saved for them yet.
• 6:07
  But I'm going to ask you to do one more thing.
• 6:08
  I'm going to tell you that you need to give yourself what I'll call the miscellaneous cushion.
• 6:13
  Now, this isn't that cushion on the couch that you just throw around when somebody needs a place to crash.
• 6:18
  Because no matter how careful you are, when you put your budget together, something's going to slip through.
• 6:25
  So you got a plan for it?
• 6:27
  Build a buffer line into every budget.
• 6:30
  I like to call it something like My life happens budget line.
• 6:34
  Even if it's a couple hundred dollars a month that's going to absorb that small stuff that used to break everything.
• 6:40
  If you've got a budget with no margin, that's just a budget waiting to snap.
• 6:46
  This is the shock absorber that keeps the whole thing on the road.
• 6:49
  You got to leave room for the unexpected, because the unexpected always shows up.
• 6:55
  Now, here's another killer of most budgets.
• 6:58
  You got to check in weekly.
• 7:00
  Don't give up after day one.
• 7:02
  As many of you know, I've been on a health conquest for the past several years.
• 7:07
  There are days that go better than others.
• 7:09
  It would be real easy for me to say, you know what?
• 7:11
  I can't diet.
• 7:12
  I can't lose weight.
• 7:13
  I can't do this.
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  I'm done.
• 7:15
  So many people think of their budget the same way.
• 7:17
  They have a bad day, they have those unexpected expenses.
• 7:21
  That electric bill was too high.
• 7:23
  That car had a maintenance you weren't expecting.
• 7:27
  You can't rate your budget once and never look at it.
• 7:30
  If you did that, that's not a budget that doesn't want to work.
• 7:33
  So you got to take 15 minutes once a week and look at what actually happened.
• 7:38
  When you put together your budget, you made the best assumptions you can make.
• 7:42
  Maybe you consider those other things we talked about, those surprises.
• 7:46
  But you can't cast it in stone like some big tablets that you chiseled into it.
• 7:51
  You got to adjust it on the fly.
• 7:52
  Maybe you've got to do some Shifting around, maybe.
• 7:55
  You got to move some money between categories.
• 7:57
  You got to react to what real life did.
• 8:00
  A budget to be successful has got to be a living document.
• 8:04
  It's not some New Year's resolution that you check off and say, well, let me try it again next year.
• 8:10
  It's okay to make those small weekly corrections because that prevents that big week two blow up that you're talking about.
• 8:17
  If you've got a budget that was written once and never opened, that's just a wish with numbers.
• 8:23
  But something else in your question I want to lean into.
• 8:26
  You gotta aim for progress, not a perfect score.
• 8:30
  The real reason that you've quit isn't the broken budget.
• 8:34
  It's that shame of failing.
• 8:35
  You've said it.
• 8:36
  I've done this so many times.
• 8:37
  Ralph, you've got one blown category.
• 8:41
  That doesn't mean the whole month has failed.
• 8:43
  It's just one line that you need to adjust.
• 8:45
  Don't throw away the whole plan because one part didn't go perfectly.
• 8:49
  The truth is, a budget that's 80% followed beats a perfect one that you don't do anymore.
• 8:55
  So stay in the game.
• 8:57
  The people who win at budgeting are the ones who don't quit at the first dent.
• 9:01
  You don't need a perfect budget.
• 9:03
  You need one you don't abandon.
• 9:06
  Now, you said something in your listener question.
• 9:10
  You said you feel ridiculous, like there's something wrong with you.
• 9:14
  I want to take that off your shoulders.
• 9:16
  Trying again after failing isn't a sign of weakness, friend.
• 9:19
  That's a sign of faithfulness.
• 9:22
  The person who's truly given up doesn't start a new budget.
• 9:26
  You keep starting.
• 9:28
  But here's what faith doesn't promise us.
• 9:30
  It doesn't promise us a month with no surprises.
• 9:33
  It doesn't promise us you're never going to blow a category again.
• 9:36
  Trust me, you are going to do those things.
• 9:39
  And it doesn't promise us it gets easier overnight.
• 9:43
  But here's what faith does promise, and this is a beautiful thing.
• 9:46
  We serve a God of new beginnings, and he's not keeping this immortal tally of your failed attempts.
• 9:53
  It talks about in scripture that his mercies are new every morning, and so is every budget.
• 10:00
  Scripture tells us that his compassions never fail.
• 10:03
  They're new every morning.
• 10:04
  That's not just spiritual comfort.
• 10:06
  It's permission to begin again and again and again without shame.
• 10:12
  You don't have to carry that weight of every past attempt into this one.
• 10:15
  Each new month is a clean page, and our God is the author of fresh starts.
• 10:22
  So if you failed at this.
• 10:24
  If you've been discouraged by this, start again today.
• 10:27
  Not with shame, but with a smarter plan.
• 10:30
  And think about building one that bends instead of breaks.
• 10:35
  You're not a budget failure.
• 10:37
  You've been using a budget that was set up to fail from the beginning, and that can change today.
• 10:41
  The fact that you're trying is exactly why you'll get there.
• 10:45
  So here is your win for today, and this is going to be a very important win.
• 10:50
  I want you to go and list those irregular expenses that always seem to blindside you.
• 10:55
  How do you do it?
• 10:56
  Go think over to last year.
• 10:57
  One of the things I encourage you to do is go look at your credit card statements.
• 11:01
  Go look at your bank statements and highlight those things that surprised you.
• 11:05
  Write down each one of those and write down roughly what it cost.
• 11:08
  And then pick those top three and create those sinking funds.
• 11:12
  I'm not telling you to go build a whole new budget today.
• 11:14
  Just name the landmines.
• 11:17
  You're going to diffuse those if you see those.
• 11:20
  Because the truth is, you can't plan for what you refuse to write down.
• 11:25
  Which leads me to our Bible verse for today.
• 11:27
  It comes from the Book of Lamentations, chapter 3, verses 22 and 23.
• 11:32
  It says, the faithful love of the Lord never ends.
• 11:35
  His mercies never cease.
• 11:37
  Great is his faithfulness.
• 11:39
  His mercies begin afresh each morning.
• 11:43
  I love that verse, and it's so reassuring to me because the whole problem you described today was feeling crushed by repeated failure.
• 11:52
  But what does this verse tell us?
• 11:54
  It tells us that God's mercy resets every single morning.
• 11:59
  There's no running tally of your stumbles and your failures.
• 12:03
  If God offers you that fresh start daily, you owe yourself one too.
• 12:08
  Beginning again is not defeat.
• 12:10
  It's the rhythm that grace was built on.
• 12:13
  Let's pray together.
• 12:15
  Heavenly Father, I bring before you today someone who keeps trying and keeps feeling like they've failed.
• 12:22
  They've tried starting over and tempted to believe they just can't do it anymore.
• 12:26
  Lord, I just encourage you to meet them with encouragement right right at this moment.
• 12:30
  Give them a plan that finally fits their real life, those surprises and all those dents that we talked about.
• 12:36
  Replace that shame of those past attempts with hope for this one, Lord.
• 12:40
  And grant them the discipline for a weekly check in and the grace to adjust without quitting.
• 12:47
  Remind them as your scripture tells us, that your mercies are new every single morning and so is every fresh start.
• 12:54
  So.
• 12:54
  So let them feel your patience as they learn to do it better today.
• 12:58
  And a little bit better tomorrow and we ask all these things in Jesus name.
• 13:04
  Amen, friend.
• 13:06
  You came in feeling like a repeat failure.
• 13:09
  But right now, if you listen to what I talked about today, you got the energy to go and know that the budget was the problem.
• 13:15
  It wasn't you.
• 13:18
  You got to build that plan that expects life surprises because that's the plan that survives.
• 13:22
  So your big takeaways for today, stop budgeting per the perfect.
• 13:26
  Expect those bumps, build those sinking funds, add that miscellaneous cushion.
• 13:31
  Check in weekly and aim for progress.
• 13:34
  Don't aim for perfection.
• 13:36
  One blown line isn't a failed month.
• 13:39
  Now maybe you're suffering through something.
• 13:40
  You're really having a hard time with something financially.
• 13:44
  I'd love to hear your voice.
• 13:45
  You know, one of the things you can do is you can actually record a voicemail message for me.
• 13:49
  You can do that by going to our website and it's financiallyconfidentchristian.com/voicemail.
• 13:56
  We'll put a link in the show notes.
• 13:57
  It's super simple.
• 13:58
  Just click on the link, click record and I'll hear your voice again.
• 14:02
  That's financiallyconfidentchristian.com/voicemail.
• 14:06
  Thank you for joining me today.
• 14:08
  I want to encourage you, as always, stay financially savvy.
• 14:11
  Remember every day his mercies renew again.
• 14:15
  God bless you.
• 14:16
  And you have a truly great day today.
• 14:21
  Living with purpose and vision.
• 14:23
  Heart, sun and a division oh, oh we ride.