Hi, my name is Rick Bloodworth. This is the Common Sense Christian channel, and today is Friday, so we want to talk about financial matters. And the question I wanted to look at today is, where can I get extra money? I think everybody gets to the point where they're working about as many jobs as they feel like they can and still maintain a family. They've, they've just, they've done everything they can think of. And yet they still don't have quite enough money to get anything ahead. Maybe they're just barely paying their bills, but they're certainly not getting ahead. And so, what can you do? And so, this is the the video that I wanted to present some ideas maybe some suggestions as far as where you might be able to find some money. That's already in your budget or maybe even a better way to put it that isn't in your budget, but you're spending it anyway And so it's reducing your budget by Sometimes a pretty significant amount and the idea behind this is we want to get to the point where we can start Having some extra money every month to pay off things like credit card bills or other high interest rate loans but But also some money to put aside for an emergency fund, whether we're talking about cash on hand or a strategic pantry or something along those lines. And then also, we always want to be looking ahead to the future as best we can. And if there's any way we can kind of claw out a little bit of money each month for some sort of an investment, well, that would be something that in the years ahead, we're going to look back upon and be really glad that we did that. As a matter of fact, today's topic hopefully will be something that will give you a fresh mindset on some things that may make you think I'm really glad that I, I looked at this, or I'm really glad that I started considering some of these things, because once you do, I believe you're, you're going to find out that there may already be plenty of money in your budget to take care of some things that you would like to take care of. But you didn't really think about it being there. And so that's what I want to look at today. And the first thing I want to look at is habits. What kind of habits do you have? Well, if, if you drink, if you, let's say you drink a six pack of beer a day. Well, that's going to be a pretty expensive habit as you already Well, no, it's expensive in more by the way than just the money you'll actually spend on your alcohol because there's a lot of other things that come along with that, including eventual health problems. Smoking is another thing. There are some people that, that might smoke a pack of cigarettes a day and they kind of look at it as the one luxury they have during the day. It's something that helps them. to relax. And so they've been reluctant to give it up. Or maybe they've tried to give it up in the past, but they really haven't followed through because, quite frankly, the reason for giving up just wasn't compelling enough. And so there are habits like that. There's also habits that most of us wouldn't consider to be in the vice category. And these are things like maybe stopping by Starbucks once a day for a coffee or Maybe going out to eat once a day for fast food because we've got to eat something for lunch. And so all these things we can find not only money that we might be able to save by cutting back, but we might find out that they're extremely significant. And then on top of that, there's all sorts of subscriptions that people end up getting. Everything from Netflix to iTunes. There's just also, I've seen cosmetic subscriptions. And of course, there's always book of the month type of deals. Or, or other types of music things that you might be getting CDs for on a monthly basis. There's cosmetic video, or subscriptions and things like that. So, it's kind of nice every once in a while to go back and review your credit card bill. and see what you have on there, because it might surprise you some of the things that you have signed up for that you really enjoyed at the time that you, quite frankly, just don't use much anymore, if at all, and yet you're still getting billed every month for these subscriptions. And so subscriptions is another area. That you can look at for saving money each month. And then of course there are things like cable and satellite TV. And I realize for some of you I've already crossed the line. If you just can't do without it, I understand. But there's other things you can do. My wife and I got rid of satellite and cable probably about 10 or 12 years ago, and we really haven't missed it. We had internet anyway, and so we can get videos online. We can get YouTube and watch different things, including pretty current news stories that aren't much more than an hour or two old. We can look at the weather. Online a whole lot quicker than we could waiting for it to come on the news. Even if we're watching the weather channel, sometimes you have to wait for your specific area to come around. And so, a lot of the things that you think you might have to have satellite and cable for You really might find you can do without, but if you can't, maybe, maybe you've got a sport that you really enjoy watching and you're just not going to do without your Sunday afternoon football or, or your weekly basketball game or your daily baseball games or whatever. And that's just up to you. Just. What's most important to you? And the goal of all this, the goal of trying to find some extra money again, is so that you can start paying down some of your high cost debt a little bit quicker. So you can have an emergency account, because emergencies happen fairly frequently, don't they? And so that you can actually start putting some money away. And so I wanted to talk about some of these costs very briefly. today to give you an idea of just exactly how much money we're talking about. Let's say that you like go buy, you'd like to go buy your favorite coffee place. It can be Starbucks. It can be anything. But just for a black coffee is going to cost you about 3. And then you got to pay for your gas on top of that. And it may be something that you just swing by on your way to work or on your way home from school or something like that. And so certainly your gas is going to be a little bit cheaper. But if you're in, if you're in a takeout line, you're still going to be idling there for a while. And you have to admit that more often than not, you're actually making a specific trip for this item. So. If the coffee is just 3 and you don't get anything extra, you don't get any dessert or anything extra. And the gas, you're looking at about 8 a day. And even if your gas isn't that much, you probably are going to get something extra. So let's look at a very conservative 8 a day for your total cost of swinging by to get that favorite coffee. Well, that's 250 a month, which is 3, 000 a year. That's pretty significant, especially when you're When you consider that you can go to the grocery store and buy, buy maybe an eight ounce instant coffee that'll make 120 cups of coffee and you can doctor it up any way you want to, is it as good as that nice premium coffee you get at the fancy coffee place? And the answer is no, but it's got the same amount of caffeine and it's a whole lot more convenient because you can have it at your leisure. Whenever you want and you don't have to get in the car and drive and get it and you're going to find For about 10 cents a cup. You can have a pretty nice cup of coffee. You can even upgrade to maybe 20 cents a cup and get some premium coffee You can maybe even go a little bit more than that and grind your own coffee do what you want You're going to save an awful lot of money by making your coffee at home if you don't want to give up The next thing is fast food, and this, this is one of those items that we don't really maybe think about. It's just something that we reach in our pocket and we pay for. We, we have to eat lunch, we have to eat dinner, we have to eat breakfast, and sometimes it's a whole lot more convenient for us just to swing by the drive through and pick up a, a meal to go. And so I was looking at the average cost of a fast food meal in America, and they said it was about 15 a meal. Well, that seems a little bit high to me. So I just put 10 plus gas and you're still looking at about 15 a meal and people who eat out on a regular basis or on a daily basis, that's gonna be 15 a day and that's gonna be 450 a month. which is 5, 400 a year. For those of you who just send money with your kids every day and just give them an allowance to go out to a fast food, because after all their kids and kids need to have fun, you need to understand what the total cost of that is, as opposed to just a brown bag lunch or something like that. They can go out once a week if you want to do something nice for them, but it doesn't have to be every day. And, and quite frankly, if it's every day. It's just going to be old hat to them and they're really not going to enjoy it. That much anyway, and so whatever your fast food habit is again If you've got a daily habit, you're looking at a significant amount of money Now the days of the 99 cent menu are gone where you could swing by McDonald's and get a six piece chicken mcnugget And a and a water and a small order of fries for a dollar 98 That just doesn't happen anymore. It's going to cost you a lot. So think about that cost and decide for yourself whether it's worth it. Again, we're talking about cigarettes. If you smoke cigarettes, that's about 8 a pack. And if you smoke a pack a day, that's going to be about 250 a month or 3, 000 a year, that's a lot of money for something that you're just literally this is going up in smoke. And it's also something that very definitely has some significant adverse health risks associated with it. And so even if you've tried to give it up before, if this is something that you're doing, there's a lot of money right there. And if you can start attaching that money. to something else, such as some kind of an investment that you'd like to make. Maybe you're saving up to buy a boat. Maybe you're saving up for a down payment for a house you're renting now, and you'd like to save up for a down payment. Maybe you'd just like to get out of debt and start paying off those high interest credit cards. This is one area that you can do it. And again, if you've tried in the past and your motivation hasn't been strong enough, start putting a dream attached. To that goal of giving up smoking. And I believe you'll find that it's something that eventually You'll be able to do and then the other is people who drink Beer drinkers are just kind of a special breed I'm, not saying that you're you're some kind of a of a low life for doing that But but I will say that you're spending an awful lot of money Typically about 10 a day. If you are a beer drinker, you're probably drinking more than a six pack. And so, so you may be having more than that, but you just drink the cheapest you can find because after all, you're just looking for the soothing and the calming effect on that. But again, you're looking at about 10 a day, every day, 300 a month. every month, 3, 600 a year, every year. And let's just take these two categories. If you smoke a pack of cigarettes a day and you drink a six pack of beer a day, that's 6, 600 a year. It doesn't take too many years to, to, to have been able to put aside your child's tuition money if they're wanting to go to college and you're wanting to help them. There's an awful lot of other things you can do with that money, that 6, 600 per year. But again, most people who do things like this and I don't want to say they're bad people. I just want to say they don't think about it. And it's not any different than the fast food or the, or the coffee every day where as far as the financial cost of it, because you're just spending it because you're in the habit of doing so. But. Here's the thing. If you're spending two hundred and fifty dollars a month just for coffee and going to get coffee and maybe the little side orders that go along with that or if you're spending four hundred and fifty dollars a month for fast food and the gas that gets you there That's money that'll go a long way and again cigarettes and beer the same thing. This is money you can find My point is, if you've been thinking that you're going to have to get a second job or a third job just to start getting a little bit ahead, look at your budget first. And there's something else that you should consider about that. Whenever you cut something out of your budget, you're not just cutting that dollar amount out of your budget, you're also cutting The taxes that were needed to pay for that now you're still making the same income and you're still paying the same taxes and obviously if you put them into investments or something else that's going to be taxed as well, but if you don't have any money for anything extra and you're falling behind 250 a month and just putting it on the credit card, well here's something you can instantly do that's going to save you money and it's, it's going to be taken right off the top. This is, this is like a, that old saying, a penny saved is a penny earned. Well, if you save a penny and you don't have to pay taxes to get that penny back, then you're actually saving closer to two pennies. And because after the Uncle Sam takes his part and your state takes their part. You're probably just looking at 50 cents on the dollar anyway for every added dollar you add to the top of your income. So Again, there are other items that are not as big. Your, your, your subscriptions Maybe you've got a bunch of subscriptions and they do add up to a hundred dollars a month or maybe your satellite or cable's pretty nice And that's a hundred dollars a month. Well, there's there's another place where you can save a hundred or two hundred dollars a month just to be able to start getting ahead a little bit. And then once you've done that, once you've carved out, let's say you've, you've been able to, with a lot of hard work and a really sharp pencil and some close figuring, you've been able to cut 300 of expenses out of your monthly budget. Now what do you do with it? And again, we've talked about that before. If you want to go back and look at the videos on, on, on what to do as far as putting aside a savings account, there's a, there's a complete video for that. So I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it, but I do want to have just two things. 300 a month is something that you can split up very nicely into three 100 categories. If you've got credit card revolving credit card debt, every 100 you pay off is going to save you about 10, 000.$2 a month in interest. So for 10 months, that's gonna be$20 for, for a hundred months, that's gonna be$200 that you've paid down on your credit card. And it's not that unusual for people to have 10, 15,$20,000 in credit card debt, and therefore they're paying something along the lines of two to$400 a month just in interest for the balance that they're carrying. If you've got that, you need to get that paid down. And so with that extra money, with 100, you can start paying it down a little bit at a time each month. And at 2 a month, savings and interest doesn't make a big deal. But month after month after month, it's going to make a huge deal. And someday you're going to be out of credit card debt. And then you can start attacking some of the other loans that you have. Another thing that I really recommend is an emergency fund. There, there's just unsettled things in life, aren't there? You could lose your job, you could get sick, you could have a huge repair bill that you weren't expecting. Maybe a furnace goes out or your transmission on your vehicle goes out. Well, if you have an emergency fund, even though you don't like to spend your money for that, that's what you put it aside for, and you've got it. You don't have to go into debt to pay these big bills. And that's pretty nice feeling when you think about it. And the other thing, other part of your emergency fund is just to maybe have a strategic pantry. And we've talked about that again, in other videos, you can go back on the playlist for the financial Fridays and find something on that, but you can put a hundred dollars a month into an emergency fund and strategic pantry. And you'll find that that's something that pays pretty quick. And the third thing is just an investment account. I realize you can't do a whole, whole lot with 100 a month, but this is just a beginning. The more you get your debts paid down, the more you have per money for things like savings and investments. But, but here are just a few ideas. For your savings. Like I said, maybe, maybe there's something special that you and your spouse would like. Maybe you've always dreamed of getting a little cabin in the mountains. And, and even though you can find parcels of land up in the mountains, maybe 10 acres for, for not much more than 20, 000 that you could build your own cabin on the idea of getting 10, 000 isn't very practical. Well, a hundred dollars a month. We'll get you 10, 000 in a hundred months. And a hundred months is just a little over six years. Now that may seem like a long time, but once you get a dream in mind, well, you start finding money from other sources to, to, to meet that dream. Maybe, maybe it's a boat. Maybe it's a, a nice once in a lifetime vacation that you don't want to put on a credit card, but you want to have something that's paid for before you go. Whatever that is, you can, you can save for that. Maybe you'd like to invest in something. I've, I've been investing in, in silver for over 40 years now. You can buy four ounces of silver right now for, for a little more than a hundred dollars a month. Some months it's less than that, but if, if you just buy four ounces of silver each month and, and start accumulating it, well again, it may not seem like much at the time, but that's nearly 50 ounces of silver a year, 500 ounces of silver in 10 years. It's something that, that accumulates. Maybe you want to put it into a mutual fund where you just have it taken out of your, your check and a hundred dollars goes to whatever type of investment that, that you think is the most prudent. Maybe you're saving up for a down payment and that a hundred dollars a month is going to go to that down payment. The average cost of new construction right now runs between 100 and 150 per square foot. And so for a 2, 000 square foot home, you're looking at between 200, 000 and 300, 000. Well, you're going to have to have a down payment for that, aren't you? Well, 100 a month isn't going to be enough. buy a lot of house, but if you just need to get 3 percent down payment because you're getting an FHA loan and it's something that's going to be within your budget, you're already paying rent and your mortgage could actually be less than that, if you figure it that way, then, then 3 percent of 200, That's 60 months of saving a hundred dollars a month. And again, now you've got a dream associated with this savings that, that you're doing or this investment that you're doing. It's not just giving up something that you like. It's not just giving up some luxury that you enjoy. Now it's, it's trading it. And it's a pretty good trade when you think about it, because quite frankly, most people don't dream of, of having a fast food meal every day or, or, and most people don't dream of someday acquiring a cigarette habit that costs them. 250 a month or acquiring an alcohol habit that cost them 300 a month. That's not a dream. It's just, it's just something you got yourself into. Trade that bad habit for something that's good, for something that's excellent. And again, now you're moving in the direction of your dreams. And when you have a dream and you can start seeing it slowly materialize, well, it just gives you all the more motivation to get there even quicker. And you're going to find that maybe there are other categories that you can cut back on that aren't nearly as important as this dream that you have. Even the dream may be just paying off your credit card debt. Can you imagine if you pay four, three, 400 a month in credit card bills? If you, if that was gone, what you could do with three or 400 a month, every month, that's a good dream to have. And these other things that we talked about are great as well. Maybe you'd like to buy a ranch someday, and maybe you've already got a little piece of land, but you don't have any money for it. Well, 100 a month will buy you a bottle fed cow in about It'll buy you a, a weaned calf in about seven months. And of course you have to pay for food and things like that, but you're raising it for profit. You can, if your dream is a ranch, you can start doing that at 100 a month. And it's something you can even get your kids started in, as they start dreaming about things that they would like to do. There's all sorts of possibilities. I believe when we start becoming more prudent and more purposeful with our spending, but if we don't get purposeful, then there is going to be a tyranny of bad habits. And these, I call it a tyranny because these bad habits are going to rule your life. They're going to keep you awake at night thinking about how to pay for them. Only you're not thinking about how to pay for the bad habit. You're thinking about having to pay for the rent, or the car payment, or, or the medical bill, or whatever it is, not realizing that you're spending that money little by little every single day for these little items that don't seem to be that significant. But when you look at them on an annual basis, you realize they're incredibly significant. When you ask yourself the question, I want to better myself financially, but where's the money going to come from? These are just a few ideas. Maybe you're already as frugal as you can be, and you're going to have to get another job or, or a higher paying job or something along those lines. But before you do that, it's very likely that running a fine tooth comb over your budget is going to expose a number of items that you spend a on a regular basis that you're just shocked to see how much they add up to on a monthly basis and on a yearly basis. And when you think about what you could be using that money for then you start to dream. And then after a while, your dreams start to become reality. And the life you're living, and it needs to be for God, becomes a life that's more enjoyable. Or you can just slog along like you always have with your little habits and, and, and your, your, your little things that you do. We've all done things like this. But there does come a point where we just have to look at our budget honestly and say, that's enough. I'm going to start living for something differently. Again, as Christians, we need to be living for God first and foremost. And part of that living for him is being a prudent steward of your finances. But there's something else being a prudent student steward can also be a lot of fun when you start attaching dreams to that stewardship, because there's an awful lot of good things, wholesome things, things that that are filled with with integrity that you can do with your funds when when you dream. Or again, you can just go on like you've always gone. What's that old saying? If you've always, if you will always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got. If you're tired of what you've got right now, and if you're tired of what you've been doing, then change. And, and see how nice it is to live When you go in a different direction, that's it for today. I hope this gives you something to think about. But until next time, as always, I pray that God will bless you richly as you seek to do your best to serve him.