Ratios

I've been thinking about 1) stewardship and 2) ratios recently.

The Loving Husband and I are working on getting our spending, savings and giving in line with what they should be. If I get appointed to East PoDunk next year, the Loving Husband may or may not be able to maintain his current employments and so we need to get all things in balance. Easier said than done. He's reading Dave Ramsey's book; I'm contemplating ratios.

For instance, we spend about a third of our income on housing. Not too bad; some people spend up to two thirds on their housing. Then comes the uh-oh. We've been spending a third on food. That's a lot of money -- too much going out to eat. So we've been cutting down on that -- and budgeted $125 or so a week for food. It's really not been too hard, but I hope that number will go up shortly. We been giving pretty generously -- as we ought, but I realized that I've been giving "encumbered" funds -- funds for my pet ministries. I wonder if that's an OK thing to do. The money should be the church's to do with as it needs to do. I'm going to have to think about that for a while.

I was reading somewhere that there is more money spent on Lipstick in the U.S. of A than there is spent at NASA yearly. Interesting. I wonder what giving really is like in the larger communities? What is the ratio of giving to what we spend on our schools or maintenance of our roads and bridges? How much money is given for the Church to be as the Body of Christ as compared to our military budget? More things to research and think about.

This I know -- I spent too much money this week on Baklava. A full fifth of the weekly food budget went on Baklava. Yes, Baklava is one of the world's most perfect foods, but it makes me go hmmm.....