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COMING TO GRIPS
WITH
YOUR FINANCES
by
Ronald D. Kelly
Today's money management is vital to tomorrow's fi nancial success.
I:
KE lT
or not, the world
operates on money.
W i thou
t
money we
wou Id not have a place to
ti
ve,
food to eat or clothes to wear.
Yet ma king ends meet , meeting
the c ha lle nges of income and
outgo- balancing the famil y
checkbook-can be a rewarding
experience.
Planning personal · budgets as
examples for ou r readers worldwide
must be viewed from as broad a
perspective as possible. Common
principies will help you budget no
matter where you live or what lan–
guage you speak or what your cur–
rency is called. You should apply
the principies to your own distinc–
tive national and personal circum–
stances.
A Worldwide Plan
One thing you can know for sure,
rising good times are over for now.
The Western world enjoyed unpar–
al leled prosperity from the end of
World War II until recent times.
Wages and salaries generally
increased at a faster pace than the
cost of living. You need to gcar
down now for changes in your stan–
dard of living.
When we think of budgetir)g
from a worldwide perspective, wc
have to takc into consideration
great cul tural differences in various
budget arcas. One family might
already havc a home paid for and
find the cost of housing a minimal
part of the budget. In other coun–
tries, the cost of renting a homc,
apartment or ftat will take 40 per–
Aprll 1983
cent or more of the family income.
Food costs vary greatly from one
nation to another. Recommended
percentages of income to allocate
the various budget arcas must take
into consideration your own per–
sona] circumstances. Learning to
calculate your needs in proportion
to your income is a very important
principie.
Firs t Thi ngs First
The practice of budgeting based on
this
percentage
principie is an
ancient custom. We are first intro–
duced to it in the pages of the Bible
in the time of Abram or Abraham
almost 4,000 years ago.
After winning a victory over
those who had taken his nephew,
Lot, captive, Abram was returning
home. On the way he neared what
would later become the city of
J erusalem. l t was then called Sa–
lem. T he king of that city, Mel–
chizedek, carne to meet Abram.
Melchizedek was also thc priest of
God (Gen. 14: 18). Abram was
God's servant. He lived according
to God's law, statutes, command–
ments and judgments (Gen. 26:5).
When Abram met Melchizedek,
king of Salem and priest of the
Most H igh God, what did Abram
do? " ... And he gave him tithes of
all" (Gen. 14:20).
The word
tithe
means "tenth,"
or 10 percent. Abram had taken
spoil in the victory ovcr the Ca–
naanite kings. When he met God's
priest, Abram gave 1
O
percent of
what had been taken. Thus we see
tithing-giving 1
O
percent to
God- an ancient law. From this,
we can derive an important princi-
pie of budget allocation-the
per–
centage
system.
Let's learn from this example of
tithing.
What God has done is give man–
kind control over the earth and its
resources. When God created the
first humans, he "blessed them,
and God said unto them, Be fruit–
ful, and multiply, and replenish the
earth, and subd ue it: and have
dominion over the fish of the sea,
and over the fowl of the air, and
over every living thing that moveth
upon the earth" (Gen. 1:28).
God, who owns the entire uní–
verse, essentially said to man: "The
earth is yours to use. You can farm
it. You can graze stock on it. You
will discover minerals and other
natural resources in its soil, in the
oceans and in the atmosphere of the
earth. Use it. Produce from it. Live
off of it. But 10 percent of all the
increase you take from it is mine.
The 90 percent remaining will be
yours to discreetly use."
God has used that 1
O
percent for
his work over the ages. In the days
of Abram, Melchizedek was God's
priest- the tithe went to him.
After God called the nati on
Israel out of Egypt under the direc–
tion of Moses, God used thc tithe
to pay the Levitical priesthood for
their work in the religious and edu–
cational services for the nation
(Heb. 7:9). After Christ estab–
lished the New Testament Church,
tithes were to be uscd for the work
of God through the Church.
The very first step in successful
financia! management is therefore
to tithe, to present 1
O
percent of
one's adjusted gross income to the
2 1