My church is actually making a point of not collecting offering or tithing this month as we continue discussing what we would like to do with our non profit status. Whether this means we continue to have service in someones home and put our offerings toward service projects, etc or do something entirely different...
So because things are just so up in the air, they have decided until we figure things out to not collect offering/tithing. My preacher also preaches that giving isn't about a set amount financially, but about a generous heart... the giving of time, talents, service, as well as financial giving.
In the past, i've tried to give 10% of my take home pay because I knew it was needed to keep a roof over our "church heads" and to support the children's program that the church was funding... but now that that isn't the case, I sat down with the fiancé to discuss what we want to do.
We still want to give money somewhere because we believe it is a good way for us to be better stewards with our resources... but how much and to what extent we aren't sure. With wedding expenses creeping up as we wait on the new location details, we could really use this time as an unexpected blessing to help insure that we are able to cover our wedding expenses without incurring any debt... but we still also want to give... and to somewhere we both felt good about.
So for this month we decided to put a little bit of money ($54) towards Child S.H.A.R.E. since that's something we both really believe in and support... The rest of the money this month will go towards wedding expenses that we know of... mainly paying for my wedding ring. We will re-evaluate our giving next month once we have better numbers for our wedding costs and more information about our church structure.
Here's how the budget will look this month.
- Mortgage $808.18
- HOA $250.00
- Emergency Fund $86.36
- Wedding Fund $142.11
- Ring $318.89
- Child Share $54.00
- Christmas Account $50.00
- Gasoline/car $189.54
- Groceries & Food $250.00
- All Insurance Premiums $143.00
- Fun $50.00
- Utility Bills (Cell, Cell, Electric, Internet) $200.00
We took the last bit of overtime from Friday's paycheck and put it towards the ring. I also had $20 in my wallet that we got back from the travel thing and that will go towards paying for the ring as well. Any other money we come by is either for the Emergency fund, or the wedding. We may need to take money out of our emergency fund to pay for the wedding... and then replace it later on.
It's steward, not Stuart.
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