Budgeting Broken? Can You Really Break the Cycle?

Let me start by asking you this today. Do you ever feel like your money is in charge and you're just trying to keep up? Well, let me let you in on a little secret. You're not lazy, you're not broken, and you don't need more shame. What you need is a better plan. And today I'm going to talk about hope. And I'm going to talk about healing through a better way to budget. I'm going to introduce you to my 3P plan. So join me today to start your journey to success.

I've got success for you on the horizon today. In a world where crushing debt keeps you trapped, where living paycheck to paycheck has become your new normal, and where the dream of retirement seems impossibly out of reach, there's hope. Join financial evangelist Ralph Estepp Jr. A man who's walked through the fire of financial failure and emerged stronger on the other side. Welcome to Ask Ralph, the show where real world experience meets biblical truth.

To break the bondage of financial despair, get ready to take control of your money, break free from the financial stress, and align your resources with God's purpose for your life. This is Ask Ralph with Ralph Estepp Jr. Thank you for joining me on the show today. I'm Ralph and I just want to thank you for taking time to join me today. This show, every day, is all about breaking your financial shame and doing it with faith and with confidence.

And I don't know about you, but I've tried the budget thing. I remember when I first got out of college, I wanted to use all those things that I learned in college and I wanted to build this massive spreadsheet. This is going to be the best budget ever. And I put this spreadsheet together and I color coded. I mean, I had everything you could imagine. But guess what? I never used it. I never used it because I didn't want to face the truth. Maybe you've been

there, too. And I got this message the other day from a listener named Angela. And she. She asked me, she said, ralph, keep falling off the budgeting wagon and I feel like a failure. Well, see, I think the first thing you've got to understand

and a lot of people lose sight of this. Budgeting isn't about saying no to everything. So many people think, oh, I'm going to go on a budget and I got to say no to everything. It's kind of like a diet, you know, it's restriction. It's no, it's, I can't do this. But the real Core benefit to budgeting is actually about saying the word yes. But here's the difference. You're saying yes to what matters the most. See, you got to think about it in these terms. Budgeting is direction.

It's moving in a particular way, it's moving in a particular direction. It's not about deprivation. And somebody said this to me earlier today, and I thought this was perfect for what we wanted to talk about today. And it's when you really give every dollar a job, every single dollar has a job. This dollar is for housing. This dollar is for fuel. This dollar is for giving. This dollar is for savings. It's when you do that that you actually take back control.

And listen, before I get too far into this, that includes tithing. And I want you to tithe not out of guilt, but I want you to tithe out of trust. Because I want you to have that cheerful giver's heart. I want you to say, God, I trust you more than my bank account. But the big thing I want you to understand as we get to the main point today is budgeting is freedom. It's not punishment. If you think of it as punishment, guess what? You're not going to do it. You're going to fail at it.

But look at budgeting as freedom. Look at it as intentionality and not punishment. So let me get to my 3P framework, because I like to boil down things into really simple things that you can understand and better than that, you can implement them. So let's get to the three P's. First one is plan. You got to start by knowing what's coming in and what's going out. It's really that simple. Start with how much money do I have coming in?

And here are my bills, here's my mortgage payment, or here's my rent payment, here's my car payment. Here's what I pay for electricity, here's what I pay for gas. Here's my insurance. You get the idea. But start with that plan. Know what's coming in and what's going out. Second P is prioritize. And that's where you really got to start thinking along terms of how do I set the intentionality with those dollars, how do I assign each one of those dollars to have a purpose?

I call it a prioritize that. And I'm going to talk about doing that with your essentials.

We're going to do that with giving, and then we're going to do it with savings. We're going to just start there. And then the third p And this is the most critical part is you've got to practice it. You got to track it daily. See, it doesn't matter how you do it. I don't really care how you track it. You can track it with a spreadsheet. Hey, you can build that spreadsheet like I tried to build one when I was back getting out of college.

And, man, it had all the columns, it had the colors into it. I don't really care how you do it, but you got to do it. And listen, I'm going to tell you something that is critical to you for you to understand. Don't worry about being perfect. You're never going to be perfect. You're never going to reach that point of perfection. I just want you to be faithful. And see, the thing you need to understand and hear me on this budgeting isn't just numbers. If it was just numbers, it'd be simple.

Hey, here's the numbers. Here's the numbers I'm going to use. But it's emotional. And when you start to live in that

budget, when you start to live in that intentional spending plan, you may have feelings of shame. You may think about, oh, man, why didn't I do this before? Why did I spend so much on why did I do this? Why did I do that? It might bring up fear. You might be wondering, oh, man, how am I ever going to do this? And then it might also bring up guilt. You know, why didn't I do this before? How come I didn't think about this before? And that's all normal.

And that's the emotions you're going to feel when you get started. But let me just tell you something right now. Those emotions are not permanent. And here's the thing. I want you to really understand this. Whatever you're doing right now, stop what you're doing and just think about what I'm getting ready to say. Because so many people get stuck in that cycle of shame over their finances because they don't understand that you are not your financial mistakes. You're just not. You are growing.

You are learning. And Zachariah 4:10 says, don't despise small beginnings. And this, this is a process. So celebrate those small wins. Every step forward counts. Just like you're starting a fitness routine, that first step out the door, that counts. That's what starts to build that momentum. We're going to talk more about that in tomorrow's show. But, Angela, let me get back to your question, because you're not failing.

See, that's what Angela was saying to me, she goes, ralph, I feel like whenever I start budgeting, I just fail at it. I don't finish it. I don't. But you're not failing. You got to understand that you're learning and it's a process. And that's why I encourage you. Start with just three basic categories this week and track them. That's enough. What am I going to do for my essentials? What am I going to do for my savings and my tithing? And the rest of it is your once.

And it's all about building that consistency and not looking for perfection. If you're looking perfection, you're never going to get there. That's a truth bomb today. You're never going to get to a level of perfection. It just isn't going to happen. Now, I'd love for us to pray together right now. I want to invite God in. So, Lord, we ask you today for wisdom. We ask you for strength, we ask you for consistency.

Because we know that it's the consistency, it's those habits that we build every day that will get us to the next place. And Lord, we pray so much for peace.

Help us to be wise stewards of what you've given us and help us to put our trust in you first. And we ask this in the name of Jesus. And remember this big takeaway today. Budgeting equals intention. It's not saying no, it's not saying I'll restrict this. Use that 3P plan. And listen, don't aim for perfection. Hear me on that. I don't want you to just aim for perfection. I want you to aim for persistence. And like I said, today's challenge is really simple.

Pick three spending categories and set a limit just for this week. And like I said, tomorrow, we're going to talk about small wins, big change. It's going to be talking all about momentum. And again, before I close today, I want to encourage you, if you're not a member of our newsletter, you can get some great information out there. You can get to it by going to askralphpodcast.com newsletter.

And while you're there, if you've got a testimony or you've got a question you'd like me to answer on the show, I'd love to hear from you on this. And just remember, this is my final encouragement for today. You've got this. Just take that first step and just take one step at a time. And as I always end this show, I want to encourage you to stay financially savvy and let's break the cycle of financial shame together. So God bless you today. Thank you for joining us on the Ask Ralph show.

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