33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”

Luke 1:30-33

His Kingdom WILL NEVER END!
What does this mean for you in your life?

1. When you begin to pay off credit cards or loans you will pay them off much faster if you begin with smaller ones and focus your excess income on paying just one credit card or loan off first. Jenni and I did this and as we would pay one off, we would transfer the money we were already used to paying on that credit card to the next – it was like a snowball effect.

2. Get rid of services you don’t need. Ask yourself tough questions. Do you need a home phone? If so, could you go a creative route like using a Magic Jack – $40 one time fee and then $20/YEAR for phone service.

Do you need cable? Jenni and I use an antenna on our house, and receive 20 channels in HD (most people don’t realize that HD is being sent over antenna’s for free) and we save bundles every month. Most TV’s also allow you to hook your computer up to them now and most TV networks are putting their shows online (www.Fancast.com is a great place to catch up on your shows for free, with less commercials and when YOU want to watch them)!

3. Plan ahead for meals. One thing Jenni and I are doing to try and cut back on how much we eat out is to plan out a monthly calendar. This helps us curb how much we spend eating out monthly and also helps cut down the grocery bill by not wasting food (if we are buying a head of lettuce for tacos one night we might do a salad the next).

4.  Be sure to check out Epic Churches Budget resource by visiting epic4life.com/budget.  This will be very helpful to you as you try to plan!

these are simple ideas that could help you cut several hundred dollars out of your monthly expenses right away! You can do it, it just takes some discipline! Can’t wait to hear the creative ways you are finding to cut costs, save money, pay off debt and use your money to fund the Kingdom of God!

PS – if you want to stop by and see Jenni and I we would love to have some visitors, here’s the directions to our house:

Go North on Andover Rd. just past 21st Street (Look for signs). There is a new housing addition called Cornerstone. You turn Left into this entrance (if you go past it you’ll be on your way into the country). Turn right when you see the model homes (They have white fence in front of them), stay on this road, it will wind and curve, it will eventually turn into Slate St. Our house is towards the end on the right (802 W. Slate, Andover, KS. 67002).

I think the thing I like the most is that there is room, there is margin. Everything in the house is not right on top of you all the time. You can walk around without having to dodge boxes or tables! I love it!

I think margin is something we all need in our lives. We need it at work, at home, in our families, and in our relationship with God. Jesus practiced adding margin into his life, Mark 1:35-39 talks about Jesus going off early in the morning to pray. When his disciples finally catch up with Him, they want to push Him back into the busyness – they tell Him that “Everyone is looking for you.” I think Jesus has a classy response, “Let’s go somewhere else”! After spending time with God creating margin in His life, Jesus was able to see clearly His mission in the midst of the craziness of life.

There are lots of reasons why we struggle with following God and having a relationship with him – wrong attitudes, getting caught up in things that don’t matter, being rebellious, and the list goes on. I believe that most of this could be fixed if we would take our cue from Jesus and create margin. If we would get away from the constant influx of information and busyness and start to get off with God and ask Him the big questions, “Who are you?”, “What do you think of me?”, “Where do you want me spending my time, energy and money?”.

This practice alone could literally change every aspect of your life!