This week I’m sharing a post each day about five books I read this summer. Today’s book: “Your Money After the BIG 5-0” by Larry Burkett and Ron Blue.

One of the financial principles they mention is “planning”, because achieving financial goals requires having a plan. Tom Landry, Hall of Fame football coach of the Dallas Cowboys, once said, “Setting a goal is not the main thing. It is deciding how you will go about achieving it and staying with that plan.”

Often the last part of Landry’s quote…“staying with that plan”…is more difficult than the first part of the quote. In the book Burkett and Blue write about the challenge of financial temptations. We all have them. What tempts me might be different than what tempts you, but we’re all tempted. They write that “succumbing to financial temptations can undermine good financial” planning. They add, “Knowing your weaknesses and being accountable to others can help you resist temptation.”

A few months ago, Monieca helped me resist a financial temptation. I was buying a new car…my 1995 Buick was on its last leg and it was time to put it out of its misery. Part of our financial plan over the years has been to purchase used cars instead of new ones, unless there was a compelling reason to do otherwise. So I had located a really good used Buick Lucerne that was just one year old and available at a really good price. The cost matched our financial plan perfectly.

Now for the temptation. I had also located a bigger brand new car (not a Buick) that was loaded with extras and normally priced well beyond what we would pay and beyond our financial plan…but…we could purchase it at a greatly reduced price…it would have been a really good bargain for that car. With the down payment we were making, we could afford to make the payments. It was nice and we both really liked it…a lot. I WAS TEMPTED. But it was still $10,000 more than our financial plan allowed for.

We didn’t argue. In fact Monieca would have said “ok” if I had insisted. But she reminded me of our plan and said she really didn’t have peace about it. I didn’t like hearing that, but I knew she was right. So we bought the Buick…and I’m very happy with it. We also will have an extra $10,000 dollars to do something different with over the next few years.

Reading this book this summer affirmed we had made the correct decision last December. Having financial goals is important. Having a plan is more important. Sticking to the plan is most important.

What’s your financial plan? Are you sticking to it? Is God and His ministry part of your plan?

Pastor Steve Hogg