The other week, I was scrolling through Instagram when I saw a reel from a financial influencer I follow. Her advice stopped me dead in my tracks. Normally, she shares tips on budgeting and investing, showing us her budget breakdowns; everything from rent and food to \u201cfun\u201d expenses like eating out, makeup, Botox, and bi-weekly shellac manicures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But this time, she shared something that really made me think: she added a giving category to her budget. My first thought was, \u201cWait, she wasn\u2019t giving before? <\/strong>If she could afford bi-weekly manicures and Botox, surely she could have afforded to be giving long ago!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It got me reflecting on a money masterclass I\u2019d attended a couple of months ago, hosted by two women with over 450K followers on Instagram and a thriving membership program. The class covered budgeting in detail, yet giving wasn\u2019t even mentioned. As I explored more financial influencers and programs, I realized this was a common theme…multiple people in the financial space who do not talk about giving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s the thing: If you wait until you\u2019re \u201cmaking enough money\u201d to give, you might never give at all, or you\u2019ll delay it far too long.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I get it! When I first started my career in Atlanta, I worked full-time and served tables on nights and weekends just to pay bills and my car loan (By the way, never get a car loan\u2014it\u2019s one of the worst financial decisions you can make!). During that time, I could barely afford to give more than $5 or $10 at church. My mindset was, \u201cI can\u2019t afford to give more right now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then, I moved to NYC. This included not only a raise in pay but also in living expenses. Once again, I thought, \u201cWhen I have more money, I\u2019ll give more.\u201d But after a year of living in NYC and attending church regularly, I decided to take a step and be more consistent in my giving. While I didn\u2019t give the full 10% the Bible recommends, I started giving 5-7% of my income each month. And you know what? I didn\u2019t go broke. In fact, I still had enough to pay my bills, save, and invest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As I transitioned into a sales role and began earning commissions, my income increased, and so did my giving. However, I won\u2019t lie. It took a long time for me to become a \u201ccheerful giver\u201d (2 Corinthians 9:7-8). Giving hurt at first. My natural instinct was to hoard my paycheck, saving and investing every penny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But here\u2019s the lesson I slowly learned: When you trust God with your money, it shows that He can trust you in return.<\/strong> Even when it hurts and you\u2019re unsure if you\u2019ll have enough, giving proves your faith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, my encouragement to you today is this: Don\u2019t always follow the advice of every influencer or money expert. Instead, take small steps toward trusting God with your finances. <\/strong>It\u2019s a journey, and the rewards, both financial and spiritual, are worth it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The other week, I was scrolling through Instagram when I saw a reel from a financial influencer I follow. Her advice stopped me dead in my tracks. Normally, she shares tips on budgeting and investing, showing us her budget breakdowns; everything from rent and food to \u201cfun\u201d expenses like eating out, makeup, Botox, and bi-weekly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":306,"featured_media":284,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":10,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,7],"tags":[],"coauthors":[15],"class_list":["post-281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-action-steps","category-contentment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/moneytalks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/moneytalks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/moneytalks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/moneytalks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/306"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/moneytalks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/moneytalks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":282,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/moneytalks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281\/revisions\/282"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/moneytalks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/moneytalks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/moneytalks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/moneytalks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/moneytalks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}