Budgeting

Looks like I'll be running some discussion sessions on budgeting at church. Willem, the pastor, was recommended some materials from Willow Creek (in the US), and I'll get a chance to look at that soon. I took a few minutes to scan their website, and saw no obvious points of dispute. I'm nervous that churches often tend to either ignore money or get focused on tithing as it is important to their institutional survival.

Presumably we'll cover at some point why Heather and I only give ~20% of our donations to the local church. We have a review scheduled for December/January, when we adjust the overall budget, of what proportion of donations goes to each category. We started with a scheme, but have picked up various causes over time and feel a need to check over the big picture.

I volunteered because Heather and I have found it very liberating to have detailed accounts and budget. Heather apparently enjoys keeping the books, and I share in the rewards. My only burden is having to keep receipts, and explain the discrepancies every Tuesday. We choose to make decisions together about budget categories and unusual expenditures - this means that we have to declare our preferences and work through differences, but that's not a bad thing.

Lots more to say on this, but I have to get to bed. It's already almost an hour past pumpkin time. Watch this space.