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Are you earning more today than you were at the beginning of your career? Do you know what’s happened to all that additional income?
Most people increase their earnings level over the course of their careers; and yet, many still feel like they’re falling behind financially – like there’s never enough.
We often don’t know where the additional money is going for one or both of two primary reasons:
- We’re paying back debt we incurred to live a lifestyle that we couldn’t actually afford when we were making less money.
- Our lifestyle seems to automatically expand to meet whatever level of income we’re making.
Two key practices can help us maximize the impact of the increases we receive:
- Intentionally planning what we’re going to do with increase (whether a raise or a windfall like a bonus or tax refund), based on family priorities; and
- Determining a lifestyle cap that represents all we feel we need in order to be content and live at the level we believe God is leading us to.
Our culture and our economy depend on us being lured into buying and spending more and more as our income increases. But lifestyle creep this is a trap – a treadmill that keeps us from moving toward financial freedom and Biblical stewardship.
Join us as host James Lenhoff addresses these issues and shows how intentionality is the solution to lifestyle creep.