A financial plan does not necessarily have to be prepared by a professional, says a local family pastor.
"It's actually better if you can determine what your values are, why money is important to you, and produce financial goals based on your values," said William Knelson, who held a workshop at the Sundre Municipal Library on Wednesday, Jan. 20. A followup workshop is lined up at the library tomorrow, Wednesday, Feb. 3 from 7 to 8 p.m.
Fundamentally, what he hopes to accomplish is to essentially reduce financial stress for families.
"That's kind of the goal," said the Bergen Missionary Church pastor.
That's accomplished not just by helping people learn to budget, but also by helping them to understand how month-to-month spending works, he said.
The information presented at the workshop is related to a book called The One-Page Financial Plan: A Simple Way To Be Smart About Your Money, which is available at the library. The premise of the book is that a personal or family budget does not have to be prepared by a professional, he said.
Producing financial goals based on someone's values can reduce stress because that person is not being told to save 10-15 per cent of their income and to allocate a certain amount to food, lodging and transportation, he said.
Instead, "people look at what's most important to them and base their budget on that."
Although people generally don't want to be restricted, perhaps in terms of eating out for example, they also can't allow themselves to go into debt just to do the things they want, he said.
"You have to fit that into the income you're receiving each month."
If someone wants to spend more money on something in particular, that means having to redirect funds from something else that person likes to spend on. Accomplishing financial goals in turn becomes more rewarding because people are setting goals for the things they consider valuable and important, he said.
"Budgeting that way is a little more stress free."
His approach is not so much to offer people advice but instead to ask them questions about what they enjoy, what their goals are, how much money they have available and whether they can realistically work towards that goal, he said.
Following the first workshop, Knelson asked participants to consider their goals and values, the reality of their situation and to track their spending habits before coming back to the workshop scheduled for tomorrow night. Tracking spending habits helps people to see what their patterns are and what it is they consider important, he said.
"For a lot of us, our memory fails us ó we don't realize how much we spend on certain things."
Before coming up with their own plan, people have to discover their realities or goals, and then work on developing tools to move forward with accomplishing those goals, he said.
Key areas where people struggle to save differ for everyone. Families face different situations, and it's better to approach their concerns with questions rather than with advice. However, he can refer people for professional advice if they really need it, he said.
But one area that can create a debt burden that becomes hard to climb out of is a credit card.
"I don't like to tell people, ëjust pay them off.' It's not that easy for everyone. For a lot of people, a credit card is not real. They need to discover the reality of the situation," he said.
He encourages people to carefully review their credit card statements to see precisely how much they're paying back on interest alone every month. This helps them understand the goals they could otherwise accomplish if they weren't paying all that interest, he said, adding people need to ask themselves whether they value paying interest.
"Because no one does."
The thought of what could be accomplished with the interest being paid to a credit card is a powerful motivator, he said. However, while Knelson doesn't have advice on how to pay off the card, his guidance is to find room in the budget to make payments so people can accomplish the goals they've established.
Moving forward, he hopes to continue offering similar workshops ó not to give advice and tell people what to do, but to develop a supportive community around household finances and to see people work together to support one another to achieve financial goals.
"That would be my hope. I don't want this to end with these two workshops."
One of the main causes of conflict in the home is finances, he said.
"Healthy finances will help produce a healthy household. Being a family pastor, that's a primary concern of mine."
