With tax day coming up this month we all seem to have money on our minds this time of year, and I thought I’d share with you my journey though navigating my finances once I decided to pursue a career in the healing arts.
After I resigned from my teaching career I knew I had to be very careful with money because I did not have the stability of a steady paycheck anymore and needed to make sure I had enough money to pay my bills each month. I watched a financial prosperity workshop with Edwene Gaines online where she talked about the importance of tithing and how by removing 10% of your income off the top to be given to the people and organizations where you are spiritually fed you create space for more money to flow into.
Imagine that you have a jar that contains all of your money. If you try to hold on to all of your money then your jar is full and there’s no room for more money to flow into it. But, by consciously creating the space for more money by giving it away you keep the energetic flow of money in your direction to fill the void in your jar.
Through tithing you give your money away to others to show gratitude and appreciation for having received the money in the first place.
Tithing is both a selfless and selfish act. We give the money away to where we have been spiritually fed and to whom we love and appreciate, and at the same time we know that in so doing we will be rewarded with more money flowing towards us. It is our responsibility to keep the money flowing like a river and not block the flow by holding onto it.
I first started by separating my income into two jars of money. Every time I made money I put 10% into my tithing jar titled “God” and the other 90% into my expenses jar titled “Necessities.”
I did this for about 6 months and got comfortable being able to live on 90% of my income. However I cut it close a few months because I overspent on non-essential items and activities like purchasing things I wanted but did not need and going out to bars too often. It was at that time that I needed to make an adjustment to my budget.
I knew that I couldn’t cut out non-essential spending because what good is making money if you can’t treat yourself with it. I simply needed to put a limit on how much I could spend on myself, and so I decided that if I’m giving away 10% of my income then I should be allowed to spend 10% of it on myself in any way that I wanted. I created another jar for myself and used this money for things like going out with friends, getting massages, and buying things for myself. If I spent all the money in this jar, then I would have to wait until I made more money to do any of those things.
For about another 6 months I kept my money separated into these three jars: 10% to God (tithing), 10% to Me (personal spending), and 80% for Necessities (utilities, mortgage, and living essentials).
The amazing thing about this was that I never felt like a I lacked money in any way. I always had enough to pay my bills and still have fun. I enjoyed being able to give money away in the form of donations or gifts, and it made me feel good inside. There were times when I had to pass on invitations to go out with friends because I already spent the money in my fun account but I knew there would be more money coming in soon enough. Yes it required discipline but I was dedicated to making it work because I wanted to succeed in the life I chose to live.
The crazy thing was that when I did my taxes after my first full calendar year without any full time teaching income included, I was shocked at how little money I made. It was about one-fourth of the money I made my last year teaching and yet I felt like I didn’t make any less. I was living more than I did when I made more money since I had dedicated a certain amount of money that I could spend frivolously on myself.
I was beginning to understand that money has an energy to it and that we can channel the energy of money just like we can channel reiki.
We don’t ever really hold onto money. It only stays with us for a little while before we give it away to someone else either by paying bills or by trading it for items or services. With this understanding we can become channels for money.
If we give money a job or a purpose before we get it then we open up the channel for the money to flow through us in that direction.
Of course having the self-discipline to stick to self-imposed rules and restrictions is of the utmost importance to being successful with this approach.
The next phase for me was to figure out how to afford dating. I was ready to start looking for a relationship after having healed my broken heart from past break-ups, but I wasn’t sure what account the money would come from. I was afraid to create a new account because I wasn’t sure how to live on less than 80% of my income, and so I decided it would be a sub-account from the tithing and fun accounts. I thought to myself, “If I pay for a date then technically I am giving away half of the money I spend to my date and spending the other half on myself.”
My account jars were now broken down as such: 8% to God, 8% to Me, 4% for Dating, and 80% for Necessities.
I felt good about that and it worked out well. After I got used to it I wanted to make sure my tithing jar went back to 10% and I challenged myself to make another adjustment after a few months.
10% to God, 10% to Me, 5% for Dating, and 75% for Necessities.
Surprisingly I was able to cover all of my living expenses on 75% of my income. Once I met Joei and things were going really well, I made another leap to make our relationship more serious to me. I budgeted 10% of my income to nurture our relationship by increasing my dating jar, and now challenged myself to cover my living expenses with 70% of my income.
10% to God, 10% to Me, 10% to Dating, and 70% for Necessities.
That was all fine and dandy, but then I realized how much she liked to travel. I wanted to be able to contribute to that as well and couldn’t just pull from the dating jar for that. I went big a created another jar for travel.
10% to God, 10% to Me, 10% to Dating, 10% for Travel and 60% for Necessities.
I was scared every time that I created a new jar and had a smaller percentage of money dedicated to paying bills, but the thing that I noticed was that as I assigned these purposes for my money and created more space for money to flow into, the amount of money coming in increased. The key was to make sure that I spent the money the way I intended.
BUT, then I got hit with a big tax bill that almost wiped out my emergency savings account. I had to reevaluate my jars and factor taxes into the picture.
I also found that I like to continue learning and wanted to have money available to take classes and workshops, and I didn’t want to continue dipping into my fun account for that. I then created a tax jar and an education jar, and my current breakdown is:
10% to God, 10% to Uncle Sam, 5% to Me, 5% for Dating, 5% for Travel, 5% for Education, and 60% for Necessities.
Now I have to say that this current breakdown is possible because I have a great partner that helps pay the shared living expenses, and without her I wouldn’t be able to live this way. Who knows how things will change once our son comes into the picture, and if I need to make adjustments I will. I’ve done it several times before, and I have always seemed to make it work.
Even if my circumstances were different and I wasn’t in a relationship with a child I would still be creating a budget to ensure I was directing the flow of money to the things that are most important to me.
By learning how to channel the flow of money and point it in the direction I want it to go I have found that it has lessened my financial worries and has increased my sense of responsibility for my financial health.
Try it out for yourself. Start simple with the tithing and fun jars and see how it goes for a few months. And don’t worry about calculating 10%. It’s the easiest math you can do. 10% of $100.00 is $10.00. 10% of $3200.00 is $320.00. 10% of $87,234.00 is $8,723.40. Just move the decimal point one place to the left.
Once you calculate 10% you put that amount into each of your tithing and fun jars and leave the remaining in your necessities jar. You don’t have to calculate 80% because you already subtracted 20% (10% for tithing and 10% for fun) from 100% of your income.
If you have any questions about this stuff feel free to comment or send me an email. I’ll be happy to share more about it and to clarify anything for you.
Have fun channeling money!