Day 1 - Frugal me.

Alright, this is probably the fast we can all get behind.  For some of you this may not seem like a big deal because you are conscientious and disciplined with your spending and you know what it means to make ends meat, pay the bills, and put food on the table.  I however am a single man with little or no debt.

I am not necessarily wasteful.  But I do have a lots of spending habits that are probably useful but not necessary for effective ministry.  So to get an idea of where I want to go with this, you need to know where I have been.

I go out to eat a lot.  Once my brother made it his New Year's resolution not to eat fast food more than five times /week............so bro!!!!  how many times were you doing Mickey D's before?  I don't quite do that much fast food but I do frequent similar numbers of  restaurants.  Its for the ministry you see.  People have busy schedules and  for them to have time, lunch/dinner are convenient.   That's what I tell myself anyways ........probably because I like food so much.  I am not the person to ask about food preferences if you are trying to gage your particular affinities.  You know that person that likes all the same movies you do?  If they like it you probably will too?  I like most food.  fast, fried, boiled, baked, Asian, European, Mexican, African or good ole American.

This 40 days is going to be about financial restraint.  For me, going out to eat symbolizes another great blessing I don't want to take for granted.  Therefore, I am going to give it up for a while.  My buddy Matt Huyser told me about what some folks at his church were doing.  It was called the Haiti challenge.  The challenge is to try and eat on about $2/day, which is about what the average person in Haiti spends on food a day.  I normally eat on about $10-15.  My goal is from this day on not to spend more than $2/day.  Now in fairness I did some grocery shopping on the front end (not really any more than I normally do).  I'm not counting that though.  I want to build the discipline.  PBJ's, noodles, rice.
I am not going to let people buy my lunch.  However, if I go to someone's house I will eat.  Maybe this is splitting hairs but that's my rules.

Got some other spending habits I want to work on too.
Hope the Credit Card bills drop off drastically next month.

Well you guys take care.  I need to go sign off on my tax refund.