How Christians should spend money is a big topic. Christianity and excessive spending don't go together. Why do Christians spend so much money on entertainment? Christian consumers spend how much on frivolous purchases? Read or listen to this chapter from Your Finances God's Way for answers and the most common spending problems.

Table of ContentsSPENDING PROBLEMS OFTEN RESULT FROM SMALL PURCHASES THAT ADD UPSPENDING PROBLEMS OFTEN RESULT FROM WORTHLESS PURCHASESSPENDING PROBLEMS OFTEN RESULT FROM SELF-ENTITLEMENTEve’s Entitlement Amnon’s EntitlementKing Ahab’s EntitlementBeware of Self-Entitlement from Any SourceSPENDING PROBLEMS OFTEN RESULT FROM IMPATIENCEDon’t Be an Esau!Wait Two (or More) WeeksSPENDING PROBLEMS OFTEN RESULT FROM MISUNDERSTANDING “GOOD DEALS”HOW DO WE KNOW WHEN TO SPEND MONEY?First, Do Your ResearchSecond, Let God’s Commands Serve as FleecesAn Example from Our LivesJESUS’S EXAMPLEJesus’s Self-DenialJesus’s Patience

Most people throughout history have wanted necessities, but the more common problem today is having too much stuff. In the past, people wanted food and clothing, but we have too many clothes and we eat too much food. Mark Twain once defined civilization as “a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.”61 We spend too much money and accumulate too much stuff. It’s no surprise that storage-space facilities are one of the fastest-growing industries. An article titled “Self-storage: How Warehouses for Personal Junk Became a $38 Billion Industry” reads:

Despite recessions and demographic shifts, few building types have boomed like self-storage lockers. The self-storage industry made $32.7 billion in 2016, nearly three times Hollywood’s box office gross. Self-storage has seen 7.7 percent annual growth since 2012, and now employs 144,000 nationwide. One in eleven Americans pays an average of $91.14 per month to use self-storage. The United States has more than fifty thousand facilities and roughly 2.31 billion square feet of rentable space. To give that perspective, the volume of self-storage units in the country could “fill the Hoover Dam twenty-six times with old clothing, skis, and keepsakes.

When I drive down the road and pass storage units, I wonder what’s in them that people don’t need and can’t get to easily, but still feel the need to keep. How many owners are still paying off the credit cards (see next chapter!) they used to buy that stuff in the first place?

Typically when we have too much stuff, we should recognize two things: First, we are spending too much money. And second, we don’t have an income problem; we have a spending problem.

If we have spending problems but blame our income, this creates another problem. We don’t make appropriate changes because we put the blame in the wrong place: We blame our income when we should blame ourselves. We complain about our paycheck when we should handle our finances differently.

Even people with low incomes are still able to enjoy commodities that years ago would’ve been considered luxuries—cell phones, cars, computers, televisions. Most of us can comfortably live off much less if we avoid the spending problems that plague us. I use the word most because some people genuinely work hard, and are truly financially wise, yet still struggle to make ends meet. For the rest of us, let’s figure out how to make our money go further by examining the most common spending problems.

SPENDING PROBLEMS OFTEN RESULT FROM SMALL PURCHASES THAT ADD UP

Sometimes we struggle financially because of large purchases costing thousands of dollars. More often, though, we struggle because of many small purchases made over several years. These frequent expenditures take place without a second thought for three reasons:

Small purchases are easier to justify—we can tell ourselves, “It is only five dollars…or ten dollars…or twenty dollars” without considering that, over time, this adds up to thousands of dollars.