Last week I challenged you to look at how you spend your money. Instead of always saying you don’t have money you need to change your perspective to I don’t have money for that.

God blesses each one of us with what we need. But I do believe that we can misappropriate our money. If you are not spending your money wisely, you will feel like you don’t have money when the time comes for something you need to spend money on. When the truth is that you’ve already spent it where you didn’t need to.

So now that you’ve looked at your spending habits, we need to change the way we look at money. No longer is it just for whatever we desire. Money appears to be a means to an end. What I mean is that we live in a society where money is necessary. We work, earn money, spend it, and then start the cycle all over again.

I remember before I started to change my spending habits, I needed to change my views of money. I had plenty of money, but I was the type of person that didn’t really think things out. If I had money in my pocket and saw something I wanted or needed, I simply bought it. I never thought past that moment in time. And I never even considered the possibility of planning for my expenses.

I found myself in a hole plenty of times because of my spending choices. We were in terrible credit debt. The bank was looking for their money. And it seemed like we never had enough. The stress was almost unbearable and left me feeling hopeless.

Then I heard a lady say one day that we all have money, but need to make decisions regarding where we will use our money. So I stopped saying I don’t have any money, and began to look at each situation as a decision. As a moment to choose if I had the money for “That”. And I stopped feeling guilty if I decided that we did not have the money for something.

It was slow for a long time. But I was changing my views of money. It was no longer a necessary evil. It was now a tool that we could make work for us if we made the right choices.

Try to look at each moment when faced with spending and decide if this is something you have the money for? If you really don’t have the money for that coffee, don’t buy it.