The Luke 16:10 Principle

One of the most common things that I hear from college students, in general, is that they “don’t have a lot of money or are not making a lot of money.” In the majority of my conversations, my peers usually tend to gravitate towards the belief that when they start to make more money, they will automatically become a “money wiz” and will be able to buy what they want and not have to worry about bills. The sad part of the story is that making more money does not automatically make you better with money. There are a lot of factors that play into how you handle money, including but not limited to, your expected standard of living, your values and priorities, your overall money knowledge, your spending and savings habits, your goals, as well as your emotions. One common thing that college students don’t realize is that how they handle their money now will most likely affect the way that they manage their money in the future even if the amount they are starting with now is small. Luke 16:10 states, “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.”

What if college students realized that their behavior with a little now would reflect their behavior with a lot after graduation? While stress wouldn’t disappear completely, it could be significantly decreased. So where is a college student to start?

  1. First, without looking back at the spending records, list some things you feel are priorities in your life. Where do you value spending money?
  2. Moving forward, know where you are at in your money management journey. A good starting point would be to look at the last 30 days and see where you spent money even if it is just a little bit. Record the day on which you spent money, the item or service you purchased, the amount spent, and the spending category (for example groceries). If you have to go further back to get a fuller picture that is okay too.
  3. After looking at the last 30 days ask yourself the question, “Based on my spending, what do I value?” For example, you may go out to eat a lot with friends which could be a tell that you value spending time with your friends through eating together or it could show your priority of getting quick, convenient food. Come up with however many things that you think you value based on your spending and determine if that aligns with the priorities that you wrote down earlier. If it doesn’t, this is a good way to see what you may need to adjust to reflect those priorities. Remember, no matter how much money you make, there will always be an infinite number of places you can spend money; therefore, knowing what your highest priorities are is extremely important so that you can eliminate the lower priorities that don’t allow you to spend less than you make.

While there is much more to the budgeting and money management process, starting with these three steps is a good place to begin as you prayerfully consider the Luke 16:10 principle.  Intentionally learning this principle with a little while you are in college provides more safety to fail small and get back up rather than failing when you have more responsibilities and pressures of life to manage. Failure allows you to see where you can grow and get better so that when you begin to have more income you have already made the changes necessary to be faithful with a lot.  But this is a continual process of learning which will bring in new opportunities to grow as you walk through your journey. Don’t be discouraged. You too can be amazing with your money and be a good steward of what you have. Start now. YOU can do it! If you would like help thinking through this process as well as creating a spending plan, schedule an appointment today with one of our wonderful NEXUS financial coaches: https://ronblueinstitute.com/nexus-financial-discipleship-center/.