Moving onto week 3 of our 2014 “Dream it. Do it.” Vision Boards! So far we’ve covered our health, our faith, and now we are moving onto our finances. I included finances in our dreaming and planning because it is such an important thing to steward! There can be so much freedom in your life if you are able to mange your finances well, yet so much destruction when it’s out of whack.

But before we dive into that, I wanted to share with you a picture of someone’s dream board! She follows me on instagram and posted it there and I just love it! She gave me permission to share it, so here is Abbie’s 2014 Vision Board! I love seeing these so feel free to email them to me, post on my facebook wall, tweet or instagram them! (Whew!) Click the image if you want to enlarge it!

Let’s go ahead and pray again before we go on. Pray on your own or use mine below.

Heavenly Father, we ask that you guide us as we dream big for our finances this year. Not that we might necessarily have more, but steward well what you have graciously given us! Show us where we may cut down so that we can help others and invest not only in people while here on earth, but make investments that count for eternity. In Jesus Name, Amen.

In case you need to touch base with what we’ve done so far, here are the links to previous weeks!

Introduction

Week 1: Health

Week 2: Faith

Let’s go!

Slim-down, shape-up, or stay the same:

Time to ask yourself. : Should I slim-down, shape-up, or stay the same? Keep it simple!

– Expenses

– Savings

– Investments

– Giving (which is an expense, but I don’t want it to be looked over!)

Dream It:

Things you may want to post pictures of on your board:

– Organizations your family may want to support this year

– Trips/vacations you want to take

– A picture of something you want to save up for

– A picture of SOMEONE you want to save up for and support

– Words to describe how you want to feel in this area

– Books/programs you want to read about to teach you in this area

– A number representing how much you want to save each month

Do It:

Now, out of all those things you just posted up there, pick 1 or 2–no more!! And write down your “do it” plan. Include, what specific action you will take today to make it happen and any deadlines you may need. Also, jot down a person’a name or website you need to reference if you need to make some phone calls.  Now post that “do it” up on the board!

Examples: 

♦ Dream it: Save for Disney vacation for Summer 2015.

Do it: Call various travel agencies/talk to people to get a good idea of budget by the end of January. Figure out monthly amount needed saved each month. Open savings account and deposit that much each month.

Follow-up:

Did you put anything into practice from your “health” or “faith”  quadrant? Have you at least made a plan for what you want to see happen in your life for your health? It’s great to DREAM for 2014, but let’s make it happen, too! If you are overwhelmed by what you wrote and found you couldn’t implement it, that’s ok! Just pick one small thing and win there!!

Remember, when you get to December 31st, 2014, the goal is to have made some (at least!) advances in the things you post on this board! So what do you want to be saying about your life when you hit New Years Eve, 2014? Make this board work for you!

Have fun with this! If this becomes toilsome or a pain, then STOP! This is meant to inspire you and not be a burden! It should challenge us, but not cause us to crumble! Next week we’ll be diving into the area of our FAITH. I would love to see your vision boards as they are being made. Feel free to post them up on my Facebook wall or on instagram! Use the hashtag #dreamitdoit

(I made a parallel between our health and our finances in this post about stewardship here!)