Decide what you want to spend money on. Be intentional and strategic about what you are spending money on. Like any personal budget you have if you don’t have money designated to certain things, you are going to wastefully spend your money. Make sure you know what you are going to say “yes” to and “no” to in your budget so you don’t end up wasting a bunch of money that could be used for more important areas.
Trips should break even. This has been my biggest area of errors over my time in student ministry. I have made a bunch of mistakes here. But the bottom line is you have to price your trips to where you do not lose a lot of money on them. In fact, you need to price each trip to where you break even. As hard as you try, though, the reality is you will probably lose some money on extra expenses. However, if you fail to price right, you stand to lose a good amount of money. In fact, because of my errors I have lost between $2,000 – $3,000 on trips before. That is very costly obviously so make sure you price your trip the right way where you stand to break even and not lose a ton of money on it. One suggestion on how to do this is to run your numbers by your business person at your Church to make sure your numbers line up right before you advertize it.
Utilize your parents as much as you can. Parents can be a huge resource by helping provide food for activities that you do. A sure fire way to waste money is to always spend it on food. Now, food is very important in student ministry so you need it. But, if your ministry is always paying for the food, you stand to waste a lot of money quickly. So use your parents. And, even though a big area of help will be them providing food for your events, they can provide in other areas as well. Which brings us to the 4th area.
Think outside the box. Just like utilizing your parents, there are others ways you can get creative with your budget. And in each context that you are in, there are different ways you can make money last longer. For instance, doing fundraisers for camp trips or bigger events can be huge ways to bring in some extra money to your program. Again, each Church is different so make sure you check with Church leadership to see what is acceptable or not. But get creative and think outside the box.
Four simple ways you can make your budget last longer in your student ministry program. Whether you have a small budget or a large one, you can make it last throughout the year. As you think strategically about what you will spend your money on, price your trips to break even, utilize your parents and think creatively outside the box, you can make your money last much longer and end up in the black each year in your budget, not the red.
So what do you think? What do you do to make your budget last longer? Share your thoughts below or on social media using #ymsidekick as part of your tweet.
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