Have you ever had your blood pressure taken or heard a nurse say something like “100 over 40″ (I don’t actually know if that’s a good blood pressure or not . . . someone with 100/40 blood pressure might be dead for all I know)?

I propose that we begin a Budget Pressure system. This would be a simple and quick way to assess financial health. The basic ideas is that there are two key pieces of financial information that reveal how well a person handles their money.

Here’s the equation:
Consumer Debt / Percentage of your take-home pay you’re saving per month.

Consumer Debt is credit card debt, car loan debt, or rent-to-own stuff debt. Basically, it’s how much money you’ve borrowed to buy things you don’t really need, or things you could get by with a lower-quality product (like a cheaper car).

I searched the web and here is the average American’s Budget Pressure:

$20,000 / 1%

So, the average American is $20,000 in debt and only saves 1% of their monthly take-home pay.

Here’s our Federal Government’s Budget Pressure:

9.6 Trillion / -12.5%

So, our Federal Government is 9.6 Trillion in debt and is spending 12.5% more than it takes in each year (Yearly budget divided by budget deficit: 4 trillion / 600 billion = 0.125 = 12.5%)

Is anyone really surprised by the recession? Granted, I don’t believe it’s appropriate for the government to constantly save money, because it’s not theirs to save it’s mine, but I’d be okay with an emergency fund of some kind.

Here is what I would consider a healthy Budget Pressure
0/10%

Here’s my family budget pressure: 0/5%

What’s yours?

What Was Jesus’ Budget?

That’s the motto of my family’s finances. It means we try to live as humbly as possible because it forces us to trust God more. . . and that is a beautiful way of saying I’m a tight-wad.

One of the reasons I was excited about moving into a house, was I thought we could save money on car maintenance; our new house has a garage where I could do minor repairs.

When I was at the auto parts store picking out oil and a filter, I noticed one of the sales people watching me. He smiled (in retrospect, I think I remember saliva dribbling out of the corner of his mouth). “You doing an oil change?”
“Yep.”
He handed me a mountain of coupons. “We’ve got a special.”

I was flattered by his thoughtfulness (that’s probably why I ignored the saliva). He even helped me carry my oil out to my car.

On the way home, I started thinking. (I’m not much of an in-the-moment thinker. I’m more of an after-the-fact thinker, and my thought is almost always “Good grief, what did I just do?”)

I just spent $15 on oil and filter.

For the last 10 years I’ve paid the quick oil change places $17 to do the work for me. Plus, they would top off my other fluids, dispose of the oil for me, and once in a while you can find a $5 off coupon and get an oil change for $12. But wait, this deal gets better. While your waiting, you can read a couple chapters of a good book rather than getting covered in oil. Granted, you have to put up with the sales pitch where they try to talk you into flushing your transmission fluid, radiator fluid, and changing the air in your tires, but if you’re strong (or cheap, like me) you’ll be able to say no.

Oh well. I’ve got my work clothes on, so I’m off to get covered in oil . . . my wife just cleaned our bathroom, so pray for me.

Post Oil Change UPDATE
Good grief, what did I just do? I could have returned the oil.