Day 17 – Spend in sync with your spouse: Make sure you’re in agreement with your spouse before your make any major purchases. Decide together on a maximum dollar amount that you each may spend without consulting each other. Then refuse to spend more than that amount unless your spouse agrees.
Day 18 – Pare your presents: Know that you can express your love fully to others without having to use expensive gifts to do so. Be creative about choosing thoughtful – yet inexpensive – presents for others.
Day 19 – Further your financial intelligence: Decide to improve your financial knowledge, such as by finding out your FICO score on your credit report, researching business deals (such as car leases) thoroughly before committing to them, getting legal and accounting expertise, learning about tax laws, and more.
Day 20 – Eliminate your emotional spending: Stop to check your motives before spending money on any item and service. If you’re motivated by anger, boredom, depression, insecurity, frustration, or some other strong emotion rather than a rational need, don’t spend your money at that time.
Day 21 – Ponder your purchases: Understand that impulsiveness makes you bait for dishonest or pushy salespeople and scams. Beware of hot deals and high-pressure deadlines. Take at least 24 hours to think about major purchases before deciding whether or not to make them. Before you buy, ask yourself: "Is this a need or a desire?", "Can I afford it?", "Will I use it immediately?", "Do I already have something similar?" and "How can I glorify God with this purchase?".
Day 22 – End your enabling: Don’t enable a family member or friend to remain irresponsible by bailing them out of poor decisions or not requiring them to carry their fair load. For example, refuse to cosign a loan for someone else. And if your able-bodied, adult child moves back home, require him or her to pay for rent, part of the utility costs, and his or her own food.
Day 23 – Ditch dishonesty: Ask God to help you live with integrity. Reject all forms of dishonesty, such as lying about your child’s age in order to get a discount, making personal long-distance calls from work, stealing office supplies, or cheating on your tax return.
Day 24: Watch wastefulness: Cut out waste from all areas of your life, such as by finishing all the food in your refrigerator before it goes bad and using both sides of paper before discarding it. Be as frugal as you can so you’ll have more money to share with others.
Day 25: Improve your image: Recognize that the image you present of yourself to the world really does matter. Do your best to look and act professionally.
