1st -- Pay the Lord. 10%
2nd -- Pay yourself (personal goals). 15-20% is recommended. We'll talk more about this later.
3rd -- Pay others (expenses).
4th -- Apply leftovers to your personal goals.
If you can learn to use this structure, you are twice as likely to be able to accomplish your goals because you get two chances to put your money towards those goals. Many people set up a budget like this:
Income - Pay the Lord - Pay others - Pay yourself if there's anything left over.
Can you see what's wrong with this method? If you ALWAYS pay yourself before you pay others, you are guaranteed to meet your personal goals eventually. If you pay others first, you likely won't have anything left for yourself. If you're still skeptical, here's what L. Tom Perry had to say about this:
"After paying your tithing of 10 percent to the Lord, you pay yourself a predetermined amount directly into savings. That leaves you will a balance of your income to budget for taxes, food, clothing, shelter, transportation, etc. It is amazing to me that so many people work all of their lives for the grocer, the landlord, the power company, the automobile salesman, and the bank, and yet think so little of their own efforts that they pay themselves nothing."
CHALLENGE: Always pay yourself 20%.
