Money Talk(s)

So today I’m going to talk about money as it is one of, if not the most important thing in many people’s lives. Many are often surprised to learn that Jesus Himself spoke more about money than any other subject including heaven and hell. And it’s no wonder as we spend most of our waking hours in the pursuit of it. It is also the number one cause of conflicts in married couples.

I grew up a little money grubbing kid. I loved to get it and I loved to spend it. My parents did not have much of it at all; as a matter of fact it was almost nonexistent in our home save for what was needed for bare essentials. Yet the little my dad brought home, my mom knew how to manage quite well. I did not realize at the time, that she – unbeknown to her – was building a foundation for me and my siblings. She never sat us down and talked to us about it, but she modeled accountability, responsibility, and prudence without appearing to be overly frugal. To this day on a very limited fixed income, she continues her ways and when I ask her if she need any money she just says “no, if I do one day, I’ll let you know.” I know that at times we all help our parents out, usually out of desire to do things for them, like my sister getting my dad a new pair of glasses because the ones he has, have had it but he thinks they’re still ok. Or all 16 of her grandchildren giving her money for Christmas and turning the tables on her, since she usually gives it to them. None of us really know how she does it; we suspect she has some offshore account or something because she is able to do so much with so little.

How is it, that some with so little survive in basic comfort while others with decent income always seem to be in need? All of us have our reasons why we are where we are financially, but some of us when we look deep down those reasons can actually be excuses. Now I may be ruffling some feathers here but oh well, continue reading if you like.

Life causes us to change, but we first have to recognize that our current state needs to be altered. I recognized it, in my mid 20’s. I’m no longer who I was. I think completely different in almost all aspects of my life, unfortunately some people always think of you as you were and not as you are. In regards to money, that change occurred when I moved out of my parents home and lived on my own. I quickly realized that in order to not be broke all the time, I needed to change my ways.  

By the time Barbara and I decided to get married in 1984, we knew we did not want to start our relationship with any kind of debt, so our wedding 6 months later although a fair size, it was quite simple and debt free.  For our honeymoon, we did not fly somewhere exotic, but drove throughout California (which Barbara loves) and had plenty of money to do exactly what we wanted, returning about 10 days later still debt free.

In 1988 when our son was born we started thinking about school. Both Barb and I decided we wanted our children to go to a Christian school, (actually she was more sure of it than I was as I saw lots of $$$ signs) but eventually I came to agree. (One day I’ll write how we came to that conclusion as it was thought out and not just about the teaching, but how our children think about things.) We just had to figure out how. By the time my son was ready to start, we had 2 other who also needed an education. This was going to be difficult, and I knew it, but we decided that we would do what we needed to do.  

Barbara stayed home, while I went to work and like all young couples we needed what most other couples starting out did. A roof over our heads, food, clothing, etc. How could I provide all these things on my sole income?  Now mind you, I did and do have an excellent job, but many people in a similar situation struggled then and struggle now.

I knew I needed a budget. Oh there is that word – BUDGET!  Not many people like the word budget, it sounds so restricting.  This is why I think most couples don’t have one. Some think they have one, but it usually consist of a pot of money – a checking account – and a decent memory – to know what is coming up. If this is you, or a variation of you, this is not a budget.  I thought a budget would be restricting but what I found was quite the opposite, it was very freeing. It put us in total control of where we spent our money.

 So how do I start a budget, I hadn’t read any books, gone to seminars, heck at the time even Dave Ramsey was in debt. I figured what I needed to do was make a list of what I spent money on and how much I spent on average for the year.  So I made my list, it kind of looked like this:

Auto

Auto Ins

Clothes

Electrical

Gas

Groceries

Mortgage

Etc.

You get the picture. At the end it was about 20 items long, it has since grown to about 25 but some have dropped off. After determining how much each item required for the year I divided by 24 (I get paid 26 times a year, more on the 2 extra later) and made it a point to deposit that amount into each item every payday. Pretty simple right, some call this the envelope method. I just did it on paper. If I didn’t have enough, then I was living beyond my means and something needed to change, which I did. Sometimes it was hard because I needed to get rid of an item all together and I didn’t want to, but I did. Within no time it was working much better than I ever dreamed. When I need to spend say for clothes, if there was money in that account fine, if not, we had to wait.  To this day, Barb or Coryn will ask, "dad, do we have money in the clothes account?" I would answer accordinly, sometimes "no", never mind that there was $425 in the "property insurance" fund, that was spoken for. With time you get pretty good at it and there always seems to be just the right amount.  Unfortunately when you don’t have something in place all your money just goes to “one big fund” and you tend to overspend on clothes because auto insurance is not due for 6 months. Six months later auto insurance is short so you use grocery money, and the list goes on.

Hey what about those 2 extra checks. Well if you get paid every two weeks like I do (I know some of you don’t) you will find that you will get an extra one around summer time – hello vacation. You will also get another one around December – can you say Christmas. All this without messing up your budget.

I know I am oversimplifying this, but believe me it works, ask my brother who did something similar and it worked quite well.  But I do know that some people have too much debt to even start something like this. Well in a couple of days I hope to give some suggestions, that will particularly help teens and young adults just starting out, but for many of you only professional help will work. There are programs like the one by Dave Ramsey which are excellent whether you are in debt or not. One is starting this week at my church contact me if you are interested and want more information.

Again, I realize that this is just a quick overview meant more to encourage you to start SOMETHING. I don’t have all the answers, but by doing some simple things early on, Barbara and I were able to put 3 children through private school, buy a home and never pay a cent of interest to any credit card. I do not say this to boast, please believe me, I give all credit to God, who says, give unto me first of your fruit and I will meet all your needs (paraphrase). I have taught these principals to my children who even with minimal part time jobs have been able to save and spend both to the glory of God.

Coming soon – 2 incomes and still not enough

Also coming – great simple tips.