1) don’t be afraid to talk about how your parents spent money.
that’s right, i said your parents.  it’s easy for accusations to fly, and feelings to get bruised when we’re discussing how our spouse spends, or defending how we spend.  but it’s not quite so personal to talk about how our parents viewed money when we were growing up.  and in doing so it gives your spouse a lot of insight into why you make the decisions you do.

2) find help
although most of us are far wealthier than we think are compared to the rest of the world, we could all use some advice in the area of finances.  and there’s no excuse for not finding that advice.  there’s books, cds, podcasts, blogs, websites, and software all dedicated to helping you get “on track” when it comes to your finances. if you have now idea where to start go to www.daveramsey.com and click the link at the top of the page titled “new to Dave Ramsey?“

3) know where your money is going
“budget” is not a four-letter word. and it doesn’t mean “not spending”.  it simply means knowing where your money is going before it’s gone.  DO IT!! whether you do it on paper, in a spreadsheet application, or some fancy computer software, DO IT!!  (and do it together with your spouse)

4) be generous
even Ebenezer Scrooge didn’t want to be known as  a scrooge by the end of the story.  and in all honesty, i’m not even throwing this one in because Deb and I are currently in a process asking people to support our ministry with FamilyLife.  even if you aren’t or don’t want to give to our ministry, we still want you and your spouse to be generous people.  and save the excuses for why you’re not, i’ve heard them all.   you’ll thank me later.  be generous.

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i’m pleased to announced that i’ve added deborah as an author to this blog. and as her first post we like to share something she wrote this past week to some facebook friends. enjoy:

25 things that’ll blow your mind!

1) We’re moving to Little Rock, Arkansas!

2) Last week (from June 17- June 21, 2009) my husband, Abraham, and I spent time at the ministry of FamilyLife in Little Rock, AR.

3) My mom, Rebecca Berghoff, took care of our 6 lovely daughters for the time we were away.

4) My mom took our girls tent-camping for part of that time- accompanied only by a 10-year old cousin (our oldest is 8 and our twins are 14 months); they all survived and had fun eating marshmallows and taking hikes.

5) While at FamilyLife I shook hands with both Dennis and Barbara Rainey.

6) FamilyLife hosts Weekend to Remember Conferences each year; in 2008 there were 155 Weekend to Remember Conferences with more than 87,700 people in attendance and 2,973 reported salvation decisions.

7) FamilyLife also produces a daily radio program, distributes resources to many ministry channels,has developed HomeBuilders- a Bible Study for families, has international ministries, and reaches out to orphans through Hope for Orphans.

8) In February of 2008, Abraham & I attended our 3rd WTR; it was there that we attended their staff opportunities meeting and indicated we were interested in joining their staff.

9) Staff with FamilyLife are essentially missionaries; they raise both financial and prayer support; they uproot their families and move to the foreign field of Arkansas; the focus of their ministry is “to build godly marriages and families who will change the world, one home at a time”.

10) After a year in the application process and jumping through figurative hoops we were invited to come to Little Rock to preview the ministry.

11) I spent 5 days away from my kids; I didn’t change one diaper or get any food spilled on me.

12) Our time with the staff at FamilyLife was extremely affirming and validating; by the close of our time with them both Abraham and myself felt confident that this is where God wants us.

13) “We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Ephesians 2:10

14) Upon completion of this interview process, we were asked to come on staff with FamilyLife.

15) When we came home and shared the news with our kids they were all- mainly the older three- extremely excited.

16) Before we can report to work, we must attend two additional staff trainings and build a team that will come alongside us to monthly support our ministry to marriages and families.

17) The first one will be held September 12-19, 2009 in Orlando Florida.

18) During this week of training we won’t even be taken to DisneyWorld.

19) The approximate cost for Abraham and me to attend these trainings total just over $6000.

20) “And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others.” 2 Corinthians 9:8

21) At this point, I want to appeal to you to partner with us to meet this special need. Would you prayerfully consider giving $500, $300 or$100 to cover these expenses? (I throw out those numbers to encourage you to think big:o) Undoubtedly, we would gratefully accept any amount that you could donate.)

22) I am really excited about what God has in store for my family at this season in our lives! I know that He is a BIG God; He already has all the details of our lives worked out!

23) If you feel that God has equipped you to help us at this time , you can send checks directly to us. (For a tax deduction, make checks out to Campus Crusade for Christ- or CCC).

24) Whether it is giving financially or simply by praying for us, know that we care about you and appreciate your interest and investment in our lives.

25) “And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4 :19

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If you have any further questions or comments please leave them here, email me, twitter me, or call me. I look forward to hearing from you!!

Until the whole world hears,

Deborah Lara

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if you’d like to send us financial support you can mail checks to:

503 Concord Ave.
Grandview, WA 98930

make checks out to: Campus Crusade for Christ

after we get our missionary acct. # assigned we’ll put it in the memo of the check and then send it in to Campus Crusade for Christ.

once we get our acct # if you’d later like to send in on going support directly we’ll have an address to give.

read this first if you’re a little lost.

thanks to all who responded, i’m not offended by it. i don’t mind the questioning. be afraid of people who are.

as to the issue of “if you could live with out the help you’re getting now, then why don’t you? isn’t that stealing?”

first, i didn’t make it clear in my last post, but we could still live within our means if either we didn’t receive free housing from the church or we didn’t receive government assistance. but not if both were suddenly gone.

secondly, i don’t consider it stealing, since according to the government we still qualify for the aid. now if we were under-reporting our income sources just so that we could continue receiving benefits, then that would be wrong (and i’m sure there are people who do that). but for whatever reasons our government deems it well within reason for us to receive the aid we’re being given. if you have a problem with the guidelines/limits that they put forth, i suggest you take it up with your state legislators.

i also want to make it clear that although we appreciate the assistance we’re receiving, we i no means intend on being on government aid for the rest of our lives.

in fact, wouldn’t it be better for the government in the long run to have debt free responsible citizens than those who are always looking for a handout and or feel entitled to one?

the other point i wanted to make is i don’t think that the government should be in the business of providing food/medical care for people in need. in all honesty, that should be the responsibility of the Church. but since for various reasons the Church has been unwilling, or unable to fill that need then i feel no qualms about receiving the help that is being offered.

if any of the Christians reading this blog, who have a problem with our economic situation, would like to give to our family or rally your whole church to do give to fellow believers, we would gladly receive it. :) leave a comment or email me if you want details.

finally, i was going to write more about the dilemma of how involved we should be in the regards to how governments, organizations, companies, or churches spend the money we give or pay them. but since i promised that this post would be brief (see how well i’ve done), i’ll have to save that topic for another post entirely.

i hope this post didn’t sound too angry or offended, i wasn’t. the comments/questions before simply gave me a chance to solidify the beliefs/thoughts i had for why we do what we do.

feel free to sound off in the comments, on twitter, facebook, or wherever else you’re reading this. remember i won’t be offended.

i recently wrote on twitter about having figured out how much money we’re putting towards our debt – a whopping 45% of our net income. and then an additional 13% of our net income goes towards tithes and charity work. so essentially we’re living on only 42% of our net income.

a couple days later i got this message via twitter from our friend sarah johnson:

shocked that @abelara hasn’t replied to @lauraanna’s twitters. abe, your slipping. ;)

so what exactly did @lauraanna say?:

@abelara That’s great you’ll be debt free!

@abelara Although I don’t think it’s right to be proud of living on less when you don’t pay your own housing, food, medical expenses.

@abelara just a thought …

so then i replied to @sarahsdandelion:

@sarahsdandelion they musta slipped past me. i hadn’t seen/read them until you mentioned it. thanks for the heads up. :)

so now that i’ve given you a recap for those who don’t currently use twitter, (go ahead and sign up, i know you wanna.) or for those of you who use twitter but don’t follow either @sarahsdandelion or @lauraanna i’ll now commence with my reply to the thought about my pride and income.

[hmmm … should i be nice or mean in my reply? “nice” would be more civil and probably make my points more logical and persuasive. but “mean” is much funner to read and write. i’ll go for nice (sorry to disappoint you rabble rousers).]

i’ve made it no secret on this blog or elsewhere about our current income level, situation in life, or economic views. as a quick recap: our net income is ~$2800 – $3000 a month, we do receive food stamps, our kid’s medical is paid for (deb and i currently don’t have medical coverage), and we live in the parsonage of a church with rent and utilities paid.

and i will admit that it’s fun to spit out numbers and percentages of income we’re putting towards debt. especially when those numbers are skewed a little because initially i forgot to include our church pay. so when for the month of jan you take the $1335 we’re putting towards debt divided by $2200 then our percentage is something outrageous like 61%. but when you add in the church income that percentage drops to the 45% mentioned above.

all that said though @lauraanna’s comments got me to thinking about the motivation for me saying what i said. and what i’ve concluded is that what i’m “proud” of most isn’t the numbers, but our discipline and heart towards our money.

because the fact is that we’re still cutting back our lifestyle in order to give that $1335 a month to debt. i wouldn’t say i think about it every day, but at least every week i ponder, “deb, imagine if we were out of debt right now, what would we do with an extra $1000+ a month!” some things that have crossed my mind a Wii, a big screen LCD TV, a cruise vacation, eat out more often, new clothes more often, nicer cars, etc., etc., etc.

and in reality our minimum payments on our loans are about $200. so technically we could have much more discretionary funds to spend. and in reality there are thousands (dare i say millions) of americans who are doing just that. paying the minimums on their debts and spending all the rest and then putting even more on credit.

regardless of how you may feel about our current economic status. the government would still give us food stamps regardless of whether we’re putting a big chunk of our money towards debt or spending it on TV. (btw, the amount they give us for food stamps doesn’t always cover all of our food for our family for the month; we do have to include in our budget some actual cash) and based on our current income level the government would still pay for out children’s medical expenses regardless of how we spend the income that we are required to report to them on a regular basis. and our church would still allow us to live in the parsonage rent and utility free regardless of how we spent our money.

does your job do an audit of your spending and then pay your salary depending on whether or not they deem it to be wisely spent? if you had an extra $1000/month added to your salary what would you do with it? (after reading this it’s easy to think/say you’d be responsible and put it towards your debts or savings. it’s another thing entirely when the money’s actually in your hand or in your checking account balance.)

it’s also nice to think that we don’t have any car payments, no credit card debt, and $700 in savings just for emergencies. so even if the government were to send us a letter tomorrow and say “we’re cutting all those programs you depend on. next month no food stamps or medical coverage for your kids”, we wouldn’t be freaking out. we’ve got “margin” in our lives. and the same thing for the church housing. if they were to sell the house or need to start charging us rent, we wouldn’t be living beyond our means to do so.

we would have to scale back the time frame it would take us to pay off our debt.

as a wise man once suggested, “we’re living like no one else, so later we can live like no one else.” (email, twitter, or call me if you need an explanation of that quote.)

so, yes, although numbers like 45% and $1335/month are splashy and spit out there primarily for “shock value”; that’s not what we’re proud of. we’re proud that we’ve made a commitment to live within our means, pay off our debts, and give generously.

i’d love to hear your feedback on this issue. whether you agree or disagree, sound off in the comments. has any of what i shared struck a chord with how you’re managing your finances? i’d love to share some more on how deb and i do our budgeting or point you towards good financial teaching so that you can begin your own road to financial freedom.

i’ve actually asked myself this question several times. actually a slight variation, “if i wasn’t a Christian, what kind of person would i be?”

my answer is always “a thief”.

sure there are other things that i occasionally think i would do. maybe i’d follow in my father’s footsteps before he was saved and be a drunk or involved in gang activities. or perhaps i’d be a womanizer, or any number of things.

but i always come back to the idea of being a thief. maybe it’s because i’ve seen movies such as Ocean’s Eleven and the subsequent sequels. and i think how cool it would be to organize such an elaborate plan and then to execute it flawlessly. or maybe it’s because at some places it seems like it’d be so easy to do so.

in fact there’s times that i’ll walk around several business and just imagine how easy it would be to escape their security or slip something by the doors.

have i ever stolen anything? well there actually was one time when in high school i believe that i ripped page out of a magazine at the grocery store (it was like a swimsuit issue of something or other). but other than that, i’ve been pretty much straight and narrow. (oh wait, are we counting pirated music/software? a topic for another blog post perhaps.)

out of all the places i’ve worked, the settings i’ve been in, and entrusted with valuable merchandise and information; there hasn’t been a time that i acted on those sinful tendencies within me.

in fact i remember working at a bank once as the lead teller. and part of my job duties were to count the incoming shipment of money every tuesday. i worked at a smaller branch in town so it was only around $15-20k. there i was making a good $9/hr and counting stacks of $20 bills all over the table. i remember knowing the inside workings of a bank and thinking, “if i ever came into really hard times i know exactly how i’d rob this bank.”

thankfully that time has never come and i think my life has changed quite significantly now that i wouldn’t ever be tempted to actually commit the crime.

and through this whole mental exercise i end up at the same conclusion, it is only by God’s grace that i am who i am. because the fact is that i am a sinful person by nature. if left to my own i do have a “dark side”. i would be all those things mentioned above. i would be a criminal.

now you may think that’s exaggerating things a bit. after-all there’s plenty of people in the world that are neither Christians nor are they criminals. in fact one may even categorize them as “good people”. while that may be true, and i don’t know for sure that i wouldn’t be a “good person”. i just know that when compared to the greatness of God’s grace, i realize just how pitiful my sin nature is.

so how about you? if you knew you could get away with it, what would you do? what kind of criminal are you?

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// today i’m thankful for:

1. God’s Grace
2. His patience
3. His work in me
4. living in america
5. the olympics (i like watching gymnastics and diving)