Category Archives: Money & Stewardship

About money and how we should use it

Ditching Dave Ramsey is all the rage

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So a little while back I wrote a short little piece about why I ditched Dave Ramsey. Basically, all I wanted to say was that I felt bad that he was encouraging a women away from her desire to be a good steward and on to living large (my summary).
Currently, the post has 21 comments and about only one of them related to what I was originally writing about. It turns out there are a few people with some strong opinions about Dave Ramsey. Dave got out of debt himself and now he’s making a buck telling others how to do the same thing. Some have a problem with his plan, others with him making a buck, others are die hard fans of him.

Me, I just want to encourage people to be wise and sacrificial stewards with their finances.

Why I Ditched Dave Ramsey

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I was listening to Dave Ramsey on the radio yesterday and came to the conclusion that it was time to officially say goodbye.

Dave Ramsey’s tag-line is:
“Live like no one else so you can live like no one else!”

I think for his given audience the first part of his statement is valid: Live like no one else. He means live on “beans and rice” and pay off your debts. The truth is half the world lives on barely beans and rice and has nothing but a life of poverty to look forward to. But I digress.

The thing that bothers me is the second half of the “live like no one else.” statement. The idea is that once you’ve paid off your debt and saved your money you can spend it on what you want to. Now most folks want to hear that and so they are happy to listen and hear what Dave has to say. I have trouble cause my Bible (and I’m pretty sure it’s the same one) seems to say we are to be sacrificial in our lives, regardless of how well we’ve saved, etc. And that we should be good stewards, and wise consumers no matter what income/debt we have.

So this is what bothered me: A lady called in yesterday with a question. It was quite simple, her husband and her are debt free. The question was which is better: their current minivan or trading it for an SUV of equal value? Her husband wanted an SUV, but she was opting for sticking with the minivan. What’s the difference? Gas mileage. The topic of the environment didn’t come up, just the cost of a couple extra gallons of gas a week.


Dave’s Response: This is a silly question that you should not fret over. It’s not a “Kingdom issue” It’s maybe $30 a month difference in a debt-free household. She’s being a “tight-wad” (Which Dave says is not a bad thing), and needs to loosen up a little and enjoy the money they have.

sponsored childAriah’s Response: Praise God that she cares about the different cost of gas mileage. $30 a month could be used to sponsor a child and give life (a Kingdom Issue?). Global Warming is a serious problem and it should play a factor in what we purchase as well. She was not being a “tight-wad” she was being a wise steward, one that sees the money she has been given not as her’s that God “blessed her” with, but for her to use wisely as God entrusted her with it. They didn’t need the SUV, so it wasn’t the best thing for them to do with their current finances.

I fear too often there are Christians who have these feelings and leaders, pastors, mentors discourage those God-given feelings in people and allow them to fall away from those convictions. I pray this was less true then I think it is.

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Cost of Living: dictated by values, not income.

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Financial Lesson #3: Live by your values, not your income.

I’m a little worried about moving on with so little feedback on my last finances post, but we’ll proceed anyways.
I think one of the BIGGEST steps we can make to healthy finances and Christ-like stewardship is to begin to live by our Values, rather then our Income. To make this conversation meaningful let me direct it to three different audiences:

Mr. College Student:
You are the one group I need to clarify something with: Most of you college students do not have an income. What does that mean? It means for a lot of you, you are going into debt to get yourself an education. Most folks would say that is a good thing, and some would say it’s not really debt, it’s an investment. I think I would agree with them, education is something I certainly value and I’m sure you do to, so this is a wise decision.
What does this also mean? It means you are going out to eat on the weekends, and bowling and buying concert tickets on money you don’t have. Going into debt on entertainment, does that align with your values?

Ms. Recent College Grad with the entry level job:
Congrats, you finally have your own income and are paying your own bills. It’s time to make some of those important decisions. There’s a good chance your still in debt for your school loans so some of what I said to the college students still applies. What that means is that you need to decided if it is more wise stewardship to pay off your student loans, or buy those fancy couches on lay-away.
I bet I know what most of you are choosing: your going to pay off the student loans, who needs fancy couches anyways? Especially you college students who had any exposure to global issues like poverty. To you folks it seems silly to buy a big screen TV for your living room when most folks in the world can’t put food on the table for their kids. That is your values speaking.

Mr. and Mrs. Nice job and In the money:
Hopefully your idealistic college days values are still in your mind. You have stepped into the world where the “American Dream” is possible and most would say necessary. You’ve got a better paying job and you darn well want to show it. You’ve been eyeing that BMW SUV and have kept your eyes open for a bigger home. And as far as everyone thinks there is nothing wrong with that: Higher Income = Higher Cost of Living. And suddenly your values are out the door. gone.

To clarify again I’ll leave you with a word picture and somewhat of a paraphrase of Luke 3:11*. Say your at home. A blizzard has just begun outside and you and your brother have to make the trek to school. You get to the closet first and see before you two coats. It’s quite cold outside so you take both the coats, leaving your brother with none. Is that what Christ called us to?
Now another word picture. You recently received a commission from your church to be a full-time missionary in your town. You don’t need to quit your job or anything, but rather just continue living and spend your time sharing the gospel with others. Here’s the neat thing: your church gives you a million dollar annual living stipend to support you. What does your home, car, lifestyle, etc. look like?

Financial Clarification

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This is the third time I am trying to write this post to clarify where my thoughts and views concerning my financial lessons come from. The reason I felt it was important to try and do this was because I feel like a few readers have misunderstood what I am saying and I want to try and make sense of it. Let’s just say I haven’t found the right words yet. Here is my third and final meager attempt.
I feel like some of what I have shared of views on finances have come across as a masochistic, vow of poverty, money is evil standpoint. That is not what I have intended by the things I have written.

I am not a masochist. I don’t like Pain. I don’t think Christ enjoyed pain either, yet for some reason he endured the cross. Like Christ there might be times we sacrifice at our own expense for the sake of others. When I say Christ calls us to give sacrificially I don’t intend 1) for that to be painful, nor 2) to do it for the pleasure of it being painful. If anything I am a hedonist. I believe God created us to love others and he has equipped us with the resources to do that in a lot of ways. I say we give sacrificially because we were created to.

I am not promoting taking a vow of poverty. Christ did say blessed our the poor, but I don’t think he meant we should all try to become poor in order to be blessed. I am not saying become poor for the sake of becoming poor. Yet, I should be open to the possibility that my following Christ call to love and give to the needs of others might result in my becoming “poor” by the worlds standards. Jesus did not tell the rich young ruler to “become poor” but he did tell him to sell all his possessions to meet the needs of those around him. I need to be willing to go there if I am going to carry out Christ call on my life to love those around me.

I don’t believe money is evil. When I say we should practice giving away our money with out so much concern for whose pocket it ends up in I don’t mean to do it because money is bad and you might as well stick it through a shredder. (I should have said buy a bunch of bottles of Root Beer and candy bars and leave them in odd places through out the town). Money is simply a means of trade. We should be sure not to elevate it too highly. God calls us to be a good steward of what he has given us, and I have every intention of doing so. God also calls us to love our neighbors and care for their needs, and I have every intention of doing that as well. These both involve money, but I don’t think they are in conflict with one another.

I’ll leave you with this word picture that hopefully will help you understand my perspective. One day your walking along and God shows up and says: “You are my child and you can have anything and everything in the entire world that you would like.” This is better then winning a million bucks, it’s better then getting a genie and three wishes, you can have ANYTHING. A couple of things to keep in mind though. God says you should love your neighbor as yourself and we’ve got 6 billion of them. He is also not going to make things out of thin air, what you choose is from what is available on the earth currently. The more I take the less that is available to others. And by the way there is a big line behind you (6 billion) of God’s children who are going to choose from what’s left when your done.
So what do you choose?

Discerning our Needs and Wants

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Financial Lesson #1: Discerning your Needs and Wants

I told you my financial wisdom would not be overly complicated or deep, and lesson #1 is no exception. You must sit down (and if you are married, you both need to sit down) and draw up a list of your basic NEEDS (That you spend money on). To make this easy, do not start with what you see in and around your house, start with what you will be purchasing from this point forward. As an example person myself, here is an example.

Jack and Jill sit down and start their list of NEEDS. Immediately the basics come to mind: Food and Shelter. They break shelter down into clothes and rent (including heat, electricity etc). Now to get the money to purchase food they would need an income, thus their jobs. And to keep their job they each need transportation to work and occasionally work appropriate clothing. Jill thought back to here psychology days and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and suggested they did have some ‘emotional’ needs that might be hard to countify. In the end they came up with these needs: FOOD, SHELTER, TRANSPORTATION, MISC (Clothing, soap, etc) and EMOTIONAL.

But, that’s not the end of the lesson. Things get a little more complicated at this point. Does “Food” mean eating out three times a week and coffee at Bongo Java every morning? Are those NEEDS? You must discern on your own what part of your “food” is meeting your basic needs and what part is fulfilling your WANTS. The same goes for clothing. You might NEED button down shirts and dressy shoes for on the job, but you don’t NEED name brand clothing to wear out on the town. Getting to work is a Transportation NEED, driving across town to the outlet mall is not. Does that make some sense?

As you think through your needs, be sure to write down the things you’ve discerned are WANTS in another column (eating out, coffee, shopping trips, new sweaters).

Your Assignment for this week: Spend money as you normally have in the past, but be very concious of how much you are spending on Needs and how much on WANTS. Keep track of actual purchases if you’d like. And see if thinking through these lists actually changes what you spend money on through out the week.

…Lesson #2: Giving

Financial Wisdom: Is it really that difficult?

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This will be the first of a small series of post I plan on doing on finances. I figured I should post this first entry both to introduce you to why I will be writing these post, and to create some accountability for me to make sure I do get this information out there.
I’ll start by saying that I have done a fair bit of reading as it relates to financial advice. I learned about Dave Ramsey this summer and read all of his books in the fall. I recently finished reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad. While on a brief financial kick in the past I’ve read Robert Allen’s stuff; The Millionare next door; and a slew of other books I found in the personal finances section of Border’s while Mindy does piles of homework. So, I’ve hopefully learned a little bit. And I must say most of these books have some pretty good advice. Many of them leave me ready to take action on making millions in some form or another, but usually that part of me settles down quite quick.

In future post I will share with you a little of the ways that I have dealt with my finances, and ways I hope to deal with them in the future. I am FAR from a financial expert, and nothing I’ll say here has stood the test of time (at least not that much time), but it is things I believe are steps in the right direction. I’ll try to be as honest as possible. Most of my values come from looking at the life and teachings of Jesus and trying to follow those. Some of the topics I’ll probably talk about is Needs vs. Wants, Fun Money, Giving, Saving, and living on what you need.
Since my life, and these views, are all a work in progress, I’d appreciate as much feedback as each person can give to the things that I share.