“Because we think we have to give our kids everything they want … we are losing everything we have.”

Stephanie (kyleesmom) made this comment recently  on the blog. Boy did she put it all in a nutshell. This is true for the parents too because we think we deserve everything we want…we are losing everything we have.

Be careful God has given most of us a certain amount of money and in some cases children and He wants us to use it wisely for the care of those children.

Jill

I was watching a morning show today and they were talking about how a lady didn’t know what she was going to do because she owed $163,000 in student loans and was only earning $50,000 now.

The experts of course helped her negotiate the student loans down to a lower price for her.

Jack started crying so I didn’t hear if they said this or not but I would like to point out that if you can’t pay cash for college then you shouldn’t be going! Period!

Frankly I’m tired of hearing people whining about how they just “can’t” pay for their student loans because they aren’t earning enough.

Why is it people think it’s ok to have student loans on their backs for 10-20 years but they can’t take 6-8 years to go to school part time and work to pay cash for it?

The fact is you should be paying cash for college. For years people worked at night, on the weekends and in the summer to pay for it.  They worked hard to get scholarships and grants to help pay for it.  They worked hard to pay their living expenses; they scrimped and saved so they wouldn’t have any debt after school.

If you have kids that are planning to start college next year or are there right now encourage them to pay cash for it themselves.

You may have to start at a junior college to get the basics, work to get scholarships and grants and yes, go part time so you can work full time, to pay for it and your living expenses.

If you are a parent and feel the need to help your kids out with school that’s fine but all your debt should be paid off first including your house. If your house and debt is paid off then you will have the extra to help out.

Tawra

It’s the beginning of a new year. There seems to be only 3 topics everyone thinks about; how to get out of debt, lose weight and get your house clean and organized. Just look at all the magazines or TV shows. It is every where.

I to am not immune to any of these. I was sitting and gazing around my domain and looking at the mess. I had really let things go.  As I was looking I started thinking “I need to get busy and clean things up but where do I start besides I was just too exhausted to start”. I just can’t do do it I told myself I’m too tired.

I then realized what I was saying. I could do it, I just was tired and didn’t want to do it. I made myself get up and start clearing the one pile of things in my kitchen that had been driving me crazy for ages. When I was done it looked so good I was energized and started on another spot. Before I knew it I had the whole kitchen done and it hadn’t even taken me 30 mins.

What dawned on me that day was how often we aren’t honest with ourselves in making excuses for not doing things. For example when I said I can’t do it that it really wasn’t the truth. I could do it I just didn’t want to do it or feel like doing so to ease my conscience I said I can’t do it.

I wonder what would happen is each time when we say “I can’t do it” we would change it to “I don’t want to do it because it will be a lot of hard work and/or sacrifice”.

Another excuse we use is “I don’t know how to do it.” Then you need to learn how. In this day and age we have access to so much knowledge there is almost no reason for not finding out how to do something.

Years ago before the internet, libraries etc. when someone didn’t know how to do something they did it by trial and error until they got it right. Today more often then not we seem to think when we say we don’t know how to do something it means we don’t have to bother to try or do it.

I always think of Thomas Edison and how it took him over a thousand tries to make the light bulb. Am I glad he didn’t say I can’t or I don’t know how. You see what an impact excuses can make on our life and others.

Last but not least one other excuse we so often use to get out of doing something is ” I don’t know where to begin” In most cases it really doesn’t matter where you begin. The important thing is just to begin.

If you are trying to get out of debt begin by stopping your spending. That step alone will make a big difference.

If you want to lose weight stop eating so much. Interesting in both of these you begin by stopping something.

And last if you are trying to clean your home you can pretty much just start any where. I also love it when people use the excuse of I don’t know how when it comes to cleaning. Do you really not know how to pick up the trash off of your living room floor or put those dirty clothes in the hamper?

Next time you hear yourself saying these things stop, pause and think am I being honest or am I sounding just like my 10 year old when he or she is trying to get out of doing their chores or homework. Hummm? I wonder where they learned their excuses from?I know I had to stop and pause myself several times this past week.

Now if these excuses have become like a comfortable old sweater to you that is ok too. Check out our website and books where you will find so many things to help inspire you to do things when you think you can’t, to help show you “how to” and to show you where to begin.

I will also try to keep coming up with tips and ideas of how to get out of debt and clean in the future.

Can we do it? Yes we can. (well for those of us who can get out of bed today - this is a little side joke for those with CFS or FM : )

Jill

I am posting some comments and questions from readers over the last year. Enjoy! Tawra

Hi Tawra,

I had to make a comment on you last e-mail
newsletter about the divorce situation. I think
the advice you gave was 100% correct! You did a
great job explaining what can happen in a divorce
situation. I am one of the unfortunate ones that
had to live it. I am thankful that my children
were old enough that they were almost adults when
it happened, but still, it was difficult.

I lost my house, my SUV, and my very comfortable
lifestyle. But, as you said in your newsletter, if
you are a Christian, everything will work out OK.
That is SOOOO true. I have had financial help,
spiritual help, and even help finding a new place
(a guy from my church owns the building my son and
I now live in). I live on less than half the
income I used to, but my son and I do just fine,
after scaling back alot.

I bought your book several years ago, before I
even knew I was getting divorced. Little did I
know that I would use some of the tips in there
for my own personal use and not for my family.
Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I think
you did a good job on the divorce advice. Take
care and God bless!

Jennifer S., faithful reader of your newsletter
and owner of Dining on a Dime

In answer to one of the posts, yes you tithe on the interest of your savings. It is income unlike the savings itself which you have already tithed off of.

Let me address a couple of things which people were wondering about. Tithing is not that complicated. As in other areas we tend to make things very complicated (like cleaning, paying our bills etc) because by doing so we give ourselves an excuse for not doing it and purposely confuse ourselves so we can’t do them.

To me tithing is like the “basics”. I gave my children basic clothing, food etc. but because I loved them I also gave them more then just the basics like toys, special dresses, candy or entertainment. It was more then I was required to give but because I loved them I gave without even thinking about it.

I do the same with God. I tithe because I love Him. I don’t debate each month whether or not I have enough to spare to give Him. I can’t wait to give it to Him because I so enjoy giving those I love gifts. If you are tithing grudgingly or from pride because you are such a wonderful Christian and not because you love the Lord and want to obey Him, then you may as well not tithe at all.

If my husband bought me a gift and grudgingly said “Here is the present I’m suppose to buy you for your birthday but I’ll have you know I had to give up a big screen TV in order for you to have it plus it will be tight for me to pay for the cable this month so I can watch my sports. I hope you appreciate it.”

Oh boy that will be a gift I will treasure for sure! Not! This may sound awful but we do it all of the time to God.

One other thing. There are many wonderful stories I and so many others could tell about the great things that have come their way because they have tithed but you need to tithe because you love God and want to obey Him and not because of what you will get from it. Can you say “If I never see any financial increase I will still tithe.”? When you get to that point, you know you are giving with a right heart. When you get to that point you won’t be asking that question or even giving tithing a second thought, it will just be automatic.

It isn’t a matter of hopefully some day when things are better I will or as soon as I get my debt paid or when this or that happens. You either tithe or you don’t. You step out in faith or you don’t. You trust God to keep His promises of never letting the righteous go hungry or you don’t. It isn’t complicated. I hear people so often say “well I guess I just don’t have enough faith”. But they are leaving out is one important word. What they are really saying is” I guess I don’t have faith - in God”. That’s the bottom line.

Jill

I have a lot of people email and say “I try to tithe but I just don’t have the money so I will tithe my time instead or give what I can.”.

The problem with that is by saying that you are telling God “I don’t trust you to take care of us so I’m going to do what I think should be done and not obey you”.

Tithing is an act of faith and trust in God that he is going to take care of you. When you don’t give your 10% first then you are flat out telling God you don’t trust him.

Also are sure you really don’t have the 10% to give God first? Do you have a cell phone? Cable? Kids in Activities? Go on vacation? Eat out? Drink sodas? Get Manicures? Get your hair colored? All these things and more are not needs so you really can’t say “we just don’t have the money” because that’s not true. You just choose to spend God’s money on something else.

Tawra

From: Michael
Recently I have found that my debt has risen to a high number. I
sought Christian financial advice and the gentleman told me that
i was tithing off of my savings which i shouldn’t.
At first it shocked me because i know God gave me that savings.
So i should tithe off of it. Then i realized that maybe he wanted
me to have it for a savings for emergency use. If i don’t tithe
off of it, that money can be used to go on my debt.
I still feel weary because i don’t want to say to God, “Hey, i’m
going to not tithe off of my savings to pay off some debt”. I am
not doing it to buy a bunch of toys, but to make up for the bad
decisions i made in the past for the debt i have now.

Are we supposed to tithe off of savings? or is that for us to keep
for emergency and paying off debt and a possible offering here
or there when the Lord leads us to?

Thank you for your time.

I completely agree with him. We believe that tithe should be the very first thing you do even before food and rent and God does call us to give offerings also but we are only to tithe off our earned income. If you already tithed on your paycheck and then put that into savings you don’t need to tithe again.

Take 10% off the top for the Lord, 10% for savings and live off the rest. If you have a good amount in savings, around $1,000, for car repairs, appliance break downs etc. then I would put everything else on your debt and not save the 10% for savings until your debt is paid off. It doesn’t make sense to save earning 5% or less interest and be paying 6%- 21% interest on your debt.

So yes, I agree with him. Put it all on your debt and get rid of it as fast as you can!!!

Tawra

I totally agree with Tawra. The Bible says we are to give 10% of our first fruits (Lev. 27:30 & 32 two of many verses). Something I haven’t talked about as much but need too is the fact one of the main reasons we should strive harder to get out of debt is the fact God blesses us with so many things - much for our own use and pleasure but equally as much in order that we have the resources to help others.

It is so wrong to mis-use what God has given us and waste what He has blessed us with. We holler about the government and authorities mis-using our taxes which we have given them and sometimes rightly so but we don’t realize how we are doing the exact same thing with the money God has given us.

I just recently heard of a school superintendent who was called on the carpet because he was charging things like $100 meals for him and his wife to go out to dinner on the school expense account. He had done thousands of dollars like this.

Now as shocked as we all are with this don’t we do similar things with God’s money He gives us. We spend it on things like going out to eat at expensive restaurants, new trucks and cars, houses we can’t really afford, fancy birthday parties, high tech toys etc. instead of giving to those in need which is one reason he gave it to us in the first place.

It’s okay to use our money for what we need but when we buy excessively, get into debt from just plain over spending etc. we are mismanaging our funds just as that superintendent did.

I know this was a little (okay alot) off of the subject of Michael’s tithing on savings but it just reminded me that there are many good reasons why we need to do our best to get out of debt as quickly as we can no matter how much work it is or how hard it is.

Jill

I have been hearing how to save on school supplies every where and how expensive everything is. Sometimes we concentrate so hard on how to buy things for less or to save on them that we forget we maybe don’t have to buy things at all which would save us even more in so many ways.

We still haven’t hit that hard of economic times yet if we are discussing whether to buy a back pack with rollers or without. When times were really hard I couldn’t have bought a backpack period. I know it maybe hard to believe but you really can get an education without a backpack. I went through all my years of school and didn’t own a backpack.

Please don’t tell me times are different and kids have it harder or more to carry now. I had 8 classes at one point and had to carry most of my books, pencils, paper, notebooks etc. all day long and I did not die. I even had to carry them to the bus stop or walking all the way to school unlike most kids now whose moms drop them off at the school door.

Take those school lists they give you and find out what the kids really have to have and don’t get the rest. If the people in the school office automatically say they need everything then try to find out from the teacher or principal. I know this is a pain but if things are really that bad for you financially you may have to do some of these things that are a “pain”.

We are like a bunch of sheep being lead to the slaughter. We get our lists and blindly walk up and down the isles of the store buying what we can’t afford thinking there is nothing we can do about it.  I couldn’t just charge things and I had to choose between heat, food or school supplies so I had no choice but to find out what was the least I can get by with.

Now I know there are some things which kids really can’t do without, I’m not talking about these things but things like backpacks or even lunch boxes aren’t a absolute must. I also know that some teachers have things they say you must have but at least question these and see if they really need everything instead of blindly buying everything.

I have questioned for years why does everyone buy new school clothes for their kids and have found most do it because it is what everyone does or because that has always been the way to do it or best of all because “they” say you should do it.

The whole point is start looking at and questioning why do you buy these things and are they really necessary? I so many areas of our lives we are so use to doing things a certain way we don’t even stop to think “Do I need to buy this?”. Don’t be embarrassed to ask questions.

I learned this years ago. I went to the dentist and had to pay for it myself. He immediately started ordering about 4 different x rays and other things. I looked at him and said “I have no insurance and very little money, what is the very least I can get by with? Do you really need all these x rays for this one cavity that needs taken care of?” He ended up not taking any x rays at all.

I know all the ins and outs of why dentists take x rays and teachers request the supplies that they do so please don’t e mail me on that  but try to focus on the point I am trying to make which is I asked about something I usually thought I just had to do and because I got up the courage to question it I saved a lot of money.

Jill

From: Virginia
Hi, First of all, I would like to say I really
enjoy receiving your Newsletter and reading your
blog. I’ve been absorbing all the GRREAT info
about living frugally and responsibly. My
question pertains on affording to have a baby. I
live in South Florida, where everything seems to
cost more, and the cost of delivering a baby
naturally costs between $10,000 - $12,000
(without any complications). I have medical
insurance but it doesn’t cover maternity, so how
in the world is anyone able to afford just having
a baby let alone raising it? I read that your
OOP expenses were only $4000 - $5000 for Jack,
how did you manage that? Thanks.

We have self pay insurance through blue cross and blue shield for the baby and Medicare for me and that is our portion. One thing about affording 10-12K for dellivery is that people seem to have no problem paying that and then some for a car but are horrified to have to pay that for their child.
It is a matter of priorities. We had to pay 7K for our daughter and we had insurance. For us we pay our medical expenses instead of driving a new car.

BTW, 10-12K seems to be the going rate across the country for baby deliveries. That was the cost in Idaho and the cost here in Kansas for ours.

Tawra

photo by:Betssssy

I was on welfare for a while when my kids were younger. Of course, getting only one check per month made the cash flow more obvious. They asked one day, when I said we couldn’t afford something, “Why not - you just got that big check?!” So, I sat them down and wrote the numbers down side by side. How much the check was on one side and how much I had to pay to others on the other side. I subtracted as I went and they saw that “big” check going down faster than they realized. They never bugged me after that quite like they had before. I derived the idea from a different idea about how to show kids the realities of cost and the dreams they have about sports cars, big houses, etc. I just adapted it for my situation. I know most don’t really want to tell their salaries, but sometimes it can help them to understand when things are tight.

Wendy

This is a great idea. I have never understood why parents won’t tell their kids their incomes and sit down with them while they are paying the bills. This is probably one the best things you could ever do with your kids. Tawra

Not only that but it teaches and gives children a better idea how to use a check book,  balance a check book, credits cards etc. I am so surprised at how many adults don’t have a clue where to begin on any of these things. It once again goes to training your children in every area includidng finanaces.

Jill

photo by: Tracy O

From: Michelle

Just wanted to give a response on the budgeting.
I realize that sometimes recording every receipt
is a pain, but I found out some interesting
things when I actually did it. For 2006 I
recorded my husbands and my income to the penny (
in quickbooks) then recorded all the expenses
from our bank statements, ATM receipts included.
Then I recorded any cash receipts (against the
cash withdrawn). What we found astounded us. We
had spent pretty much my net checks and an extra
$6,000 of his checks on unnecessary expenses.
Too tired to cook after long days, lets just stop
at a restaraunt, oh lets just run through fast
food for lunch or breakfast, how about a soda or
coffee. Well all that added up.

I am now not
working, we are rarely eating out, and with one
less income we are actually able to put more in
savings than we did before. And my husband does
not mind my staying home (I have always worked)
so I get some odds and ends done around the house
that he does not have to try and do when he gets
home now, so he feels less stress. I plan on
trying to work from home at some point, but it is
not necessary to survive.

So I am trying to help
with minor repairs around the house, painting,
mowing the yard and such with all my newfound
spare time. You never really know HOW MUCH you
are spending until you take a GOOD HARD LOOK at
it. Thanks for your website, it is what inspired
me to check out our lifestyle spending.

One thing most people don’t realize is just how much money can be saved by staying home and not working. Meals eaten out alone can cost thousands. Just doing stuff around the house like painting the house, garage saling, bargain grocery shopping and not to mention all the day care costs really add up. A lot of people don’t add up the true expense of working. A lot of women could save MORE money by staying home than working. It really pays to check and see if all those hours working really are bringing in more money.

Tawra