Finances Pt. 5: Teachable Moments and Temptation

Getting on a budget and being financially responsible creates “teachable moments” where you can share with your children. It provides a point to start communication. Remember our foundational principles are integrated. If you have had problems communicating with your spouse or “significant other” getting the finances on track gives you something to talk about. It could be there needs to be forgiveness from one party or the other (or even more likely both). It gives work a little bit of new meaning because you can more clearly see how your paycheck is benefiting you and your family. There is cause to celebrate because you are literally re-creating how your family does business. You also have to enforce the boundaries between you and your family vs how society wants you to spend money.

Now look. The debt snowball will help a lot of people. There are some people that are in so deep they need more. Not more as in something else besides the debts snowball, but the debt snowball AND something else. I’ve got two something else’s for you. The first is hard and the second is harder.

1 Timothy 6:6-10 6 Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; 7 for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it; 8 but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. 9 But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.

Yes, I’m going to ask you to be content with less than you currently have. If you have fallen “into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires” then that probably means you have too much stuff! So sell it! But…first a bit more about why we need to cut back.

Saving money is like the opposite of losing weight. To lose weight you have to burn more calories than you consume. To save money you have to consume fewer dollars than you bring in. The bottom line is that simple. The question is HOW? Standing in stark contrast to our culture and spending less than you make is not easy to do. Every time you drive down the road and see a billboard, turn on the TV or radio and hear a commercial, or open a magazine or newspaper you will see an advertisement that is trying to separate you from your money.

Advertisements generally show bright sunshiny happy sexy people using the product and living carefree lives. Do you think for a second that if you use that product or service your life will really change? For some reason we have bought into this marketing scheme for years and I’m sure we will continue to do so. So how do we continue to live in this culture and not be “of” this culture?

The answer is easy…with great difficulty. My wife and I are trying to live in the culture, but not of it. We have two decent cars, both purchased used, and both paid for. A 1999 Ford Tarus and a 1993 Mercury Grand Marquis grace the street in front of our house. That’s right we live in a “blue collar” neighborhood where many homes don’t have garages or even driveways.

Our house is a nice little home. It’s probably the nicest house on the street. We have a front loading washer and dryer, a nicer kitchen than I’ve seen in homes costing over $200,000. We have nice storm doors and a two hundred square foot deck that over looks Lenoir City, The Tennessee River, Tellico Lake, Ft. Loudon Dam, and Ft Loudon Lake. Our bedroom furniture is beautiful Quartersawn oak built by the Amish Borkholder Furniture company. We have good sized closets, two sofa’s and it’s all paid for. It’s nothing flashy, but I’m proud of it. I’m thirty-six years old and I live in a paid for house. It’s only 837 square feet. Some people who know us and know how much we make think we are nuts.

There is a temptation to buy a bigger house. We can definitely afford a payment. We have adjusted our savings again and now we are saving 10% towards retirement, $1000 a month in an emergency fund, and between $400 to $800 a month into a sinking fund for vacations, a new computer, a digital camera, a new chair, and a bigger house. We could drop some of that savings for now and easily enough get a bigger house in a much nicer neighborhood. We could have a garage or even just a driveway for crying out loud. We could have a house with two bathrooms and three bedrooms.

The temptation is incredible some days. There are days when I am searching for properties for other people and I see homes we could be living in. I see homes we could afford. I see homes where we can raise our children (we currently have one on the way). Those days the drive back home is even longer than normal. I want to stop about four or five exits sooner and pull into a nice little convenient neighborhood that could be the place where we live.

That temptation is there on a lot of different levels. We don’t have cable TV or a satellite dish. It’s not that I think TV is evil or we don’t watch much. My wife works for HGTV! We want to watch HGTV and The Food Network, and DIY. However, we already watch “The West Wing,” “Alias,” “Extreme Home Makeover,” “The Apprentice,” and way to many others. Add to that the fact that cable TV or a satellite dishes come with monthly fees. We would love a subscription if we didn’t have to pay $40-60 a month.

There are a lot of things to do that cost money that we have found ways of doing for free, or less expensively. We go to matinees instead of full priced movies. We volunteer for the Knoxville Symphony and get free tickets to performances. We volunteer to usher when we want to see a play. We even run “Freedom Friday” (a parent’s night out program) at the YMCA so we can get a free membership (plus we think the YMCA is a valuable organization that provides great services to families and we want to be a part of that).

Now keep in mind we don’t HAVE to cut corners like that. My wife and I make nearly $70,000 a year. At that level of income we could afford movies, cable, the YMCA, and symphony tickets. Why don’t we just pay the price? We live the way we do because taking financial stress away from our relationship makes our marriage better. We live the way we do because one day we will move into a bigger house and we won’t be financially stretched when we do. We want to know that when our child is born we won’t be burdened by hospital bills. If the transmission in my car goes out it won’t be a major setback to us.

Our relationship is relieved of financial stress because we live a lifestyle we can easily afford. We could afford a much nicer lifestyle. We could even stretch our finances and live a much, much nicer lifestyle. Think about the stress that would put on our relationship though. There would be stress when those hospital bills come in. The transmission really is acting up, what would happen when it finally goes out and we don’t have an emergency fund? I really feel for those who don’t understand how financial security can bless a relationship. Do we have temptation to spend more…you bet we do, but we know the benefits of having “stores of choice food and oil.”

Think about the business world for an example. Airlines are stretched to the brink of bankruptcy after losses brought about by the 9/11 terrorist attacks and now the high cost of fuel. Northwest and Delta are bleeding money. They are cutting flights, employees, and selling off any non-essential business units they can just for the operating cash. Southwest Airlines stands in stark contrast. Several years ago they stored up “food and oil.” That is they purchased what at that time were very expensive fuel futures. They paid a set price in the past for fuel in the future.

Several years ago people may have said they were nuts buying fuel in the future at prices much higher than it was selling for at that time. Southwest had two things going for it. It is a wise company that had an eye on the future. It also had something else. It had enough financial clout to make it happen. The truth is other companies may have known they needed to buy fuel futures, but very few of them were in the financial shape to do it.

Southwest Airlines is a company that is great at relationships. It has great relationships with its employees, unions, suppliers, and customers. One of the factors that allows those relationships to flourish is its financial position. Southwest is in a position to pay its bills on time and protect its own future. Each airlines financial stance affects not only the business itself, but also the banks that lend them money, the suppliers that supply the company, the employees that work for the company, and so on. Everyone’s financial position in that whole business food chain has impact on the others.

Think for a second about the ability to impact others individually. Start with your family. Can you afford to put a roof over your family’s heads? That may sound simplistic, but we do have homeless people in the world. Can you feed your family well? There are children right here in the United States that go to bed hungry day after day. Can you cloth your family? Can you afford to send your kids to college? Can you afford a car to get you to and from a better paying job?

Think outside your immediate family (wife and kids). If something were to happen to one of your siblings would anyone in your family be able to afford to take their children in? Will you be able to afford to take care of your parents as they get older? Could you be generous to a distant relative who needs a new start without hope of ever being repaid? Will your finances allow you to have "teachable moments" with those around you?