hide the gravy

this is part 3 of 29 Things to Know Before You Hit 30.
(you can read parts 1 & 2 HERE and HERE respectively.)

another thing people need to know before they turn old (spelled "t-h-i-r-t-y")

11  Bling-free is the way to be: live beneath your means
duh. but no one in their 20s does this.
come to think of it... no one in their 30s or 40s really does this either.
but the author (Jason Boyett) made a GREAT point:

Consider the people closest to you--your friends, your fellow employees, your family. What forms the foundation for those relationships? What's the joint that keeps you together? None of us would chalk the connection up to material things: "I'm friends with Jessica because she has an awesome car." Or "I like to spend time with my sister on account of her fantastic furniture."

 great point.

+ i thought the other greatest piece of advice = Hide the Gravy. every time you get a raise, don't change your standard of living. you haven't needed it thus far, so why spend it just because it's there?
in other words, you've been used to living on $21k since you were 21, so just keep doing that & "hide" the raise...
[or better yet, i say - GIVE IT AWAY!]

thougths from somebody way smarter than me

i know, i know, i've been writing about money a lot lately. HERE's one post in case you missed it.

but these thoughts about money aren't my own. these are just some of my fav from Andy Stanley's book Fields of Gold. you should definitely go get it and read it. you can even borrow it from me if you want.

enjoy...

“Any fear associated with giving to God’s kingdom is irrational. It’s on par with a farmer who, out of fear of losing his seed, refuses to plant his fields.”

American Christians give less today to the church than we did during the Great Depression! 

[WHAT!? holy crap. that's crazy. how is that even possible?]

**The thing to fear isn’t giving away too much, but giving too little.
[yep.] 

“If you truly believe everything belongs to God, then you have nothing to fear after all. And if God is the source of all wealth and He controls the comings and goings of your money, then there’s no reason not to give.”

[just think about that for a minute]

“So whenever God blesses us with more than we need, we see it as an opportunity to insure our future or to guarantee our next meal, while all along, God meant it as an opportunity for us to give more.”

i love this phrase that Andy uses = "FEARLESS giving." i like it.

*Andy thinks the amount of money entrusted to you in your life often depends on how well you steward what you have. i agree in principle.

“I’m afraid to sow my seed because then I won’t have the seed anymore.” = insane

“This is powerful news for anyone who’s afraid to give because of financial insecurity. It suggests that the wisest move we could make financially is to begin sowing our financial seed. When we do, God gets involved in our finances. And that’s the most financially secure place we could be.”

Andy asks an AWESOME Question – “why in the world would God drain you of your resources and then not replenish them to accomplish what He’s committed to doing?”

while reading this book i was inspired to do something i hadn't done very often = PRAY and ask God to be involved in our finances!

this is SO SIMPLE! God doesn’t give us a % or amount to give. No pressure. Just “not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”

God eliminates giving reactively or out of guilt. In other words, if that’s how you feel about giving, God says, “That’s OK, you just keep it. I’ll use somebody else’s.”

AWESOME = just so nobody can possibly pressure you into it!

great little book. i hope you enjoyed the highlights.

conversation with the postman

i've written a few thoughts about money lately. HERE & HERE (& even HERE within the context below.)

so, when i was reading my buddy Scott's blog recently i was really intrigued by his post. it's about money, but it's changing the subject from what i've been writing about money. it's a different kind of conversation. and it is brilliant (in a sneaky sort of way).

Scott is a brilliant guy. getting his doctorate right now, but that's not what makes him brilliant. he could be teaching those classes. this guy's brain works in fascinating ways.

he's a great writer too. he has written posts here on renown several times. his writing style is different than mine and obviously more polished, but he has an ability to be transparent, raw, and authentic at the same time.

btw - i asked Scott for permission to post this, of course, but in the conversation i never asked if the postman is a literal postman or even a literal, real person or not. i guess you can attempt to interpret that for yourself.
hopefully i'll actually get to sit down with Scott up in NY this month if our schedules sync up. maybe we can talk more about this.

maybe you have found yourself having these types of conversations with a "postman" of your own?

Postman by Scott Grace


The postman told me that money can’t buy happiness. 


I told him I sure doubt that’s the case. 


I have yet to see a rich person sad for having come upon a large sum of money. The only crying is a happy sort of crying. 


The postman assured me that with more money comes more problems, 


but I assured him that if my worst problems were what to do with all my money then I would be ok with that. 


The postman never seems to care that money is what pays for his service and his service pays his rent and buys his food and cares for his young children. The postman always seems to preach that life is not measured by the number of zero’s in your bank account. I have never seen more than five zero’s in my bank account including the cents, but I promised the postman that if there was a time in my life when I saw ten zero’s in my bank account then I would certainly feel a measure of satisfaction and perhaps some sort of success. 


The postman assured me that money is like a bird, and soon flies away. 


But I told the postman that I would much rather watch money fly away than never be able to watch it fly away. 


I guess the postman thinks that money is somewhat overrated. 


I kind of sympathize with the postman, but I sure would like to know money problems, how much happiness money can buy, and how it feels to see a lot of zero’s in my bank account. 


I trust the postman though, seems to have a good sense of things, especially when it comes to money.

any thoughts for me or Scott or the postman?

money money money

i think (& Scripture teaches pretty plainly) God likes to fund His mission through people.

He doesn't have to, but that's the way He works it.

He blesses people with the money that He gives to them SO THAT they will be a blessing & bless others with that same money. so that they will be a blessing by funding God's mission in the world with that money He blessed them with.
then He blesses them with even more money. and so they give away more. and then God blesses them with more. and they give away more. etc... etc...
this all seems pretty straight forward to me.

i'm not a fan of the prosperity gospel. in fact i'm the opposite of a fan. whatever that is. i think it's not the gospel. i've made my thougths about that pretty clear before & i echo THIS on that topic.
but i realize that what i'm saying here & what the Bible teaches throughout borders on the line of "prosperity gospel".

i'm saying & i believe that Scripture teaches that God blesses me based on how i give. God blesses me with money in proportion to how i bless others with the previous money He blessed me with.

and i know the televangelists & prosperity gospel peeps may sound eerily similar as they get on TV & tell us to send them $1,000 and God promises to send them back $2,000 or something like that.

& maybe there's not a lot of difference between the 2 other than that Scripture seems to be talking to people who aren't trying to get rich off of giving back to God. it seems to be more about the motive in the heart. a desire to be a blessing. a heart like "sure, ok, You want to bless me more... then i'll just give away more." if you're giving for the purpose of getting rich... to exploit this system God has set up... i just don't know that it works that way.
pretty sure it doesn't.

but i'll be honest - i've been trying it out for a long time now - and still taking steps forward. i read God's promises about that and think "really, God? how far are you gonna go with this?" because so far the more we give, the more God backs up the dump truck of blessings and dumps more on us. you better believe that gives me the confidence and courage and faith to keep giving more and more... knowing that God promises to bless with more and more.

*but don't take my word for all this. it's a principle that God established. it's how God designed His world to work.

Paul writes about it eloquently. the context for this passage below is all about Paul talking to these peeps in Corinth about giving their money to the poor... funding God's mission in the world... blessing others with their money. as he's talking to them about giving he just wants to remind them about a principle...

⁶ "Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. ⁷ Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. ⁸ And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. ⁹ As it is written:

“They have scattered abroad their gifts to the poor;
    their righteousness endures forever.”

¹⁰ Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. ¹¹ You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

¹² This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. ¹³ Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, people will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else."

(2 Corinthians 9:6-13)

i don't think i can say it any more clearly than that.

it's as simple as SEEDS. if you have 10 seeds and plant 5 - do you have less or more than you started with? well, you have MORE of course. whatever you planted is going to grow and produce tons more of those seeds.
Paul says God designed giving & planting seeds to work the same.

wow.

obviously we don't believe that. or we would give like we planted.
how often do you see a farmer or a gardener plant 10% of his seeds and keep 90% for himself? he would be an idiot.
just sayin'

you PLANT seeds because that's what they're FOR. 
and you give away money because that's why you've been blessed with it. that's what it's FOR.

so, i just can't picture someone giving away all their money to bless others/fund God's mission & then God not blessing them with more to give away.
that's how He likes to fund His mission in the world.

everyone reading this blog is rich. no doubt. don't even argue. if you're sitting in front of a computer or phone or iPad with an internet connection reading this then you are RICH. and Paul says that the whole reason you've been made rich is "SO THAT you can be generous on every occasion!"

AND it's something that actually "accompanies your confession of the gospel." is that confession a little worthless without this generosity to accompany it?

i love the way Luke puts it:
"Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

i can remember my Mom and my Dad talking about this one a lot when i was a kid - they would compare it to the way you fit the most leaves into a trash bag. you can fit way more when you press it down, shake it together, etc... "you can't outgive God" they would say.

i don't think it matters how much money you have. just give. you've been blessed. bless others with it.
whether you make $100 a week or $1 million a week - be generous. give it away.

we are MESSED up when it comes to money. we are MESSED up bad.

it's good to make money. it's just dumb to keep it. who do you think God is going to bless with more money? the person blessing others/funding His mission with it or the person using it on themselves?
just sayin'.


as always, renown is a place for me to hash out some thoughts. take ideas and things in my head and actually process them. i fully recognize that i'm probly wrong about a lot of stuff. i would really like to know if i am WRONG in my thinking about this?
am i way off here?
i'm actually asking someone to point that out if i am. tell me.

(i'm not asking - do we live like we think this is true? - because NO! of course we don't. when we truly believe this we will give 90% and live on 10%.)

i'm just wondering if i'm crazy? i don't think so, but the crazy person never thinks he is.
do you feel me?
or you hatin?

what do you think?

skinny cows & fat cows

i've been reworking a lot of stuff with our budget recently. This past week Crystal and i were having a conversation about some of that budget stuff, what things were going to look like after the baby comes & she's not working, etc...
we had a lot of time to talk sitting in the parking lot that was 485.

i was explaining why i was putting such large chunks each month into the "Crystal's not working anymore fund" and said that basically we have "a lot of extra" now that we don't need... but soon we won't have any of that extra and will need to spend a lot more.
so, i'm setting aside extra we have in these times of "plenty" to prepare for the time of... less plenty. setting aside what we don't need now for when we will need it.

it's like Joseph's story really. There's a story in the Bible about how he interpreted Pharaoh's dreams about the 7 skinny cows and the 7 fat cows = basically there would be 7 years of plenty and then 7 years of famine.
So Joseph, being the wise guy that he was, saved up a lot during the 7 years of plenty so that they still had plenty in the 7 years of famine. great plan.

and then i said to Crystal... "except, it's like we'll be saving up for 7 months of plenty for the famine that will be the next 18 years."

money, money, money

i love me some Proverbs. i read one everyday - the chapter number of whatever day of the month it is.

it's crazy how much Proverbs talks about MONEY! Last summerish as i read through each chapter in Proverbs i wrote down every single time it talks about Money! Pages and pages and pages i filled up. 1 day i'll write about all those thoughts and what it has to say.

but this morning i just read 1 chapter. 28. because today's the 28th. and in just that short little chapter it talks about money in verses 3, 6, 8, 10, 11,16, 19, 20, 22, 25, and 27. Ridiculous. Even more than that talk about money indirectly. pretty much half the chapter.

just a little sampling some of these for fun since it's fresh on my brain:

"Better is the poor whose walk is blameless than the rich whose ways are perverse." (6) 

It's better! i wanna be in that better category. i'll take being poor and blameless any day over rich & perverse.

"Whoever increases wealth by taking interest or profit from the poor amasses it for another, who will be kind to the poor." (8) 

Sweet. 1st lesson = never exploit, take interest from, or make profit off of the poor... hmmm... seems like most of business is pretty much the opposite. i don't wanna make people hate me but isn't this pretty much what a capitalistic society is all about... taken to it's logical conclusion? i'm just sayin'... i mean, do we just skip principles like this or something?
anyway, 2nd lesson is that all those guys who are exploiting the poor aren't even gonna get all that $ in the end! they're just saving it up for the peeps who are KIND to the poor! that's some beautiful irony.
i wanna be the 2nd guy, not the 1st.

"The rich are wise in their own eyes; one who is poor and discerning sees how DELUDED they are." (11) beautiful picture of our society

"A tyrannical ruler practices extortion, but one who hates ill-gotten gain will enjoy a long reign." (16) nuff said.

"A faithful person will be richly blessed, but one eager to get rich will not go unpunished." (20)

"The STINGY are eager to get rich and are unaware that poverty awaits them." (22)

all these above are so backwards & opposite, right? opposite of how we would think and opposite of how we operate. 

try this next one on for size:

"Those who give to the poor will LACK NOTHING,

but those who close their eyes to them receive many CURSES." (27)

are you kidding me? this is so opposite. we are the opposite of this verse. we do NOT give to the poor because we think that is the way to lack nothing.

and we literally "close our eyes" to the poor... and we wonder why we're "cursed".

i already wrote a whole post on this specific verse HERE so i don't want to just repeat myself. you can go read that one.

all i'm saying is that we've got it pretty backwards when it comes to money.

what are we going to do about that?

what do YOU care about?

(This was originally posted on January 29, 2009.)

I sat down to read Proverbs 29 today after stuffing myself at the Penguin with a Big Block burger & some fried pickles. (You can read my thoughts about reading Proverbs HERE.)

1 sentence STILL will not let me go & hopefully it will do the same to you:

"The righteous care about justice for the poor, BUT the wicked have no such concern." - Proverbs 29:7

Whoa. This theme runs throughout Scripture. You can pretty much separate righteous people from wicked people based on their relationship to the poor (sounds like a story Jesus told in Matthew 25). Pretty crystal clear. plain and simple.

So, what do you care about? Justice for the poor? Or do you have "NO SUCH CONCERN"???

really?

i pulled up behind this guy here in Charlotte the other day.

all i could think was REALLY?

i don't even want to say much about this. i'm not saying it's bad to have nice stuff. i'm not saying it's bad to drive around in this Maserati.

But is it even POSSIBLE to have money to BLOW? i can't imagine a scenario in which anyone would have money to blow on a Maserati. i'm just sayin'.
As long as thousands of children are still dying every day because they don't even have water to drink... i'm pretty sure it's not cool to blow money on a Maserati.

if i ever have "money to blow" on a Maserati, i can think of about a million things i would "blow" it on 1st.
just to name a few:
starting churches, helping my church, orphans, widows, building orphanages, building hospitals, CLEAN WATER, feeding the hungry, helping the sick, helping missionaries, lifting the poor out of poverty, BLESSING OTHERS, i don't know - maybe i would buy cars for single moms who don't even have 1 car before buying an extra car that could buy 250 regular cars... etc... etc... etc...

opposite of what you think

Yesterday morning for me meant chapter 11 in Proverbs and there were a few awesome thoughts that flowed together. SO awesome that i thought i would share them with you...

"One person gives freely, yet gains even more;  another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty."(11:24)

This one is what i like to call a "Backwards Proverb". it's like it's trying to be ironic or something. it seems backwards. we would naturally think that whoever gives freely would come to poverty and the person who gives least or "withholds unduly" would have the most... right?

but again and again God flips common sense and logic on its head. it's the opposite. it's backwards.

i desperately want to be the guy who gives freely. i just want to be that kind of person. 2 open hands. i never ever ever want to withhold anything unduly. 

hopefully we're all becoming this way. if we all follow this simple advice - think about it - our world will be a radically different place! it would be ludicrous to think there would ever be any need. children wouldn't be hungry. not many people would die because of preventable stuff... because we would be giving freely to prevent it.

Then the very next verse goes on to back up this "opposite" kind of idea from verse 24:

"A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed." (11:25)

i love that word "refreshed" and the idea it expresses. when you are generous and you give, don't you just feel refreshed? you feel better than at pretty much any other time. why wouldn't we follow this advice? we'd have to be crazy...

"Those who trust in their riches will fall, but the righteous will thrive like a green leaf." (11:28)

i think it's interesting how the author pits "those who trust in their riches" and "the righteous" as opposites. very interesting.

so - don't trust in your riches! or you'll fall flat on your face. reminds me of this.

the "thrive like a green leaf" wording doesn't really connect with me... sorry, Solomon. i guess you had to be there?  or think about green leaves more often.

but, i don't need any more convincing. i'm never going to trust in riches. that'd be crazy.

don't you think?

the american dream

(this is a repost from July 2, 2008. Seemed like an appropriate "repost" for this time of year.)

I guess I'll just come right out and say it because I'm in that kind of mood today. I hate the American Dream! & I'm pretty sure Jesus hates it too. I think the American Dream is probably one of the biggest contributors to wasted lives!!! And most peeps are wasting their lives these days. Living for their own name and glory.

You may not be aware of this, but I think the American Dream has slowly changed from what it used to be. The great philosophers Nickelback poetically describe the current American Dream in their song "Rockstar". Read the lyrics below, but I'm sure most of you know it so go ahead and sing along in that raspy voice that leaves your throat scratchy and asking for some water. It really is a catchy song...

"I'm through with standing in line to clubs we'll never get in
It's like the bottom of the ninth and I'm never gonna win
This life hasn't turned out quite the way I want it to be

(Tell me what you want)
I want a brand new house on an episode of Cribs
And a bathroom I can play baseball in
And a king size tub big enough for ten plus me

(So what you need?)
I'll need a credit card that's got no limit
And a big black jet with a bedroom in it
Gonna join the mile high club at thirty-seven thousand feet

(Been there, done that)
I want a new tour bus full of old guitars
My own star on Hollywood Boulevard
Somewhere between Cher and James Dean is fine for me

(So how you gonna do it?)
I'm gonna trade this life for fortune and fame
I'd even cut my hair and change my name

[Chorus:]
'Cause we all just wanna be big rockstars
And live in hilltop houses driving fifteen cars
The girls come easy and the drugs come cheap
We'll all stay skinny 'cause we just won't eat
And we'll hang out in the coolest bars In the VIP with the movie stars
Every good gold digger's gonna wind up there
Every Playboy bunny with her bleach blond hair
Hey hey I wanna be a rockstar"

- Ok, for real... did you sing it? It's one of those that may very well be stuck in your head for a few days.

This is a little different than the original American Dream that went something like this: a nice, big house, 2 nice, new cars, 2 nice kids, a big TV, a comfy job where you have climbed the corporate ladder to (imagined) "security", a pretty wife who doesn't talk back or a husband who doesn't drink beer or hang out with "the boys" too much, a nice vacation or two every year. and of course, a really fat retirement account so we can retire @ 65 (or earlier) and "live the life" on a beach somewhere or in the mountains playing golf til we kick the bucket.
If you wanted a "Christian" version of this just throw in a nice church with lots of people like you who have a nice, big house & 2 new cars + a lot of time to spend with the family... maybe something like the wife not having a job and the husband making sure he spends lots of evenings with the kids.

Obviously I'm not saying any of that stuff is bad. And I'm not saying the new American Dream is any better or worse than the old or the "Christian" American Dream, but I am convinced that both "American Dreams" are wasting peoples' lives. I feel like the American Dream and the false hope & trust in imagined security and comfort that go along with it are trying their best to hijack the Missio Dei, the Mission of God. Thankfully, God's Mission cannot be hijacked, but the American Dream is taking a pretty good swing at it.

I really don't know what to do about it either. Maybe you can help me think of something. You can be sure that with God helping me I'm not gonna get sucked into it & let it waste my life. I'm only gonna waste my life for Jesus. If you ever see me veering into this wasted life/American Dream then I give you permission to call me on it. I'm gonna do all I can to protect my kids from this way of life that will waste their lives. And I guess I will promote the satisfaction that comes from politely (and not so politely) rebelling against this culture of consumerism we live in & living our lives for one Name. I guess that's a start.

rice & beans, beans & rice

Dave Ramsey always talks about his "diet plan" when you're "living like no one else" = it's "rice and beans, beans and rice."
it's not literal, the idea is just to eat as CHEAPLY as possible to be smart with your money.

well, Crystal and I followed the Dave Ramsey diet LITERALLY for about 2 weeks in Kenya. while living and working at the orphanage we ate ONLY rice & beans... beans & rice for every meal!

the 1st night the carried a live rooster up to the kitchen, slit it's throat, cooked it and fed it to us. that was pretty good... and also the last meat we would eat.
i was thankful though. rice and beans tasted pretty good. i bet we could save a lot of money eating only rice & beans at home too.

speaking of Dave - the budget is a little meager for October after our time in Kenya. Usually i give Crystal 3-4 envelopes with the cash for the month. This month i left THE envelope on her dresser.
she came up to me later and asked "Is all the cash in that 1 envelope?"
"yes."
"Is that a joke?"

haha, we both just laughed. it's all good. hardly a day goes by when we don't talk out loud about how unbelievably God has blessed us.
so thankful.

"riches... fly off to the sky like an eagle."

 ⁴ Do not wear yourself out to get rich;
       do not trust your own cleverness.

    ⁵ Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone,
       for they will surely sprout wings
       and fly off to the sky like an eagle.

         (Proverbs 23:4-5)

Proverbs 23 this morning was awesome. i have written a few times about how i like reading Proverbs every day. i wrote an article called Proverbs is pimp that you can read HERE. it tells the story of why and when i started & my method...

This is such a great reminder! i love the wise man's straight forward advice -> "Don't wear yourself out to get rich!" man, that's pretty relevant for today.

i admit that way too often i trust my own cleverness (not that i have much). but that's pointless because any day money can just be GONE! (as evidenced by our economy). Feels like this could have been written in 2010 not B.C.

So after reading Proverbs 23 this morning my prayer was:

"Please help us rely on YOU, God... not our money! Thank you for blessing us, but please help us use the money that You blessed us with to be a blessing!"

revisiting my $ dilemma

i wrote about my $ dilemma a couple weeks ago HERE. i asked for all you wise peeps to give me some advice. a lot of you emailed me and wrote/talked to me privately. i appreciate everything. you all said a lot of really good stuff. i feel like i could write a book on all the advice.
thanks!

As i wrote the article about my dilemma i was already thinking that it was possibly just one of those tensions to manage not a problem to solve. that's quoting Andy & i wrote about his brilliant concept HERE. (it's also the theme of Catalyst this year!)

then, somebody actually wrote that very thing an email to me. pretty cool.

basically giving and saving will probably always be a tension to manage. it feels like a dilemma to me... a problem to solve, but it's not really. because i'll never solve it. both are needed.

so balance is key which many of you said, *BUT i would argue that pretty much ALL OF US are way out of balance to one side of this tension. and i think we all know which side. i've never met or heard of anyone who was out balance and gave away too much money. i don't know that it's possible.

(i love what i heard Francis Chan say 1 time = "Do you think you'll get to heaven and Jesus will say 'What were you thinking? you gave away way too much!'" probably not...)

so, for me, i'm going to fight and work toward "balance"... but balance really means giving away a whole lot more.

the dilemma

(this dilemma has really been created by what i've written in several of the latest posts. you can read sort of a summary of our financial plan HERE and then my last post on what i think money is for HERE. you should really read that to catch up.) Thanks in advance for taking time to read this dilemma below...

so here's my dilemma.
(first, a preface) - I DON'T NEED ANY MONEY. seriously. there is not an ounce of desire in me to be "rich" and have a lot of money to spend on myself. comforts, pleasures, etc...

i am completely content to sleep on the ground somewhere eating rice with nothing. just me, my wife, and God. no transportation, no furniture... whatever. i'm content.

on the flip side - I AM ON TRACK TO HAVE A TON OF MONEY. and really i'm already rich just because i'm an American. then even by American standards i'm probably rich just from following Dave's plan. (You can read about our journey through that plan HERE and HERE.) this is hard to believe because our income isn't as high as most, but Dave says we're in the top 3% of Americans as far as our net worth right now. crazy. (again, no credit to me, i'm just thankful God led us into this plan.)

but the reason we're on track to have so much money is because we are putting most of it somewhere! getting out of debt, then building the emergency fund, & now we're putting a ton into retirement & eventually we'll be investing a lot more!
So, as I wrote in the last post, just in retirement we're on track to have $13 million at 65, and then with investments who knows how much more it will be?

Bottom Line = i want to give most of my money away (like i wrote HERE). now and/or later.

***i have learned (from Dave & now experience) that money is most powerful when it is focused. that pushes me into the dilemma:
-  i feel like i could give away most of my money now and focus it all toward the Kingdom - the poor, missions, etc... and do a lot of good! it would be powerful!
-  Or i feel like i could focus a majority of my money toward retirement accounts, and investments and maybe end up with $30 million + investments...

Some days i want to ABANDON THE PLAN! (don't tell Dave.) not abandon it so i can buy stuff, but so i can give away all my money. maybe 70% or 80%? + everything in the emergency fund, etc...

but then other days i think it almost might be better to stop giving now, put 70% - 80% into these long term investments and then be able to give $100 million at 65!

*i have a real ongoing dilemma between these scenarios:
1 - i did some really rough estimating and let's say i could give $1.6 million over the next 40 years of my life. that would be very "sacrificial" giving. i would be happy. i would have no retirement... but i'd be ok with that & content. i think it would do a lot of good.

2 - OR if i gave very little now... like 10% or something... i could maybe have $30 million in 40 years to give away. that's a lot more for sure. that seems like it would be way better for the Kingdom, but that's not as much where my heart's at.

Sometimes it feels like i need to pick one of those 2 lanes and run with it.

3 - OR... i could keep up what i'm doing now. which is focused on giving AND the plan (which makes money less powerful because of less focus). maybe i could give away as much as i can along the way but we'd still have $13 million + investments in 40 years. then i could give all of that away. 

pretty awesome chunk to give away. way more than the $1.6 million i could give away in #1, but a lot less than in #2.
*AM I BEING TO RIDICULOUS AND RADICAL ABOUT THIS? maybe i should just live comfortably, have some fun, give some, save some like in #3 and be done with this whole dilemma?

So, i am saying openly that i don't know what to think about all this. my head and heart spin round and round.
the business side of me knows $30 million would be the "best" and i could do a lot of awesome stuff for God's Kingdom with that.
the raw and passionate side of me knows what giving thousands right now could do! the lives it could help save TODAY (physically and spiritually). i have a big problem with this many days. knowing i have the money that could SAVE LIVES, but i'm putting it into a ROTH IRA... ooohhh... that feels revolutionary.

Ultimately i know all the money is going to the same place. it's just a matter of when and how much.

And then my head and heart spin round and round more and more because i know that God doesn't NEED my money. He's gonna do what He wants to do know matter what. What He really wants is my heart. well, He has that... and that makes me want to give away all my money now!
& then the business side of me says...

and round and round i go much like this post has been. i probably haven't made much sense and i've given myself a headache like i do every day as i wrestle with this.

i'll be honest with all of you. i can't think of anything else i wrestle with more than this. this keeps me awake at night and bothers me deep in my soul. i really don't know what God would want me to do. i ask Him for wisdom & i'm just not sure.

**i think there are some principles in Scripture and a lot of wisdom in godly people out there that could help me. i've been searching for the principles in Scripture (big time). [although that's when i want to empty my emergency fund and give away every penny when i read what God has to say...]

i know i probably just sound crazy to all of you and you think i'm a few bricks short...
but i would really really love to hear from YOU! what am i missing? is my thinking all jacked up? what Biblical principle could you share with me to help? did this post even make sense? what would you do in my situation.
help. before my brain and heart explode from this ongoing wrestling match!

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

what is money for anyway?

i'm going to try to let my heart leak out a little bit in this post. just some raw thoughts.

i've written a lot about money the past few posts. i think the ultimate and greatest purpose of money is the Glory of God and to Bless others. i think those are 1 and the same... not 2 different purposes.

i think God has blessed me with money so that i can be a blessing to others... so that i use HIS money (ultimately it's His) for His name's sake... not for my own sake.
i think God has blessed all of us with money for that same purpose. i think He makes it deafeningly clear in the Bible that He wants us to GIVE to the poor/to His Kingdom!

i think most of us Americans are ridiculous. it's freaking apalling that most of us are living paycheck to paycheck barely paying our car payments and for our fancy dinners and for our fancy bottled water when a lot of the world doesn't even have an option of having any of these things.

i really can't comprehend how we spend our money. my pulse and blood pressure are all jacked up right now and i have a headache thinking about how stupidly we use our money. i can't fathom how we spend $19 billion every year playing golf and $16 billion each year on ice cream in America and it would only take $10 billion to give everyone in the world clean water for the rest of their lives.
unclean water is the biggest killer in the world. and that's what around 1 billion people are drinking every day.

Around 10 children died from a lack of clean water since you have been reading this post! 

that should bother you. & that's just 1 example. it should bother us and make us think when we go to buy a new pair of shoes. if we ever even flirt with buying a new car we should think about that first. all the crap we buy should make us think - "is this really the way i should be spending this money?"

i think we're all insane to justify how we spend our money. lots of purchases i have made bother me... and i don't really spend money. i certainly don't spend money on expensive stuff very often! Our 2nd day after Thanksgiving together we bought a big fancy TV for like a fourth of what it usually costs... but it was probably still enough to help lift 8 families out of poverty. did i really need an iPhone? do i need 3 pairs of shoes? do i need more than 7 shirts (1 for each day of the week)? 

we're so freaking rich and we give so freaking little.

1 of our goals is to be able to give away half of everything we make to God's Kingdom - missions, the poor, etc... we're definitely not there yet, but everything in me wants to be there soon... and then move beyond it.

but that sounds radical doesn't it? that sounds weird doesn't it? downsizing. doing without "necessities". 10% is all we need to give right?

but if i'm being honest from my heart... giving away half of what we make is pretty sad. why can't we live on a lot less than half?

we are blinded and ruined by our crazy consumeristic culture. we have to "keep up". everyone has 2 cars and a house payment and cable and an iPhone right?

Everyone drops $200 or $400 or $600 a month on a car payment right?

this makes me so angry and i know God is FURIOUS. not that we have nice things but that we spend all our money on ourselves! that's ludicrous and... i'm going to go ahead and say it... sinful.

& i'm guilty. i spend way too much money on me. i get sucked into my own culture and i'm selfish.

I WANT OUT!
i want God to use the money He has blessed me with for His glory... to radically change lives among the millions of unreached people who have never even heard His name... to save lives of people who would otherwise be dead because of the poverty they were born into.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

(thinking through this "dilemma" i have created in my next post.)

$13 million and our new money experiment

i have been writing about our financial "plan" from Dave Ramsey & then i wrote a couple posts on our story walking through that plan so far HERE and HERE if you care to read about it.

i'm really thankful that God guided us to jump onto this plan and for the patience and discipline we've had to stick with it!

*Crystal was on Dave's website about 1 year ago and there was a retirement portion that would figure what you will retire with. She plugged in all our numbers (income, bills, home mortgage, etc...) Basically, if we NEVER make more income and everything stays exactly the same and we just stay on pace... when we hit 65 we will have a fully funded (6 month) emergency fund, a home mortgage that is paid for (by the time we're 31 or so), college paid for for 2 kids (which we don't have yet, and $13 MILLION DOLLARS!!!

yeah. that's what i said. $13 million. insane... and that's just in our retirement accounts. and that is an extremely conservative estimate. i'm pretty sure there's a lot i could do with $13 million.

*That's what Dave is talking about when he says "live like no one else, so later you can live like no one else." Maybe we don't go out to eat as much as other peeps and we have a tight budget and all, but $13 million... that's pretty cool.

& i also mentioned our latest little money experiment. Back in April Crystal and i talked and felt like this experiment was something we should do. i felt like it was a "God thing."
We decided that ALL the "unexpected" money we get - which fyi, we don't really get much of that. Unexpected money is like stuff that just shows up out of nowhere. stuff we didn't budget, stuff we didn't work for, gifts, money that turns up.
For example = the $20 bill i literally FOUND on the sidewalk, the $100 i made selling an old foosball table, the $400 that showed up in my account from my real estate company... just extra.

Anyway, we're GIVING HALF of all that unexpected money we get to missions and to the poor (social justice projects). not for everyone, just what we felt like we should do. we're always trying to give MORE and figure out how to budget it... but we're like why don't we just give away 1/2 of unelxpected money we get.

so, we started that in April. we've been doing it for about 2 months now and we have gotten OVER $1,000 that was completely unexpected. that's pretty crazy! $500 per month average so far. i don't remember ever getting that much unexpected money!

i wonder if there's a connection? could be a coincidence? beats me really. we are just really excited to be giving away a ton of extra money + getting the extra money isn't bad either.

(We're excited to be funding some entrepreneurs living in poverty through Hope International and helping some peeps go on mission trips. looking forward to what we can do with any more unexpected money God blesses us with.)

our journey with the plan (part 2)

This is the rest of the story on how we became debt free and in a ridiculously good financial spot without making much money. (You can read part 1 HERE.)

Continuing from yesterday... we had paid off a lot of debt in 08, but Dave says that if your 2^nd mortgage is under a certain percentage of your household income then you should include it in your debt snowball. Ours was basically right on the border and probably could have gone either way.

It was tempting to just shout “We’re debt free!” after paying off Crystal’s car, but I was like “Ya know what, let’s just knock this mortgage out, be done with it & REALLY have something to celebrate.”

By the time we had paid all the other debts off we really had a CHUNK of change every month that used to be dedicated to payments that was now a massive SNOWMAN size snowball! It all went straight to principal to pay off this $20K mortgage. Every month we were throwing well over a grand at that thing. (we got out of paying over $2K in interest that half of the year!)

A couple days before Christmas of 2008 Crystal and I sat down together and PAID the final payoff online to BB&T for our mortgage. We were debt free! I shouted and had a little party right there on the couch. (That Christmas just felt different too by the way.)

That's the final piece of paper on our mortgage showing it was PAID IN FULL. that was awesome!

We started in December 07 and were debt free in December 08. It took us about 13 months to pay off around $31,000! That’s what I’m talkin’ about.

And trust me… we weren’t making very much coin either. It was just focused intensity.

All glory to God. Definitely not our power… just His favor. I believe He hates debt, so we just got after it.

Next step = January 09 we began Baby Step #3 -> Finish the Emergency Fund (and kick Murphy all the way out!) Dave says to put 3-6 months of expenses away into a readily accessible account. The more “unstable” your income is, the closer to 6 months you should save. We went with the 6 months & it’s an amount that wouldn’t force us to change our lives much in those 6 months. it would probably last us more like 9 months.

We finished that off in November of 09. Then in December my wife got a little "reward" for being such a great sport with a phat shopping spree because of all the freed up money.

*Then the realization hit = We could both lose our jobs and not change a thing or have a worry for 6 months! That is what i call security! That's 6 months to hit the job trail hard, getting PT work & not having to go back into debt! Plus it's enough money to cover us if a major disaster hit.

So, January 2010 we started the next phase. Baby Steps #4, 5, & 6 all come at the same time! 

#4 = 15% of our total income now goes straight into retirement. Crystal has a matching 401k which we max out & that is so awesome (it's straight up free money!)

Then we hooked up with a Dave Ramsey ELP here in Charlotte who is gonna help us up & hook us up with Roth IRAs to max out & then a little more in the 401k to finish off the 15%

*It feels so good to get started on this! My whole life i've heard about how important it is to get started investing early! just because of this monthly 15% we will literally retire with many many millions. dang. crazy.

#5 = saving for our kids' college tuitions. Dave's got a sweet way to figure out what it will cost when our kids are off to college. we have none yet so we technically can't open ESAs for them, but we went ahead and started putting away a lot per month. they can go to Harvard or Princeton if they want (& if they're smart like their mom.)

#6 = PAYING OFF OUR MORTGAGE! this one will take a bit longer, but worst case scenario we should have it paid off by the time we're 31 or so. not too much longer. just trying to pay as much extra as we can toward the principal! (In this economy i'm actually trying to cheat the system & sell our house & just rent something or buy a foreclosure at half price and be totally out of debt including the house! if the right opportunity rolls along i am all over it!)

that's our story & where we're at now. it's been a blessing. the crazy part is we still don't make much money, but we've been able to GIVE way more than we ever have in our lives - to our Church, to God's Mission globally, to the poor, etc... crazy how that works.

& God has been the only reason this has all gone down this way. amazing.

BOTTOM LINE = i am an idiot and this worked out for us... therefore ANYBODY can work this plan, get out of debt & be financially secure.
we get none of the credit. we only tried to screw it up.

*i'll share some more thoughts on our journey this weekend.

our journey with the plan (part 1)

(You can read about "the plan" HERE and HERE. Today i'm just telling our story of how we've walked through this plan together & how it's changed our lives.)

In 2007 Crystal and I saw Dave Ramsey for the 1st time at Catalyst. We heard him talk about how dumb debt is and how easy it really is to control your money. It sounded like it was even easier if you start when you're 1st beginning life (i guess we were still "newlyweds" = married for just over 2 years).

We kind of looked at each other and nonchalantly said "you wanna try it?" & we were both like "sure" with a shoulder shrug, "why not?"... little did we know how dramatically our lives would change.

within a couple weeks i went out and got Dave's book The Total Money Makeover (TMM) and read it in 2 days. i was absolutely blown away! This was the greatest plan i had ever seen. even a financial dummy like me could follow it. i couldn't even screw it up!
So, December 2007 was our 1st month to give our TMM a shot. Crystal and i set up a budget before the month began. We told every penny where to go. And that month we put our 1st $1K emergency fund in place. (Baby Step #1)

The next month (January 2008) we hit the debt snowball trail hard! (Baby Step #2) We went hard core paying off our debts 1 at a time. i still remember the 1st one we paid off. $592 on the Lowe's credit card for our whole gas fireplace setup. What a dumb thing to buy on credit! the "no payments, no interest" sucked us in. never again. it felt great to pay that off in the store because i knew where this plan was taking us!

We started having more and more money to throw at debt the more debt we paid off! It really was like a snowball! (We stopped using our other credit cards, btw)
We mowed down our debts - Home Depot credit card, a big one (like $3,500) to Wells Fargo for our whole King Sized bed & bedroom furniture we bought at Mattress Firm, etc...

I was pretty hard core about this whole plan because i could see the end game (the plan i wrote about on Monday.) i knew that we could be debt free pretty soon and that we could even be done with all 7 steps in around 7 years!!! 
Crystal, on the other, hand started started having her doubts. i was so hard core that i cut out all spending from the budget. we were literally spending no money for about the first 3-4 months.

that's when i got my 1st big lesson... my hard core approach had caused Crystal to jump ship! Around month 3 or 4 she was ready to go on a shopping spree and put it all on a credit card. i made it so bad for her that within a couple weeks i heard comments like "I don't really care if we have the money, i just want to buy something." and  

"Dave Ramsey ruined my life" 

and the most famous quote of all =  

"If I ever see Dave Ramsey I am going to kick him in the balls!" 

wow. i had created a monster!
so, i wised up and loosened up for the sake of a lot of things (you can thank me later Dave! In fact, another time we saw Dave speak Crystal leaned over and said "now is my chance." haha, totally joking of course. i think.)

When she worked one Friday after that i went to the mall and bought her a ridiculously expensive outfit i knew that she wanted from White House/ Black Market. it was a total surprise. i had them gift wrap it. (She hadn't bought clothes in months.)
She also hadn't even bought Starbucks in months, so i timed it perfectly and bought her a Venti of her fav drink + a Starbucks gift card and laid it all out on the table. i also grabbed a card and wrote her a note just thanking her for being an awesome wife and for sticking with this plan with me.
That was a good night.

*And i learned a very important lesson. You can get out of debt wtih gazelle intensity but still have fun along the way. In fact you have to or else you will give up. we started a new budget item of "spending money" that she could spend on whatever she wanted to.

Some time in 08 is when i started grabbing extra jobs and ended up with 5 for a little while. that obviously helped get out of debt faster!
i also went for over 1 year without buying a thing. literally. i didn't spend a dime. like i may have bought groceries so we could eat or a light bulb so we could see, but i bought nothing "for me" for over 12 months. my choice. i honestly kind of just wanted to try it. a 1 year boycott of spending money and materialism. you can call me weird. that's fine with me. i just call it focused.

Later we paid off Crystal's car. Her beloved 2003 Ford Focus that she bought brand new with her dad as a junior in college. that was a good day when we paid that off. it definitely drives different when you own it.

*believe me when i say this = when you go after something like this with "gazelle intensity" (as Dave calls it) it seems like you get crazy momentum and the wind is at your back. it feels like God is behind you helping push and money comes from everywhere. 
We got a crazy huge tax return that summer and because we were so disciplined by that point, we didn't touch a dime of it and dumped the whole thing into paying off our debt!
Several other things happened like that! chunks of money from unexpected places... all straight to debt because we were focused and had a plan.

the only debt left (besides our mortgage) was actually our 20% mortgage from our 80/20 loan when we bought our house. it was the last and biggest on our debt snowball list of victims. a little over $20,000!

tomorrow i'll write about that and the rest of our journey so far.

the plan

HERE i talked about how Crystal and i are following a plan and following it to a "T". Then i wrote a little prequel to this plan HERE.

I promised to drop this plan on you guys. It's from a guy named Dave Ramsey. I think he's a genius and his plan (below) has changed our lives. i pretty much think everyone should follow it. You can read it from Dave in The Total Money Makeover.
Here's my attempt to lay it on you as simply & SHORT as possible...

1  Save $1,000 FAST. like this month. seriously.
sell something if you have to, but save $1K in cash as an emergency fund NOW. see, the 1st step was easy right?

2  GET OUT OF DEBT! via the "debt snowball". basically start with your smallest debt or credit card & pay that bad boy off ASAP. then take the money you were paying on it and roll it over to the next smallest debt... repeat over and over & by the time you get to your biggest debt you will be putting a BIG chunk of money toward paying it off every month. pretty soon you'll be DEBT FREE!

3  Finish your EMERGENCY FUND. Obviously $1K is not enough for major emergencies (& YOU WILL have one). You need 3-6 months of expenses in the bank readily available. Imagine the freedom when you know you could live for 3-6 months if everyone in your house lost their jobs! pretty reassuring in this economy.

4  RETIREMENT! As soon as you have your emergency fund in place you have a TON of money freed up each month, so immediately start putting away 15% of your income into retirement accounts! Start with fully funding a Roth IRA (up to $6K for a couple) and matching 401Ks... START YOUNG! you'll end up with millions!

5  Save up for your kids' college tuition. Pretty much all college students go into crazy debt when they go to school! not cool. you can do something about that though! change your family tree. At this step start investing NOW for your kids into an ESA (Educational Savings Account). $200 a month will pretty much send your kids to any college they wanna go to.

6  PAY OFF YOUR HOME! Oh yeah. As Dave says "The paid off home mortgage has replaced the BMW as the status symbol of choice." seriously. OWN your home. straight up. totally possible.

7  Build Wealth like CRAZY! invest all this crazy ton of money you've got now because you don't owe anything! All your income is yours. Growth Stock Mutual Funds all the way... maybe even buying some real estate. you'll be a millionaire in no time.

*For me personally, this was brilliant because it was EASY. 1 step at a time. a dummy like me can follow this thing and be a millionaire. i think i'll tell our story with this plan tomorrow.

the prequel to the plan

I mentioned in my post on Sunday that my wife and i might live a little "different" when it comes to finances, but it's all because we're sticking with a plan. I'm going to write a little more about that in the next week or so.

it's simply a "Total Money Makeover" and we learned about it from Dave Ramsey. We had never heard of the guy until we heard him speak back in '07... now peeps call me a "Ramseyite".

I was not a genius and I am not very organized at all and I didn't know jack about money (other than that i didn't have any!)... I had tried a couple different money systems, but i wasn't smart enough i guess.

But, Dave's plan feels to me like "money for dummies". it's the simplest thing ever. We just have to follow the plan and we're golden. & the plan only has 7 steps. you just take 1 step at a time. that's my kind of $ plan. perfect for a dummy like me!

I'll write about those 7 steps tomorrow, but for now here's all you really need to know and do before starting the 7 steps.
1) no credit cards - ever! cut them up. NEVER be in debt or use debt again.
2) budget every dollar! we started doing a budget where we spent every single penny on paper before the month began. we're still doing that.

Like Dave says, if you want to be normal (spelled BROKE) just live like everyone else. But this plan is about "living like no one else so later you can live like no one else."