Its a wee early for implementing a New Years resolution, but its never too early to start doing some of the things I’d like to do. One of the reasons that I moved from Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) in 2004 and relocated my family to Denver was to go to a church here. It was a big move with some big implications. We left friends there in DFW but we hadn’t found a church we felt comfortable calling ‘home’ and after giving up (we were notably picky and have since learned to mellow out… but that’s another story) we looked at a few places to move and finally picked Denver. At our church we have learned a major amount of things about our relationship with Christ. One of the passages that has rocked my world since moving here is Second Corinthians 3:18:

And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. [New American Standard]

This passage describes a relationship with Christ that is intimate and unencumbered with the normal distractions of life, but instead lends itself to the illustration of a bride and groom looking at one another, gazing with nothing between them. I recall standing on the stage in our wedding ceremony and looking at my wife-to-be and thinking, “I’ve never seen anything more beautiful - I must continue to behold her, to gaze at her and enjoy her beauty.” If anything had come between us I would have known it! Money can be one of those things that draws your gaze away from beholding. It can act like a hand that sticks out between you and the Lord and blocks your gaze. If money becomes one of those elements then its time to move on. It is time to get rid of the distraction that has interfered with the beholding of the Lord.

The consequences of beholding the Lord is that money and wealth get their proper place in life. You don’t find them to be worth beholding because they don’t hold a candle to the glory of the Lord! The consequences of beholding the Lord also include our spiritual growth. As we meditate on God’s glory (the emanating character of Christ) this passage tells us that we’ll be transformed into His likeness. Money can barely transform us into anything, and at best plastic surgery is temporary… but beholding has eternal benefits - I like that.

The second in a series on “The Ultimate Money Maker” that covers the following:

1. Look for something you like doing that you can make money doing in a way no one has made money on it before.
2. If you find something that others are doing, what can you do differently?
3. Do you have a plan? If not, why? Make one!
4. Find a mentor.
5. Get networking already!

The file is around 6 minutes long and weighs in at 8MB in size. You will need iTunes or Quicktime to listen.

This is by far the most taboo post I’ve posted to date. You’ve been warned

One of the things that I don’t see posted on Christian Personal Finance Blogs that I think need mentioning is the fact that there is a lack of “to others” in most churches. Each Christian should seek out opportunity to serve one another with financial and spiritual and labor oriented needs. What if you could help someone else at your church save hundreds of dollars by coming over and doing some honey-do list items on Saturday because you saw the opportunity, you met the need, and you loved them with the very life of Christ?

One case in point was recently on Gather Little By Little when the pastor’s wife verbalized something that was odd: Thank God for Credit Cards. That is putting a reliance on the wrong things for sure. Hopefully this post will outline some of the philosophical changes that need to be put in place in the life of believers when it comes to finance and the body of Christ.

Relationship with God
This post doesn’t mean anything if your relationship with God isn’t first priority. The Bible says that the Christian has been identified with Christ’s death, burial, resurrection, ascension and seating in the Heavenlies (Romans 6:6, 6:8; Col. 2:12; Col 3:1-3). That identification means that you don’t have to be dealing with any guilt for sins past or present. It also means that every Christian can boldly approach the throan of God (Hebrews 4:14-16) because you’re seated there in Christ (Colossians 3).

II Corinthians 3:18 tells us that we’re to behold the Lord Jesus Christ for spiritual growth. This beholding is part of the relationship. I liken this to a bride and groom gazing at one another during a wedding ceremony. If anything were to get in between them they’d know it! At least in their minds would be, “Hey! That’s not my husband!” or “That’s not my wife!” Think of your relationship with the Lord as the same thing. That relationship must come first before the rest of this post will have any value. If you’re not sure about some of this, I’d strongly recommend the daily devotional “None but the Hungry Heart” which you can buy at mjsbooks.com [disclosure:I have helped with that site in a very limited way but do not get compensated. One of the elders at my church is the steward of that site].

Relationships with One Another
The body of Christ is made up of individuals that have hearts, minds and spirits (spirits that commune with the Holy Spirit, 1 Cor 2:12). This body works as a unit. As Paul illustrated in I Corinthians 12 each person plays a part. Here’s the thing though: there is a very real need for the body to have a strong inter-personal relationship focus which operates like a neurological network. That is to say: I should know you, and you should know me because we’re in the body, and we should know each others joys and sorrows! We should each choose to cultivate an attitude of intimacy so that we can understand when needs arise. I personally believe that credit card debt in the church is evidence of shallow relationships. I’d be ashamed to tell anyone that I have a need because they don’t know me and I’ve put on a false face! The opposite should be true. We should be gladly admitting our needs and fulfilling them for one another (Romans 12:13).

As that last reference to Romans 12:13 states we should be giving to those who are in need. This can come from an attitude of service, but it can also come from the provision that exists in our own resources. While I’m getting out of debt I simply don’t have lots of extra money to throw around to help others, but once I’m out of debt, I will explicitly seek to give some of my money to those in need. Each believer who is not in need should wait on the direction of the Holy Spirit (sometimes its a phone call, sometimes its an observation, and sometimes its a prompting from God) and give to those in need through financial or service oriented opportunities. While I don’t have money I am going to serve others with my time and abilities.

An Attitude of Unity of Mind and Unity of Body
We as believers need to have unity of mind. In a relativistic culture that teaches, “We just need to disagree, ” we need to have a counter-culture mindset that says we agree that we may disagree here, but we’re working towards unity. I disagree with lots of Christians about lots of things, but I never once set those things aside as something to be ignored. Instead I see that as an opportunity for us to grow together and fulfill the command of the scriptures to be of the same mind (Romans 12:16).

An attitude of unity of body is similar to a unity of mind. We need to see to it that we’re hospitable to one another and identify how our lives can intersect beyond a handshake and a howdy on Sunday morning. Acts 2:42-47 describes the very first church, and in doing so it clearly explains that they were intimate and united spiritually and physically.

A Doctrine of Provision
All of this boils down to a doctrine of provision: God provides the needs, God provides the solutions, and God provides the agents of those solutions. Philippians 4:18-19 clearly presents the idea that God handles needs. It is clear that in times of need we have growth in our lives, so God can be seen to use these needs and provides them (James 1:2-4). The real area that I desire to see growth in the lives of believers (those who blog and those who do not) is the understanding that the doctrine of provision accounts for an agency! We are agents of God in the lives of those around us. God will provide fulfillment for needs. Period.

Conclusion
Practically speaking as Christian Personal Finance bloggers I would love to see a greater call for serving one another and helping others in the body get out of debt in creative ways. There is far too much ‘me’ and ‘I’ going on in the form of ‘get yourself out of your own debt.’ This isn’t to say that this is all bad, we need to own our mistakes, but it is to say that we should look for ways to help folks get out of debt and instead teach them to grow into financial dependence on God with personal responsibility for our stewardship as believers. What things can we add to this concept to help teach a greater attitude of servitude? Serving one another presents opportunities for saving, learning, growing, love and a whole slew of unity and goodness.

As I loosely stated in my last post about finances and marriage: I’m totally, madly in love with my wife.  She has the qualities that I dreamed of and qualities I didn’t know I should have been dreaming of.  One of the things that happened earlier this week was that I bought an iPhone for work.  As a self-employed individual I make choices for the business that can impact my family’s finances.  My wife was behind me on the decision to buy the iPhone.  We were unified.  When it comes down to it she understood the business need, she understood the financial impact, and she understood the tax benefits, too.  Pretty sweet, I know.

In marriage unity is the thing that most people think is ‘lucky’ or non-critical because people have differences of opinion.  Wrong!  Unity in marriage is going to impact your whole marriage: money, politics, religion, sex and toothpaste tubes need unity.  OK, maybe you can get by with different views on toothpaste tube squeezing.   I recommend buying that Mentadent stuff because it has no tubes you can squeeze.  Unity in finances means that you have planned and prioritized together.  You have a unified goal and vision.

If you  look at spending and income and have a unified mind on those areas you will have a great chance of being able to relax there and focus on other areas that need more attention.  Yes, that could mean physical intimacy, but also children being raised, social events, or possibly vacations (yes, those are an important ingredient in a frugal life).  Unity in income & outgo means that extra hours worked or special exceptions in finances are not going to be a big deal like they might be if you were not of the same mindset.  It means that you look at your priorities and decide to buy your children a craft table rather than buying a wii.  The kids can play, learn and grow (and you can help them) and basically get to develop in non-video game ways because you two prioritized in a unified manner and made the best choice for the family with that extra windfall money.

Unity is not easy, sometimes it takes lots of time to work out differences, but it must be a priority.  Absolutely.  If there is an area where you don’t have unity, stop what you’re doing.  Take time off.  Get the kids a baby sitter or send them to a friends house and get things back into a unified fashion.  This will keep you marriage strong and help your finances stay focused where they should be.  Remember: finances are statistically a major part of marriage problems - don’t be a number, unless you’re unified into one mind.

My wife and I have a great marriage. I’m not going to lie: she’s awesome and I’m truly blessed to be married to her. She’s got patience, talent, intelligence and determination. I could list off a long series of qualities she has, but I’ll spare you the reading time because this blog isn’t about how much I love my wife. However, we do have disagreements at times about where our money should go. Not severe disagreements, but disagreements about how our priorities fall. I always find that the resolution doesn’t come from a technique that you can master to get what you want. The resolution that comes comes from a character trait that I have had to cultivate, one that is against every single strain in my pride, but critical to success: humility.

• Humility is a requirement for priorities because you have to admit it when you’re priority is selfish.
• Humility is a requirement for priorities because you have to love your spouse enough to think of your spouse first, or at least as a higher priority than finances!
• Humility is important because if you have children they need to see that a strong leader is humble and not harsh or dogmatic.
• Humility is a critical tool when it comes to dealing with conflict.  Own your mistakes.  Apologize for them and move on to resolution of priorities.

There are very few things that I can think of that have been more valuable (with the exception of my faith).  Humble priority setting will help keep your marriage focused on the things that matter, keep things growing, and keep your marriage hat like dynamite.

Have you ever watched a frog or a lobster boil in water? Me neither. I can’t afford them. But I have seen it on TV, which is like reality, only fake. But fakeness aside I recently watched a woman nearly panic filling out a form. At the UPS Store. Looking for a checkbox or some way to not get on a mailing list. You see she worked in the direct mailing industry. She was so worried that she might get on someone’s list and start getting a flood of mail. The staff tried to re-assure her that the form was for recording who she was in case they needed to contact her to let her know her package was accidentally dropped into a vat of acid and the package was destroyed. No dice. She knew that she was going to get huge amounts of mail because of the UPS store.

Part of the work I do for one client is in the email industry. I don’t worry about spam because the protection the email server offers me is so excellent. It comes in periodically, but I move the message into a spam sniffer and the computer gets smarter and the spammers have to work harder to get around the growing technology that makes the email safer to read, and more useful to read. I’ve grown care free when it comes to giving out my email address because I know that real email will reach me while fake email will flounder in the pits of some trash folder for less than 24 hours and then magically disappear.

The problem with both positions is problematic: we can develop a paranoia as humans and we can also get a little too naive. I need to be slightly more careful with my email address, and people like this woman need to relax and realize that junk mail is not going to end her life, though some tree somewhere gave up its life for the envelope and the paper inside.

As financial managers we need to regularly be watching our finances so that we can be aware of what is going on, we need to plan so that we can grow our resources, and we need to not be checking our bank accounts online every 5 minutes. If you know your direct deposit is going to come in on Friday, check it Friday afternoon to make sure its gone through, but don’t babysit your bank’s site looking for the cash to come in… even if you really need the cash to come in. But don’t just ignore the account Friday - confirm that the transactions are all in place.

Your financial life is not a lobster, but you want to make sure its not in hot water… or leaking like this dingy I’m in right now. Where’s the caulk?

WARNING!  THIS POST CONTAINS VERY PERSONAL OPINION AND RELIGIOUS CONTENT.  IF YOU DON’T LIKE THAT MOVE ALONG.

If there was a super-hero in my life as a kid it was my grandpa Peterman. He’s 83 I believe and he and my grandma are out from California to visit my parents and several grandkids’ families. This morning at breakfast with Grandpa he gave me some advice that was 80+ years in the making: don’t focus on what doesn’t matter. Sure, that sounds so logical and common sense - but how have I (and you, too) applied that advice. How have I managed my time and my life with focus on what matters?  You see, I’m a Christian.  One of those fuddy-duddies that just doesn’t care what popular culture believes, but I haven’t been focusing on what matters in that part of my life and letting that influence every other decision I’ve made - including my finances.

What I’m referring to isn’t about abandoning money for religion.  I’m not talking about, “What would Jesus do?”  I’m talking about total saturation.   What is Jesus doing now in and through me in my life in every moment.  Its about relationship with Christ in finances.  Its about relationship with Christ in my relationship with my wife.  Its about driving with Christ, showering with Christ, and as much as I hate it, its about doing the dishes with Christ.  It isn’t about praying more, fasting more, doing more or being more.  Its about my being at all.

My grandpa used to work at a soda fountain/pharmacy at the corner of 7th and Logan in downtown Denver.  Its now the excellent Benny’s Mexican restaurant.  My grandpa used to work seven days a week, ten hours a day.  For five dollars.  Five.  Dollars.  Seventy hours a week for five dollars.  Sure, he was a young teenager then, but he was still working.  In his own life he has done well financially in various ventures but none of those ventures came without his hard work.  Hard work that he wishes he’d have done with less hours now so that he could have spent them with his family.  Time that he could have spent growing in his walk with the Lord rather than being distracted by deadlines and such.

I have a great admiration for my grandpa’s life achievements but I appreciate his candid, honest discussion of things with me this last week.  He loves me, he loves his family and he loves the Lord.  There is nothing that this blog can possibly teach you about money finances that is more important than to have a relationship with Jesus Christ and to manage your life with that relationship in focus.  I’m motivated to pay off my debt now more than ever, I’m motivated to save to go visit my grandparents at least one more time before they get called home to heaven.  I’m motivated, but not by fear, uncertainty or doubt, but instead by my relationship with Christ.

OK, and the desire to not work for 70 hours for $5.00.

So we’re going to play the credit hard ‘price shopping’ trick around here for a while. We’re working aggressively to pay off all of our debts and rather than use a credit counseling service (which others recommend and I don’t have a problem with in principle) we’re going to attempt to just get aggressive about paying things off and attempt to dump this debt for a life of freedom. Right. Freedom is a great concept, but I’m not naive enough to think we’ll get there in two days.

That being said, there’s lots to be free from in the world of finance and I want to set my mind on those goals for the short term and on financial independence in the longer term. I’m reading a book right now (a review will more than likely be forthcoming) called Seven Years to Seven Figures. In the first chapter it has a quote that I really want to share with you my readership:

“[Dale Carnegie] …said that while it is true that most people don’t succeed because they don’t have clearly defind goals, some people fail to make progress because they have too many.”

So we’re trimming down the goals that we have. They’re distractions. They’re the things that illusionists use to keep you from seeing how their tricks work. They cause you to fail to understand what is happening and instead keep you in a suspended state of mediocrity. This requires me to set my goals out in a list and hone them down into the one thing I’m going to focus on. I’m not going to worry about anything but nailing my debt down to zero for the next several months. Like Trent at the Simple Dollar I’m going to restrain myself and live with as few expenditures as possible so that November shines as the first month of focus [that conclusion was independent of Trent's but nearly exact in timing]. This is the first step in the race.

Bang - the gun sounds - I’m off!

I have not done the best job of being a financial manager throughout my adult life. If you’re like me you probably have plenty of excuses, some legit, some are just an attempt to cover character flaws, and others are things you were simply ignorant about. In the end I’ve been thinking about the idea of most important things. Here’s a list that I cam up with, what would you add or change?

Self Discipline

Self discipline is like the super drug of the bunch. There’s really nothing you can do if you’re lacking self discipline. Some suggest things like the automatic millionaire’s principle of automated systems, but the truth of the matter is that those can still be foiled if you don’t have discipline. I lack this sometimes. When my stomach gets in the way, when my greed kicks it up a notch. I really struggle with this at times. Sure, there are other times when I’m dogmatic about things, but not enough to be 100% consistant.

Planning Skills

Lewis & Clark set across the United States with very little information and had to create a map. They had to plan with what little they knew and make up the rest. Good financial management is going to require a little bit of this mindset as well. You have to plan for what you do know, but be prepared to shift courses as needed (more on that later). Planning is like a giant black hole for some. They never feel like they have enough information or their tolerance for risk is so low that they can’t plan anything grandiose because they’re certain that they will fail. So they go back to the drawing board. And again come back looking for more data and then go back to the drawing board. Rinse. Repeat.I tend to take the mindset that I will plan for what I hope tomorrow has, plan for next year, plan for five years and get my focus set in just such a way so that I can adapt as new things arrive on the horizon or show up on the radar - seconds before impact. If you don’t make a plan with what you know you’re not going to get anywhere because you’re lacking the goals you need to succeed.

An Eye for Opportunity

Opportunity knocks just about a hundred times - you need to recognize a good opportunity verses a bad one. I have had opportunities that I have taken and they’ve gone horribly wrong because I didn’t have the instinct to guess right or the discipline to carefully evaluate them. Taking on every opportunity is foolish, ignoring them all is just as dumb. Right now the housing market could be a bad choice, so what else is out there? What investment areas are just unexploited and need your money to grow and leave you living high on the hog?

A United Front

If you’re married then you best be united and not untied. I have mentioned on multiple occasions that my wife really keeps her 100% of the finances on track as much as possible. We make unified decisions. In the Millionaire Mindset it is recorded that wealthy families are not tied to just one of the people in the relationship, its usually both working as a team. For an example of humor and failure read this funny article about a woman who brings only looks into a relationship.

Patience

Patience, with determination, will often bring long term rewards. If your plan is to be a millionaire by some date you need to be focused on success but patient for the fulfillment at a potentially later date. I personally don’t know how I’ve endured some of the things I’ve endured, but money comes and money goes and so I am patient. Had I planned better I’d have probably had a lot less go, but patience is waiting for a good opportunity, waiting for the market to turn around, or waiting to not say anything when someone else is not as well off as you are. Patience is a virtue - do you have patience?

A Voracious Reading Habit

Reading with the purpose of education is invaluable. Be ready to read. Right now I have a book on programming, some theology books, and two books on finances going in my rotation. I make time for each. I also read many blogs faithfully every day so that I can manage everything and continue to feed the most valuable asset I have: my mind. Many of the things I’ve mentioned before are growing and fed by my constant attitude of learning. This blog is designed to help me share what I’m learning and I’m hoping it keeps growing because I keep learning.

Self Confidence

Not relying on others for value or esteem will help you endure the times when you go without. I don’t have a large screen TV. I don’t have a Nintendo Wii. We’re not buying those or an iMac (which would be nice for the family over our older HP desktop machine with CRT monitor). Our value is not in our stuff and our stuff doesn’t prove wealth anyway! Self confidence is what lets us live in a neighborhood that isn’t at the high end of the spectrum, but instead in an older, but established neighborhood. We’ve done lots of thinking, but it hasn’t been about what others think of us.

A Marathon Runner’s Mind

A mind that understands the long term reasons to not spend money now so you can spend money later [see: a ton of bricks]. A marathon runner knows that starting off with a sprint will more than likely mean failure, cramps, or injury later on. Instead the marathon runner paces himself or herself so that they can reach their goal and achieve the mile marker achievements. Debt repayment may be one, but you have to endure and be patient and paced. Your first $20,000.00 may be another. As you see the mile markers pass you start to realize you’re closer to the finish line than you are to the starting line (unless you’re running a circuit).

A Communicating Team

Odds are that you are not keeping all of your money in your home and in a secret hole in your back yard. In that case you need to have great, clear communication with your financial companies, as well as with anyone else you’re doing business. Make sure that you make communication a priority. Today I called one of my credit card companies and discussed my interest rate with them. I wanted to make sure I knew what I was getting and what they were charging me. When you trade mutual funds you need to be aware of what the funds are doing and where your fund is heading. Your broker will be able to get that info to you online, or you may need to call certain people to keep up to date on things.

I use wesabe.com because it allows me to manage much of my financial information in one place. Its communication simplified. If you’re not using a tool of some sort to manage your finances you should consider it because its part of the communication process.

An Inexpensive, Enjoyable Hobby

You need to be able to unwind at times in life and its handy if there is a hobby that can let you do so without breaking the bank. My wife can scrapbook with the best of them but much of what she’s got was in gifts. She can spend some money now and it allows her to be creative, relax, enjoy memories and spend relatively little now that she’s got so many tools to use. I have musical instruments, many of which are older or used, but they let me play and have fun. Some people enjoy walking. Some people enjoy window shopping (without cash to blow), and some people enjoy fishing. Whatever your hobby, consider the long term costs and make sure that you give yourself some time to relax because it will help keep your life balanced.

So those are some areas that I think you and I as money managers need to be honed in on. What am I missing? Do you agree with me? I’d like to invite your comments or blog post responses. I’ve got to work on several of these areas, but I think they’re key to my financial success.

All pictures are creative commons and you can click on them to see them on Flickr.com.

One of my favorite lyrics from a band called “Model Engine” are from a song called “Scarred but Smarter”

If its all true
the only time you fail is the last time you try
if I concede defeat will I
be complete in this failure
am I incomplete and a complete failure

As the of the song indicates the ‘failure’ was a lesson learned.  As the title of this post indicates we didn’t quite get our envelope system off the ground.  The failure to complete the process fell completely on my shoulders.  I simply didn’t push through my busy schedule and get things set up like they should have been.  This post contains some lessons learned from my failure so that I don’t do it again and so that you don’t have to go what I went through should you choose to adopt the envelope system for your own household.

Banks Limit ATM Withdrawals - Part of why I didn’t complete my envelope system was the realization that I couldn’t withdraw as much from the ATM as I had planned and therefore my scheduled envelope stuffing wasn’t going to work, but I didn’t take time out from being busy to step into a branch and withdraw the amount we needed to fulfill this role.  There is very little work that can be done from the envelopes if the envelopes are empty.

Almost isn’t good if you’re on the receiving end of a handgrenade or a horseshoe - Almost going to the bank and almost withdrawing the cash almost worked.  If you’re on the receiving end of failure then being so close to safety (the envelope system) isn’t going to help you.  You want to have completed the system setup rather than have bombed out of the system by blowing it.

Debit Cards can at least Track Spending, sort of - The upside of this is that we still came really close with groceries and we can track things using our debit card.  It didn’t work like the envelope system but it did at least show us where we blew it.  I could have started in after the beginning of the month and used the recorded expenditures to help me pick up from the post-first starting point.

I’m a Lazy Bum -  I am not lazy in some areas, but for some reason this simple task of going to the bank and into the bank and getting the money out put my brain into a delayed shift where I could come up with any number of things to do before getting the money out.  I could have gone to the bank on the way to another errand.  I could have withdrawn money several days in a row after my banks regular hours to achieve the same amount withdrawn.  Other options existed by I was simply lazy.

So, now November will be the first envelope system and we’ll get it done because I’m determined to not let this be the last time I try.   Failure is not an option.