I had someone hit this site looking for, “Would you sleep with me for a million dollars?”  I can’t believe that people would consider this, but then again, its people we’re talking about: the anonymous mass of Internet users who don’t have to be identified and so asking such a question doesn’t come with the stigma that asking it of your friends and classmates might.  The question that begs is this: What is a million dollars worth?

In our modern relativistic culture there is little value placed on sexuality within marriage, and the sanctity of marriage (sanctity being the setting aside as special) .  Sex is not worth a million dollars, that cheapens it, it is invaluable.  A million dollars is a lot of money, but it isn’t enough money to offset emotional scars, the fact that you’d be engaging in prostitution (see: Eliot Spitzer).

Various people have posed nude in magazines for money, taken jobs that they didn’t agree with because of a high paying salary, and of course there’s the age old televangelist schtick as well.  Money is not important if it is gained in an ill gotten fashion.  Having standards, focusing on the long term impact (how many women did something pornographic and then had children and were mortified that their children would find out?  What about parents finding out?).

A million dollars won’t buy you happiness, love, or a long term financial state (it is just as easily lost on frivolous activities and spending).  What’s a million dollars worth to you?  Is it worth your dignity?

Genesis Chapter 2 talks about God’s order.  God’s system is in place and there is very little left to Adam other maintaining the garden (Gen. 2:15) and than naming the animals (Gen. 2:19).  God knows that no suitable helper is available for Adam in the animals, but shows Adam this through the animal naming process.  Adam can identify the male and female of the various animals, but there is a distinct hole where his helper is lacking.  Genesis 2 ends with the fulfillment of that need as well as a look into man’s need for a completing partner (some of the best material I’ve heard on the subject can be listened to in MP3 format here check out lessons 6, 7, and 8).I’ve written before and even had guest posts about the relationship of a man and wife and how that impacts personal finance (see: 10 Ways to Use Personal Finance to Strengthen A Marriage, A Deeper Look At Marriage and Finance Issues: Unity, A Deeper Look At Marriage and Finance Issues: Priorities, and Ten Tips To Prepare for Getting Married).  God had set Adam in charge of cultivating, or growing, the things in the garden.  Adam’s dominion was the garden, his job (for lack of a better word) was working for God and his goal was cultivation.  There were no weeds and the vegetation was fruitful.  Adam did not value the things of the garden in chapter three, but we’re not there yet, so we’ll save that for next week.What we do see in Adam’s tasks in chapter two are clearly some details of valuation: God gives Adam the task of naming the animals and evaluating them.  Adam orders the animals with God’s help.  Vocabulary is created on the fly, the animals are given order.  Imagine, if you will, that when Eve is created she’s a blank slate (though it is clear she has intellect) , and she gets introduced to Adam and she learns Adam has named all of the animals.  That would be quite a thing to explain and go over!  Adam’s job as a gardener is given some time to be interrupted and he is a namer of beasts.  To take dominion over something, you have to have names, you have to have valuations of things.Consider your own life: you have names for places, names for things, names for certain jobs, names for actions.  Your world comes with a sense of order, and yet as humans we desire to be creative and create new things to name to show our dominion over them.  We really do wish to be like Adam.  Our finances are really a valuable lesson in learning about dominion because with our finances we can bring things into our household, we can send things away from our household, and we can gain wealth and increase the potential of our dominion by virtue of buying more property, more stuff, or newer things to replace the things we have that are of better quality.God sets up order in the universe, puts Adam in charge of the Earth, and then Adam gets to participate in further defining a small part of that order.  What a dramatic role that was!  As you contemplate your ordering of things, consider your finances, consider your possessions, and consider how you can respect God’s ordering of things as you go about your life.  It is pretty cool stuff to be given the privilege of ordering things - don’t take it for granted.

James 5:12 says:

…above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath; but your yes is to be yes, and your no, no, so that you may not fall under judgment.

This passage is simple, has some very clear implications, but has been on my mind for the last several days.  It was part of the text that we went over on Thursday night at Bible study.  You see my wife and I have an awesome marriage, she is tremendous, but we do argue at times.  Usually the argument is based on my failure to help with some household task or tasks when she’s feeling a time crunch.  The argument always ends with my apology and the commitment to do better next time.  My yes is not my yes in this case.  Its pretty much lameness on my part.

Financially speaking I need to have the same consistency, relationally the same consistency is critical.  The only way I can accomplish this sort of consistency is not through myself, but instead through the work of Jesus Christ in my life.  The Holy Spirit must be the one to work through me because in my own strength I fall so short of perfection.  I promise to not be able to do it on my own strength, but rest in Christ and do it in His strength.

This is a guest post by Brooke at a DollarFrugal.com, a 20-something PF blogger who paid off debt quickly and is trying to pay off her mortgage by November 2009 while sending her husband back to college. And doing it one dollar at a time. I strongly recommend you subscribe to her RSS feed and learn some things from her great blog.

Open Lines of Communication Open lines of communication that are needed with a budget shared between two people also transfer to other parts of your marriage. Should we raise our child(ren) in a certain way? I don’t know, let’s discuss it. It’s the same premise as where to spend budgeted monies.

Set a Check and Balance Limit We are all adults, but sometimes our “wants” get the best of us. Set a limit ($100 or $20, depending upon how tight the budget is) that is the “discussion limit”. This will use your spouse check how badly you want an item and reaffirm your joint endeavor to kill debt or raise net worth.

Set Financial Goals Together Setting goals together will cement your relationship and show the other just how much you care about them. You could try brainstorming separately (no peeking!) on what financial goals should be, then come together to discuss each idea.

Build an Emergency Fund For your sanity and your spouse’s. An emergency fund is the easiest way to feel secure and not rely on the evil credit cards. Seriously, just do it.

Even Thinking About the “D” Word Is Bad for Finances Divorce is sad for people and our finances. If you go into the commitment with the idea that marriage is forever, you won’t even consider divorce (of course, there are extenuating circumstances, but you get my point). With divorces come two households and the support of these separate households.

Use Joint Assets to Build “The House’s” Assets The stay-at-home mom is a classic example of this. She can attend one online class per semester, coming out after 5 years with 15 classes (equivalent to more than 3 semesters of college), just using naptime. What about retirement funds? My husband made a lot less than I do, but I funded his IRA because I know it will benefit both of us.

Attack Finances as A Team This supports your “one team, one fight” mentality and solidifies your stance against the rest of the world (or at least corporate America!). Have at least a binder somewhere for the non-bill-payer of the family to reference in case anything should ever happen to the bill-payer. Go over the binder together once a year to ensure it is understandable and current. Agree how much to pay each month and make a budget together.

Find Cheap Hobbies Mountain biking is our favorite pastime these days. Spending time out in the fresh air can’t be beat, in my mind. With cheap hobbies, you are spending quality time together, but not spending a ton of money. We constantly play cards. Another place we spend a MULTITUDE of time is the library. Both of us are college students and our son is learning to read, so we kill a bunch of birds with one stone here. Cheap hobbies are cheap (duh, Brooke) and doing them together means you’re spending time doing something you enjoy together. It doesn’t get any better than that!

Buy a Present for the House Instead of Each Other This may be arguable for some relationships, but it’s worked out great for us. Instead of buying each other trinkets, we buy a quality piece of furniture or sports equipment that we pre-discuss and find at the lowest price. It makes me a lot happier than blingy jewelry or flowers that die! Or try funding just $100 of a Roth IRA for each other instead of presents. It will pay off in a large way later.

Shared Sense of Accomplishment The sense of accomplishment that came when we paid off our debt (Oct 2002) after a year of scrimping and clawing was an adrenaline rush. This is a shared experience much stronger than any night out on the town with friends or flashy car. It is part of our shared identity that no one can take away from us!

Personal finances strengthen marriage in a huge way. Money is often cited as the most common reason for divorce, but I would argue lack of money education is the most common reason for divorce. Educate yourselves together and you’ll gain more than just knowledge!

This article is being ‘dugg’ right now.  I think it is sane advice for people getting divorced, but the truth of the matter is that I would really hate for anyone to get a divorce outside of some pretty intense problems.  There is, however, one good piece of advice, and that is that if you do get a divorce: sell the house.  Sell it.  Move into two places, split any equity and be done with it.  Doing anything else will more than likely cause greater contention.

Of course the best choice is to not get a divorce and to seek good, sound, balanced and biblical marriage counseling.  By not getting married, as one commenter suggested, you’ll just set yourself up for other legal problems.  I’m aware of at least one person right now who is in a legal case with someone that they lived with - and that person was booted from the house and is now suing for stupid little tiny things amounting to over ten grand.  No marriage, no divorce, but still legal dumbness (and the guy who got booted was surely dumb for a lot of reasons, but I’m not going down that path).

Its unfortunately sane advice on that post, but its got to be a sad state of affairs for things to get to that point.

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.

I just overheard a Cadillac commercial. A commercial suggesting that a new car would be the perfect gift this Christmas. A car. There are some cases where I can imagine this would happen, but I just can’t fathom it as normal. What gives? What is the most expensive present you have given or received? Why would a new car be a good birthday or Christmasn present?

I have still yet to pick up my wife’s Christmas present for this year but there is no way I could go out and buy her a car, that would be like suicide for our marriage. Just play it out in your mind, “Honey, where did we get the money for this car? I like it, but we didn’t have money saved up for a car.”

“That’s fine, I have it on a 144 month payment plan. We’ll be paying this car off until its in the junk yard! Don’t you just love the leather seats?”

Stupid.

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.