The Passion of the Price... (tried to rhyme with Christ)

Photo courtesy of jennipenny

Ok, so It's confession time... How much did you spend on Christmas gifts?

For the 2nd straight year, my wife and I have budgeted only $150 TOTAL for Christmas gifts, and for the 2nd straight year we've come in under budget! We decided only to buy for immediate family members and a select few friends.

I've gotta tell ya, it's pretty liberating to spend such a small amount and still find quality gifts to give to each person. It really hurts me to watch people in the check out line spend the same $150 on just 2 sweaters from Banana Republic and then complain about how they dont have any money to spend on gifts for others.

This year we focused on giving relevant books as the main gifts. And ironically few things have been more relevant to so many people this year as the state of the economy has been. With that in mind we decided to gift copies of Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover. We hope it doesnt come off over zealous, but we simply feel that with the amount of success we've had doing the plan, it would be grossly neglegent of us not to impart that information to our family and friends!

It's similar to when you first fall in love (and hopefully stay in love) with Jesus. You just want others to know how it feels to be on the winning side! But honestly, the thing that would have truly made this a wonderful christmas for me, would have been if we could all agree not to exchange gifts at all this year. Not because my wife and I couldnt handle it (oh yeah $150 on gifts just PLUNGED us back into debt haha.) but because some of our friends and family still make a 'thing' out of buying gifts even when they cant afford to and then get themselves in financial trouble trying to appease everyone with a gift.

That's just not us anymore... call us weird but we've had it with the whole Giftmas gimic that's been shoved down our collective throats!

If you didnt get on board with us in keeping the Christmas budget down this year, you've got 364 days to get on board for the 2009 Holiday Season... there's no time like the present.

Merry Christ-mas,

@W

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Full Circle: How Our TMM Began...

Photo courtesy of ZaksterNT

Over the past 2 weeks I've taken a break from the blog. I needed to clear my head because I've been overwhelmed by the resonsibility I feel towards you as my readers. See I want to reach you, but most of the time I dont know how effectively I'm doing that. I thought about extending this 'break' for the blog through the rest of the year. I thought about quitting it altogether. But something happened last Saturday that changed my mind.

I've often heard the saying: "When you feel you've reached the end, try going back to the beginning."

Last week my wife and I went away for the weekend with a group of married couples for our annual Duets Retreat. On Saturday morning, my wife shared a portion of our financial testimony with the group and it was incredibly powerful to hear it from her.

No sooner than my wife stopped talking, the couple next to us tapped her on the shoulder. They wanted to know more. A few hours later, while walking with another couple, the conversation again turned to the testimony she gave. We spent the rest of the afternoon sharing with them just a few of the blessings we've experienced since this journey began for us. There is something beautiful about witnessing someone hungry to change their life for the better, and it continually blesses us to be a part of moments like that.

There was something I kept identifying with in that couple. It was an urgent need for change. It made me realize that it was a year ago this week that we were first exposed to Dave Ramsey's TMM. The similarities are strangely alike the more I think about it.

This time last year my wife and I were just getting back from our Honeymoon, which we celebrated at the same location as this year' Duets retreat. The next week at church, a young couple ran up to us in the lobby and happily pushed a bag into our hands. The couple was on the leadership council for the ministry, and had taken extra special care of us at the retreat. Inside the bag, was a book wrapped in tissue paper... The Total Money Makeover. At the time we were more grateful for the thought and gesture than we were for the actual book.

A month went by. It was now September and we had never given the book a second glance, but we were now in the greatest financial challenge of our young marriage. We prayed over who to call, who to open up to about the trouble we were facing, and the Lord directed us to them again.

So on September 13th (my birthday) we called and explained the situation to them and they proceeded to share their amazing testimony with us. All we were looking for was Godly counsel from people who had been in our shoes before, nothing else... but by the end of the conversation they had offered to gift us a portion of the money we needed for our situation. (And not a small gift either!) A few days later, we went over to their house to pick up the gift, and they had another one waiting for us to go along with it. It was Dave Ramsey's 13-cd Financial Peace University set.

From that moment on we became students of this movement, and stewards of the message. We began our makeover officially in October when we did our budget, and started having weekly meetings. But the seeds were planted in August and September when they handed us the book (that we never looked at tsk tsk tsk...) and again when they gave us counsel and set an excellent example of generosity through their cheerful giving.

In Revelations 12:11 (KJV) is says: And they overcame by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.

NEVER discount the power of your testimony! I never thought we would be here, or at least not this early in our marriage. I was thinking we would reach it maybe 10 years from now... maybe. But within the next year we will have erased ALL of our debt with the exception of our mortgage. All within 2 years of grinding and putting off the instant gratification this world tries to shove down our throats daily. And the only reason I'm online typing this out to you is so that you can KNOW you can do this too. That's it. That's our tesimony in a sentence! We are doing this because we know that YOU can do this.

And so now it has come full circle for us a year later. Now we are on the leadership counsel for the couple's ministry. Now others are seeking us out for the same counsel we sought. And now we get to be the couple gleefully pushing a bag into another couple's hands with the book inside.

Today, I'm honored to push this post into your hand with the same energy and enthusiasm as it was handed to me!

...And to think I almost gave that up.

@W

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How To Remain Generous In Your Giving While Getting Out Of Debt

Photo courtesy of monoculaire

The title of this post is a little oxymoronic, isn't it? For those of you who are on the debt-dumping warpath, I'm pretty sure you've struggled with how to continue your generous ways while seemingly pinching each and every penny till it screams.

Well, below I've listed a few observations that I've learned from people I consider to be generous givers who also just happen to be turning their finances around at the same time. I've noticed these traits frequently enough, and across a broad enough swath of people that I thought it warranted listing them for all to see. (If you think of any that I missed, please let me hear from you in the comments!)

*Also a quick note of clarification: When I refer to 'generosity' here, I mean separate from Tithes and Offerings given in church. I'm talking about street-level, everyday, practical giving.

1. Generosity is a character trait - Getting out of debt is not.

Being charitable for most people cannot be turned off and on. Either you are a giving person or most likely you just aren't. Now you can become more frugal and still maintain your generosity, but you cannot be stingy and expect to still be considered generous at the same time. Being frugal means that you are simply more considerate of getting the most value out of your money and the resources you acquire with it. Being stingy means you are miserly, or selfish with your money and usually have little regard to the true value your money holds.

2. Generosity often has little to do with just money.

Too many people equate generosity with how much money you donate to charities, and other philanthropic foundations. But I'd venture to say that financial giving is only the tip of the iceberg, not the iceberg itself. You can be generous with your time, energy and talents more easily than you can with your money. You can be generous with your faith or your spiritual gifts. You can volunteer towards causes you have a passion for.

Do me a favor and look closely at the picture at the top of this post. I chose that picture for this post because the donation box didn't say what to donate... so the people who did give something gave freely. To me it serves as a metaphor for the many ways you can show your generosity while staying true to your mission of becoming debt free.

3. Generous people excel at assessing genuine 'needs'.

(Brace yourself this is gonna be my 'soapbox' part of the post lol)

Many people in our society have formed the nasty habit of describing their 'wants' as desperate 'needs'. It's gotten to the point where the line between the two has completely faded in the minds of many people. This blurred line between wants and needs is one of the general contributors to the cycle of debt and overspending we see today.

Because of this, generous people need to be selective in who, what, when, how, and why they give of their resources. Being carelessly generous can sometimes do just as much harm as being selfish or scrooge-ish.

Years ago I was downtown for lunch and came across a homeless man begging for change. Naturally he asked me for some money so that he could get some food. I told him that I didn't have any change but since I was on my way to lunch I would buy him anything he wanted to eat. Amazingly he turned ME down. At first I was offended, but soon realized that he didn't 'need' to eat. In fact I later learned that he didn't need the money at all. Get this - he wasn't even homeless, he was simply too lazy to find an honest, stable job! He spent his days staking out prime pan-handling real estate -- The White House, The Capitol building, Georgetown, and local tourist attractions etc.-- and making about $100/day doing it!

The moral of this story -- all of it true -- is that people don't always need what they say they need. The other moral is that if anything, we NEED to be careful of giving to every seemingly good cause. Again this goes back to being frugal vs. being stingy vs. being an aloof giver.

4. Generous people have a firm grasp on the concept of 'Blessings of Increase'.

This past Sunday, I took my bike out for a ride. I didn't want to carry much in my pockets, so I only took my driver's license and a $20 bill. Somewhere along the way, either coming or going I dropped that $20 bill. (Which was a large chunk of my food money for the next week) Upon realizing that I dropped it, I was initially disappointed -- in part because I was now in line to order some food lol -- but I quickly got over it and hoped that my 'lost' bill would 'find' someone else when they needed it most.

Though I lost $20, so what! It will be replaced in the first hour of my next working day. Instead I realized that I gained a blessing (multiple actually) in the fact that the next person who finds it will be pretty hyped over it. Another blessing for me was that I was ok over losing it. It was another timely reminder of the Financial Peace that I continue to gain as we eliminate our debt. I could've obsessed over what a nice snowflake $20 dollars would've been, yada yada, blah blah. But as I said before, so what! I could've lost my driver's license instead of the $20.... and then I'd really be getting some use out of my bike!

5. After you get out of debt, there's no limit to how generous you can be!

The title of this post is "How To Remain Generous In Your Giving While Getting Out Of Debt". Yes, you already knew this, but i just wanted to point it out again because it's meant to be a transitional concept. You are not always going to be 'getting' out of debt, one day you'll just be 'out'! (Can I get an AMEN?)

Baby Step #7 of Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover is simply this: "Build Wealth & Give!"

Once you're out of debt for good, it's my hope that you will carry on the obligation of helping others to get out as well. It will truly be one of the most generous things you do with your new found financial freedom!

6. Generosity is a core responsibility for the Christian.

A compelling promise is given in the bible to those who chose to be generous in their giving. It is found in Luke 6:38*:

*Taken from the NIV translation:
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.

This is the basic formula for the blessings of increase that I mentioned in point #4. But just like bread cant be made without yeast, this recipe is useless without a loving spirit. There is no such thing as malicious giving. And although there is such a thing as indifferent giving, it's just as pointless as not giving at all.

The recipe given in Luke 6:38 simply cant be followed by just anyone. It's the hallmark of a seasoned chef, one who has come to understand and know the six points laid out here.

So with that I ask you, what's cookin'?

@W

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