I don’t know if it is age, or maturity or the fact that 90% of the stuff in the mall would look ridiculous on me.  But I’ve gotten to the point where a few nice things give me more joy than many things.

I would rather have a comma in the bank statement at the end of the month than any other thing.  My dream, one day, is to have two commas.  Actually my dream one day is to GIVE two commas.

Other than getting my nails done, and my hair cut, I don’t spend a whole lot of money.  I do have one lone hold out.  If something is purple, it is the universe’s way of telling me that it is mine.  I have a purple phone, purple shoes, many purple tops, purple blanket, purple pillows, the list goes on and on.

One of the things that makes it easy for me to avoid purchases that would have historically been difficult to resist, is that nothing costs less than $5 for me.  A single Coke is $5 – a candy bar – a magazine.  I only spend cash.  I never use change and only in the most dire of circumstances will I use a $1 bill.  The bills go into hiding for emergency pizza’s or impromptu dessert dates.  Each day I empty my purse of change and put it in the piggy bank that we feed when the littles do their chores.  We empty it  out monthly and split the money between the littles for their “allowances” and their money training.  The change usually adds up to about $45/month and the kids are quite happy that they “earned” a $15 toy.

Other things I do to save money?  Extreme couponing, for products I always use.  Stocking up when things are on sale.  Our car is paid for, but I’m making the “average car payment”  which according to Dave Ramsey is $484 – we round up to $500.  We also pay ourselves an extra house payment.  When we get a well established emergency fund, we’ll start making the extra payment to the bank.

I pay bills in the order of priority.  I don’t know if this matters financially speaking, but it has some sort of spiritual affect on how I view money.

1. Tithe or charitable giving – but we tithe.  We put others first, realizing that no matter our need, others need too.
2. Household expenses – mortgage and utilities.  We take care of our responsibilities.
3. Savings – retirement of 15% gross, saving for car, saving towards emergency fund, extra house payment, necessary home repairs, vacations.  We plan for our future.

After those priorities are taken care of, I take the rest of the money out bank.  Leaving only money for gas, as I love to pay at the pump, and $1,000 as a mini emergency fund.  The remaining money is split up between food, allowances, and miscellaneous day to day items.  Because we know we have excess, we have food here.  If it were questionable, I would put food at number two.  What good is a vacation if you are starving?

We put all of our day to day expenses into envelopes and spend that money only on what the envelope was intended for.  Things like kid clothes and car maintenance/repair.  We add money to these envelopes every pay check.  Ideally, Hubby and I don’t need to discuss day to day money events any further.  If he needs a weed eater, and there is money in the “outside” envelope to cover it, no discussion needed.  He just writes on the envelope what he spent the money on.  The same with kid clothes.  I don’t need to discuss whether or not I can get one of the kids a new pair of shoes.  If the money is there the answer is yes.

The only other money decision that has had as big an impact as the budget, has been the cutting up of the credit cards.  Working without a net requires your attention and diligence.  When there is no net, you are forced to create a cushion.   I will clarify, as I always do, that we have ONE card in my husband’s name. We use it exclusively for online purchases.  We have been burned twice on fraudulent debit charges.  It’s in his name only by my choice.  He is not keeping me down.  I trust that he has more interest in my well being than Mastercard.

Doing things this way has been very beneficial to our marriage and to our finances.  Hubby and I give ourselves a fairly generous allowance.  I don’t care about how much he spends on Frisbees, he doesn’t care that I spend too much on my hair care.  We have three budget meetings a month when we get paid and I can’t remember the last time we had a fight about money.

Yes, I actually heard someone say that thongs were ungodly.

Sidebar….

On the door in juvenile court, which is where they hear juvi offenses and CPS cases, is a sign, it reads

“No thongs,….” the ….represents the rest of the list. I’m also assuming tube tops and unfortunately in the City by the Sea, probably bikini tops, and other such attire that would be inappropriate in court, I forgot to read the rest, I was, um distracted.

My first thought upon reading that was “Hmmmm?” Wondering if I were about to break some law that would get my fostering license revoked. Then I realized, thong is old for flops, which is new for flip flops. This possible wardrobe violation was easier for me to ascertain. I was good.

But seriously, when did underwear become ungodly? Is this a salvation issue? Is this possibly a reason that people do not take Christians seriously? Is the world going to go to Hell over thongs? I’d say, “Yeah” if us Christians are more worried about peoples undergarments than their hearts.

I can see where certain outer wear might be considered inappropriate and possibly ungodly, but unless your shaking your thong for the world to see, whose business is it anyway? Are we really going to have to resort to a “Jesus and my husband love ME and my thong” thongs?

Maybe we should really start looking at what’s going on in our own lives, and hearts, and stay the heck out of other peoples pants.

According the the Barna group, only 5% of Christians tithe….I wonder if I could commission them for a survey on how many of us adhere to the unholiness of a select group of undergarments.

I bet it’s more than 5%.

Are you giving more to the bank each month in interest on your house than you are to God?
Where’s your orphan?
How many seeds have you planted?
How many plants have you cultivated?
How many other things can we be a little more judgmental about?

Let’s just focus on everyone else and what they are doing. I’m sure changing the world starts with changing others. Don’t worry about you, you’re good.

I hate being “uninformed” but I cannot stand to listen or watch one more minute of news.  Not that they are actually reporting news.   I haven’t actually heard reported what the DOW is at for months.  It was under 6800 last I checked.  But I didn’t hear it on the news.

I’m not worried.  I’m sure my retirement account is a crap pile right now.  Not worried.  My retirement account is only a tool we may use one day for our provision. It is not our Provider.

The contract my husband was working under expired.  I am not worried.  Company XYZ is only a tool that we use for provision.  It is not our Provider.  Hubby actually turned down a bonus to extend his contract.  That bonus was not our Provider.

We give away 10% of our money.  Our money is only a tool we use for provision.  Money is not our Provider.

The Government is trying to make the economy better.  I think they tried to do that with schooling.  I think they suck at it.  I think there are vast amounts of kids being left behind.  Government should stick to what they were designed to do, provide for the common defense.  They seem to have that down.

I’m not denying that it’s raining.  That does not mean it’s the end of the world.  I am sick to death of hearing that it is.

Today was payday, first thing we do on payday? Tithe. Today I didn’t want to. I did the math in my head. We paid a retainer to an attorney today so that we can move this adoption process forward. Big Girl is leaving for school tomorrow. We are $1200 down in child support because one state is fighting with the other. We have a sitter to pay for three overnights, hotel, gas, food. Mother’s Day Out starts next week and somewhere in the middle of all of that somebody is going to want to eat. My little shoulder devil tried his very best to convince me that the money going to the tithe would REALLY come in handy. What if? What if? What if?

I paid the tithe. Why? Because we always pay the tithe. Because I trust God. Because feelings and shoulder devils aren’t the boss of me. Because money isn’t the boss of me.

Does anyone want to guess what the dishwasher had to say when we turned it on tonight?

To summarize, a mom was teaching her girls that to give sometimes means to sacrifice. The girls, in all their five year old wisdom, mentioned her purse, which she’d named. So, obediently, to God, she gave. Then someone, probably well meaning, commented that she should have never had such a purse in the first place.

Why is it that some people think that to serve God, means to never have anything nice? We are to walk around in third hand clothes, living in a hut, because our money should go to the poor. Should we not even have money, donating all of our time to God for free?

God said there would always be poor among us. He never said that we had to be among them. If there aren’t God fearing people with money serving God, and giving to worthy causes, who do we think is going to support them? He only asks for 10% in most cases, what we do with the rest as long as it’s legal and moral is permissable.

I said most cases, because some people are required to give more. Several years ago we gave away our emergency fund. I feel that we were asked to give that, partly because we were quite comfortable with it. If anything were to happen, we had an emergency fund. Well, apparently God needed us to be a little more reliant on Him a little while longer. Every once in awhile, I wish we had an emergency fund, but all the while I know I have God.

I am about to take a very nice vacation, with four kids, by myself. I am going to a very nice place, staying in a very nice hotel, eating in the very nicest restaurants. I am going without a credit card. While I have more cash on hand than I had credit on many of my previous vacations, I have that twinge. What if?

I had become more trusting in Master Card than God, and so several months ago I cut up all of my credit cards. I could probably get them replaced, but I really don’t want to. I don’t want to hate this vacation. I want to be able to enjoy it, and not have to worry about whether I can go on the next one because I’m still paying for the last one.

Sowing and reaping is a law. Physical and spiritual. You cannot plant corn and get carrots. You plant corn, you get more corn. You plant goodness, you get more goodness. You give up something that you hold dear, whether it a purse or the delusion of credit, you get so much more.

There will be people who will judge a nice Christian woman, taking her nice Christian kids to Sin City for seven days. Why stay in a four diamond hotel downtown, when we could stay at a motorlodge in the boonies? Eating at Wolfgang Puck, when we could feed a village? Oh and I plan to shop. If more than four people read this, there would be someone who would say that the money could be used more wisely. I could be feeding orphans or giving money to the poor. That someone would not know me. The orphans will be fed regularly and the valets tipped well. Feel free to judge, remembering whatever measure you use with me, will be used for you.

Tithing may not seem like much of an interest, but it fascinates me. There is the whole old/new testament debate as to whether or not the tithe applies to us today. Of course we all pick out the “rules that apply to us” and defend them wholeheartedly. Tithe/not, tattoo/not, pork/not, adultery/not, just kidding(kind of). As someone who has done all of the above, I know that it is not a salvation issue, Thank God!!!! Yet, wonder why tithing is included in the things that one should do.

I, of my own accord, would not tithe, it’s just not good math. But in Malachi who doesn’t want that? We as a family have been incredibly blessed since we began to tithe. In fact, some of our blessings were up at 5 this morning reminding us just how blessed we were. We also just refinanced our house cutting 9 years off of our mortgage and only raising our payment $7.00 per month. In the last year we have gone on some fabulous vacations, and have paid cash for our summer vacations to Vegas and Montana. (We’re flying with six kids, and have you seen the gas prices?) I would say we are blessed, just don’t look at our furniture, that is a conscious choice, we have six kids.

I think tithing is included in the should do’s, not because God needs money, but because it changes who we are. We spend a lot of time worrying about money, when we should be contemplating God. Satan can do a lot with money, he can cause us to work so much we alienate our friends and family so that we can buy stuff to impress strangers. He can give us a free t-shirt for signing up for his 27% credit card. If we can make the payments it takes our money from things we find worthy and gives it to the credit card company, if we cannot make the payments we end up doing even more stupid stuff. Bringing a tithe tells God that we trust him to take care of our needs.

On another tithing note, I give mine online because I know that it saves our church a lot of processing time, but I haven’t signed up for autodraft. I don’t know whether it’s a big deal or not, but for me I need to consciously do it everytime. To me it is beyond the realm of my mortgage or cable payment which are autodrafted. I need to remind myself that God is my priority when it comes to money. I try to make it my first payment, but like I said before none of this is a salvation issue. It is just how God is changing my heart, and how he changes yours might be totally different.

The conversation came around to where people go to church. The second Bay Area came out of my mouth, the talk turned to money. They are always asking for money. The crowd cheers when they announce offering. Money, money, money. One lady made the comment that they were used to putting in their wadded up dollar, “so people saw” them putting in something, and this church was asking for $1,000/year for three years. OMG. Who tithes anyway. “We do”. That stopped the conversation quite quickly.

These are the same people who were talking about how many Vera Bradley bags they had, and “Have you gotten the Coach clutch?” Not my normal crowd I guess. No money left after birthday parties and purses.

I haven’t noticed the constant money talk at Bay Area. I do know that they ask for it, but it hasn’t really bothered me that they do so, since we’ve been giving. We’re the ones who cheer when they announce offering. It’s not weird when you are on the tithing side of things. When they were asking for $1000/year we committed to a double tithe, based on the salary of a job that we didn’t have at the time. It was more than $1000/year, but we believed that we’d get the job, and the salary bump would be bigger than a 10% bump in giving. I’m not saying that we promised to give in order to get a “raise”, but rather we knew God would give it to us if he could give through us. It’s worked out well for us. But not at first.

When we first started giving we didn’t get the job when promised. Not the first month, not the second month, not the third month. We still gave the first month, the second month and the third month. We have not had any real money problems since. Of course we’ve had some issues and what not, but there aren’t any starving naked kids running around the house. Even a couple of weeks ago we got a letter from our insurance company, they were dropping us because our roof appeared to be an overlay. Turns out overlays haven’t been legal since 1993 or something, and the previous owner should have put on a new roof when we bought it six years ago, yadda yadda yadda. This was immediately after promising an attorney several thousands of dollars to adopt our kids, and getting ready to start a business. None of which we can “afford”. We’re doing what we can, but are relying on God to come up with enough money to pay the attorney, repair our house, start a business, and feed the kids. I don’t really want the Coach clutch, but I’m sure He’d throw it in too.

God allows us to test him in the tithe. I’m sure that four years ago when we first committed to giving seriously, it probably was a little bit of a test on our part. I also am pretty sure my crowd tithes. We don’t discuss it but their kids are neither starving or naked. The whole “can’t afford to tithe” argument goes out window when you have two Lexus’ and live in the Lakes. Tithing is not for rich people. 10% is 10% and we get really excited when a tithe has a comma in it, it means good things for us. I’m actually looking forward to the day I can put two commas in a tithe check. Then they’ll say “well, if I had ten million, it’d be easy”.

I think the problem us humans have is we are used to mathematical accounting. We use the God accounting system and it nets more somehow. So, who tithes anyway, we do, we can’t afford not to.