Christian Finance Blog
Spiritually Prosperous, Financially Rich!

“Money is in some respects life’s fire: it is a very excellent servant, but a terrible master.”

P.T. Barnum

This is so true. Tell your money what to do, not the other way around! Have money but don’t let money have you.

“Blessed are those who can give without remembering, and take without forgetting.”

Princess Elizabeth Asquith Bibesco

Isn’t that quote just plain amazing?

20 Then David continued, “Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Don’t be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you. He will see to it that all the work related to the Temple of the LORD is finished correctly.

1 Chronicles 28:20 (NLT)

From the Life Application Bible:

David advised Solomon not to be frightened about the size of his task as king and builder of the Temple. Fear can immobilize us. The size of a job, its risks, or the pressure of the situation can cause us to freeze and do nothing. One remedy for fear is found here: Don’t focus on the fear; instead, get to work. Getting started is often the most difficult and frightening part of a job.

ING Direct has a rare $50 bonus for opening an Electric Orange online checking. Open an account by June 20, 2009 and then just use your debit card to make 3 signature-based (non-PIN) transactions within the first 45 days. On the 50th day, ING Direct will deposit $50 into your account! Make sure you use reference code EM275 when you open the account, otherwise it won’t work.

I’ve used my Electric Orange account for years now and I like it. Mine’s connected to all my online accounts and it’s also connected to my main checking account at WaMu (Chase). The electronic checks are unique and I find myself rarely using paper checks anymore. However, I actually use this as a secondary checking account (currently WaMu’s my main). If you don’t need paper checks (you can still mail checks), this would be a good choice for you.

I’ve found ING’s customer service to be excellent and they don’t have many fees that most big banks charge like overdraft fees. Please note that they will do a hard pull on your credit because of the mandatory overdraft protection. There is no minimum deposit to open an account, but obviously you need money in there to do the 3 transactions.

The interest rate isn’t that high, but you can open an Orange Savings account and you can get a better rate (1.50% as of this writing). If you want a $25 bonus for opening an Orange Savings account with at least $250, let me know. I’m not sure if you can use both, though.

“Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.”

Mother Teresa

The Bible talks about being faithful with the little things as well.

As you may or may not have heard, GM recently declared bankruptcy this past Monday to become the fourth largest bankruptcy in U.S. business history. The General obviously had way too much debt on the books. Over $172 billion worth!

But what’s the problem? Well, GM should have gone bankrupt much sooner than Monday. It should have gone bankrupt six months ago. But it was unpatriotic to let GM fail. It was un-American to let GM go bankrupt. Too many jobs would be lost. It would send a catastrophic wave throughout the auto industry. But yet it happened. GM went bankrupt.

So why delay the inevitable and spend $20 billion in taxpayer money (and counting) in the process? We might as well call it “Government Motors”. Even after billions in government bailout funds, GM went under. 21,000 jobs will still be lost. Dealers reduced by 2,600. Plants still shut down. What did we get for $20 billion but a poorly-run company which should have failed months ago?

Saturn was sold off to Penske Automotive Group on Friday and Hummer is reportedly being sold to China’s Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company.

Why do I have a feeling that this country is moving towards socialism? Failure needs to be allowed. Without failure, there’s no motivation for success. Without failure, how can we learn from our mistakes?

So what can we learn from the GM bankruptcy? Get out of debt!!! Debt will make you bankrupt. And vote for someone who actually has your best interests in mind. America doesn’t need socialism. It needs a return to the foundations that this country was based on: a faith and trust in God and a free market. Let freedom ring.

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“Lack of money is the root of all evil.”

George Bernard Shaw

Ha, ha! The love of money is really the root of all evil, but it may feel like the lack of money is the root of all evil. I’m sure that having money is great, but there are plenty of rich people who are miserable. It all depends on your paradigm (the lens through which you view life).

Christian Finance Blog made it to Bible Money Matters Carnival of Top Personal Finance Posts #5! Check out the blog and make sure you vote for the post that made it: Don’t Get Ripped Off Buying a Car.

Edit: Now you can vote right here. Vote for whichever post you like, but keep me in mind.

It’s currently in fifth place so go on and vote!

6 Yet true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth. 7 After all, we brought nothing with us when we came into the world, and we can’t take anything with us when we leave it. 8 So if we have enough food and clothing, let us be content.

9 But people who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction.

1 Timothy 6:6-9 (NLT)

Why does the Bible talk about contentment? Being content is a key to “great wealth”. Keeping up with the Joneses is a fast path to the poor house. The illusion of wealth shouldn’t motivate us. Being thankful and content for the blessings we have will ensure that we have the right perspective. It’s not like we’re going to take our wealth with us after we die anyway.

From the Life Application Bible:

It is often helpful to distinguish between needs and wants. We may have all we need to live but let ourselves become anxious and discontent over what we merely want. Like Paul, we can choose to be content without having all that we want. The only alternative is to be a slave to our desires.

This really makes me mad! I have lost respect for most car sales people (yes, there are woman car sales people). I get a phone call on Friday from a younger coworker of mine asking if she could use me as a reference. I asked her “for what” and she said that she needed five references to buy a car.

Now this is a young single mother of two who doesn’t have a car. She took off work and a friend of hers dropped her off with her kids at a car dealership. She had never bought a car before. Bad idea from the start. The salesman could smell the desperation a mile away.

So I asked her a few questions since I knew she was going to get taken. She had no clue. She didn’t know how much the car was, the interest rate of the loan, length of the loan, etc. All she knew was the payment. $289 a month. Oh sure, I can afford that! Classic sales tactic. Focus on the payment rather than the total cost.

She must have asked the salesman these same questions since she didn’t have a clue. I could hear the salesman in the background giving her the answers. The car was $5900. Ok, that’s not too bad. 48 months. Ok, still not too bad. But get this: 23% interest rate! I thought the salesman was kidding at first. Nope. Serious as a heart attack. I could hear him telling her that it would build her credit, that she could trade it in for something else in a year, etc. Well, she just got ripped off. $289 for 48 months comes out to a whopping $13,872. That’s more than two times the original price of the car.

I told her not to sign anything and that I’d pick her up. Despite telling her that she was getting ripped off and that it was a horrible deal, she would not listen. She hung up on me and proceeded to buy the car. I have absolutely no respect for anyone who would take advantage of a young single mother who was so desperate like this coworker of mine. It should be illegal to prey on people like this. But stupid isn’t illegal. And some people learn the hard way.

So here are some tips so you don’t get ripped off:

1. Don’t get car fever or fall in love with a car.
2. Bring someone with you who can be your advocate (at least someone who has experience buying a car).
3. Do some research. A little homework goes a long way.
4. Don’t focus on the payment. Focus on the total cost.
5. Know what you’re signing. The terms, price, payment, interest rate, etc.
6. Bring your own financing. Having options empowers you. If you already have a pre-approved car loan, you can use it or have the dealer try to beat it. Or better yet, just pay cash.
7. Know your rights and maintain your walk-away power. Remember, that if it starts getting high pressure or if you get uncomfortable, walk away. You’ll always have another chance to buy a car. Don’t get sucked into the sales and marketing pitches.

Logos is offering a free ebook download of Money Matters by Larry Burkett. Just add the Money Matters ebook to the cart here. Use coupon code BIBLESTUDYMAGAZINE at checkout. You do not need to add anything else to the cart. A valid credit card is required, but it will not be charged. It should show $0.00 at checkout. It only has 2.5 stars on Amazon, but hey, it’s free. And I respect Larry Burkett as a leader in personal finance from a Christian perspective. God bless.

Full details here.

“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.”

Charles Dickens

This is probably rule #1 in personal finance. Spend less than you make. If you can’t do that you need to make more money or cut expenses. Get on a budget, find out where the holes are, and fix it. That’s the only way to do it. Hard work pays off in the end.

Here are a couple interviews with financial expert and columnist Liz Pulliam Weston and Pay Yourself First Challenge winner Kristen Shaul.

1. First of all, congratulations on winning! You definitely accomplished much and I commend you and your husband. What was the hardest part of the whole experience? And the easiest?

The hardest part would have been finding a balance between cutting our expenses and going too far sacrificing small pleasures that add value to our life. On top of that, it was difficult creating a system where both Michael and I had a small fund that we could spend out of guilt free. After a couple months of tension we found a solution that both bolstered our savings, while allowing each person to spend on whatever they liked without feeling like they were taking from the family budget.

The easiest was finding alternative revenues on the side. Especially in those early months of the competition (the fall of 2008), the local economy in Omaha was still very strong. Add to that an integrated network in the community through Michael’s family, and we found it easy to find ways to earn extra cash. Although the jobs themselves required hard work, the opportunities were plentiful.

2. I’ve read on your blog about your giving. How has faith played a role in your finances and your choice of career?

Our relationship with GOD through JESUS is the foundation of our life. We chose our path in this world based upon our understanding of GOD’s heart for the nations through the Bible, as well as personal experiences we have had which burdened us to give our lives to HIM through missions. Following JESUS affects both the large decisions in our life (career path), as well as the everyday choices we make (having a family budget, impulse buying, finding the highest yield savings account, etc.). Everything that we have is HIS, we are simply administering it for a short time. We want to honor HIM in our administration.

3. How has living in another country changed your perspective on life? On the United States?

On a heart level, living in a developing country has broken us with the reality that so many live in poverty. So many people around the world live in hardship, without opportunities to live the ‘good life’ so many take for granted. This has changed the ways in which we see money, time, and investing ourselves. The reality is there is a lot of injustice out there. No perfect formula exists by which we can measure acceptable spending versus selfish spending, but our hearts have led us personally to minimize what we consume on ourselves, and maximize what we can do for underprivileged peoples. While the United States gives more aid than any other country, we still see wasteful consumption all around. Our take is most people just don’t realize what the world is out there. Because both Michael and I grew up in the United States we understand the normalcy that our culture teaches towards self-centered living. Many of us were taught that way, it’s something that has been passed down for generations, making it not completely our fault. We were privileged to have the opportunity to go and see ourselves what it’s like to. And it changed our life. But facts are facts: the US is the richest country in the history of the world, and billions of people are barley getting by.

We believe that we have been blessed so that we can bless others. Our lives should be a conduit of blessing. If we are faithful in what we have been given, GOD will continue to increase HIS blessing to us in order to reach more and more people. For those of us who are so fortunate to have been born in the States, we have a responsibility to do well with what we have. To him that has been given much, much will be expected. And we have found it is a joy doing it!

4. You seem to have a great relationship with your husband. What would be your best piece of advice to newlyweds?

Create the time and the space necessary to adjust to married life. Don’t go crazy with work schedules; instead maximize your time together. Learn to very open, and very honest with each other. Fluid communication is key in the beginning of marriage (not the mention the rest of it!). Discover those little things that you can both enjoy doing together. And finally, keep things simple, and keep love the center.

5. And finally, who is the role model who has made the biggest impact on you?

There has been a lot of people who I have looked up to over the years, it’s hard to pick just one. But someone who sticks out would be a woman named Kathryn Wilson. Her and her husband Thomi have been involved in missions (both local and abroad) for years. They did it well while raising a family of five kids. When I began doing missions work as a youth, they were my first leaders, and for years Kathryn took me under her wing. She taught me to believe in who GOD made me to be, to serve like CHRIST, and to work hard. I owe a lot of who I am today to her.

Check out Kristen’s personal blog and consider helping her and her husband’s ministry.

1. Liz, being a widely read personal finance writer, what’s the single best piece of advice you can give given the economic climate that we’re in right now?

Remember: This too shall pass. We can’t know the exact shape the future will bring, but we know things always change, and every economic cycle in the past has eventually worked itself out. This one is no different.

2. As this is a Christian based blog, what role do you think faith can play in finances?

I think gratitude should play a role in everyone’s finances. We can give thanks for all that we’ve been given by sharing with others.

3. What advice can you give someone who is out of a job and is desperately searching for one but doesn’t seem to making any progress?

Make a list of everyone you know-and I mean everyone, from your grade-school buddies to your coworkers at every one of your previous jobs to people you know from church to your relatives-and let them know you’re looking. Many people find jobs through their “weak” links or the people they don’t know that well. In other words, the co-worker from three jobs ago may be more likely than your best friend to find you your next job.

4. How important is an emergency fund especially now?

Money in the bank has always helped you sleep better at night, and it’s particularly important now as more people are lose their jobs and stay unemployed longer.

But you still have to coordinate an emergency fund with your other priorities. If you still have a job and aren’t facing an immediate layoff, I wouldn’t stop saving for retirement or halt your credit card repayment plans to build up your emergency fund. It’s tough, but you need to make progress on all fronts.

5. And finally, being so knowledgeable on finances, who or what has made the greatest impact on your financial education and what do you think every high school or college student should know about money?

My mom. She believed in saving for a rainy day, avoiding debt, investing for the long term and sharing with others. If we could convince every graduate to save at least 10% of their incomes, pay their credit card bills in full every month, invest for retirement starting with their first job and give regularly to charities, then most money problems would be a thing of the past.

Liz Pulliam Weston is the most-read personal finance columnist on the Internet and writes for MSN Money and several newspapers including the L.A. Times and others. She has also authored several books on personal finance. Check out her website or follow her on Twitter.

12 A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions. The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences.

Proverbs 27:12 (NLT)

Prepare for the future. Budget. Even the Bible talks about planning ahead for future expenses, emergencies, etc. Don’t just live paycheck to paycheck!