The “NOT” New Year’s List 2012

On New Year’s Eve, 2009 I posted a story about our long-time family friends Mary Jane and Terry Martin who had a New Year’s tradition of  writing out their individual predictions for what they thought the next year would hold for each of them, seal them up and save them for exchanging and reading until the following New Year’s Eve to see how close they had come … and then start all over again for the next year’s predictions.

When I wrote about that in 2009, it was more of reflection for me of what I would not have ever predicted would happen in the prior 12 months. As I look back at this past year, it’s amazing to me the things that would NEVER have ended up on my prediction list for 2012 (had I actually sat down a wrote out a list on December 31, 2011). I would NOT have predicted… … that at 43 years old my family would grow by one more son as our family brought home beautiful bouncing teenage boy.
… that the Lord would be so faithful in stretching our income beyond what is actually possible, enabling us to provide for our expanded family.

… that despite our already stretched budget God would bless us so abundantly that we were able to buy a house 3 years ahead of schedule.

… that I would never once doubt or waver in my commitment to tithing … and then some.
… that Edward, who has resisted the idea of teleworking his job for years would finally give in to the concept and find that he loves it.

… that after pouring great effort into my blog for 3 years, posting 1 – 3 times a week, that I would let it collect dust for almost the whole year, posting only twice (this being the second).
… that there would be NO HOCKEY SEASON
… that after years of managing my Carpal Tunnel pain, that a brief encounter with a moving box would result in 2 months of unbearable pain, finally ending in the first of two surgeries (that I now wish I'd done years ago).
... that my oldest son, who had been committed to one career path for 5 or more years would suddenly change majors and would have to start the college search from scratch.

The list could probably go on and on which tells me it’s probably a wasted effort to try and predict the future. No matter how well you plan and no matter how much you think you know, God’s the only one who’s got a shot at penning that list. And as much as I’d love to rip His list open on January 2nd to see what this next year will hold, I know he’ll only let me see it one line at a time … and I’m okay with that.

Mentoring and Modeling a Money Mentality

We’ve always talked openly with our kids about money – specifically about how to be Biblically responsible with money. From earning it and spending it to tithing it and saving it, we have not just told our kids what they need to do but we have made sure we have modeled that behavior in everything we do.

Earning it – our kids witnessed their dad walk away from a job (with nothing else in the pipeline) because the employer’s practices violated the law and he refused to smile and go along with it. A paycheck is never more important that your integrity. That decision was followed by a 2 ½ year stint of unemployment where several opportunities were passed on because the companies had questionable histories or practices and the message was reinforced with the kids that money doesn’t trump your morals. We prayed as a family for God’s wisdom, direction and protection and he had out back on all accounts. The kids saw this.

Spending it – Much like the stock market fluctuations, our “disposal” income has had its ups and downs over the years. Especially down when we were down to one income, but fortunately, we had already established responsible spending habits that helped the kids adjust quickly when we didn’t have ability to buy like we used to. Just because you can spend it, doesn’t mean you should spend it. This is a mantra the kids heard in good times and in bad from us. Especially when the 7-year-old neighbor kid (whose parents’ income was a fraction of ours) got the newest $700 gaming system for Christmas and our kids are opening clothes we bought at the thrift store or consignment shop and $20 toys from Wal-Mart. Our kids saw their parents do without things we really wanted, and could afford, but knew that indulging our worldly desires would not be honoring God with our money so they learned this lesson by example, not just enforcement.

Saving it – I have always been a saver, but it was important for my kids to not just practice it but see the importance as well. In first grade the kids started earning an allowance they were taught to put aside 10% for Tithing, 10% for Savings and 10% for taxes. Proverbs 21:20 says “The wise man saves for the future but the foolish man spends whatever he gets” so I wanted the kids to have a concept of what “saving for the future” meant. We would set savings goals that had purpose. For the kids, saving might be for a new video game or toy that they wanted; for mom and dad, saving might be for retirement, a down payment on a house… or a 2 ½ year gap in employment during the country’s biggest recession since the 1930’s. But saving money doesn’t just protect you on rainy days, but also teaches something most of our current generation has never been required to learn – delayed gratification.

Tithing it – If you’ve read much of my blog, you know that tithing is a passionate topic for me and it’s a passion that we’ve passed on to the kids. Whether it’s allowance, found money on the street or their first real jobs this summer, the first thing my kids do is calculate the 10% that goes to the church. But true giving is more than just giving 10% - Deuteronomy 16:17 says “Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the LORD your God which He has given you.” So if God has blessed you with more, you should be giving more.  It does not equally mean, however, if you have less, you should be giving less. Even when my family was facing financialhardship, we continued to faithfully tithe on what we did have and God provided for us in ways we could not imagine possible. This example taught our kids more than we could have ever imagined without having to preach a word about it.

This brings me to my youngest son. This summer, he had his first real job and, although it was just minimum wage, it was a lot more than his allowance. Taxes took care of themselves, but with each paycheck, he would calculate his tithe (and always generously round up) and then put the majority of his check (like 80% of the net) in his saving account. He didn’t need it for anything specific, so he was going to save it. (Good boy!) It feels great, as a parent, to know that the lessons you preach and the life you model is being absorbed, better yet, reflected in your child’s choices, but that’s not even the best part…

It wasn’t long before my son decided he wanted to use this savings to support Exponential Church, the church plant in Port St. Lucy led by Pastor Christian Gaffney (I know how he felt, I wanted to give to Expo Church as soon as I heard about it too) but, to paraphrase Pastor Christian, since Fair Oaks Church is not going to have a “special fund” for Expo Church, the best way to support the church plant, it to support Fair Oaks Church.

In these last few weeks of the year Fair Oaks Church has been making a plea to members for a year-end gift as the church is more than $100k short in their annual budget. This shortfall is a real burden on church staff and it has placed a special burden on my son’s heart so he reminded me of his savings. He asked to keep just a minimum amount in there to keep the account open and to give the rest to Fair Oaks Church to help them meet budget. Wow! I can’t even put into words how it makes me feel that this kid (who only opened two boxes from his parents on Christmas Day) wants to give his life saving to the church.

So, if my son were writing here, I think he’d want to ask, has his burden has become your burden? No matter what you history with earning or spending or saving or tithing, there’s nothing stopping you from taking this moment, right now, to make a decision for a year-end gift.  Maybe for you, it’s a small amount. Maybe you’re capable of giving a large amount. Either way, by supporting this church, you are supporting the cause of Christ and the work of the Kingdom of God.

Click here to make a one-time year-end gift to Fair Oaks Church.

Uncle Sam’s 0% Savings Account – Just Say No!

Welcome to tax season! Over the next several days millions of Americans will be waiting at their mail boxes for their final forms and receipts to come in and racing to get their returns completed so they can wait for their big fat check from their Uncle Sam.

But wait, that makes it sound like some surprise inheritance that didn’t work over 2000 hours to earn, but rather like it was some benevolent gift. Hey – you know that’s YOUR money, right? They’ve kept it for a year, paid you no interest on it and then gave it back to you ONLY after you filled out 15 pages of paperwork and waited for several weeks for the check to come slowly through the mail or for the wire to hit your bank account.

I know a lot of people who intentionally pay more payroll tax than they need to so that they can get the big fat tax return in the Spring, but wouldn’t make more sense to pay less tax out of each paycheck, take the difference and put it in a savings account and earn a little interest on it? You can still withdraw it all and give it to yourself in the Spring, but now there will be more of it.

Now I realize that some people just aren’t that disciplined and if they got the extra money in their net pay every other week, they’d just spend it rather than save or invest it – I get that. But how about a direct deposit from your pay directly into that savings account so you never see it? Just a thought.

Self-discipline has never been a big problem for me when it comes to money (chocolate – yes, cash – no). I’m a saver. And I never did fancy giving the IRS money that they may change a rule mid-stream and cleverly arrange for me not to get it back.

Having spent a lot of years running payroll departments, I used to have the formula down to a science. I had my return down to no more than a hundred dollars or two… that is, until we moved to Northern Virginia. New economy, different tax bracket, state and property taxes we weren’t accustomed to and both of our Florida employers that we left taxed our vacation cash-outs wrong and the first tax returns we filed in Virginia came with a $9,000 tax bill! Ouch!

Because I’m a saver, we had the means to cover it, but it left us with little room for other financial surprises. Over the next several years I tried to find that greenback groove, but kept hitting roadblocks to a consistent pattern to the tax levels (including a half year of unemployment, a full year of unemployment, and another half year of unemployment) so we had another year with a 4-digit payment followed by 3 years of 4-digit returns… which are nice, but not what I was shooting for.

This year, quite by accident, we hit the right formula: $101.00 return! Now, it IS what we were shooting for, but I have to tell you, after 3 years of healthy returns, it was hard to celebrate my perfectly calculated $101 tax refund … especially when I’m only getting 1.1% interest on my savings account that the difference went into.

The bright side is we didn’t have to PAY. Those two years we had to write big checks were horrible. For me, I was almost as angry at myself that I blew the calculation as I was that I had to write a check that big… but that just me and my INTJ Type.

So do you loan Uncle Sam your money interest free for a year, do you shoot for the low refund or do you end up paying each year? If you had a little extra money in each paycheck, would you be disciplined enough to save it?

Debt-Free in 2011

This week at Fair Oaks Church we will begin a 6-session growth group based on Joe Sangl’s “I Was Broke. Now I’m Not” that teaches people how to win with their money in a way that honors God. As I’ve been preparing to help lead this growth group I started thinking about my own “money story.”

My sister tells people that I still have the first dollar I ever earned. I don’t - although that would be neat if I did – I did eventually spend that dollar and the others I’d been saving up from my paper route. I’ve always been a saver. Starting with elementary-aged allowance, then to the middle-school paper route and teenaged afterschool jobs, what excited me about working was the security of the pile of money in my sock drawer, not the plans and dreams of what I was going to spend it on.

Although some may find that enviable, you have to be careful you don’t become the third servant who buries his talents (Mathew 25:14-30). I’m good at saving and it’s served me well through the financial ups and downs I’ve had, but while Joe Sangl was at Fair Oaks Church last weekend for the Financial Learning Event (and I heard him back in 2008 too), I realized that with all that I may have been doing right, I was still missing something.

He and I were talking between services and I was telling him how we are only a few months away from being 100% debt free using his snow-ball method and he asked me the simplest of questions which was followed by my dumbfounded silence. He asked, “so once you’re debt-free, what dream vacation are you going to put all that extra money toward?”

Now that question shouldn’t have been so challenging (and I think I dumbfounded Joe when I told him I had no such plans) but I haven’t saved up for a planned vacation since our honeymoon. Joe is all about using your dreams (and funding those dreams) as a financial motive for sticking to the debt-free plan. I agree it’s important but I really didn’t need that kind of motive to stick to the plan – I was born to stick to the plan – but that doesn’t mean I don’t have dreams and goals worth saving for.

My most immediate financial goal (which is what I told Joe I’d be putting my freed up money toward instead of a vacation) is my kids’ college fund. It took my husband and I so long to get out from under our college debt that here we are in our 40’s, about to be debt free for the third time (woo hoo) but have never owned a home. We were actually on track to be funding the kids’ 529 plans at the correct pace to cover their tuition fully and have a down payment for our first home when my husband unexpectedly joined the 14.5 million unemployed in the US.

For two and a half years the money we had planned on putting toward college was used for living expenses. There was a little start on both the 529s and the home down payment but they didn’t experience the rapid growth that was planned for them. Now that we’re back to 2 incomes, we have a lot of ground to make up and it’s hard to see past that to some dream vacation.

But it did get me thinking … what are those dreams (after college, a house and retirement are covered) that I need to be working to fund? The family café my husband and I always joke about opening some day? an Alaskan cruise? the ability to work for God full time and man part time rather than the reverse?

What are the dreams you would fund if you were debt free and financially secure?