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?

ISFP/INTJ Conversational Classic

ISFP teenager: Mom, is _ _ _ _ _ a word?

INTJ mother: No… how are you trying to use it? Maybe I can help you find the word you’re looking for.

ISFP: I’m not trying to use it. It just came to me…. Can YOU use it in a sentence so I can figure it out?

INTJ: If it’s not a real word - has no actual meaning – there’s no way to use it in a sentence.

ISFP: But if it WERE a word, how would you use it?

INTJ: There’s no way for me to answer that. Without a meaning – because it ISN’T a real word – I can’t use it in a sentence.

ISFP: Okay… what would its meaning be, if it were a word?

INTJ: But it’s not a word. So how would I know its meaning?

ISFP: Well, if you’d just use it in a sentence, we could figure out its meaning.

INTJ: Are those lights flickering? I think you’ve induced a brain aneurysm.

I wish I were creative or funny enough to have made that up, but that was an absolute real conversation I had with my ISFP teenage son the other day (although there were just a few more “Who’s on First” loops before I escaped the exchange).

Now I’m sure an I/E NFP parent would have handled the conversation differently – perhaps played along and played “create a definition out of thin air” but as an INTJ that was not an instinctual direction for me to go.

How would you have responded? (Include your “Type” if you know it.)

Paul's Sunset

Music was one of my earliest memories and most enduring connections between me and my Dad. One of my favorite pictures is of me at about 8-months old sitting on Dad’s lap between him and his guitar, me peaking over the top to watch his fingers. There was always music in the house growing up. Sometimes we would just sit around in the living room with one of Dad’s favorite song books and play and sing together.

Music is an emotional vehicle for me. It’s a way for me to interpret and process my life so it meant a great deal to me to be able to sing at his funeral. Although I felt my voice shaking as I sang the songs I chose, the lyrics of each would steward the story well and I believe Dad would have been pleased.

Thanks to the talents, generosity and help of my friend Joel Slater I was able to record the songs as a Christmas gift as a permanent memory of Dad. Each of the 4 songs I recorded reflect a different part of my relationship with Dad and although I’m no great vocalist, it gave me great closure to put it all together.

Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone) - by Chris Tomlin (listen here)

Amazing Grace is my all-time favorite hymn. When I asked if my dad had a favorite hymn I could sing at his funeral, I didn’t expect that we would share this classic as our favorite. My father’s funeral was actually the forth that I’ve sung Amazing Grace at, but each time has been an entirely different rendition or version. It’s remarkable how this song can be so timeless and consistent yet so different from arrangement to arrangement, unique for each person and situation.

When I Get Where I'm Going - Brad Paisley (listen here)

When I first heard this song two years ago, I immediately knew this would be the anthem of my dad’s passing when that time came. In my mind, though, that time would not come for another 15 or more years, so I expected to have plenty of time to teach the song to my son to play and sing at the funeral, and I would merely accompany and harmonize. Though I enjoyed singing it, I regret not only that Dad’s time was cut way too short for my young musician to have prepared it, but that the boys never got the chance to know him well enough to know how appropriate this song was for him.

Finally Home – MercyMe (listen here)

This song is a truer reflection of my own heart in dad’s passing and is more my personal anthem for him. It took many rehearsals to get through the second line without getting choked up as I think every child wonders and hopes they have made their parents proud in whatever the path they’ve chosen in life, but it also reflects the security I have in an eternity with our Lord.

Better Than A Hallelujah - Amy Grant (listen here)

This song is for the hurting who remain – the survivors, if you will – those left behind in their grief. It came out this summer and it immediately spoke to me about the trials and suffering my family had endured in the last year – my own cancer, my husband’s health challenges, the financial struggles of one income - and how so very blessed I was by the prayers of others and how much closer I was drawn to God through those trials. Psalm 46:1 God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.

I want to say thank you, again, to Joel Slater who recorded and edited these songs and made me sound pretty good. A worship leader and Christian recording artist, check out some of Joel’s original music and buy his CD “Scattered” at http://www.joelslater.com/.