Your Finances and You

This is the conclusion to my series on finances. I hope this has been helpful to you in thinking about how you handle money as a family. Money and finances are generally not the most fun subjects to discuss as a couple, but those discussions can dramatically alter the direction of your marriage in good or bad ways. We’ve discussed planning, income, and debt thus far. Now, let’s discuss how these things can be applied to your situation.

First of all, we are all in different situations financially. Some are more favorable than others, and all of these are dependent on your goals. If your goals are attainable and measurable, and you both agree on them, they are good goals. This will probably take some compromise from both of you. It’s better to deal with that up front though, than six months down the road when one of you is miserable because you are sacrificing for something you don’t even desire. That is a recipe for disaster. Take the time to seek common ground and agree on goals that both of you really desire.

One thing that can absolutely discourage you is comparison. I’ve done this, so I’m speaking from painful experience here. If you look at your neighbor and think... “Wow, look at that Escalade and the new pool they are putting in. Why can’t we have those things?” You are setting yourself up for failure. I can’t afford a new Escalade and a pool right now. Maybe you can and that’s great. If so, send money. Haha! Just kidding…maybe. Anyway, there will always be someone with more means than you. That is okay. There is more to life than money and what you can and can’t afford. Besides, maybe they took out a loan for all those things and have to eat beans and rice to pay for them. Different people have different goals.

Lastly, stick to the plan. This is HARD! I can attest. Without Laura, I don’t think we could’ve done this at times in our marriage. It’s really easy to get off track quickly. Reaching financial goals like being debt free, affording a house, or retiring take time and discipline. It may mean eating out less or not at all, or not taking a vacation. It may even mean selling your car and buying a cheaper one. The bottom line is that it takes sacrifice. Thankfully, though, you have been divinely paired with a partner to endure it with you and keep you accountable. I encourage you to lean on each other. You are a team!! Now go win like one!

Laura and I believe that every marriage is ordained by God, and He has a plan for each one. Things may not look great for you financially, but know that God’s plan is food on your table and a roof over your head. He loves you. We love you, too, and we are praying for you. You can do this through Christ!

~Howell
@G2WHubs

Keys to Financial Freedom: Part Three

As we continue through our discussion about finances in marriage, we must come to what is perhaps the most difficult topic. This is the one that can really derail a marriage, but it doesn’t have to. Today, we discuss expenses and debt. Debt has always been a difficult topic for me, and I’ve waffled over the years on how much is too much and how to handle it. After good and bad experiences, though, I believe that Laura and I have a better grasp of it.

As I said above, this topic has been quite an odyssey for me. I was raised in a home where debt was the complete enemy. We were the Dave Ramsey family ten years before it was cool. I still have a hard time understanding how my parents paid off cars and houses so quickly while still putting food on the table. They are a great example of success in retirement, however, because they live a comfortable, debt-free life and are still able to afford to travel and enjoy life after a career in education.

You would think I would come from that and be fairly credit wise, but I completely ignored it. I got my first credit card and quickly maxed it out with no way to pay it off. To this day, I don’t know how I did this. I really didn’t end up with much to show for it. This just goes to show you how easy it is to do. I found myself with negative money in the bank and a maxed out credit card at 20 years old. Typical, right? It didn’t feel that way at the time. Looking back, income played a part in this. I was trying to go to college and live and eat on a part time salary. I even went hungry for about two weeks a couple of times. I was not going to go crawling back to my parents, though. I had too much stubborn pride. Thankfully, God looked out for me. My grandmother noticed I had lost some weight when I went to see her (and probably that I ate for a small family of bears), so she snuck some money into my suitcase. Thanks, Mamaw!

From that little seed, I was able to rebuild my meager finances and apply those lessons from my parents. I also got a job where I could eat at work. That’s a handy tip if you’re ever a single person in my position. And eventually I could afford to take a girl out on dates—specifically, a cute English major named Laura, who spent most of her time reading books or writing papers.

I married a very wise woman. Laura is incredible at squeezing the pennies out of dimes, and I mean that in the best possible way. However, we have mounded up debt at times. Sometimes, expenses just happen all at once. We’ve been there, and we didn’t have a nest egg to fall back on. The key with debt is learning from it and communicating about it. We both got down on ourselves for our excessive spending. Part of it was necessary, but some of it could’ve waited. Because of that, we made a pact together that we would always have a savings account that would be an emergency fund. It took a long time to build, but has prevented many fights. I’ll talk more about that next time. At first, paying off our debt seemed impossible. Little by little, though, it came down, and after almost ten years, we've now paid off over $90,000 in debt. That’s another truth about debt. You CAN knock it down. It just takes time and patience.

Hopefully, this little testimony has been helpful. I know it can seem insurmountable, and we have certainly fought about it before. Like anything else, you must be together on this. It takes a team to run family finances well. Everyone has to buy in, but once you do, things can really change.

~ Howell

@G2WHubs

Keys to Financial Freedom: Part Two

In my last blog, I introduced a four-part series on home finances in marriage. This is a really important topic to me because it’s something that often tears marriages apart or creates the cracks in the foundation that ultimately lead to a failed marriage. I started the series with Planning, and this week, we will be discussing Income.

Income can be a tricky subject to address when discussing personal finances because of differences in beliefs or personal preferences of different families. I highly recommend reading what Laura has to say here about supporting your husband's work. 

Let’s get started…Over a long period of time, you can’t spend more money than you make. You’ll run out. BREAKING NEWS, right? Yeah, I didn’t think so. It’s never that simple, though. When you went through the planning session I discussed last time, did you decide your finances just didn’t add up? Did you find you couldn’t or weren’t willing to cut your expenses enough to make ends meet? If so, then increasing your income is the only other way.

Intuitively, I imagine this is something people would think of, but I’ve been surprised by how many people haven’t seen this as an option, so I feel it’s worth talking about. No matter your situation, you can increase your income. The question is, are you willing to make the sacrifices to do it? Sometimes, this is finding a different job or having a second family member start working. It could just mean delivering pizzas, driving for Uber, or doing odd jobs on the weekend. Your situation dictates how much more you need. I’m stressing the word need here. Most of what I just listed may only be temporary options to get something paid off or maybe serve as a bridge until you get that dream job.

What I really want to stress in this blog is this: You have options. If your current income is simply not enough, don’t let it continue to be a stressful point in your life and your marriage. Don’t let complacency in your job or all those closed doors you keep running into get you down. There are options in today’s economy, more than ever before!

I pray you're led by the Holy Spirit to make wise decisions for your income. God's promise is to provide for you, which means He will always give you what you need. 

~Howell

@G2WHubs 

Keys to Financial Freedom: Part One

Laura and I have both blogged before about finances, but given that it is one of the most common causes of strife in marriages, I want to come back to this topic. Money, and the lack of it, is a tough topic in almost every relationship. It certainly has been one for us at different times in our marriage. I always say communication is key, and it really is. This is the first post in a four-part series on financial freedom for families: Planning, Income, Debt, and You. If you haven’t read this post about getting on the same page re: finances, it’s a good foundational piece to start with. In this series, I want to take an in-depth look at how to approach finances, as a couple. I want to convey basic principles to build an understanding of how to work together to accomplish financial goals, instead of letting money be what tears you apart.

Today, let’s talk about planning.

You can talk about money until you’re blue in the face, but without consensus on a plan with actual, measurable, and attainable steps, you are just talking in circles. So what does a realistic plan look like? Well, that varies depending on your situation. 

So why do you, as a couple need a financial plan? You may be saying, we’re okay. We aren’t rich, but we are making it. We put food on the table and have a roof over our heads. Maybe you have significant debt, maybe you don’t. Maybe you have more than you need, maybe you don’t. Maybe you fight about money, maybe you don’t. Your situation does dictate what the plan is, but it doesn’t dictate the need for a plan. Whether you need to get out of debt or retire, or you want to give more to missions, you need a financial plan.

Step one is sitting down and talking about your immediate need. I’ll give some suggestions later in this series for setting long-term goals, but I think you probably know what your immediate needs with your finances are. This is a difficult step because you may be on different pages about what your needs are. The most critical part of this step is agreement. You must agree to move on and that means that both of you will probably have to compromise somewhere. You don’t have to set massive, life-long goals at this point. Let’s just have a plan for the next six months right now. What do you want to do in the next six months, even if that is survive? If you can plan six months, you can plan a lifetime.

The next step is forming a plan. Figure out how much your immediate need will cost and go from there. I recommend looking at your expenses for the last three months to get a basic, monthly cost of living, subtracting that from your current income, and then looking at what is left. That is what you have for accomplishing your immediate need. If there isn’t anything left, you have two choices: more income or fewer expenses. If neither of those are options, don’t lose heart; we’ll talk about ways to find places to cut and gain in later weeks. 

Now that you know where you are, it’s time to agree on a plan to move forward. Find areas that both of you can cut expenses and decide an amount to save toward your plan. You’ll need a budget to follow. Maybe you are more disciplined than us, but without a real budget, we rarely achieve our goals. You can see a basic outline below. I think it can apply to anyone’s household finances.

So now you have a plan! It takes time, discipline, and lots of communication, but you can execute it. Over the next few times I blog here, I’ll be going over different aspects of household finances to help you modify and execute this plan. I’m praying that you’ll find this helpful. I’m no expert, but I believe that with good communication, you can achieve your goals.

Read Part Two
Read Part Three

 ~Howell

@G2WHubs