Managing Your Finances

Dear Susan,

Uncle Tom and I really enjoyed our visit with you and John. Thanks for confiding in me about your family finances and how you seem to have trouble keeping your expenses in line. On the way home, I was telling Uncle Tom about the situation and he had some information in his files which he gave me.

You are obviously not alone. A surprising number of middle-income families have obligated a significant percent of their take-home pay to paying off short-term credit purchases. Of course, they are also making long-term monthly payments on their home and car. This means they are spending a lot of money each month on interest.

Their problem is they do not buy on credit just to get them through an emergency, paying the debt off when things get back to normal. They buy on credit as a matter of habit so that they are caught up in a cycle of wasting money on interest and chronically living beyond their means.

All those credit cards

The number of credit cards you have is probably about average. It must be, for just the other day I had to verify my signature with my drivers’ license and two major credit cards. I wondered what would have happened if I didn’t use credit cards.

Without a doubt they are convenient and easy to get, especially when they come unsolicited in the mail, and if you sign on, they keep raising your credit limit. Credit made it possible for you to furnish your home with good items right from the start. I can remember how many years Uncle Tom’s bookcases consisted of planks supported on bricks.

By itself, each item seems so affordable. Put them all together, however, and pretty soon all you’re doing is making payments with not enough money left for utility bills, food, medical, etc.

Credit buying is not new

One of Uncle Tom’s references made this observation, “being in debt is not new. The Babylonians, the Celts and other civilizations extended credit. Even the pilgrims on the Mayflower booked passage on the installment plan.”

While buying on time is not new, what is new is the extent of the easy availability of credit to the average consumer. So far as can be estimated, total private debt right now in the western countries is greater than the combined private debt of mankind for the first 5,900 years of this creation. Never has so much been owed by so many and never has so much profit been made out of the debt itself

What has it brought you?

If the Lord delay, you have many years ahead of you. You can get out of your present problem with a little extra work and discipline. But if you’re not careful, you’ll get out of this mini-crisis only to spend yourself into another one.

Now is a good time to ask yourself, Is it worth it?

Yes, you have better furniture and more clothes than you’d otherwise have But you also have the deadening worry of how you’re going to pay all the bills Can you enjoy the furniture and clothes with the worry on your mind? Has it been worth it?

Think, too, of how you’ve had to curtail your donations to the ecclesia And you haven’t been able to pledge anything to the hall addition

Furthermore, John is having to work all the overtime he can get just to pay off bills I know he doesn’t like doing that It has meant turning down some out-of-town speaking appointments and, if it keeps up much longer, he may have to cut back on his work with the youth circle You probably know the young couple in our meeting that is having to move into isolation The reason is that they are in so much debt, they could not afford to turn down the promotion and accompanying raise

There can be little doubt that our spending habits can impact our ecclesial involvement and possibly our eternal welfare So I ask, Is it worth it?

It all belongs to God

We need to remember that right handling of our money is a spiritual issue While it’s sometimes hard to remember in our urban, computerized world, everything we have has come from God

This awareness is maintained more easily by those who grow some of their own food As you know, your cousin has a large garden The other day, he was showing us the production of one potato plant Ten potatoes had come from one eye of a potato planted five months ago I stood there with a potato eye on one

finger and a bag holding the ten potatoes in the other hand and just marveled The productivity God has built into life is incredible

The evidence was everywhere in his garden The corn was standing seven feet high with two full ears per stalk, all from one kernel A pumpkin plant had a pumpkin so big! couldn’t lift it, this from one seed planted in the spring

The minerals and elements that are the basis of our steel, coatings, etc , are all provided by God in one way or another The same is true of electricity which is the basic factor behind the incredible speed of communications in our world King David had it right when, looking at the vast store of wealth accumulated for the temple and associated buildings, he said “0 LORD our God, all this store that we have prepared to build thee an house for thine holy name cometh of thine hand, and is all thine own” (I Chron 29 16)

When it comes to our own labor and talent, this, too, has come from God The incredible abilities possessed by human beings are all of Him God is the One who has designed us and He is the one who sustains life

Our money system makes convenient the specialization of labor and ex­change of various goods and services Thus money simply represents all of the various things that God has given us Really, it is His and should be treated as belonging to Him When we use it foolishly, we are abusing something of God’s

There are a number of things you can do to bring your spending under control Perhaps I’ll write you about these in another letter, Lord willing

With much love,
Aunt Sarah