Prayer for a Friend

Hey everyone. It’s been a very long time since I posted anything, so that must mean that something pretty important got my attention. It did. One of my friends here at Whitworth knows a six year old boy that has an Ewing’s Sarcoma tumor on his pelvis. She has babysat Coleson since he was just a baby, so she knows him pretty well. I’m going to keep this short and just request that anyone who see’s this please head over to his CaringBridge blog (requires a short sign up to view) and read his story, maybe sign his guest book, but mostly PRAY! Just pray like crazy for this little boy who needs all the help he can get to fight this disease. And another step you can take to potentially help Coleson is sign up to be a bone marrow donor! He may need to receive a bone marrow transplant soon, so every person that signs up directly increases his chances of finding a match.

Any step you take to help Coleson would be amazing, but please pray for him most of all.

Financial Security

your budget holds the key to get you out of debt jail

Over the last few months I’ve become increasingly concerned about my financial situation. I’m 20 years old, I already have several (several) thousand dollars in school loans, I have virtually no savings and a credit card balance that was nearly maxed out. I was not liking where I was at so early on in my life.

There’s not much I can do about the school loans right now, at least not with credit card debt hanging over my head and no savings safety net. So I began to change my financial situation. The catalyst for this change happened when I was leaving for work one day, and I was counting my blessings. I’m so thankful for my car, I thought. Some people have cars that they can’t really depend on, but I’ve never had to worry about whether my car will start or not. And then it hit me that if something happened to my car I wouldn’t be able to get it fixed myself. I had very credit left, and pretty much zero savings; I had no buffer. I would be forced to rely on my parents for help. I’ve already relied on them enough and am trying to move more expenses over to myself. They’ve worked too hard and too long for me to keep draining their income.

That was the day that I’ve decided to make a buffer, pay off my credit card, and start paying down the interest on my student loans. I’ve come up with a couple of techniques that have been indispensable. Both financially and mentally.

1. The first thing I did was start reading about finances. I had already been reading Zen Habits for a while. The author, Leo Babauta, touches on financial things through his writings about minimalism. By reading his articles I’ve seen the grand appeal of cutting out all that is unnecessary in my life and learning to embrace a more minimalist life style. I also started reading Frugal Dad which is focused on paying off debt and consuming less.
2. Most importantly, I made a budget. I had made pseudo-budgets in the past, but never stuck to them. But this time I made a budget, carved it in stone, and stuck to it. Ever since I made a budget my spending has decreased dramatically. I can tell because I actually have money left over. A lot of money. And I’ve been putting it to good use. Some people (including the author of Frugal Dad) say to save up three months expenses before paying off your debts. It makes sense; you don’t want to have to fall back on a credit card because you don’t have a buffer. Good advice, but I decided to ignore that when I started because my credit card debt really wasn’t that large. My credit limit is only $1,000. Pittance compared to the $5,000 credit limit some of my friends have on their cards.
3. So I had a budget, but what kept me to it? I thought about making the down payment on a house. How I want to be able to live debt free for my future family. I want my children to grow up seeing how to be responsible with their money, just as I did. Set a goal for yourself and put that image all around you to help keep you in line. If you reward yourself (proportionally, of course) when you achieve a goal, you are more likely to use that momentum to keep moving. My reward was feeling better!
4. This next tip is more of a hack than anything, but I’ve decided to start filling a change jar now that I’m using cash almost exclusively. I used to spend change when buying things to avoid receiving more change, but now I try to get my hands on as much of it as I can. Any change I get goes into the jar, and it only leaves when I deposit it into a savings account. It’s not for impulse buying and it’s not for extraneous spending.(A recent comment on Frugal Dad said something like “Imagine if for every dollar that passed through your hands, you saved 10 cents. Now stop imaging and do it!” I rather liked that idea, and I feel it is a good way to frame the change jar hack.) I do have condition, though: Anytime I’m at a store and they have a change donation jar for disease research, etc., I put whatever change I do have in my pockets in. If change can make a difference in my bank account, it surely can make a difference for someone’s health.

These are some of the things I’ve come up with to dramatically improve my money situation. What have you used? What tips and hacks have you figured out to make a difference in your war with debt? Leave some tips in the comments for other readers to practice.

Minimalism

Recently, as in the past two months, I’ve really been on what I would call a zen minimalism kick. Zen as in balance. When I began thinking about the packing I would have to do at the end of the school year, I began to wonder if I could take everything back to Puyallup in two trips. I’m not sure if I could, mainly because I lack containers for most of the things I have, and I just stuff my car to the brim. I’ve come to the conclusion that at this point in my life I should be able to fit everything I own into my car.

Why my car? Well, mainly because if I can fit everything I own in one car trip, it greatly increases my range of freedom. No going back for more. No worries about what I’ve left behind. Everything I own, and truly need, is with me and nothing else. But alongside the things I truly need are a bunch of other things. Things that I don’t need, and really shouldn’t even have. Things like the extra printer I have, or my 30 t-shirts, or eight pairs of pants, or eight pairs of shoes, or my whole drawer for things I don’t know what to do with. If I don’t know what to do with it, why do I keep it?

While the Dr. Jekyll in me is dedicated to tearing through my consumerism and returning to a simpler lifestyle, my Mr. Hyde is crazy about gadgets. Specifically Apple gadgets. I’m a student, so it’s not really a question of ‘Do I need a laptop?’ but rather ‘Do I need a MacBook Pro when I MacBook would probably do just fine?’ Since I plan on not having cable when I move into my own place (eventually) I have decided that I will just buy shows from the iTunes store and get them that way. Now, it would be a lot easier and more convenient for me to buy an TV, but should I?

I know the answer to the question ‘Do I need it?’ is clearly no? But, as a Christian, are we called to own only that which we truly need? By purchasing an TV, or a MacBook Pro, or iPhone, or anything superfluous for that matter, instead of tithing, or giving that money to someone who truly needs it, am I disobeying Christ’s wishes for his followers?

Let’s see what the bible actually says about this kind of thing.

We all know the story of the rich man in Luke 18:

A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

19″Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. 20You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’[b]“

21″All these I have kept since I was a boy,” he said.

22When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

23When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth. 24Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! 25Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

Now, did Jesus tell him to sell everything he had because that is the answer that applies to all of mankind, or was it aimed specifically at the young man because he had a love of money? Does Christ expect everyone of us to live like monks? If so, then most Christians are failing to meet this expectation. How can a Christian live in the modern world if this is what Jesus expects of us?

Even if I were to give up everything I owned and gave the money to the poor, what does this mean about savings? Am I allowed to work and put some into a retirement account? If I did that wouldn’t sound like I was following what Jesus said in Luke 18.  Jesus said to sell everything. That means absolutely everything.

What do you think? Can a Christian live in a modern world with modern things and still be obeying what is written, or are we all expected to give up everything and follow Jesus? Do you know of any bible verses that really deal with this subject head on? Let me know in the comments!

Further reading: Check out this Ask the Readers post over at Zen Habits (My new favorite blog) about fitting everything you own in your car’s trunk. Be sure to check out all of Leo’s, as well as his contributers great posts at Zen Habits.