The Daily Grind – Financial Margin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Daily Grind – Financial Margin
Sycamore Creek Church
October 28 & 29, 2012
Tom Arthur
1 Timothy 6:6-10 

Peace Friends! 

One day, the father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the express purpose of showing him how poor people live. They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family.

On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, ‘How was the trip?’

‘It was great, Dad.’

‘Did you see how poor people live?’ the father asked.

‘Oh yeah,’ said the son.

‘So, tell me, what did you learn from the trip?’ asked the father.

The son answered:

‘I saw that we have one dog and they had four.
We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night.

Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon.

We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight.

We have servants who serve us, but they serve others.

We buy our food, but they grow theirs.

We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them.’

The boy’s father was speechless.

Then his son added, ‘Thanks Dad for showing me how poor we are.’

The Problem
The problem I want to look at today is that we look prosperous but we’re really poor.  Today we wrap up a series called The Daily Grind.  It’s been about the stuff that slowly but surely grinds us down day after day.  Not the big blowout stuff, but the small stuff.  We’ve looked at emotional grind, physical grind, time grind, and today we’re looking at financial grind.

Sarah and I struggle a bit with the financial grind.  I get paid regularly and you all take good care of us, but Sarah’s income comes in big chunks.  It’s feast or famine at our household.  We’re either covering just the basics or binging ‘cause we just got a big huge check!  While this is somewhat true of us, of all the daily grinds (Emotional, Physical, Time), this is the one where we seem to have the least grinding.  It’s because we live simply (on one income) and give generously (mostly give Sarah’s income away).  We recently had a family financial emergency that was in the $1000s of dollars.  We had an emergency fund that could cover it and so while it was stressful, it just meant that we were going to have to tighten the belt for a while to rebuild our emergency fund.  Then Sarah got a royalty check.  She actually hasn’t gotten much of a royalty check in many years, but the royalty check was within forty-three cents, yes, forty-three cents of thousands of dollars of the financial emergency.  We gave thanks to God for how we were first, prepared with an emergency fund, and then for how we were taken care of above and beyond that!  I still marvel at it as I tell this story today.

The question of the day amidst an election year seems to be: What are the economic statistics doing?  But the question should be: What are the economic statistics doing to us?  It seems like layaway has become really popular again.  “Buy now pay later” = “Binge now pain later.”  We buy more and more stuff on debt and credit, which means that we have the perception of prosperity but the reality of poverty.  A couple of months ago I was talking with a local bank manager and he told me that his best guess was that 50% of the houses in the neighborhood surrounding the bank were underwater, they owed more than they were worth.  A friend of mine took out too many student loans, spent them unwisely, graduated and got too much house for too much mortgage, maxed out all his credit cards, and then it all came crashing down in bankruptcy.  Who is to blame, the politicians ask.  I think everyone: the banks and credit cards for loaning irresponsibly and my friend for spending way over what he could afford.

How much debt do you have?  How content are you with your current financial situation?  I’d guess that most of us are carrying more debt than we would like, and are not very satisfied with how things are going financially.

If you won $1,000,000 in the lottery, would that fix everything for you?  You might think so, but you would probably be wrong.  Did you hear recently about Amanda Clayton?  She won the lottery a couple of years ago but continued taking food stamps.  Recently she was found dead from a possible drug overdose.  If you don’t know how to take care of your money, getting more money will only make the problems bigger.  If you don’t have the discipline to build financial margin in your life with little money, then you won’t have the discipline to do it with a lot of money.

I’d like to turn to God’s Word today and see what it says about building financial margin in our lives.

1 Timothy 6:6-10 NLT
Yet true religion with contentment is great wealth.  [A new definition of wealth:] After all, we didn’t bring anything with us when we came into the world, and we certainly cannot carry anything with us when we die [Universal truth: we all die].  So if we have enough food and clothing [live simply], let us be content [to get a little bit more]. But people who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction.  For the love of money is at the root of all kinds of evil [not all evil but all kinds of evil]. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.

Main Point
Here’s the main point for the day: Living simply and giving generously produces financial margin.  If you get any one thing from this message get that.  When you live simply, that is below your means, and give generously, that is give sacrificially, then you will end up with financial margin in your life and financial peace no matter how much you make.

To live simply and give generously here’s what I want you to do.

Ditch Debt
Get rid of your credit cards.  If you can’t pay them off at the end of each month so that you don’t carry over any balance, then get rid of them.  And cut up those credit card checks as soon as they come.  Practice a debt snow-ball.  Pay off the smallest debt you have.  Then take that monthly payment and begin to pay off the next biggest debt.  Once you’ve paid that off, take those two payments and pay off the third.  And on and on until you’re debt free.

Decrease Spending
To be able to ditch your debt you’re going to have to decrease your spending.  Now a few very disciplined people can do this without a budget (but they’re probably not in debt to begin with), but most of us need to set a budget.  I was recently floored when Jeremy, our worship leader, showed me how they budget and track their money.  They use Google Docs.  Kristin, Jeremy’s wife, set this whole thing up online with a spread sheet for each category of spending.  I know that Kristin set it up because it’s way too advanced for Jeremy.  So every time Jeremy and I meet at Biggby Coffee and he buys something, he logs in to their Google account and types in what he just spent.  It shows him how much more he has that month to spend.  This is pretty amazing to me because of how detailed it is and that they set it up on their own.  But the discipline that he and Kristin show to do this every day is even more amazing than the technology. 

Sarah and I do the same basic thing but we found a website called Mint.com that does most of the work for us.  It pulls data from our bank accounts and it learns how to categorize your specific spending habits and all you have to do is check it to make sure it’s categorized everything correctly. 

Now budgeting doesn’t have to really include any technology except a pencil and pad of paper.  But whatever you use, use something to help you budget so that you decrease your spending so that you can ditch debt so that you can build financial margin.

Devote More to Savings
So you’re ditching debt by decreasing spending, but don’t forget to devote more to savings.  First you need to build an emergency fund.  Start by aiming for a $1000 emergency fund.  That will get you through two big emergencies.  That way when the water surge hits after the hurricane, you’re not taken out.  I mentioned earlier that Sarah and I had an emergency fund that was going to buffer our financial emergency.  While the financial hit didn’t feel good, it would have felt even worse had we not had the emergency fund. 

In an ideal world, you’d build that emergency fund to be six months of expenses.  That would give you six months to find a new job if you got laid off.  Wouldn’t that be great to have six months of cash to cover the loss of a job?  It’s a long-term goal, but one worth aiming for.

The general rule of thumb for devoting more to savings is to live on 70-80% of what you make and put at least 10% in savings.  So now we’ve come back to living simply.  Live on less than you make.  To do that you have to decrease your spending by budgeting and ditch debt.  Then you’ll be able to devote more to savings.

Sarah and I have also begun to think even more long-term.  How will we pay for Micah’s education?  We’ve begun a college savings plan.  We put $25/month toward it right now.  It’s not a lot, but it’s better than nothing.  I think one of the big temptations is to think that because you can’t save a lot or put a lot away, that you shouldn’t save at all.  Well, that’s a false assumption.  Save as much as you can.  And when you can save more at a later time, then save more.

Discipline your Desires
So we’ve looked at ditching debt by decreasing your spending, so that you can also devote more to savings.  All this is in order to build financial margin in your life. But let me share a secret with you: money has a spiritual dimension to it.  Money holds a kind of power over your heart.  It’s hard to do any of this when money finds a root in your heart.  The best and most effective way to break the power of money in your life and to break the hold it has over you is to give it away.  Money was not made to be given away.  When you give it away, you break down its power.  Money is like manure, spread it around and it can do a lot of good, but pile it up in one place and it stinks to high heaven.  Live simply and give generously.  It’s the motto for those who want to have financial margin in their lives.

I recently came across the amazing story of Howard Cooper.  Howard recently retired from his auto store, Howard Cooper Imports inAnn Arbor.  Howard had a surprise for his employees when he retired.  He gave all of them $1000 for every year they had worked for him!  Some people had worked twenty or thirty years!  Wow!  What generosity.  What kind of person gives away so much of their hard-earned savings when they retire?  I had to find out so I called up Howard and talked to him.  He told me he got the idea from a friend who had a concrete business.  This friend of his has not paid his employees as well as he would have liked because he was always bidding low so that he would get the bids.  When he retired, he sold the business and made a huge amount of money.  So to make up for his poor pay rates, he did the same thing: gave his employees big “retirement bonuses.”  Howard had treated his employees well, but felt that gesture still had merit.  As we talked he told me about his mother who was a very devout Methodist.  His mother was very generous with her money.  One time she had heard that someone had won $1,000,000.  She commented to Howard, “Think how much good that person could do by giving that money away.”  Howard’s mom’s attitude toward money rubbed off on him, and when he had the opportunity he decided to give generously to his employees.  When I grow up and have lots of money, I want to be like Howard Cooper!

I love what Howard did because it’s being generous with the people who are around him day in and day out.  I hope whenever I talk about giving money away, you don’t immediately think I’m talking about giving it to the church.  I do want you to give to the church because I think that’s part of disciplining your desires, but being generous is much bigger than that. 

But when it comes to giving to the church, the best way to do it is to automate it.  We automate everything these days.   In fact, I barely ever write a check.  I’ve created most of my financial life to take place automatically whether I’m even paying attention or not.  My pay check is automatically deposited to my bank account.  All of my regular bills are automatically taken out of my checking account.  And I’ve done the same thing with my tithing to the church.  Tithing means 10%.  It’s the basic standard of giving in the Bible.  Sarah and I do it through EFT, electronic fund transfer, but you could also do it through your online bank bill pay.

Some people point out to me how they like to put something in the offering bag and that feels like an act of worship.  That is probably true for many people.  When it comes to worship, we like the physical act of doing something.  But if you automate your giving, that doesn’t mean you can’t still do something.  When the offering bag comes around every week, consider simply touching it and saying a prayer of thanks.  That moment can be a moment of thanks for everyone whether you put something in it or not.  Touch the bag and be thankful.  Or if you want to put something in the bag, simply put an empty giving envelope in the bag.  Let that be a symbol for you that you gave in some automated way.

There are three different groups of people here today.  Those of you who have yet to give something to the church.  I want to encourage you to give something, anything, regularly.  Even if it’s just $5.  Then there are some of you who give regularly but don’t tithe.  Consider tithing today.  Then there are those of you who already tithe.  Consider taking the next step to radical generosity.  Give above and beyond 10%.

One last comment about disciplining your desires by giving generously.  Anyone start thinking about Christmas yet?  It’s just around the corner.  What’s your financial game plan for Christmas gifts?  Sit down and write it up.  And make sure you include giving generously.  We want to encourage you to remember that Christmas is not your birthday.  It’s Jesus’ birthday.  So give away as much as you spend on gifts.  Or cut what you spend in half and give the other half away.  Our Christmas Eve offering will be entirely focused on missions and meeting the needs of those in our community and world.  So begin making plans for Christmas generosity right now.

Financial Margin
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, liked to say that financial margin was about making all you can (in honest ways), saving all you can (living simply), and giving all you can (give the rest away).  I heard him paraphrased lately this way: “Keep our needs low, our generosity high, and our expectations heavenward.”  What if we all had that kind of financial margin?  Imagine the joy of having your basics covered and not living pay check to pay check.  Imagine the joy of having an emergency and having money to cover an emergency.  Imagine the joy of giving lots of money away.  Imagine a whole community of 150 people doing that.  That’s whatSycamoreCreekChurchwould look like if we all had financial margin. 

You know what?  I already see it here at SCC.  I see people doing it in amazing ways.  There are people here at SCC who live way below their means.  They live very simply.  And that frees them up to do some amazing things with their money to help others find that financial margin too.  It warms my heart.  But perhaps the most heart-warming example is a teenager I found out about who tithes toSycamoreCreekChurch.  That’s someone who we’re already teaching how to discipline their desires.  I cried when I heard that story.  Thank you, God, for letting me be part of a community like that.

Prayer
God, help us be a community that helps rebuild the financial margin in people’s lives.  Help us be a community where people are ditching debt, decreasing their spending, devoting more to savings, and disciplining their desires.  Help us be so much that kind of a community that it rubs off on our children and teenagers.  May it be so in the name of your son Jesus Christ and the power of your Holy Spirit.  Amen.