Trying to follow

I don’t usually use my site as support raising (though I might do it more then most, who knows), but today I wanted to make a special request.

My good friends, Beth and Curt, are doing some awesome work in Haiti helping raise support to build wells for clean drinking water. It’s great stuff.

And today, in the next five hours, they are trying to get as many individual donors as they can through the Facebook Causes and thus win an extra $1000 for their cause.

So, be a pal and go to the Haiti Water Project and donate $10.

(That word starts to look funny when you write it a lot)

As you know, from some previous posts, and my lack of updates, we’ve been in the midst of some major life changes. First, the baby, which has been a joy through and through. And now, a house. I’ve written about the decision to buy a house before and as you can see, we’ve come to the conclusion that it wise an appropriate decision. I’ve also said before that I’m willing to be open to the fact that I might decide later that it was a mistake, but right now I’m pretty sure it was a wise decision. The market is definitely in our favor, we paid about half of what the houses market value is, it’s a duplex which will allow for residual income/future community/expanding family and more. I’m very excited about the decision and the move, except for one thing: DEBT.

I think debt is a bad idea. People argue there is good debt: houses and education, but I’d disagree. I think we could consider those ‘inevitable’ debt in our society, because our current system and way of accumulating things makes them nearly impossible to avoid, but I don’t think that makes those debts good. Many people, including myself, couldn’t figure out an alternative to taking out loans to go to school. I’m glad with the decision I made, but that doesn’t mean it was ‘good’ to go into debt. The same is true for the house. The ability to take out a loan and take on some debt has opened up the possibility for a lot of things we couldn’t have done had we waited until we could pay cash for a house. Yet, I’m not going to consider it a good thing that I owe a bank a large amount of money.

I think I should also mention Kiva here. I’ve raved about Kiva before, it’s a great organization that gives the ability to take out a loan to build and improve your business to millions of people in the developing world. Basic banking resources such as savings accounts and loans are things that have been unavailable to 90% of the world and have been a pillar to economic growth and mobility in a capitalist world. So, I support an organization that gives loans to people, gives them the opportunity to go into debt, but I still don’t think debt is a good thing.

I think if we were more creative and more communal with our money we could avoid debt all together, but for the time being it doesn’t seem to be an option. Mindy and I plan on being completely debt-free in ten years or less. We are committed to it and serious about it, because the opportunity to be free of any debt will allow us to serve others in a capacity far greater then what we’ve previously been able to. Debt is not a good thing, I’ll never agree that it is. In a society as engrossed with debt as ours, it’s important we all take a strong stand against it.

Last week we talked about discerning between ‘Needs’ & ‘Wants’ and then we discussed practically what constituted a ‘Need’. Today, I want to discuss how do we handle ‘Wants.’

Financial Lesson #2: What to do with Wants

I hear the term ‘blessed’ thrown around a lot amongst Christians and in Churches as it relates to financial well-being. I believe that is extremely unbiblical, and it gives us a false notion of how to handle our Wants. The fact that someone has a lot of money (say a brain surgeon) often has more to do with were they were born then any sort of ‘blessing.’ If anything, I believe God might be trying to use them to channel resources to those in need that he desperately cares about. Yet, instead we get to throw around this idea that God has ‘blessed’ us with good jobs and financial stability, thus shown by our big houses, fancy cars and expensive hobbies. That is not what I see modeled in the life of Jesus and the early church.

To clarify, a ‘want’ is something that is not necessary for you to live a productive and health life. They are things we can certainly go without, but have believed the lies of our culture (and commercials) and feel that we need. What we need to do is get honest with ourselves and make the distinction first of all. Then we can begin to discern an appropriate way to handle our wants as part of a global society.

“There is enough in the world for everyone’s need; there is not enough for everyone’s greed.” -Gandhi

Everyone has maxims and values that guide their lives to one degree or another. Yours might be ‘He who dies with the most toys, still dies.’ or maybe it’s ‘He who dies with the most toys wins.’ Whatever the case, I think making the distinction and then categorizing accordingly is an important step. This is where our budget differs from others.

Some people have budgets that commonly have categories such as: entertainment,  recreation, travel, eating out, and others. I’m okay with making distinctions between these things, but they should fit into a bigger category of Wants. For our budget, we lump all of these into something called ‘fun money.’ Fun money is not extra in addition to all your other ‘wants’ it is the category from which you fulfill your wants. In some ways it’s a lot of fun because it’s like having a weekly allowance, but unlike when you were a kid, you get to choose how big it is. There is a lot of wonderful lessons that can come from a clear understanding of ‘wants’ and ‘needs.’

When you divide wants and needs and clearly articulate what things are simply ‘wants’ you start to have a great appreciation for those things. You also learn to make choices. Once you choose your alloted fun money, you start having to choose between dinner out, a couple lattes, or saving for that camping trip. Which ever one you choose you recognize that it is not a given and that there is a trade off in fulfilling that want. I might share some stories related to this later in the week, but I’ll leave you with this today.

The ability to fulfill your desire for things you ‘want’ is a luxury of a privileged few in this world; make no mistake, you are participating in something others only dream of. 

Tomorrow: I could have saved one more…

(bonus points to whoever can tell me what movie quote the title is a rip-off from)

If you were tuned in yesterday, you learned that there is a big difference between NEEDS and WANTS.  I even gave a couple examples yesterday, but I’ll be giving a lot more today. I think it’s extremely important to discuss needs and wants, and to be honest about the difference. Far too often, I hear people use the phrase: “I really needed that…” or “You need to…” And usually they are referring to something that is most certainly not a need.  There are somethings that fall into a difficult to define category between needs and wants and those must be individually discerned, for the most part though, I think we can reach a general consensus about things that are needs, and things that are wants.

I would like for this to be a discussion, feel free to disagree with me, or add to these lists. I’ll make a brief list of things I think are Needs and then a list of things that are Wants, as well as brief explanations for each. These are not exhaustive lists.

(As I was writing this NEEDS list, I felt it need to be clarified what the end goal these ‘Needs’ are for is. I am not merely talking about the basics we need to stay physically alive, I’m trying to focus on what it would take to be a healthy functioning member of society)

NEEDS

• Shelter- Some form of ‘home,’ though in some places, cultures, and climates a simple tent would suffice, I think it’s fair to expect to live in a four walled structure of some kind in this country.
• Clothing- The amount is debatable, but one should expect to have proper clothing for their society and climate.
• Food- You need food to survive, not gourmet, but healthy proper sustenance.
• Utilities- I think it’s appropriate to have running water and electricity. How much electricity and water is debatable.
• Transportation- Depending on your job/station in life one might ‘need’ a car, others might only need a bike, others simply public transit, but I do think some form of transportation is important.
• Communication- Maybe a cellphone, land line, or internet access, but some form of communication with the rest of the world is acceptable.
• Personal Hygiene- toothpaste, shampoo, etc.
• Health Care- Medicine, doctor’s visits, etc.
• Appropriate attire for your profession- For some it’s suits, others a uniform, others just t-shirt and jeans.
• Child Care items- diapers, bottles, diaper cream, bed, etc.

My Needs categories don’t go much beyond that.  Anything you think needs to be added? Also, within these categories, I’m not saying you need to buy new items, nor are you free to buy the most expensive and fancy of anything that falls in these categories.

WANTS are things we don’t need to survive or function in society. This list could be miles long, but I’ll hit on ones that have come up in our budget choices or conversation with others.

WANTS

•  Fast Food, Junk Food, Eating Out
• Cell Phone plans with lot’s of bonus features
• Brand name clothes and new outfits
• Brand new vehicles or houses
• Technology Gadgets (mp3 players, laptop, DVDs, video games, car adapters, computer mouse, stereo, etc)
• Books (you could use your library card), movies, entertainment, magazines, etc.

Anything else we should add to the list? Or, do you disagree with some of my category choices? I believe these are things we can discuss and probably come to a reasonable consensus, though on some we might not be able to figure out.

In light of the interest in my previous post about budgets, I figured it would be good to resurrect a serious I started a while back on financial lessons. These aren’t complex or fool proof, but they are some steps on how I think about money. I think these will be my Wednesday posts for a while.Financial Lesson #1: Discerning your Needs and Wants

You must sit down (and if you are married, you both need to sit down) and draw up a list of your basic NEEDS (That you spend money on). To make this easy, do not start with what you see in and around your house, start with what you will be purchasing from this point forward. As an example person myself, here is an example.

Jack and Jill sit down and start their list of NEEDS. Immediately the basics come to mind: Food and Shelter. They break shelter down into clothes and rent (including heat, electricity etc). Now to get the money to purchase food they would need an income, thus their jobs. And to keep their job they each need transportation to work and occasionally work appropriate clothing. Jill thought back to here psychology days and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and suggested they did have some ‘emotional’ needs that might be hard to countify. In the end they came up with these needs: FOOD, SHELTER, TRANSPORTATION, MISC (Clothing, soap, etc) and EMOTIONAL.

But, that’s not the end of the lesson. Things get a little more complicated at this point. Does “Food” mean eating out three times a week and coffee at Bongo Java every morning? Are those NEEDS? You must discern on your own what part of your “food” is meeting your basic needs and what part is fulfilling your WANTS. The same goes for clothing. You might NEED button down shirts and dressy shoes for on the job, but you don’t NEED name brand clothing to wear out on the town. Getting to work is a Transportation NEED, driving across town to the outlet mall is not. Does that make some sense?

As you think through your needs, be sure to write down the things you’ve discerned are WANTS in another column (eating out, coffee, shopping trips, new sweaters).

Your Assignment for this week: Spend money as you normally have in the past, but be very concious of how much you are spending on Needs and how much on WANTS. Keep track of actual purchases if you’d like. And see if thinking through these lists actually changes what you spend money on through out the week.