Financial Stewardship

As I had talked about upon beginning this blog, one of the biggest things I wanted to change about myself was my financial stewardship.  Well, I'm happy to report that I just got my credit card bills for this past month, and we have spent less than we have in at least 5 years!  Not only that, but we were able to live within our means even though my husband missed a couple of days of work (unpaid) due to sickness that had recently run through our house and without the extra we would not have made it to budget (as his pay was significantly less than budgeted this month).  The Lord blessed us with some unexpected extra income (my husband does wedding videography sporadically and was able to book a job this month).  Yet another testimony of God's faithfulness!  If we are faithful - He is!  God has never failed to provide for our needs.

I remember very clearly a few months after Luke and I got married we were extremely poor and didn't know how we would make ends meet.  I worked part time for Lifetouch for $8 per hour and Luke was unemployed.  We had rent to pay and my paycheck, in its entirety was just enough to cover it.  So, we were forced to make the decision - should we pay rent, or should we tithe and trust God for the remainder?  We ended up tithing, and God came through in a very unexpected way.  We got a letter with a check a few days later from the government, saying we had made an error on our taxes and they owed us money.  That's right, the government said they owed us money!  You know it's God when that happens!  The amount they gave us was in excess of the shortfall to pay rent, so we even had enough left over for other things like food that was also needed.

One last comment is on an article I came across today: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03/24/thousands-christians-displaced-ethiopia-muslim-extremists-torch-churches-homes-2057387870/  Please pray for those who are suffering for their faith!  I can only imagine how hard it would be to lose both your house and your church while fleeing for your lives!  Pray also for the Muslim extremists who are blinded by their faith and are committing such atrocities.  If you feel lead, you can donate to: http://www.persecution.org/ethiopiacrisis/2011/03/22/one-thousand-given-food-for-a-week-so-far/ as just $5 will feed or clothe one of the displaced Christians.

Do You Have Affluenza?

My husband is also enrolled in school and came across an interesting documentary in one of his classes.  It's on so called "affluenza."  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E60sWCR4eLQ  Basically, it shows how we are so caught up in trying to keep up with the Jones' that we are actually less happy than we would be if we were just satisfied with what we did have.  It also says some pretty startling statistics such as we spend an entire year of our lives watching advertisements.  Now if that doesn't make you flip off the TV, I don't know what will!  I personally chose to go without a television upon the birth of my son, two years ago.  Upon that confession I am usually either looked at as though I am an alien from outerspace or am congratulated about how "good" that makes me.  The primary reason I originally decided not to have a television is that when I was younger, I have horrible memories of my daycare providers watching television all day long (typically soap operas) and forcing me to sit in front of a bowl of cereal I refused to eat until either I finished or she was done with her "soaps."  To this day I hate both soap operas and cereal!  The moral of the story for me was that I knew what a time waster television could be and did not want to fall into a rut of neglecting my children while at home with them because I was glued to the television.  As a result, I have a two year old who LOVES to read and is extremely smart and has a great imagination.  If he is over at a friends house (or grandma's) and the TV is on, he has about a five minute attention span before he's off looking for books or toys.  If nothing else speaks volumes, I think that does.  I highly recommend of economically disposing of your biggest time waster!  Not to mention there literally is almost NOTHING good on anymore.  TV shows used to have morals, now they portray adulterous relationships and broken families.  We laugh at them because we can relate...which makes me wonder if we relate because of how much influence these little machines have in our lives!  Also, to answer the question that I get the most - am I completely out of touch with the world without a TV?  Absolutely not!  I still have access to the internet, and although it is also a time waster, I have much more control of what I view and when I view it.  Plus, people are always talking...if something important happens (say a tsunami or even something way less dramatic like a large upcoming snowfall) people talk about it.  It takes two minutes to click on foxnews.com or other news source to get up to date.  I do not miss the television, and it's one thing I think if you break the addiction to you will be unlikely to ever go back.  I feel I don't have time right now to begin with, how much less would I have if I had "a show" that I was fixed on watching every night?

The Lost Art of Sharing

Spring is finally starting to manifest itself here in the Midwest as well as the snow melts away in the 40 degree weather and rain has been coming down washing a lot of the salt off the roads.  I absolutely love spring as there is a general feeling of renewing everywhere.  One of the things I have been thinking a lot about is the lost art of sharing.  As children are growing up, we encourage them to "share their toys" as it's the nice/right thing to do.  If little Jimmy hogs a toy (even his own) when a friend wants to use it, they are discouraged from their poor behavior and often an adult will step in to facilitate the sharing.  The irony for me is that adults rarely share!  We have lost a lot due to the fact that we have become an individualistic and selfish nation.  Once upon a time, an entire community would come together to build each other up.  They would hold a "barn raising" where everyone would bring their own tools and sacrifice their own labor, often for days at a time, to help a neighbor out (building things such as barns, houses, etc).  In turn, often the favor was reciprocated.  I was primarily raised in an apartment and held this fantasy of community and sharing in house dwelling.  When we finally did buy our own house I was shocked to find that people were so cold and closed to outsiders.  I held a "housewarming" party to try and meet my neighbors, so I could be actively involved in my community and only ONE person showed up!  Now I realize there may still be communities like I referenced above, but I think they are fading fast. If your lawn mower broke down, how likely would you be to petition a neighbor to borrow theirs?  Perhaps chipping in for gas and maintenance, and possibly even taking turns doing each others lawns?  Instead, people just take a trip to Sears or other store and buy a new one.  Similarly, every winter I see those that are out breaking their backs shoveling snow by hand where there are one or two freshly snowplowed driveways only steps away.  Now it is one thing to simply talk about things such as this and a completely other thing to DO something about it.  So, I decided that I would go through things that I owned and never used (such as muffin pans, tablecloths, etc) and posted a general "free" ad on my facebook wall.  I figured not only would I be decluttering my house, but there may be friends that were in need of the very items I was seeking to dispose of.  Low and behold, ALL of the items I listed people snatched up!  The awesome part of this is that often this lends to a snowballing effect - sort of a "pay-it-forward."  When those friends go through their closets to declutter, they will possibly think of doing something similar.  Plus, when I give these items away, it forces me to get together with people I may not have seen in awhile and helps keep communication between friends open and alive.  In the same way I think we need to be more open about asking for things when needed.  Pride is often what keeps us from doing this...when it is more of a blessing to give than to receive!  Often the other person is more than happy to share what is theirs, and are unaware of your need because you don't ask.  A great case in point is that I was able to borrow an infant attachment to my double stroller from a good friend that no longer needed hers.  This was a great blessing to me, as a new one would have cost $40.  The key is that the more we share, the less we buy - which saves us money, time (you have to work to make money!), and the environment is less impacted as less products will need to be produced to fulfill the needs of the community.

Also, a quick update: We did get the slow flow shower head I had previously mentioned installed this weekend.  It was actually this model: http://www.waterpikecoflow.com/VBE-453/ it came equipped with the option for navy showers, which I was quite impressed with!  It basically had a button to push that would lower the flow to conserve water while lathering.  Although I didn't use this feature, I liked that you could hardly tell it was slower flowing than the previous model.  The only downfall is it was somewhat cheaply made and after just four showers in our household, it was already in need of re tightening as it was leaking and spraying everywhere!  I suppose if I were to buy it myself (as this was a gift) I'd definitely recommend getting a model that was better built, as you tend to get what you pay for.  =)

Responsible Parenting, Part 2

Something really caught my attention today in the April 2011 edition of Parents magazine.  A reader had written for advice and here was the dialog:


Q: Last week my son came home from school with bulging pockets.  I made him give the items back and apologize.  But yesterday I received a not that said he had stolen again and lied about it.  Is this a phase? deltachild

A: Our son tried this too, and I'm betting that it will pass soon.  Make sure that you and the teacher are on the same page.  both of you should watch his pockets and remind him that, if he comes home with stuff that isn't his again, he'll lose a privilege of be put in a time-out.  Mom2NinoandAlly

Really?!?  I realize we are in an age where spanking is taboo and viewed by many as child abuse, but if "proper discipline" would equate stealing to a time-out I think we have fallen beyond lax in our parenting standards.  I believe the punishment should fit the crime, and in the REAL WORLD stealing would get jail time.  Just because they don't punish children on the same scale as adults, that doesn't mean we shouldn't be driving home the idea that this is a serious offense.  Personally, if this were my child I would have a serious talk with him, then I would subject him to community service.  40 hours of working with the underprivileged, at a food shelf, etc. will show him a couple of things.  If he is "acting out" to get attention, volunteering with him would give him the attention he needs, but in a proper and healthy setting.  If he is stealing because he is envious and coveting his neighbors belongings, than spending time with people that have considerably less than he does should knock that out of him as well.  Plus, in the real world criminals are given community service for this very reason.  If the child was older I would also have him watch a documentary on prison, and make a point that he does NOT want to go there.  That stealing is wrong in every way - morally, Biblically, and socially.  It scares me to think that a popular mainstream magazine such as Parents would be doling out such harmful advice!  I will be writing them a letter on this one!

Responsible Parenting, Part 1

"Train a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old he will not turn away from it."  Proverbs 22:6

I have been thinking a lot today about what it means to be a responsible parent.  Training our children to be responsible adults that love God is probably the greatest responsibility most people will ever have.  I have two small children and I can definitely see how they are like sponges and imitate even the smallest habits.  I was washing my face when I noticed my son reaching out to the faucet to turn on the water.  I said "no touch!" as I did not want him to waste water, and he proceeded to dip his little hand in the "discard" water and then patted his face.  What I had initially perceived as the desire to waste water just because he wanted to play, was actually his attempts to imitate me.  Every day I can see that he is trying to figure out the world - the difference of right from wrong, how things work, what pleases or annoys people, and he surprises me daily!  One thing I have been challenged on in the past month or so is my son's fascination with light - turning light switches on and off continuously.  I told him (as I always do) that it wastes energy and that in broad daylight we shouldn't need to turn on any lights.  This morning he had his Twilight Turtle (a battery operated turtle that shines stars on the ceiling) that he was playing with, experimenting with the light.  I decided to just observe his play, and was fascinated by how he went about experimenting.  First, he brought it into the bathroom and turned on the light and then he noticed that he couldn't see the light in a fully lit room.  He then tried to figure out a way to see the stars in the room, and discovered that if he pulled out a drawer and tucked it inside, he could see the light from the darkness of the drawer.  After a few minutes I walked over and told him to shut it off and gave him some crayons to play with.  Later in the evening that same day, my son noticed that the hall light had been left on and he shut it off saying "turn light off."  My point for mentioning this is that sometimes we get overzealous in our efforts to conserve energy and we inhibit growth and learning in our children.  It is okay to allow them to experiment and explore, as long as they are ultimately learning that it's important to try and conserve our resources.

Eat Your Veggies!

I asked my professor for some suggestions on improving my lifestyle and he suggested I take the following quiz: http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/calculators/  I recommend taking the extra few minutes to do the "detailed" answers rather than the quick version.  Once I took the test, I was surprised to see that it would take 3.9 planets to sustain my lifestyle.  Here I thought I was not making much of an impact, being a stay at home mom (not driving many places), recycling, trying to live responsibly...  The thing that surprised me the most was that eating meat and animal products really increases your global footprint.  I have thought a lot about switching to a more vegetarian diet for health reasons, but it has been hard convincing my husband who LOVES his meat.  He grew up on a farm raising hogs, and I know that his father looked down upon vegetarians so that has rubbed off.  Apparently it's manly to love meat and lots of it!  I am going to attempt to talk to my better half and see if he'd be willing to switch to a diet with less meat products.  Moral of the story is eat more veggies and less meat!

A New Idea

I had an idea that I think is worth looking at!  As our water is so precious and limited, why don't we use seawater in our toilets?  We do not drink the water, there is no reason to have as good of quality water getting flushed with our waste as the water we drink.  Sea water is obviously more in abundance as well, so we wouldn't be wasting something that is limited as a resource.  I googled this idea and see the Chinese have already implemented such a system: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009summerdavos/2009-09/10/content_8675129.htm  Apparently it cut down 1/3 of their total water consumption as well as saved the city money.  Although this may not be realistic to try and implement in the inner United States, those on the East and West coast should not have a problem putting this into action!  I think this idea is worth petitioning your local congressman about!

H20 Conservation

As my husband stated this morning, he often feels blessed to shower/bathe in water that is cleaner than most people in the world have to drink. We take the clean fresh water for granted and often times are wasteful of this precious resource. Today I was challenged to look at ways we could cut out our water consumption. The first thing I looked at was bathing.

I researched and found out some interesting facts. According to the U.S. Dept of the Interior (http://ga2.er.usgs.gov/edu/sq3action.cfm), a typical bath is 50 gallons of water, and a typical shower is 2.5 gallons per minute. If you switch to a low flow shower head a shower would consume 1.5 gallons per minute. Therefore, a bath would equal 33 minutes in the shower (20 minutes with a standard shower head). For most people, the low flow shower is a lot better. Low flow shower heads only cost around $10-15 per year, and save you an average of $50 per year (plus on a typical every-other-day 20 minute shower you would save 3,560 gallons of water!) This was quite convicting as my sister-in-law gave us a low flow shower head for Christmas and it's still sitting in the box in our closet. First on the agenda is to have my hubby install that tonight!

Secondly, have you ever heard of a Navy shower? This is the extreme in water conservation! Basically you run the water for a few seconds to get wet, shut off the water while you lather up, then turn the water back on to rinse off (typically only a few minutes). I can't even begin to think of the calculations on savings for that sort of shower, but it would be immense! The only practical way I think you could do this would be to install or have a shower knob with temperature and pressure controls separate. That way you wouldn't need to "test the water" each and every time you turned it on, and it would also minimize burns. These run around $110, an example of one would be Delta's T17478-H2O model, that also features a slow flow shower head and is labeled a WaterSense product by the EPA.

Finally, there is no need to shower every day. I once read a story of a 95 year old man with jet black hair, the "secret" to his lack of grey hair lay in the fact that apparently he only bathed once every 5 years! I personally think that is gross, but there is something to be said for allowing our natural oils to remain for a time (it is also easier to style your hair the day after a shower). I think a shower every other day is enough to keep you clean and healthy!

I was going to post more on ways to save water, but think I'll save that for another day! =)

CSAs

Today I researched CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture).  One of my friends had recently signed up for the first time and was raving about how it was a great alternative to getting fresh veggies if you do not have a green thumb.  That definitely sounded like me as the only thing I've ever successfully grown is tomatoes and green beans.  So, I researched on http://www.localharvest.org/csa/ to figure out if a CSA would be right for me. Living in the Twin Cities I have access to many different CSAs so dug through about twenty websites.  Some were strictly vegetables, some had fruits, some sold meat (grain fed cows, chickens, turkeys, and even lamb) and one had desserts and breads.  The price for a typical share of a CSA was about $40 per week (about $500 total for 12 weeks) and included a grocery bag full of food.  You could also purchase half a share, and those were about $25 per week (about $300 total).  There was a great variety and most were organic farms.  Some even allowed you to work on the farm in exchange for the weeks food.  Although I thought CSAs were a fabulous idea, I decided to pass.  The reason being is that you are not able to pick what you get (there is a huge variety), and although it would be nice to try some new things that we may not know we like, I did not want to waste food if we did not like it.  Instead I think I'm going to try and commit to going to the farmers market at least biweekly in the spring/summer/fall months to buy fruits and vegetables from these same farmers.  If my family continues to expand (we currently are a family of four), I may look at a CSA in the future as there is typically less waste in larger families.

A follow up on my facebook adventures, I've logged in considerably less time as I don't feel pressured to "buy, buy, buy" anymore!  It's quite liberating!  However, every time I've logged in I see some shops posting to my wall.  I had so many that apparently some were hidden from view yesterday...so the temptation continues, but it's less strong than before and I've continued to hide and unlike those that pop up.

Overall, I've found greater freedom just by day two - more time with my family, more time in the Bible, less time on facebook, and more financial freedom as well.  It's a good day!

A New Beginning

Take a deep breath!  Life is about to get a whole lot different...  After deciding I truly wanted to make a change in my life, I realized I would need to start doing something more radical to change things.  First on the list involved Facebook.  I routinely checked facebook about 20 times per day, trying to see the latest deals as well as follow up on how my friends were doing.  Without realizing it, I was constantly bombarding myself with ads and "buy me" links.  First on the agenda today - hiding or "unliking" pages that encouraged my spending habits.  I unliked those pages I knew I had subscribed to simply to find deals on things to spend money.  I "hid" items that I truly liked (such as Oreo cookies), but that I no longer wanted solicitation from.  The irony is that I hid everything in view, backed out of it and when I went back in a few more popped up.  This just shows me once again how deeply entrenched I was.  Praise God that I feel I'm finally getting some breathing room!

Hello!

Hello!  My name is Jasmine and I'm a recovering shopaholic.  The sad thing is that most people do not realize that shopping is not only an addiction, but a harmful one.  The first realization came after our tax refund this year. Prior to being a stay-at-home mom I worked at a local Credit Union as a loan officer.  I helped people not only obtain loans and set up accounts, but I worked hard to teach people how to make a budget and live within their means.  At that point, I did live within my means, but after getting laid off and having two children things changed.  I wanted to maintain that "American Dream" mentality, and though I knew some cuts were needed, I figured I was doing well by shopping savvy.  I was subscribed to twenty "money saving" blogs and "deal-of-the-day" sites that helped consumers find good quality products for cheap.  I was loving it, I was able to purchase a designer $100 diaper bag for just $30 new - which is cheaper than most bags at Babies R US!  I felt I was being responsible, but things were rapidly spiraling out of control.  What started off as a few deals, lead to a $1000 per month habit that was hard to break.  For the first time in my life I was charging up a credit card bill that I could not pay off each month.  I justified this by saying I would be getting a nice tax return (as we have two children, one meager income, and both go to school full time), and I'd just pay it off when the time came.  The time did come and we received almost $8,000!  However, we had just that much in credit card debt racked up and I realized that something needed to change.  I realized that I was not being a good steward of my family's finances and ultimately God's money.  At that point I rewrote our budget to make sure that we'd start living within our means.  However, old habits die hard and though I was able to realize the smallest credit card bill since our marriage almost ten years ago, I was still under constant temptation to spend money.  The final "breakthrough" came upon my second week in my Geography class at Regent University.  The professor had us watch multiple movies, among them the youtube video called "The Story of Stuff": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GorqroigqM this along with many other things I have been thinking about recently pushed me forward to change my life and start becoming a "sustainable" Christian.