Towards the beginning of the class we asked participants to anonymously report their debt and household income, we received 27 household cards.
Of the 24 households that had non-mortgage debt – the class had a total of $1.1 million in non-mortgage debt.
Which come out to an average of about $40,000 per household.

Of the families that reported a household income, we had an average yearly household income of $80,000.

At the end of this FPU class, we had 12 households report their numbers.

Of the families that reported a household income, we had an average yearly household income of $91,600 – almost a 15% increase from the number reported 13 weeks prior.

As a whole a total of $88,500 of debt was eliminated and $32,770 was saved. The average family eliminated $8,850 in debt while saving $2,980.

That means that in 13 weeks, an investment of $99 (the cost of the FPU membership) had a total financial return of $11,830 per household.
Further more, if you narrowed your focus to the top 5 households, they had an average change in position of just over $17,000 – in only 13 weeks!
If you could sustain that for an entire year (Live like no one else!) you would have a $68,000 change in position!
For an investment of only $99! Who wouldn’t want in on that!?

Both churches are planning to start up some FPU life groups this fall. A large class is being planned for January 2011.

Can you imagine, being a landlord at the age of 18?
She is now saving the rent money so when she gets married next year her and her fiance can put a down payment on a house of their own.
Glad to see that she hopefully won’t end up making some of the stupid tax decisions that so many of us have. Kudos to her parents!

Is this a LIFE? Our dreams are of…what? A Bigger House? Nicer Cars? A more stressful job?

You have to go to work. You have to get that paycheck on Friday because Saturday morning everyone wants their money. Mortgage. Car Payments. Credit Card Bills. Insurance. Equity Line. Not to mention the neighbors just got that new mower and their lawn is perfect. Your brother got the latest gadget that everyone else got last week.

Is this what are lives are suppose to be about!?

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

What if we actually lived what the Bible teaches? How would that change us? How could that change our culture?

What if we started with just a few simple ideas
1. Work when you are at work.
2. Don’t be normal (which is broke) – Get out of debt.
3. Give. Stuff, time and especially money (if you can’t make it with 90% that extra 10% won’t matter)
4. Rest. Seriously, slow down and just BE from time to time.

Just a thought. Got one? Please share.

If you drive a car, car; I’ll tax the street;
If you try to sit, sit; I’ll tax your seat;
If you get too cold, cold; I’ll tax the heat;
If you take a walk, walk; I’ll tax your feet.
Taxman – The Beatles

Today is the last day to file your Federal Tax return for 2009. You have about 5 hours to go if you are in the Eastern Time Zone. I have never understood last minute filers, well at least since the year that I filed at the post office at 8pm, but it was my first year for filing taxes and it sucked. Nothing welcomes you into adulthood like having to give the money you worked for to someone else against your will.

There have been some eye opening numbers that have been flying about the internet the past few days.
Top 10 Percent of Income Earners Paid 71 Percent of Federal Income Tax.
47 percent of U.S. households will pay no federal income tax in 2009.
45% of Americans say that the amount of Federal Income Tax they pay is just right. (Probably because none of them are paying any!?)

In the Gospels Jesus was asked about paying taxes to the oppressive Roman government. The question was a trick to try and trap Jesus based on His answer, but He answered, “Render unto Caesar the things which be Caesar’s, and unto God the things which be God’s.”
As I was thinking about this today, since it is the last day to Render unto Caesar Government. What does the second half of Jesus’ answer mean, “unto God the things which be God’s”?
The easy answer is to point to Malachi 3 and say that we must pay our tax to government and our tithe to God. But really it is so much more than that. The question that Jesus asked his questioners was whose image or mark was upon the coin that was the currency of the day. The answer then being Caesar. One must then also ask what holds the image or mark of God? The answer there can be found even earlier in The Bible.

So God created man in His own image,
in the image and likeness of God He created him;
male and female He created them.
Genesis 1:27

The truth is that we are to give our lives to God, not just our money or time or possessions. God owns it all and created it for our benefit and pleasure. It is our responsibility to steward what we have been given and not just our income but our family and the rest of His creation.

In total we had 27 cards turned in. Of those 3 households had 0 non-mortgage debt (no baby step 2!). Of the remaining 24 households, us included, we have a total non-mortgage debt amount of 1.1 Million Dollars. Spreading that across all 27 households that gives an average of almost $41,000 of non-mortgage debt.

The average household income across those 27 families based on the people that reported a household income worked out to be just about $80K. This all came around to one of my soapbox points when someone in our small group, another fellow nerd, broke out his calculator. If you take your typical credit card interest rate of 18.9% multiplied against the average $41K in non-mortgage debt, you come just short of $8,000 which is 10% of the reported average household income of $80K or using an old Bible word – a tithe. (Numbers were rounded)

This is why our churches are not living up to our calling! We are too busy working for the man to launder money from one bank to another, just passing through our account in the blink of an eye. For what!? So we can drive our tithe to church every Sunday!

We are  told in the scriptures, “Do not test The Lord your God” or “Do not put God to the test” but there is one time in scripture where God TELLS us to TEST Him…

Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty,
“and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.
Malachi 3:10

The church needs to get its act together and start being the people we were called to be. To use “God’s and grandma’s” rules for handling money. To only buy what you can pay cash for. For far too long Christians in America have worshiped before the golden calf card and platinum card and just bought bought bought. Now we find ourselves crying out when people turn to the government to bail them out of their bad decisions and to help them out during hard times. That is what the church was CALLED TO DO! But we have forsaken the charge given in Romans 12 to not conform to our culture and we have chased after the Jones’ and “bought things we can’t afford to impress people we don’t even like.”

So I call to the church, COME OUT! – It is time to live worthy to our calling, it is time to LIVE BIG!

My wife took the kids to the in-store McDonald’s and got the kids each a $1 sandwich while I shopped for Easter basket contents and put the merchandise in the van. We then got our regular WalMart items and got some much needed clothes for my wife. After getting some outfits, you have to get shoes to go with them – or so I am told. It was in the budget BTW. But a few minutes after the girls were in the shoe section, my oldest found me looking over the DVD section and confessed, “Dad you know I don’t really like listening to Dave Ramsey’s radio show, but his FPU videos are pretty funny. And I just want you to know I got flip flops for $2.50 but [her younger sister] got $4 flip flops because they looked cuter.”

I let her pick out a DVD from the $4 section. I guess she is paying attention after all.

Let’s just put it out there: I wasn’t happy that the health care reform monstrosity passed.  I believe we need changes in the system, but I don’t think the bill that was passed was an improvement. I base that opinion on personal experience as someone who is neck deep in the health care system (as a patient and a parent of a patient) and also as someone who works daily within the public health system as a practitioner on behalf of patients.  I had no expectations of perfection with the bill, but I was hoping for improvement and try as I have… I can’t see it.  There are too many exceptions and nuances that make it look like positive change but upon closer look, it really isn’t.

That said, I’ve wondered how we came to this place and the only real answer I’ve come up with is that it’s the church’s fault.

Did you see that coming?  I blame the church for not doing its job and getting this country to a place where the government has now essentially jumped into the private sector, which in my mind is never a good thing. So why do I blame the church?

Simply put (and I admit I’m no Biblical scholar)… the church has historically been charged with caring for the poor, the sick, the widows, and orphans. Obviously, that hasn’t happened if providing for the needs of the poor has fallen on to a nation’s government. Why aren’t churches doing this?  I don’t think it’s entirely a lack of concern. No, I think the problem is one of divided hearts.

The church needs money to help the poor, whether it’s meals, a clothing closet, utility/rent assistance…. that list is endless. But you can’t do these things without money. And you don’t have that money if people don’t tithe.  Yes, I believe the health care debate is centered on tithing… or rather, the lack of it.  Jesus preached more on money than any other issue and that is because he knew it was the one real competition with God for the heart of man.  Like it or not, our security is generally found in our wallets rather than on God. Shame on us.  And look around – where is most of the church’s money going?  To credit cards, or car loans, or mortgage payments, or worse… just useless stuff.

You cannot serve God and money and a quick look at your checkbook will tell you where your heart is. And if the church isn’t financially healthy, Heaven help us all.

Tithing is important because it provides the means to serve on an impactful level.  So if the church isn’t in financial shape to help the community it serves — what’s left? The government is the only other institution large enough to do so. If you believe in true freedom — spiritual freedom in Christ– then you must also be financially free so there’s no division of the heart. And unless both of those are in order, then we have no real hope of political freedom.

If you don’t like what’s going on in the political landscape, then pray for a revival within the church to be set free from divided loyalties so it can rise up and do the work it’s called to do.

And that, friends, will be the end of state health care by the simple rule of supply and demand.

You see I love to engage in discussion and conversation about topics that I am passionate about, but I find the rather uncomfortable position of being most passionate about subjects that you just don’t talk about. Specifically, religion (or more accurately faith in Jesus Christ and relationship with Him) and personal finance are the two topics that I can just talk your face off about. Really I am also pretty passionate about politics as well but will limit that for the most part, unless it has something to do primarily with the other two.

I have dabbled in the blogging world on and off for a number of years, but this attempt is more focused and has been stewing on my mind for quite some time. So rather than continuing to think about it I am making the active choice to DO something about it. So I invite you to be a part of the conversation. This site will change over the next few days as I get things setup and I hope you find something of value here.