Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Thursday, September 17th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife Dennis Rainey and I’m Bob Lepine. If you are experiencing conflict in marriage over money could it be that there is just a smidgen of selfishness in there somewhere? We’ll talk about that today.
Welcome to FamilyLife Today thanks for joining us. A number of years ago you were speaking at a large men’s event talking about how a dad needs to help navigate the way for his son through the adolescent years and you illustrated this by setting up animal traps on the platform, you remember this right?
Dennis: I had a bear trap that was actually set.
Bob: You blindfolded the son and you said walk across the platform without your dad and he started to walk…
Dennis: He was barefoot.
Bob: Right. …and you said stop and you put his dad in front and told him to put his hands on his dad’s shoulders and let him lead you so that you can keep out of the traps. Did you ever think about do something like that with a newly married couple? I mean it’s a real picture of what a lot of couples are facing today as they head off into marriage. There are traps out there for them and who is navigating the way for them through those traps?
Dennis: There are all kinds of traps. There are traps related to their in laws. Traps around the past, pornography, maybe sexual involvement before marriage but there is a big trap. I have to believe if it’s not a bear trap size it is close.
Bob: Yes.
Dennis: We have with us a guest on today’s program who’s going to help us navigate around the bear trap of finances. Howard Dayton joins us again on FamilyLife Today. Howard welcome back.
Howard: Thank you. It’s great to be with you.
Dennis: Howard and his wife have been married for 38 years and they have two children. We’ve already talked about the pride he has in his one grandchild.
(laughter)
Dennis: He is the co founder of Crown Financial Ministries. A number of our listeners have benefitted from this great ministry.
Bob: Yes.
Dennis: Let’s talk for a moment about the scene that Bob’s created here of helping a young couple who are starting out their marriage and they need someone to mentor and coach them around the pitfalls they are going to face around money. Where would you start with them?
Howard: It is a huge area of struggle and financial strife particularly in these days of economic crisis. There is more spousal abuse you name it because of the financial tension. I think the most important thing is to have a mentor and somebody who knows God’s way of handling money. They have been there and done that and have made their own mistakes in their marriage. I have a friend, George Fushay, who has mentored me for years and years. He and Marjean are a great couple and have just had a huge impact on Bev and me. So that would be clearly one of the most important things to do. Secondly …
Dennis: Before you move on to your second one. In your book, Money and Marriage God’s Way you actually have little vignettes of couples and their testimonies around marriage and money. It has to be for this purpose. To help people see how others have struggled with money and how they have dealt with it.
Howard: That’s right and how they have overcome those struggles by applying some basic biblical principles. For example, I encourage couples to have a weekly money date. Now I know it’s doesn’t sound all the romantic to have a money date but what I say is pick a time that is an appropriate time. Not when you are tired but a time that you can do three things together. First, pray and ask the Lord of the universe to be intimately involved with your finances. Ask Him for direction and favor.
Secondly go ahead and go through what you have done that past week as you track the income that has come in and the expenses that have gone out. Don’t use it as an opportunity to nag each other or fight rather use it as a fact finding time so that both of you can be on the same page.
And then thirdly and this is really huge and that is to celebrate. Celebrate when you do make progress in your financial life. Thank the Lord for it. When most people talk about money they are dealing with a problem. Someone is not earning enough or someone is spending too much and it is a negative experience.
So what I encourage folks to do is to create an environment of celebration and gratitude for one another and what they are doing well financially. Be an encourager of your spouse in this arena. If you can develop this environment and culture in your marriage where money is not a negative issue I mean, there are problems to deal with but it can be a huge tool to help to help the marriage become so much closer.
Dennis: Bob, I don’t know who encouraged you and Mary Ann and your finances early when you first got married but I look back on how we started out. We didn’t have a mentor. We didn’t have any money dates. We just had reality in life.
Howard: Yes.
(laughter)
Dennis: And I would have to say my biggest mistake that I made was assuming that Barbara knew what was going on. She didn’t and so I would have to say that if I could go back and recapture what was happening in our marriage I think Barbara was sacrificing getting some of her needs met and not making them known so that we were addressing them through spending money.
Bob: You are saying that she was living frugally thinking that there wasn’t money there that would be available and in fact, maybe suffering a little bit in the process …
Dennis: Yes, exactly.
Bob: Because you weren’t having these money dates and talking about what do we need? What would help our marriage and what could we do in our family? You just weren’t having communication about it.
Dennis: That’s right. Now other couples may struggle and both may be spending too much. They too may not be talking until they begin to run up the credit card debts…
Bob: Pretty soon they aren’t going to be talking at all if that is the case they are in the middle of. I remember the first money trap that we walked up to. It was the day that Mary Ann came up to where I was working. When we got married Mary Ann was a nurse and I was selling advertising at a local radio station. Guess who was making more money?
(laughter)
It was the nurse who was on top of that deal, right? So she walked up to the door of the radio station on her lunch hour with a big smile on her face. I had no idea why she was there until she took me over to the conference room and she said, we are going to have a baby. I was excited and she was excited. We kissed and we were happy. But all of a sudden there is this money trap right out in front of us.
Howard: That’s right.
Bob: What choice are we going to make? The one who is bringing home the big bucks is about to face a decision does she come home to take care of the baby or do I come home to take care of the baby? Or do we start now looking for a place where the baby is going to stay while we continue in our work situation and here’s what I remember thinking? We are about to go from two mouths and two incomes to three mouths and one income.
Howard: Well said.
(laughter)
Bob: That equation…I know enough about the equal sign, the greater than and the less than sign. I remember thinking how do we make that decision? I got a little nervous. I felt the responsibility of being a provider. She wanted to come home. I wanted her to come home but I didn’t know if we could afford it.
Dennis: it’s show time.
Bob: It is show time. So a couple comes to you like us at that point and asks what do we do? This is what we would like to do but I don’t know if we can do it. I’m scared what do we do?
Howard: You need to take a look at the numbers. That’s as simple as I can describe it. What is your income? What is the net income after all expenses that your bride brings home? What is your lifestyle? Do you have two new cars with two car payments? Do you have a home where you can barely make that monthly payment?
There are typically some lifestyle decisions and some lifestyle changes that need to be made. We face exactly the same thing and for us it made so much sense to adjust our lifestyle. We really didn’t view it as sacrificial because we had the big picture and the big picture was what could we do as a couple to help raise godly kids and can we put ourselves in a position where Bev could have more time to invest in the lives of these children. So we did make decisions. I drove a truck that cost $100 for years. It looked like it cost $100.
(laughter)
I can remember one of my neighbors borrowed it one time and brought it back painted. It looked like a $200 truck but Bev drove the same car for $17 years. We used to call it puff because of the puff of smoke that came out of the exhaust whenever she accelerated. But just think about this the average new car payment is about $378 a month. For 17 years we didn’t have a new car payment while Bev drove Puff. That equated into more than $77,000 that we saved by her being a good steward of this vehicle. We’re pretty sure property values went up $2000 when we finally got rid of Puff.
(laughter)
But for us it was a lifestyle decision that made sense because it freed her up to do something that was really on her heart.
Bob: We didn’t really sit down. I did the quick math in my head and said okay what kind of house payment do we have at that point we both had older cars and we didn’t have payments on them so we were in good shape there. We didn’t have any credit card debt or college loans or anything so we really had a pretty basic little nut we had to cover. But I also knew that the way we had been living as DINKS (dual income no kids)…
Howard: …was about to change.
Bob: It had been pretty impulsive when there was something we wanted to do…
Dennis: …you did it.
Bob: We did it. We said one time we ought to go to Cancun and so we did. Or we thought it would be cool to have a deck on the back of the house so we built a deck on the back of the house. We could do that as DINKS and I remember thinking when we have the baby we’re not going to be able to make those impulsive decisions but here what was amazing.
When Mary Ann came home and we didn’t have her income any more God provided for our needs through my income and all of a sudden our priorities got adjusted. We weren’t all that interested in running off the Cancun or having the deck. We had a baby and life was now taking on a little more sober, more realistic, more purposeful kind of thing. We got by just fine. We’ve always looked back and said we are so glad we made that decision. It set a foundation for the rest of our lives.
Howard: Yes. This is what I encourage couples to do who feel that they may if they have children want mom to stay home. Again, just as a framework for them to think through but if they can get to the point where they can live on his income and just use her income for three things: To give to the Lord, to save and to pay down debt. It positions them and they will be more and more able to make that transition if that is what God calls them to do if He provides the child.
Bob: A couple that might not be in the situation that we were in let’s say instead of our situation they have a house payment plus two car payments and they are upside down in both of those car payments. They also have consumer debt and some college debt. They look at the situation and say there is no way we can get from here to there.
Well, you can sit down and map out a plan if that is a priority for you. You can start spending to make that happen. When I say spending to make it happen I mean paying off the debt and doing exactly what you are talking about. Let’s take this income and apply it in this direction. It may take three years but three years from today we can celebrate what we are able to buy which is mom coming home.
Howard: That’s right.
Dennis: Let’s talk about another pitfall that is true in the difficult economic times we faced recently where someone loses a job. When that happens that couple is not making a decision in lieu of raising their child. One person loses their job and their ability to make money. Now at this point we know that about 80 percent of those are men not the women.
Howard: That’s right.
Dennis: What’s your advice in that situation?
Howard: First, if they have been having their weekly money date what we’ve discovered is that it is a lot easier for a family to make the transition to a crisis mode. Because they have already been talking about money they both have a really good idea of where they are financially. So what I recommend is number one meet daily every single day. Pray together and invite the Lord into the situation. Share your emotions and what you are thinking and what you are feeling. It’s not just the bread winner who has lost the job who really has to deal with this. It’s the spouse as well. Is there going to be enough money? The fear factor is an issue.
Then number two don’t go it alone. Don’t go through a crisis alone. Find someone from your church or a close friend who can be praying for you.
Dennis: Don’t be ashamed to admit you need that prayer.
Howard: Absolutely. Go to your church leadership and explain the situation if you are in a place where you just don’t have the money make the house payment or feed the family because that is what the local church should be all about helping those in need.
The last is you are number one and full time job if you have lost a job is to find a job. Make that a priority and treat it just as if you were going to work each and every day. Get a resume and meet people. Network and do whatever you can do to find a new job.
Bob: A lot of our listeners, Howard, saw the movie Fireproof came out a while back and in that movie there were money issues that came up. In fact I remember that Caleb was saving up his money and this was one of their issues. They had his money and her money.
Howard: Yes, right. Absolutely.
Bob: And he was saving his money because he wanted to buy a boat and she was trying to figure out a way to save some money because she wanted to buy medical equipment for her parents. What about the two pitfalls that are represented there? The his and her money pitfall and the second thing which was the clash of priorities where he is saying this is something really important to me and she saying this is something important to me. How do we get on the same page with that?
Howard: I can totally relate to that particularly as a newly married husband. I wanted to spend money the way I wanted to spend it on things that would benefit me. I didn’t really have down the Philippians 2 passage of considering one another as more important than ourselves. I didn’t consider Bev more important than me. Really this has been a transition. It’s taken years for me to get there but I get a much bigger kick out of spending money on something that Bev wants and that is a blessing to her rather than me. Fortunately she feels the same way.
When that dynamic becomes a reality in your marriage it changes everything. It’s no longer her versus him but rather it’s together. That’s really the goal. You have to remember God’s big picture on what He wants us to do with money is use it even challenges with it or crises with it is for the two to become one closer together rather than seeing money as a wedge to drive the two of you apart. Now when it comes to her money and his money the key is that it be our money. That doesn’t mean that you keep everything in one checking account.
Dennis: Oh really, so you might recommend two different checking accounts?
Howard: Yes, for several reasons. First, it gives the husband and the wife the opportunity to develop a credit score and that is key. Long term if the husband should predecease the wife often if everything has been in his name, the credit cards and checking account then she doesn’t have the basis for the credit score which can have a significant impact on everything from her ability to get a job to her having a reasonable amount of insurance premium. It impacts so many things today.
That’s what Bev and I have done. We have one card in her name and one in my name. We meet together regularly and go over that during our weekly money date where you know exactly what is going on in the family. She has a checking account and she takes care of all the household expenses.
The reason we did that was that if I should predecease her we didn’t want her to be in a place where she didn’t have any idea what was going on in the finances. The number one thing I’ve observed in talking to widows is they are afraid and they are afraid because they don’t understand what is happening financially in their household. So, I wanted to give Bev the opportunity to experience writing the checks and that sort of thing so she had a handle on it.
Dennis: You’re touching on another pitfall and that is where the wife doesn’t know what is going on financially in the marriage. She doesn’t know what the condition the balance sheet is in, the income and expenses, the debt, and all that.
I remember some time back, Bob, I took a stand on FamilyLife Today and I said my New Year’s resolution for this year is to create a packet that is called If I Should Die. It contains all the accounts and information about the will and has a copy of the will in it. I completed that. I have to say in preparation for this broadcast as I thought about the pitfall I thought that really feels good as a man to have gone out ahead all the way to the end.
If I was killed in a car wreck or plane crash or died suddenly Barbara and the advisors that I’ve recommended in that kit. I’ve put that together for her so that she’s not going to be flying blind. She’s going to have plenty of adjustments because she is going to have to do stuff that she is used to doing. If it is all together there and she can see what is going on that makes it a lot easier.
Howard: It does. I think it is one of the best ways we can express our love for our wife. I really do. I applaud you for doing that. What Bev and I do several times a year we go through it together. Our little packet of goodies for her should I predecease her and I make sure she knows all of the counselors and advisors and that sort of thing to make it as easy as possible during that very emotional time.
Dennis: To make people feel better especially for some guys who are feeling under the pile right now. It took me 35 years into our marriage before I did it. The point is get your plan and know how you are going to handle this and one of the ways I’d recommend you do that is to get a copy of Howard’s book, Money and Marriage God’s Way because there are a number of projects in here that will force healthy discussion for you as a husband and a wife together. Ultimately you will grapple with your differences and come out at the other end a lot better off.
Bob: In addition to Howard’s book we have the resource that you use the If Something Happens to Me workbook. It includes an organizer and a CD that comes with it if folks want to do their forms electronically. All of the information about that can be found at our web site FamilyLife Today.com. There is also information about Howard’s book Money and Marriage God’s Way.
Or just call us toll-free at 1-800-FL-TODAY. That’s 1-800-358-6329. That’s 1-800-F as in “family” L as in “life” and then the word TODAY and we’ll make arrangements with you to have the resources you need send out to you.
As we’ve discussed this subject one of the issues couples have to wrestle with when it comes to money is the whole issue of giving. We want to say thanks to those of you who have wrestled with that issue and have made a decision as a couple to help support the ministry of FamilyLife Today. We are listener supported which means your funds help cover the syndication and production costs for this program. You make it possible for us to be on this station and on our network of stations all across the country. You make possible our web site FamilyLife Today.com and we appreciate your partnership with us.
In fact this month we’d like to say thank you if you are able to make a donation of any amount by sending you a copy of one of the messages from the FamilyLife Weekend to Remember Marriage Conference. One of the things that we talk about at the conference is God’s Plan for marriage and what it means to leave, cleave and become one flesh and what it means to embrace your spouse as God’s gift made especially for you. We have a copy of this message presented by
Dr. Crawford Loritts who is the pastor at Fellowship Bible Church in Roswell, Georgia.
When you make a donation of any amount to help support the ministry of FamilyLife Today this month you can request a copy of this CD. If you donate online at FamilyLife Today.com type the word “gift” in the key code box that you find on the donation form that way we’ll know to send the CD out to you.
Or call 1-800-FL-TODAY. You can make your donation over the phone. When you call mention that you’d like the CD that we talked about on the radio and we’ll make arrangement to have a copy of it sent to you. We do appreciate your financial support of this ministry and your partnership with us.
Now, tomorrow, Howard Dayton is going to be back with us. We’re going to talk more about your marriage and about your money and how you make sure all that is working together. I hope you can be back for that conversation.
I want to thank our engineer today Keith Lynch and our entire broadcast production team on behalf of our host Dennis Rainey I’m Bob Lepine. We will see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.
FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas.
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