One of the most difficult things for Churches (and, really, all non-profits) is finding good volunteers.  There are many people that raise their hands to volunteer and then fail to follow through completely.  I am not a psychologist, but I have a theory about this:  I think people want to volunteer, I think they love their church, and I think they want to follow through.  However, volunteers sometimes like the idea of being a volunteer more than actually being a volunteer.  This is the case for board membership at large non-profit organizations just as much as preschool volunteers at the small local church.

5 Tips for Being a Good Volunteer

So, how can you be a good volunteer?  Glad you asked.  Here are my 5 tips for being a good volunteer: (more…)

Marching on!  You now have sold a bunch of stuff, started paying off your debt, and you have a budget for your house.  Next up is simply getting used to the budget.  You have been doing your financial life differently from this for a while…some of you have been doing it differently for YEARS!

It is natural to treat this like most diet plans: I’ll do this until I get everything flattened out and then I can add some stuff back.  DON’T DO THAT!  It is pretty obvious that you wouldn’t be reading and following this advice if the things you used to do financially were working for you.  So, why would you want to go back to those old patterns?

This is not an easy step.  This isn’t a walk in the park.  It’s hard to say no to that restaurant or your daughter that just has to have a new pair of jeans.  Saying yes to those things ended up creating debt and angst in your house.  Don’t go back!

Use this as an opportunity to test your resolve.  It isn’t fun to tell your friends that you can’t afford that trip or your kids they won’t be going on that expensive vacation this Summer.  But, it will be fun when you can pay for those items with cash.  It isn’t like you are going to be restricting your fun forever…just until you are completely out of debt (except for the house) and have enough money in the bank for emergencies.

Think about how much more fun vacations will be when you just pay for them with cash.  Won’t you be able to relax better?  Won’t Christmas morning be even merrier when all of the gifts are paid for as they are opened?  Just imagine how much better you will feel when your hot water heater is on the fritz and you have a cash reserve just for that very purpose.

And best of all, just imagine how much better your marriage will be because you don’t have to worry about an economic disaster around every corner.  Imagine how great you will feel knowing that your children will start learning good financial principles now.

If you ever get discouraged on this journey…just come back to this post and remind yourself why you are doing this.

I guarantee if you put this one post into practice in your household you will never have a fight about money ever again.  PERIOD.  How do I know this?  Well, Courtney and I have never once had a fight about money in our marriage.  Not one.

You might be saying, “Well, you have only been married for almost a year…give it time and you fight about money.”  I beg to differ on that assessment.  The reason that Courtney and I will never fight about money is because each of us know exactly where every penny of our money is going every month.

Around the 15th of each month (that’s when the bulk of our income is deposited) we sit down together and work on our budget for the month.  No matter how much money we have we spend EVERY PENNY of it on paper (or in our case we use Mvelopes) before we ever spend a penny of it for real. (more…)

Okay, you are probably reeling from Part Four, so I won’t push too hard today.  I hope that you spent the last week cleaning out your garage, closets, and storage sheds in preparation for a Yard Sale or eBay auction.  So, you are probably tired of my advice.

Today, let’s just take a deep breath and remember why we need to get out of debt.  I am going to make a big leap and assume that most of you buy into my premise that holding a large amount of consumer debt is not a good thing.  However, societal pressure (ie. Keeping up with the Jones’) may have led you astray. (more…)

You might be in a situation where you have no savings and can’t get a good head start on your debt snowball, and you can’t imagine how you can find $1,000 to get an emergency fund.  Well, you probably have $1,000 laying around and don’t know it!

Brace yourselves: SELL YOUR STUFF.  Grab that big fancy Flat Screen, extra table and chair set, some electronics or extra computers, tons of old clothes and have a big yard sale.  Sell everything you don’t absolutely have to have.  Odds are you will be a lot closer to $1,000 after the yard sale than you were before.

Then, if you have to…find some extra work.  The sooner you get your initial emergency fund established the sooner you can start paying off debt.

Now you have the fund established…what do you do?  Well, remember the list of stuff you wrote down?  All of your expenses for each month?  You probably cut out magazines and cable television, but you still have expenses left over.  That’s where you start trimming the fat.

You need to start clipping coupons and buying store brand foods and drinks.  (Another great tip is to just make the switch to only drinking water.)  No more netflix, eating out, vacations, gifts, or other unnecessary expenses.  (I told you this wouldn’t be easy.)

Here are the things that you need to live: Shelter, Food, Water, Gas, Electricity, Clothes, and as few vehicles as you absolutely need to get to and from work.  Strip out the rest of the stuff you are currently spending money on and transfer that money to paying off debt.

Here is what your monthly budget should look like:

• Tithe
• Rent/Mortgage
• Auto Fuel
• Utilities – (Gas, Electric, Phone)
• Groceries
• Debt Payment

That’s it.  Period.  There are no other expenses.

“But, wait a second Austin…I have a car payment.”  Sell the car.  “But, Austin; I’m underwater on the car.”  Sell the car and get a loan for the difference, plus enough to buy a beater.

I know this doesn’t make sense…I thought we were supposed to be getting out of debt.  Well, let’s look at it like this: Your car payment is probably $300-$800 per month.  (Trust me, a loan for the difference is much cheaper.)  If you owe $18,000 for a car that is worth $14,000, wouldn’t you rather only owe around $6,000 for the difference plus a couple of grand for a beater?

This is the most painful step in the process.  This is the step where most people fail.  Most people check out at this point because they are attached to their stuff, they derive their self-worth from their vehicles and use vacations and entertainment to avoid dealing with their spending problems.

If you take this step seriously as a couple or as a family your relationships will flourish.  You will learn a lot about yourself and in the end you will break your attachment to your stuff.  (You can’t take it with you anyway!)

Well, quite a few people are playing along with our personal finance series, so I thought I would provide this post so you can come back and reference or share with friends.  Each time I add a new post I will also link to it here so that everyone can find what they are looking for.

• Intro to Personal Financial Management
• Tools to use for Personal Financial Management
• Starting to dig out of the debt mess
  

Now that you have some tools and have hopefully had a chance to check them out for a couple of days we need to put those tools to work.  The first thing I suggest is making a list of all of the things you spend money on each month.

Here is a list of things you might have on your list: Groceries, Rent/Mortgage, Car Payment, Insurance, Fuel, Lawn Service, Cable, Cell Phone, Internet, Public Transportation, Tithe, Clothes, Eating Out, School Supplies, Books, Coffee, Credit Card payments, etc.

Write it ALL down.  Your next step is to separate things that are necessary from that which is nice to have.  For instance, you need to pay your rent/mortgage each month, but you don’t NEED cable television.  This is a really hard step.  We can come up with all sorts of reasons why we just can’t live without things that are not necessary.

The key to getting yourself out of debt is to sacrifice.  This will be hard because you don’t get into debt by sacrificing.  So, this will require you to shift the way you approach your life.  If you are married or engaged to be married this will be difficult if not impossible if your spouse or fiance is not completely on board. (more…)

Dear God,

Yesterday my parents made the trip home to Fayetteville, NC from Chattanooga, TN.  My Grandfather walked them to the door, watched them climb into their car and drive away.  Since my Grandmother passed away last Wednesday, my Grandfather hasn’t been alone at the house.  What was he feeling as he walked back inside?

Did he close the door a little more slowly than usual?  Did his eyes well up with tears as he turned around to lock the door?  Was he overcome with sadness seeing her motorized wheel-chair in the corner?  Did he recognize for the first time that it was real, that he couldn’t go to the nursing home to visit his wife of 54 years?

Did he get her belongings from the funeral home and wash her clothes one last time?  Folding them neatly as he has always done and placing them carefully in the drawer?  How did he feel as he looked at her half empty bottles of pills?  Did he throw them away yet, or will he hang on to them for a while?

Is he already lonely?  Does he feel isolated or afraid?  Does he think that there is no one that can understand the depth of his pain?  Has he even admitted to himself that he is hurting?  Did he sit in his favorite chair and watch TV to numb the pain?

When he went to bed last night did was he restless?  Did he toss and turn all night?  When he woke up this morning was he more sad than the day before?  Did he go through the motions of getting dressed while wondering what the point is?

Help me know how to minister to him.  Give him peace and the knowledge that we all love him and are with him in his grief.

Forever Yours,

Austin

Let’s start with a Bible verse.  (I refer to this as the Dave Ramsey verse because I think he is contractually obligated to say it 2.5 times per hour.) In The Message, Proverbs 22:7 says, “The poor are always ruled over by the rich, so don’t borrow and put yourself under their power.”  Other translations read, “the borrower is slave to the lender.”

This is the most important thing to remember as we go along.  Stop for just a second and, if you have debt, think about your debt.  Don’t you feel a tug on your spirit because of that debt?  Don’t you think to yourself sometimes, (even if you won’t admit it to anyone) “I feel like this debt is hanging around my neck”?  Dave Ramsey found a great verse to use to describe our relationship to debt.  It does feel like we are under the power of someone else when we owe them something.

Another thing happens, however, when we choose to take control of our personal finances and get out of debt.  That dreadful feeling lessens a little each month as those debts become smaller and smaller.  So, how do we get to the point where we have complete freedom? (more…)

I get questions about personal finance quite a bit since most people know that I used to be an accountant.  (Apparently many people think that a masters degree in accounting makes people immune to poor financial decisions…how I wish they were right.)  The truth is that when you go through accounting programs they teach you how to account for the money that has already been spent, earned, saved, or destroyed.  They don’t really teach you very much about how to handle someone’s personal finances.

So, over the next couple of days we will explore how you can dig your family out of a financial hole or, for those not in a hole, how to avoid getting yourself into a hole. (more…)