Growing Generosity

This week I’ve been sharing about some of the ways the Wood boys can earn money around here. ( Cash for Candy, Household Jobs, & Scripture Memory) As parents, training our kids how to properly handle money is a wonderful gift that we can give them. And part of that training, for Christian parents, includes what it means to tithe.

Tithing (giving the first 10% of every dollar we make back to God) is such a simple thing to teach a child. In fact, it’s really simple for adults, as well. Simple, but not easy. The beauty of teaching a child to tithe when they are young is that it feels normal and the discipline is not nearly as difficult for them. 

Andy & I were both blessed to have parents who taught us to tithe when we were children. So as we grew up and started making more money, it wasn’t ever a question to us whether or not we would tithe. 

Generosity has been a huge blessing and source of joy in our marriage. It’s really neat to watch God continually grow our faith as He calls us to higher levels of generosity. Anytime you increase your giving it feels a little scary, but it is fulfilling to watch God continually provide. A highlight of my year each year is when I total up our non-profit contributions to report on our taxes and TurboTax notifies me that we are at risk of being audited because our non-profit contributions seem disproportionate to our income!

One reason our chores and Bible verses are worth 10 cents each is because it’s so easy for them to visually understand tithing. Let’s say that Caedmon earned a total of $3.40 one week. I would give him 34 dimes that we would line up in 3 rows of 10 with and extra row of 4. Then I have him take at least one dime from each row to put in an offering envelope and at least one dime from each row to put in his piggy bank to save. Sometimes he way exceeds the 10% rule. Then we count how many dimes he has left and I trade him a dollar for every ten dimes he has. The leftover money goes in his wallet for him to spend as he pleases. Although, right now we’re saving for season passes to Great America so all of his extra money is going towards meeting that goal. 

Caedmon has so much fun with this whole process. He loves trading out his dimes for dollars and counting the grand total. The child loves money...probably a little too much! For instance, at Easter time we were talking about acting out the Easter story and he told me that he wanted to be Judas because Judas got all the money! I literally was speechless. I think I said something like, “Uh, I don’t think you want to be Judas, buddy. Judas was cursed. He’s the bad guy in the story.” But he was still pretty confident. It was only when Andy told him that Judas died and didn’t get to keep the money that Caedmon was ready to choose a different character. Slightly disturbing...

Nevertheless! Teaching principles of Biblical finance should start young. And we’re hoping that the Biblical principle about “the love of money being the root of all evils” will one day sink in as well!

Grocery Shopping 101

I am of the belief that grocery shopping should require at least an Associates Degree from your local community college. It is the most complex household duty that I am responsible for on a weekly basis.

I'm not sure who does the meal planning & food preparation in your home, but if it's anything like mine the responsibility lies almost solely on me. Andy's good about making his own breakfast and eats lunch out most days, but other than that I plan and prepare what every mouth will eat each meal of the week. And I'm totally fine with that. Andy contributes in huge ways to our family life. The food category just lands on me.

SO, in honor of all those women out there who bravely march about grocery stores each week...

AND

in efforts to give the men in our lives a glimpse of what it's really like...

I've compiled a TOP 10 list of things our husbands never realized about the complexities of grocery shopping.

1. Meal Planning- Before ever making it to the store, we plan out what we will eat for the week. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. Breakfast is easy; a couple different options is all you need. Lunch is overwhelmingly boring and difficult to get out of the same ol' ruts. Why does a salad or a turkey sandwich taste so much better from a restaurant than it does from my kitchen? But dinner, now this is where the real art of meal planning is exposed. Every dinner requires a protein, vegetables (not all the same color), starch, make sure it's filling yet low fat, make sure there's something everyone (or most) will eat, consider the family schedule and how much prep time each meal will require. Sometimes I just stare at my cookbook and a blank sheet of paper until I put it away and decide to try again later.
2. Hormones- As I peruse the milk, eggs, and meats I realize that many of these animals have been beefed up on hormones. We've all been scarred with images of those chickens who are so fat they can't even support their own body weight, right? So I check out the organics which cost 3 times as much. And then I have to decide if I'd rather have my sons develop breasts by age 12 or if I'd rather have enough money to continue feeding them by age 12. Tough choices. 
3. Artificial ingredients, additives, and preservatives- Whenever a label contains 50 different ingredients which you cannot pronounce, you know you better leave that one on the shelf. Seriously, what chemicals would they have to use to make something taste like strawberries without actually using strawberries? So I attempt to by-pass the center aisles of the store as much as possible and just shop the perimeter.
4. Pesticides- I feel pretty good about myself loading my cart up with all kinds of fresh fruits and vegetables. What a great mom! Providing an assortment of healthy, colorful, fresh options for my family. I feel pretty good until it occurs to me that I may also be poisoning my family with pesticides! Yikes. I should just grow my own food.
5. Human Trafficking- I never buy coffee or chocolate that I don't wonder if I'm supporting the slave trade which forces children and innocent people to pick coffee and cocoa beans. Talk about paranoia and guilt! I know none of us would want to support that!
6. Refereeing Children- All the while I am making earth-shattering decisions regarding the wellbeing of my family (and, unknowingly, people around the world!) my children are in tow doing things like eating goldfish and raisins left from the last kid who rode in our grocery cart. Please don't stick your fingers through the plastic on the packages of ground beef! No, we're not buying pop tarts for breakfasts. Let your brother out of that headlock! Please do not lick the handle on the grocery cart, even if there is something sticky on it!
7. Coupons- At this point, who in the world is in the frame of mind to use coupons?! If you do, God bless you and maybe you could share your wisdom with me. But I for one, am unable (unwilling?) to match which coupon goes to which brand and which size orange juice or yogurt. I often have coupons in my purse that I fully intend on using, but I'm just too mentally exhausted to figure it out while I'm mid-course. 
8. Budgeting- Because I suck at couponing, I have sticker-shock more than I'd like to admit when the cashier rings up my food for the week. Seriously? But I didn't even by organics! I opted to let my sons grow boobs and poison them with pesticides just so I could meet budget! And you're telling me my groceries costs that much?! Fail.
9. Reusable bags- Sir, I really do have a whole pile of reusable bags in my trunk. It's just out there in the parking lot! Do you still have to charge me $0.10 per bag because I'm forgetful? Just think of all of things that I have to think of to get through this grocery shopping experience!
10. Unloading- I love how they ask, "Do you need help to your car?" I'm always tempted to reply, "No, but if you could come home with me and help me unload, that would be very helpful." If you happen to live in an apartment like we have, you know the joy of trying to carry 100 pounds of food in your apartment in one sweep. You have bags hanging off every appendage while you attempt to close your car door with your foot. The above mentioned children are not much help as they are perhaps too small or too clumsy to carry a bag. You take slow, deep breaths while herding your children and staggering toward your gated apartment when you realize that your keys are deep in your pocket so you'll need to put everything down in order to get them. You unlock the gate and before you have time to reload the groceries on said appendages, your kids take off in a sprint towards home. At this point, the long journey of grocery shopping has taken its toll and you begin to lose it altogether. You scream at the top of your lungs, "FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING GOOD AND HOLY, COULD SOMEONE PLEASE JUST HOLD THE DOOR FOR ME?!" With your children no where in sight, an unsuspecting single gal walks up sipping her latte and grabs the door for you. The look in her eyes is somewhere between surprise and pity as she looks at a very harried version of you, and you think to yourself, "It wasn't all that long ago that I looked like you..."

So, honey, every time we sit down for a home cooked meal in the evenings, please know that it is a gift labor of love for you and our kids. I have nearly lost my mind and come back again to the world of sane-living just to bring you this filling, low-fat, expensive, and fresh meal. Sorry about the man-boobs and pesticides!

The Priority of the Home: Part 2

Yesterday I introduced some "systems" Andy and I have in place at the Wood household to help us make sure Family Life gets a top priority in our lives and in our hearts. Here's the benefit of systematizing it:

A system
       Saves
       You
       Stress
       Time
       Energy &
       Money

One system that we have in place is our weekly finance talk.

I am no expert on finances. But I do know that, statistically, financial problems are one of the leading causes of divorce. One of the greatest things Andy and I ever did for our marriage was to go through Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace class. I am of the belief that the class should be a requirement for every couple before they get married. It's that good.

Each week (normally on Tuesdays), I "update our finances". That includes paying any bills as well as entering all of our expenditures into our budget spreadsheet. Because I try to do it on a weekly basis, it doesn't take that long. I can typically get it done during Sammy's naptime.

We don't use any fancy programs for our budget. We just have a Google Doc spreadsheet where we keep track of each of our budget categories. In the past we used Excel for this, but we like having it as a Google Doc so that we can look at it online from wherever we are. For example, if we're at the mall and Andy wants to know how much money he has in his clothing line item, I just pull up the Google Doc on my phone and can tell him the exact amount. It eliminates the need to carry cash envelopes for the various categories, which was quite cumbersome to me.

Everybody's categories look a little different, but our categories include:

• Giving
• Housing
• Groceries
• Restaurants
• Household/Hygiene
• Auto
• Auto Insurance
• Vacation
• Entertainment/Recreation
• Andy's clothing
• Stacie's clothing
• Caedmon's clothing
• Sammy's clothing
• Savings
• College savings for kids
• Medical/Dental
• Gifts
• Office
• Miscellaneous

That's more categories than a normal budget has, but I've found it's helpful to be very specific so I can track our spending carefully.

Click here to view a generic Google Doc I made to give you an idea of what our budget looks like. (I changed all the numbers and percentages.) MTD stands for Month To Date and YTD is Year To Date. You'll notice that there is a formula entered in those cells that automatically tallies your spending in each category. Feel free to copy this and make a Google doc of your own if it would be helpful for your family.

After I have updated our spreadsheet, it's very easy for Andy to glance at it on Tuesday evening and have a good understanding of where we are financially. Our weekly financial talk is typically all of 5-10 minutes, but it keeps us on the same page. There are occasions where we'll go more indepth to do some long term planning or something, but that is not a weekly conversation.


I know budgeting can feel totally overwhelming if you're not used to doing it. OR maybe it feels like you're voluntarily locking yourself in a cage. From my perspective, however, it is totally liberating. When you have a budget and know where your money is going, it takes all of the fear and guilt out of spending. I don't ever have to feel guilty about buying that shirt or that present for a friend if I know the money is there.  It also allows us to be extravagant and cheerful givers.

If you don't do any type of budget at this point, let me just encourage you to take 2-3 months to simply track your expenses. Don't worry about how much you're spending in the various categories at this point. Just enter the information in the spreadsheet. Once you get a good understanding of where your money is going, you can start to boss it around a little more. "Hey, you! You go in that category!"

So, perhaps this is not the most interesting post on this blog, but I hope it was helpful. Having a strong financial system will eliminate 95% of financial tension in your marriage. That other 5%, well...no system is perfect! :-)

Let me know if you have any questions that I might could help you with.

Monday Matrimony

Your weekly bit of [unsolicited] advice...

Tip of the Week: Money Matters!

Did you know that one of the top reasons sited for divorce is financial disputes? It is a huge "friction-causing" issue in marriage. At least it can be. But the good news is, it doesn't have to be!

When Andy and I first got married, we were so broke. We had both just graduated from college and were both unemployed. Talk about living on love! It was really fun...for about a summer. But by fall, it was not fun and was getting really stressful.

We both started graduate school and were both working part time with very little in a checking account and even less in savings. After a year of that, I got a full-time job teaching school which relieved a lot of the financial crisis. But our finances were always a source of tension. Even to this day it's easy to get uncomfortable talking through various expenses and priorities when it comes to money. But we have made a lot of progress!

One of the best things we did for our marriage (notice I did not say 'for our finances') is to go through Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. This class helped us to understand principles of finance so much better and to get on the same page with each other. Andy and I thought we shared the same values financially because we knew we should never get into consumer debt. That was about the extent of our cumulative financial knowledge when we got married. Dave fixed that for us and gave some simple steps to help couples know how to make progress financially.

I would highly recommend (even urge) you to find a Financial Peace University to go through. South Bay offers this course as one of our Life Groups each semester. The principles are Biblically sound and it is unifying to have a common goal that you're working toward as a couple. No more of you trying to convince your spouse to buy this or your spouse trying to convince you to save up for this. Common goal. Unified hearts.

Here are Dave Ramsey's 7 Baby Steps (intended to be done in order):

1. $1,000 to start an Emergency Fund
2. Pay off all debt using the Debt Snowball
3. 3 to 6 months of expenses in Savings
4. Invest 15% of household income into Roth IRAs and pre-tax retirement
5. College funding for children
6. Pay off home early
7. Build wealth and GIVE GENEROUSLY!!!

Eating Green

Andy & I were working on our budget last night and were struck again with the reality of how much money we spend on food. I feel like that guy on the Dave Ramsey video who says, "I figured out where my paycheck was going...I was eating it!"

I cook dinner between 4-6 nights per week. We do date night one night every week and some weeks we may have a church event or someone may have us over for a meal. But most nights, I cook. The top two priorities for us when it comes to food are 1) stay within the budget, and 2) eat healthy. We like lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, which I know can add up.

I would really appreciate some money saving tips from you guys. What secrets do you use to save money at the grocery store?

Taxes are not my friend

I just finished my taxes...talk about waiting until the last minute! I am REALLY hoping that I didn't make any major mistakes. I'm a little paranoid because I tried to do them myself for the first time this year using TurboTax. The thing that freaks me out is that TurboTax wouldn't let me submit my federal tax return through efile because it said "the original tax return was amended"?! No idea.

So, I'm really hoping that some IRS guy doesn't show up on my doorstep to take me to jail! I'm having images of a front-page story in the Mercury entitled, "Pastor's Wife Involved in Tax Scandal." Surely there's some kind of protection clause for those of us who sincerely tried our best but are just ignorant when it comes to taxes!