Finances is right up there with intimacy when it comes to marriage topics that really matter. These areas of marriage can quickly and easily become a problem in marriage if conflict arises and left un-dealt with. Aaron and I know that having important conversations about money is vital for a thriving marriage. So we go there with you in this episode of Marriage After God. We ask each other random questions about finances and money and get the conversations started…with the hopes of you and your spouse jumping into that conversation with each other.
We talk about money candidly and have years of working it out together that we share. We hope this encourages you and gives you a little more insight into our relationship. Enjoy!
**Also we received a ton of YOUR random finance questions and hope to answer many of them in another money episode coming soon!
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– Hey we’re Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God.
– Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.
– And today, we’re gonna ask each other random questions about finances and money. Hey, thanks for joining us this week for another episode of Marriage After God. We’re excited to have you. As usual, we wanna invite you to subscribe to our channel, so you get notified whenever we upload new content.
– Today’s episode includes questions that we came up with, that we haven’t shared with each other just yet. Just about finances and money, but we know that you guys have questions too, and we can answer them in a future episode of Marriage After God, so be sure to leave those comments, and leaving your questions about finances and money.
– So, before we get started, I want to start off with a disclaimer. We are not financial advisors.
– No way.
– So, we’re not giving stock suggestions, or anything like that. We’re just gonna ask each other questions about our experience with money, and I actually have no clue what your questions are, and you don’t have any clue what mine are.
– These things always make me nervous. I like to be prepared.
– So, we do these episodes every once in a while, but these are gonna be really candid answers from our own life.
– Which, I feel like is really helpful for the listener, because I feel like they’re gonna relate to us and understand what we’ve been through, or what we’re going through currently. And so, I do but I don’t like these.
– And they’re hard ’cause we do cut out the pauses ’cause sometimes we have to think about them.
– Yeah.
– We’re like uh let me think about that for a sec. But, hopefully what we wanna offer to you guys is just an inside perspective on where we’ve gone in life with finances and money, and where we’re coming from and what God’s teaching us, and maybe they’ll be some funny stuff in here. I actually don’t know.
– Some reality and some encouragement.
– Yeah, and ’cause our heart is that as marriages after God we would have hearts that are yielded to God in every aspect of our life. One of them being money, and to be honest we are on a journey with money.
– Yeah.
– The Bible talks a lot about it, but today we’re just gonna talk about the journey we’ve been on.
– Yeah.
– So, let’s get started. Do you wanna do the first question or do you want me to do the first question?
– Let me do the first question.
– Okay, you do the first question, and then I’ll do mine.
– Okay, so my first question is were you taught good money habits like savings, building up a savings account by your parents? Or I guess the question is, who is your biggest influence?
– That is a great question actually. So, let me think for a second, I have a terrible memory and you know this. Okay, so first thing I remember is my Mom did definitely teach me how to use a checkbook. Does any use checks anymore?
– I don’t know.
– I was taught how to do the reconciliation in the back pages and write them.
– What comes in, what goes out.
– Yeah, so I do remember that. I remember them opening a bank account for me, and me putting money in it and learning to save. So, I think the basics. I remember saving when I was a little kid like $100. I don’t remember how I got all the money.
– That’s a lot.
– I had a box, it was this wood box, and every dollar I’d get I’d get it, and I’d wet the dollar and flatten it out.
– Oh my goodness, I didn’t know this about you.
– I would flatten the dollar out and I’d make it perfectly crisp, and I’d let it dry and then I would put it in the box, and I’d have them all organized and I’d have a rubber band around them, and I saved up all these $1’s and $5’s and $10’s.
– Okay, this type of personality explains a lot about how we organize our finances now.
– You never heard this story before?
– I’ve never heard this story before, and I feel like now that I know, it makes sense because how you organize…
– You’re like, I’m gonna change some of these questions I have for you.
– No, no, no, but as I see it, ’cause you lead us in our finances, and you organize our budgeting and all of that, and it’s meticulous, and I feel like you’ve been really good at that.
– SO, I don’t know who taught me that.
– Okay.
– So, somehow money was talked about. I remember my parents giving me a dollar at church to put in the tithe. So, I feel like they gave me the foundational stuff, the basic stuff.
– Good for them, that’s awesome.
– So, yeah, I think they might have given me more, they had to of. But, I just don’t remember it, all the details.
– Real quick, does Target have anything to do with any of these questions?
– I didn’t actually ask any.
– Okay, good. I’m just kidding.
– Didn’t think about Target.
– For all the wives out there.
– But CostcoI’m just kidding. Okay, here’s your first question.
– Okay.
– Okay, what was your view of money growing up?
– Well, I remember it being kind of this elusive thing of we never had it. I don’t wanna go as far as saying we were poor growing up, but I often heard my parents say things like that, and things have changed now in their life and in ours. But, I just remember having very little, and I remember personally when I started working and getting my own income, I protected it. But, I spent it, but it was mine.
– Yeah.
– I didn’t necessarily share it, I wasn’t super generous. I tithed here and there, but it wasn’t consistent.
– So, would you feel like you were, based off the question you asked me, were you taught about money, other than just hearing about lack of it, or not ever enough?
– I don’t remember my Mom sitting down specifically with me to show me certain things, but it was kind of like we’d be at the grocery store and I’d be like hey can I fill out your check for you? ‘Cause I remember checks back then too. And she would let me, and she would show me what boxes to fill out. And then, when I was a teenager, probably like 13 or 14, she also opened up a savings account for me, and so I got to get familiar with putting money in the bank.
– So, we both had those foundational things.
– Yeah.
– So, there is a second part to this question.
– Oh no.
– So, I was asking about your view of money, but what was your view of giving growing up?
– Yeah, so shared a little bit about that, and I remember it just being a little bit harder for me. It’s weird, it wasn’t as hard to if I was gonna buy a gift for someone. Like, I saw value in that, and then give it to them. But, just giving someone money or even giving the church money, I justified it by saying well, I’ll serve with my time or my energy. I’ll go work in the children’s ministry.
– Yeah, I don’t need to give money. I remember us having conversations about that.
– Yeah, I just saw the benefit of that, but I guess because I always thought money was tight, or it was so little that I had to kind of keep it.
– Yeah.
– To myself.
– Keep it really close.
– Keep it real close. I was controlling over my money, and not in a healthy way.
– And we’re all at a certain place when it comes to money and our perception of it, and it comes from how we were raised, or things that we’ve experienced. So, thank you for sharing that.
– Yeah. Okay, so my next question for you is going into marriage and being the husband and I don’t know if you felt the weight of responsibility with finances and having to provide. But, did you have any fears going into marriage and managing our finances?
– No, I didn’t know what managing our finances looked like.
– Yeah, we hadn’t experienced it yet.
– ‘Cause we hadn’t experienced it yet. But, I feel like I might be a little unique, maybe not but I don’t feel like I’ve thought too much about money. I remember that we had lots of conversations about it, I remember even telling you when we got engaged, hey I may not have a lot of money, I may not ever be able to buy you anything.
– But I’ll love you.
– But, I’ll be here for you and we’ll figure it out. And that was just me being honest, I didn’t know what kind of money we would make, or if we’d ever be wealthy or have a home. I didn’t know any of that stuff. But, I wasn’t worried about it either. So maybe in a unhealthy way I didn’t think about money at all.
– Like no concern?
– Like no concern. I don’t know, maybe that’s a healthy thing too, I’ve never been too concerned about money as a whole. But, no so going into marriage I don’t think it was a anxiety of mine like oh I gotta figure out money stuff. Again, we’ve learned a lot over the years of like how much we need to focus on it, and manage it well and steward it well. But, no I’d say early on when we were getting married it wasn’t something that was on the forefront of my mind. Other than we needed it to go to Africa.
– Yeah, so just to let people know who are listening, we jumped started our marriage by jumping into missionary ministry.
– We went to Africa for four months.
– Yeah, we traveled around, went to Africa and stuff. And so, our finances were kind of unique jumping into marriage because we relied on the support of other people while we were traveling internationally.
– We had no money.
– We didn’t have money.
– Like legitimately no money. We raised money to go to Africa.
– We raised money and then we took it, but then while we were there, and leading up to that, we had our jobs leading up to the time that we left. Which was about two or three months of marriage, but then we heavily relied on the support of others.
– Not only that, but we when we moved to Florida for a bit, just to give a little bit of background, there was a season where I was working full-time for free in the ministry that we were apart of, the missionary organization. And you were working part time, we had no kids then, and we still had no money.
– We were broke.
– We were so broke of course because I was even being paid, and you were getting paid minimum wage.
– Yeah.
– In Florida, which is like less than normal. And part time. I remember us being in our car one night, or one afternoon and we had no money for gas.
– Yeah, we’re gas less.
– We’re just like okay. God’s taken care of us every step of the way though.
– I’d say your parents were a huge blessing to us during those times because they’ve always supported us and been open handed with their finances, and that day specifically you called your Mom.
– I remember that day my Mom gave me $20. and I was so embarrassed, and I said just don’t tell her, what did I say? I said don’t tell her that we’re homeless, okay that was the same day that we were in transition that’s a good word, transition from one house to another.
– But we didn’t have another house yet.
– Yeah.
– We couldn’t stay at the house we were at.
– They weren’t our houses, they were people letting us stay at their places, because we were trying to serve as missionaries, and we were traveling a lot, and it was just a really interesting time.
– God took care of us, but I would say it was foolish.
– Yeah, looking back at it yeah.
– Again the negative part of me not paying attention or considering our finances.
– Yeah.
– I should of changed that scenario. And we did, God convicted our hearts and put us on a whole journey of changing our thought process on money and our responsibility with it.
– Yeah, but I did tell you don’t tell her that we’re homeless, just tell her that we need the money for gas.
– Yeah
– And it all worked out, we got a place that night it was all great.
– Yeah we did, it was awesome.
– So, God was lookin’ out even when we weren’t. He’s faithful even when we’re not.
– Even when we’re not yeah. But that’s where we started our journey of money is just experiencing that side of it. So, let me get to my second question for you. Okay, this is a question for you, but it’s about me.
– Oh.
– Yeah, so what is one area I can grow and mature in when it comes to money?
– Okay, that’s really funny because I have a similar question for you about you.
– Oh then we should make yours the number three for me.
– Okay, so what’s one area that I want you to grow in?
– That you think I could grow or mature in when it comes to money?
– I think sometimes, okay, so you have this part of your personality that loves to research. Like, you spend a lot of time on researching things. Which is a really good.
– Can be really good.
– It is really good I think. The downside is because you do so much research, and you look at reviews and you look at what other people are saying, and you look at price value, when you do actually go to make a purchase it’s a really good purchase. Sometimes really expensive purchase, or sometimes it’s something that we think we need when we don’t necessarily need that one, or that thing.
– So you’re saying I buy the more expensive thing because…
– It had the better reviews.
– And it’s gonna last longer, or it’s a better value.
– We have all these justifications of what we walk through when we buy a purchase.
– Which I do, I do that.
– Yeah, so and you don’t do it all the time, but when you do make those bigger purchases, I don’t know.
– So you’re saying having a little bit more of a sober mind about certain things. It’s not like I make big purchases all the time.
– No.
– But when I do often instead of just going with the more affordable or something that will fit what we need, I’m gonna go and get, ’cause I’m looking for value.
– Yeah.
– And I’m like, well I need to spend a little bit more to get the value I’m looking for.
– And sometimes that also hangs us up on the purchase that we need to make.
– For months.
– Yeah, because you’re like I need to do my research.
– That could be good though, the slowness of it.
– I know, I know, but that’s why I said it’s like a catch 22.
– Maybe getting more sober about my expectation of the value.
– Yeah that’s good.
– And being okay with less when it matters. I don’t know, thinking faster and wiser and slower and smarter all at the same time.
– All the things, all the same time.
– Yeah, I know what you’re saying. No one’s gonna understand what we’re talking about, but I get it.
– If you have an example. I don’t know to put you on the spot.
– I don’t, I’m trying to think. No, I don’t. Okay, so give you an example something I’m thinking about.
– Okay.
– Like, I wanna buy a lawnmower. And I could go down to the thrift store and pick up a lawn mower for like $25.
– Call around, ask a friend.
– I could call around and see if any friends have an extra one I could borrow or buy. But, the way I think is I’m gonna go look online and be like well if I’m gonna be using this every weekend, I might as well get a new one. But if I’m gonna get a new one and spend that kind of money, I might as well look for the best one.
– It just keeps going up and up.
– And I haven’t bought a lawnmower yet.
– And you haven’t bought a lawnmower yet. That’s a great example.
– And this has been a few weeks.
– Yeah, okay.
– Okay, I will think about buying a lawnmower in a better way. Like, not go buy the best one, and I might call some friends up soon. Actually someone actually told me they might have one.
– Oh really? I was gonna say, you might buy one and then it breaks down and you can learn how to fix it. It’s good all around.
– That’s true.
– Time waster.
– Yeah I know.
– Okay.
– Okay.
– That was your question for me about you.
– That was my question for you about me.
– Really confusing okay. Okay my next question is, throughout our marriage I guess for a little back story if people don’t know us, we got debt free and we’ve been really committed to remaining debt free. But, one thing you’ve been really adamant on, even from the beginning of our marriage was no credit cards.
– Right.
– So, I guess my question is why Aaron? Why so adamant about that? Even times where I had good justifications or excuses why no we should do this, we’ll get miles you’re like no.
– So, let’s be honest, you’re right I’ve been so adamant about no credit cards, but we did get a credit card.
– We did.
– Just a couple years ago.
– For about a year.
– For about a year, it was an Amazon credit card, because they had such good points and like all the things.
– Okay.
– And, we did that to buy a house, and we needed credit because we literally had no credit, ’cause we’ve never had credit cards.
– Yeah.
– And, it made it harder which was fine.
– What made it harder? What do you mean?
– Not having credit.
– Oh, yeah.
– No credit score made it harder to do the loan thing and so I was like hey let’s get a credit card, and we were just gonna do like one or two things on it.
– It became a habit over that year.
– Just to build credit, and then what happened was every thing we were spending on our debit, we now put on our credit. And even though we were paying it, what happened was our way of spending money even on all the normal things got so out of whack, because what we would do is we’d spend on the credit card, and then by the time we paid the credit card, the money that would of been spent a month ago, hadn’t been spent yet. And so by the time we pay off the credit card, now we’re back to zero. We’re always playing catch up.
– Catch up yeah.
– And I hated that, and I finally like cut the credit card up, and it took us like a couple months to detox from using the credit card.
– Well one thing that I noticed with the credit card was that there was this access to it felt like free money.
– It’s the same concept as poker chips. The reason casinos will play with poker chips versus cash, is because poker chips are less painful to put on the table.
– Interesting.
– They’re all the same size, maybe they’re different colors. But, it doesn’t feel like money. And so you spend more.
– I think Dave Ramsey also shared this tip once is when you’re spending with cash, you’re feeling it going through your hand, you’re not gonna go waste it on that $8 Mocha, you’ll just get a black coffee or whatever.
– $8, yeah.
– Yeah, but when you’re constantly using your debit card you don’t feel it as much. But, it’s even more true with credit cards I feel like.
– Well it is, and also with credit cards, they do the whole points thing, and it gives you enough of an incentive to spend more. Which we don’t need incentives to spend more.
– We’re human.
– We have enough incentive to spend more, so that’s why I’ve always been afraid of credit cards, I just knew that debt and credit cards were so dangerous.
– So before and after that year that we had a credit card, that’s why you’re so adamant about it?
– Like having the credit card proved exactly why I hate credit cards, even though we were doing it the right way. Anyone would say, oh yeah, get a credit card, just make sure you pay down the balance, and not keep a balance and all that. We never paid a penny of interest, but that doesn’t make it anymore of a healthy habit. We were so backwards on the way our money was being spent, that it like gave me anxiety.
– That’s true, I remember you really frustrated over it.
– And then the detoxing, it took a few months, like we were negative a bunch, because we were playing catch up on the way our money was coming in, and the way the money was going out.
– And we forgot how to spend correctly.
– Yeah, it was totally different, we were like what we have to look at our budget again. We have to like look at how were… So, I just hate credit cards.
– Okay.
– And so that’s just the reality of it.
– Okay. You ask me my next question.
– Next question, this is also in the beginning of our marriage.
– I thought you were gonna say it’s also about me.
– No, in the beginning of our marriage, I remember us praying that we would make more money so that we could give more money and be more generous. You remember that?
– Mm-hmm.
– And over the years, we’ve had opportunities to do so.
– Mm-hmm.
– Has your or our perception of our giving changed at all since then?
– Yes, I mean mine definitely, I don’t know if your has increased because I feel like you’ve always been a really generous person, and what you shared in the beginning of that question of praying that prayer I feel like you’ve taught me a lot and led me a lot in this area of generosity, and I feel like that was one way where you taught me in a really special way ’cause it’s not like you just sat down with me and pointed out where I was not being generous. You sat down and said hey we should be praying about this. And so we prayed, we lifted our request up to God, and anyways I just really feel like over the years, He’s answered our prayer, He’s been faithful to show us different ways of giving different opportunities. He’s invited us a lot to just participate in serving the body and being generous. And, I feel like more of a generous person because of that.
– Awesome.
– Yeah.
– I used to see generosity, the pinnacle of generosity, as giving more. That’s why I prayed this, ’cause I truly wanted to increase in what we had, not so that I can have more but so that I can give more. That was a reality of how I felt and believed. And as we’ve matured and gotten better jobs and now we just making money from our books, and trying to be more generous and giving more something that I’ve changed in is not that I don’t wanna give more, I still have a heart to give and wanna be generous. But what I’ve found is I can get lazy in giving in the other ways of my time, my energy, my resources, my love, my other things. Because I can give money. Not that giving money is a bad thing, but I just felt like God showed me that there’s lots of ways that he desires us to give. And that there’s other ways that could be more valuable, than just giving someone $10 or $100 or something. That I could give them something more valuable than money. Almost like showing me that money’s…
– Like what is true generosity? It’s not just money.
– Well, and not just true generosity, what God is actually desiring us to give. And not that, like I said, the money, or time or none of those are intrinsically different or like bad or better. But, seeing the true value in things. Because I can give all my money as it says in the Bible, and have not love and I’m nothing, right? And so, it doesn’t matter what I’m giving, it matters why I’m giving and who I’m giving for. And so, he’s just been transforming my perception on giving and I could default to like oh let’s just give so and so money, or how about I give them a whole day of me helping them.
– What do they actually need?
– Yeah, what do they actually need? And money could be it, but am I using that as a crutch in my giving?
– That’s really good, yeah.
– Which is a weird thing to think about.
– Well, I wanna add to that first part of the question about us praying for God to give us more so that we can give more. I remember specifically you mentioning we’re not gonna wait for him to give us more, we’re gonna start now. And I think that’s really important especially for our listeners to hear, because I think sometimes we can always be in a season of waiting. And we’re like we have to wait for God to give us more in order to give more when we can give out of what we have even if it’s a little bit. And so I just wanna encourage them with that.
– Yeah.
– ‘Cause we found it to be truly a blessing even when you give when you barely have.
– Well and the Bible says that exactly. You know, it talks about Jesus talks about the woman who gives her last mite. And he says she’s giving more out of her poverty than you did out of your wealth.
– Yeah.
– And so there’s this perception that we have of well I can’t give until I have more to give. Which doesn’t make sense, because unless we have a heart of giving, we’re never gonna give, because it’s never gonna feel like enough. ‘Cause that’s the chase of numbers. There’s always another number to jump to. So, that’s how I’ve changed in this, but I think you’re right. You’ve gotten much more generous, and I feel like I’ve changed in what I see as generosity.
– Yeah.
– Making sure that my heart is right and not just I can give money.
– That’s really good.
– Which could be so cheap in the Kingdom mindset. Or, perfectly generous it’s all how we do it.
– Yeah.
– Your question.
– Okay I’m up next. So, did you ever have a goal of how much you wanted in your savings account or in our savings account? Has there ever been a number?
– This probably goes back to my first answer about not thinking about money very often. No.
– No.
– I don’t think I’ve ever had a number. There’s been specific times in our life when we’re saving for something specific.
– So we needed a number, yeah.
– Yeah, but I don’t think I’ve had like a oh I want $10,000 in savings or I want $5,000 in savings. Even though Dave Ramsey says you should have a certain amount in there.
– I think it’s like $2,000 or something emergency fund.
– Yeah, I think there’s a minimum emergency fund, but then there’s like six months savings of payroll or whatever. But, no I don’t believe I’ve ever had a specific number in mind.
– Okay.
– But, maybe I should I don’t know.
– I don’t know.
– We’ll let the listeners tell us if I should have a specific number in mind.
– Okay.
– Okay here’s a question for you. This is kind of a fun one, and it’s also maybe it’s a question they could be asking each other.
– Okay, that’s good.
– That are listening. What is the best thing you’ve ever spent money on?
– And here’s my catch with this, is I’m trying to point out that sometimes we look for value in things, and we think it’s gonna be there, but then it’s not what we think it’s gonna be. So I wanna see if you can recall oh the best thing I’ve ever spent money on was?
– The best thing I ever spent money on was oh man.
– I feel like I know what kind of thing it will be.
– What kind of thing?
– Yeah.
– Well, the only thing that really comes to mind are two things and they’re both jewelry orientated.
– Jewelry, okay.
– One thing you bought me.
– Would this be like a typical thing for women and jewelry?
– Actually I think you bought me both, so I can’t even use those examples.
– Why not?
– I don’t know.
– Oh ’cause I bought them.
– ‘Cause you bought ’em. It’s the ring that I have now as my wedding ring. You bought it for me on my 10 year wedding anniversary.
– Yeah but you didn’t buy it I guess.
– No.
– Well, if it’s our money then maybe you did.
– I can’t think, I guess the couch?
– That was a good purchase. That was a good couch.
– Okay, so let me give you some background.
– The couch behind us?
– Yes.
– Yeah it’s a nice couch.
– So, just some back story real quick. I was pregnant with Olive and we had just moved to Central Oregon, and somebody had given us this old 1970’s floral couch it was bright yellow.
– Smelled like cat pee.
– Oh my gosh it smelled so bad. And we had it for almost a year I think.
– Yeah. I really liked that couch though.
– It was really stiff, and I was over it and I told Aaron can we please, please, please, please, please buy new couches? And, what’s really funny we’re renting this little tiny house, like it was like a little cottage bungalow style.
– What was it, it was like 1,100 square feet?
– I feel like it was smaller than that. But anyways, the living room was not very big, but we went to this furniture outlet place I sat on every piece of furniture until I found the one that I wanted. I was probably like six months pregnant, and I found these couches. And I’ve loved them, they’ve been one of the best things we ever bought. And it barely fit in that house.
– Yeah, it didn’t fit in that house, but we had them in there.
– Yeah.
– It was the most money we spent on furniture. Usually we would get given furniture or we’d go to the thrift stores and get furniture.
– It was our first house purchase of furniture. And you know what? If people read The Unveiled Wife, they would know that our very first couch as a married couple was an inflatable blue blow up couch.
– Plastic couch.
– Yeah.
– That it deflated.
– That deflated while we watched T.V.
– The bottom part did. So, couches is like a thing for us?
– I guess so you guys.
– We had this beautiful ugly blue couch, from like the ’70’s in Florida.
– So the things with the couches that we have now, I even remember the day that the delivery guys dropped it off and unboxed it. Like that’s how powerful this purchase was for me. So, I’m really happy with it.
– So, I actually that you were gonna answer like trips we’ve been on.
– Oh.
– Like adventures.
– I didn’t even think about that.
– That’s what I thought you were gonna say.
– I knew that you would probably answer.
– Okay.
– Although I like that too. Your biggest thing is spend money on memories.
– Yeah, and these couches have been awesome. They’re comfortable and the kids play on them, make forts out of them.
– They’re huge pillows so yeah, building forts is like awesome.
– They’re like perfect fort couches.
– What’s funny though is the pillows are so big, they’re super heavy. Anytime they wanna build a fort they’re like gung-ho about it, and then the moment we say ‘kay clean up they’re like we can’t they’re too heavy.
– Yeah they can take ’em off and build a fort, but they can’t put ’em back it’s difficult.
– Okay, anyways.
– Okay so you have one more question for me.
– Okay, so what’s funny about this is my last question…
– Let me guess, it’s the exact same one as me?
– No, it happens to be what was your worst purchase ever? Because you’re such a researcher and you go for the top notch thing.
– So, okay.
– You gotta have a bad one in there.
– It’s not gonna be worse in the sense that you’re thinking like a bad thing I bought. It’s more in like I regretted.
– Yeah.
– Like what is it called, buyer’s remorse?
– Okay.
– I’ve had that several times.
– Yeah you have.
– So, and you’re probably gonna remember this story. The paintball gun that I bought. -That’s exactly what I was thinking about.
– I knew that was what you were thinking about. And the reason, I’ve had plenty of remorseful purchases in my life not gonna lie. But because the Lord used it to teach me something about myself.
– Yeah.
– When it comes to not just money but where I find my value. And I was gonna going through a season we were financially strapped, I didn’t feel very successful at what I was doing in life. Our marriage was a little like
– It was more than
– Okay, alright.
– We were drowning. I can only laugh about that now because we are so far from that place now.
– Yeah, not back then it wasn’t funny.
– No.
– But, I wanted to feel successful again. I wanted to feel needed and useful and valuable and I did use to be part of a paintball team when I was younger. You remember when you were first hanging out with me, I was working at a huge paintball park in California.
– The first day I met your Mom was at one of our tournaments.
– Yeah, and I was good and I loved it and it was a very short season in my life, and so when I’m in this season I’m feeling like a little sad and depressed and unsuccessful. And so I was clinging to an idea of who I was and who I could of been and so I said hey I wanna buy a paintball gun and I wanna get back into that hobby. What’s funny about paintball is it’s not a cheap hobby. You don’t buy cheap paintball guns to go do a hobby of paint balling.
– You definitely would never buy.
– So, like I said, I bought a really nice paintball gun and all the equipment and all the stuff, and it was really surprising because you were like okay. You let me even though you probably thought it was such a stupid idea.
– I didn’t see the value in it at all.
– And I went one time and I felt the Lord tell me why are you doing this? Why did you go spend all this money and this is not what you want.
– How long did the gun sit in the box for?
– Maybe a couple months. And it just sat in the box, I only used it one time it was brand new, and I finally came to my senses and the Holy Spirit was like you are looking for something in the wrong place. And the only reason you bought this is because you feel this way and you’re going through this and I had to repent. I came to you and I said I’m sorry.
– You said I feel like an idiot.
– That’s actually what I said. I said I feel like an idiot. I said I think the only reason I wanted to do this and buy this is because I don’t feel successful. And I had to admit to that, and you forgave me. And you’re like I’m really glad that you’re deciding to get rid of this ’cause I did not want you to do that.
– And I was like can you sell it for what it’s worth?
– And no I didn’t I lost money on it.
– Yeah.
– But that was a lesson that I learned in looking for value and security and fulfillment in something else other than God. And so that’s why that sticks out to us, or to me specifically is that story is that was me buying a feeling or a notion about myself and trying to turn into something I wasn’t and trying to fulfill myself through money.
– Yeah.
– Which doesn’t work.
– Yeah don’t do that.
– In any way ever.
– For anyone.
– For anyone.
– Yeah don’t do that.
– The Bible tells us you cannot serve God and money.
– Yeah.
– You’ll hate one and love the other, or you’ll serve one and despise the other. You cannot do it. And so that’s not the worst purchase I ever made, but that was on the top of the list.
– Most regrettable.
– Not most regrettable. Actually I look back and I thank God that he allowed me to do something dumb. In a safe way, ’cause it’s not like I emptied our savings account.
– Yeah, I don’t know back then it could have been pretty close.
– I guess you’re right. You’re right, it probably was.
– But you weren’t paying attention to the savings accounts.
– I wasn’t paying attention to the savings accounts so thanks.
– Ask me your last question now, we’ll get the spotlight off of you.
– Okay what is one area you can grow in your relationship with money?
– I don’t wanna say. I take the fifth.
– You can’t. It’s not a court of law, this is Marriage After God.
– Okay, so ready for some truth, some honesty?
– Yes.
– Okay, you already know this about me. I have this problem when I feel like we need to spend money for things especially if it’s for the house or for the kids or whatever, and let’s say I’m at Target or Costco or WholeFoods or whatever.
– Or online.
– Or online, and I see a few extras that I wasn’t necessarily planning on buying or at least at this time, and I just go ahead and go get it without consulting you. I feel really bad about that, and I know it’s an area that I need to grow in because there’s been seasons where I am good at it, and I feel like I’m respecting the commitment that we’ve made to discuss purchases over a certain amount and then there’s other times where I just disregard it, and I don’t know why I do that.
– And you’re not talking about a pack of gum or an extra pair of socks?
– Well I’ll buy an extra pair of shoes for one of the kids, but they really don’t need it, it’s just they’re really cute and they’re right there on the end aisle at Target.
– How often does this happen?
– How many shoes does Olive need?
– I know, I know. We try and be pretty minimalist when it comes to the way that we live, but then there’s times where I’m just like oh and I need this type of hand soap and laundry detergent and all of these extra things when I wasn’t planning on making those happen that day. Truthfulness, transparency.
– Transparency, I think that’s a good one.
– Yeah, yeah.
– I mean, we both do it though. We base it off of what we see as valuable.
– Yeah.
– Like oh this is an important purchase but our scales of value are so different from each other sometimes on purchases.
– Yeah.
– But, which is why we should discuss them more.
– Yeah.
– Which is actually something that we’ve just another level of honesty with our finances, we just recently are revisiting with each other because we get out sync.
– Yeah, we just went on date night and that was the topic of our conversation which is why we’re doing this broadcast.
– Yeah, so we’re out of sync right now, and so we’re trying to get back in sync with each other of communicating. Just a rule of thumb something that we’ve instituted in our marriage and what we’re talking about is that we’ve stopped doing, but what we used to do is we would discuss any purchase that was going to be over $50.
– Yeah.
– We would plan out things that we were trying to save money for and we just haven’t been doing that lately and it hurts us.
– Yeah.
– And so we’re gonna get back into that, we’re gonna discuss be on the same page with each other on things that we want to spend money on. Needs versus wants.
– Yep, that’s a big one.
– What we’re trying to save for.
– Okay so we’re done with our questions but I do have one more question that I wanna answer so that those listening know.
– Okay.
– So, we’re writing this book Marriage After God, and we are dedicating a whole chapter to finances, and how it’s foundational to a marriage after God, and I just wanted you to share a little bit about that before we close out.
– It is. There’s a few things that are on the top of the list that cause divorce and destruction in marriages and it’s sex and money. And so, if we don’t have a sober Biblical mindset of money, if we don’t understand what it’s for, if we have the wrong perspective and relationship with money, it will destroy us. And we experienced that, and this is not just having it or not having it. This is whatever money you have what your relationship with it is. And even if you don’t have money, what’s your relationship with pursuing it. Because the Bible talks about not pursuing wealth or not toiling to pursue wealth. It says be wise enough to desist, right? It tells us that we can’t serve God and money. Jesus talked more about money than he did about other things. Money is important to God. There’s a wrong perspective that verse that says money is the root of all kinds of evil. But, it doesn’t actually say that. See that’s a wrong understanding of money. It’s the love of money it’s the root of all kinds of evil. And so having the correct biblical mature relationship with money and how when we have that, it becomes a tool, a powerful tool in the life of a marriage after God, in a marriage that’s wanting to see God’s Kingdom grow and their marriage be used for his purposes. Because then he can trust us.
– Yeah.
– The Bible tells us if you are faithful with the little you will be faithful with much. And so that’s why we have a whole chapter in the book dedicated to finances and money and our relationship with it, and how we’re suppose to view it and think about it and use it, and it’s foundational, and if you just think money’s not important as in a topic to consider and to truly evaluate in your life it’s gonna control you versus you controlling it.
– Or maybe you know that money is a source of contention in your marriage, and you guys aren’t being one. That is just a red flag that it is time to get on the same page. Go for a date night, talk about strategies on how you guys can organize your finances, and then commit to implementing the things that you discuss, and we’re not perfect at this. Like we just said, we just went on a date night to talk about how we’re out of sync right now and we need to refocus and just move forward in oneness and in unity when it comes to our finances. So that’s really good.
– This isn’t’ just financial advice so that we can be wealthier and happier and all that. The point is the money and the resources God’s given us, he desires for us to invest into his Kingdom. Now that looks a bunch of different ways, but he wants us to think that way. Like oh, my money and the things that God’s given me are not just for my own benefit. They are for our benefit, but they’re for the benefit of what he has given it to us to use for in growing our families, taking our families in generosity, in building the Kingdom through supporting missionaries or building an orphanage or adopting a child or whatever it is.
– Yeah.
– The money’s for that.
– Yeah.
– For those things, the things that God’s called us to not for our own pleasures. Now, we do get to enjoy all good things that God gives us.
– Right.
– But if that’s our own focus, we’re in the wrong place in the first place. So, yeah that chapter is an important one.
– Yeah.
– We actually been editing it right now.
– We’re working on it right now. Well, thank you guys so much for joining us this week on money and finances.
– Yeah.
– We hope that we gave you a little bit of insight into just the conversations that you guys can be talking about it with each other. We hope that you have an incredible week, and we’ll see you next time.
– [Aaron Smith] Did you enjoy today’s show? Find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.