The Ramsey Show - App - Is it Morally Right to Claim My Tithe on My Taxes? (Hour 2)
Episode Date: February 15, 2021Debt, Savings, Taxes, Insurance Sign Up for a FREE trial of Ramsey+ TODAY: https://bit.ly/31ricKt Tools to get you started: Debt Calculator: https://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Check...up: https://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: https://bit.ly/2QEyonc Check out more Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/2JgzaQR
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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios,
it's The Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king,
and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice.
I am Dave Ramsey, your host, Chris Hogan.
Ramsey Personality is my co-host today.
Open the phones at 888-825-5225.
Stevie is with us in Erie, Pennsylvania.
Hi, Stevie.
Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.
Hi, thank you.
How can we help?
Well, my question is regarding choosing a financial partner, looking towards marriage.
Okay.
So currently I'm in a serious relationship.
You know, we're both pursuing a longer goal, but I've noticed some things that are red flags, I would say.
And I'm not sure if I'm being overcritical in it or just being attentive to the situation.
So this individual, for instance, there are a couple examples I can give.
One of them is if we were to both go out to a restaurant,
this person's been unemployed for the past nine months, you know,
they will order the most expensive item on the menu every single time
when they are being paid for.
But when it's my turn to pay, you know, I always pick the cheapest, keeping in mind the fact that we're both students and I'm also working currently.
The second example would be he just graduated and he took two months to get persuaded into looking for jobs seriously.
And now that he's found one, within three days,
he's already considering quitting.
To me, it just seems a bit of a red flag.
Stevie, how long have you all been together?
About eight months.
How old are you guys?
I'm sorry, what was that?
How old are you guys?
I am 27, and he is about to be 26.
Okay.
Stevie, I'm going to tell you something.
I think whenever you have those red flags,
and these things that you're talking about and looking at,
these are things that I think there are probably more that you could allude to
if we really pressed and talked.
I'm going to tell you, you're probably dealing with someone that's not motivated.
And this, to me, could sound like it could end up being a project for you
later in life on many other fronts.
I would move on.
I really and truly would.
Because you want someone that's equal with you,
that wants to chase and conquer and work together as a team.
Right now in the rowboat, you're the person that's rowing and he's relaxing.
And I don't think that that's the kind of life you want long term for you and your own legacy.
Yeah.
And also it's a concern too.
When a lot of people hear my major, they're like, oh, you're going to make money, but they don't realize the investment that's gone into it
and the work that's gone behind, like funding my own education.
Yeah.
Well, you're a driven person.
You're motivated.
You've got things that you want to accomplish,
and I don't think there's anything wrong with allowing this individual to be a good friend,
but I wouldn't move on if I were you.
I think you've seen enough red flags to let you know something's not quite right here.
You know, sometimes a way to – it's a little tough for us in a two-minute radio call
to dictate the next decade of your future with a relationship situation,
but a couple things pop into my mind just hearing your
story and listening to you uh there's no question you're a very goal-oriented person you have a lot
of initiative and a lot of drive and so you're and you're self-aware enough to know i could be
overly concerned about this i could be a little bit legalistic about it and that's good to worry
about that a little bit to be you know to on your part you
don't be a you don't be a jerk on every little detail right but the things that you the second
thing that you mentioned um unemployed for nine months finally does get a job uh and then
immediately hates the job and wants to quit uh you know it just that one sounds a lot more serious than just the the price of your entree
um you know and and the the lack of manners around ordering the expensive thing when you're not paying
manners i mean if you if we told somebody not to get married based on manners i sharon wouldn't
ever married me i didn't have any manners still don have a lot, but she's taught me a few.
But I finally figured out which fork and all that stuff. But so two things pop into my head that I always think of when I'm in situations like yours.
Three things.
I had another one pop into my head.
One is a buddy of mine says when there's
something bothering you down inside when your spirit is disturbed there's a reason
and your spirit's disturbed and that's why you called and you're just looking for someone to
confirm to you that it's okay to have a disturbed spirit. And he always says, when in doubt, don't.
So if a deal feels funny, if I'm working on a business deal or a client,
and it feels funny, there's a reason it feels funny.
There's something really going on there, you know?
And that is not to be discounted.
And so that concerns me about your situation.
The second thing is there's a book that my friend Henry Cloud did called Necessary Endings.
When do you end a relationship of any kind?
When do you end a relationship where you, like you say, I'm going to quit a job,
or I'm going to do a breakup, or I'm going to end a marriage,
or I'm going to end this friendship or i'm going to end this friendship when do you end
a relationship it is when you lose hope that the thing of concern is never going to get any better
and the the character qualities that you've lack of character that you've outlined
falls in that category and so when in doubt don. And then the last thing that popped into my head was this.
Ask yourself, because you're wise beyond your years,
15, 20 years from now, your teenager girl,
your teenage daughter is sitting in front of you,
and she asks you this exact question.
What are you going to tell her about this boyfriend?
And that one, that may end it for him.
No.
I mean, because that.
He may be done when you ask yourself that question.
Yeah, I mean, that pulls yourself out of the middle of it,
and now you're looking and talking to someone you love.
In other words, does the 35-year-old you have respect for the 27, 26-year-old you?
Wow.
When you look back and you go, ooh, dodged a bullet on that one, or hey, I'm glad I didn't overreact to a couple of little things.
That's right.
That's a good thing.
One of the two ways.
No, that's a great perspective.
And just back up from it a little bit.
And so those are three things that I use.
I look for that kind of a thing and say, you know, long-term, am I going to be glad I did this?
Right.
Because if you back off and say long-term, is this a good investment?
Long-term, am I glad that when I'm 75 years old, I mean, if we're negotiating severance with somebody that we've let go here.
Right.
And a few dollars makes it better that the pain of someone leaving the building.
I'm never going to regret those few dollars on my deathbed when I'm 78.
Right.
That's great.
And I would regret that a relationship was ruined that didn't need to be ruined.
Right.
Wow.
Long-term perspective.
Good perspective.
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All right, here we go.
Today's question comes from Eric in Ohio. He says, I understand funding of the 401K match than Roth concept.
All things being equal, where do the HSA contributions fit into this concept
if HSA is being used as a retirement health care expense?
Giving long-term care statistics,
what amount of money do you think is a reasonable retirement HSA is being used as a retirement health care expense. Giving long-term care statistics, what amount of money do you think is a reasonable retirement HSA that the HSA should have in it?
Well, a couple things here, Eric.
You're bringing up two different things.
With the HSA, I mean, you've got a great opportunity as an individual to contribute up to $3,550 per year, and as a family, $7,100.
But long-term care, this is almost, think of them like a tag-team partner.
Long-term care insurance is something you want to have in place by age 60 to make sure that if you do go into a nursing home or need assistant care,
you've got money or an insurance policy to long-term care to take care of it.
Yeah, long-term care insurance is an essential part of financial planning at 60 years old and beyond. If you have a net worth of under $10 million, otherwise,
you probably self-insure through it. If you got $10 million or more, you probably just hire
somebody to come to your house, right? I mean, you wouldn't go into a nursing home. And so,
at least that's the way people that I know are handling it so but but otherwise you you know you can use the hsa for
long-term care expenses and so funding it could help you become self-insured and not need a
long-term care policy oh uh is i think maybe what he's hinting at okay and that's okay too but we're
fully funding the hsa as account the savings portion of the account, as an investment would really be a baby step seven tactic.
You've maxed out all your retirements, and you still want to hide some money from the government legally.
I fully fund my HSA every year.
It's invested in mutual funds, and I've never used it for medical expenses.
I always just cash flow my medical expenses.
Consequently, I've been doing it since George W., and that's when HSAs were invented in his administration.
And I've got like $250,000 in that account.
So you're looking at that like a health emergency fund.
Yeah, that could be my long-term care policy in a sense.
Okay.
If I wanted to just pay for long-term care, that's the first place I would pay for it out of.
Okay.
And I'm just letting it grow as an investment.
It grows tax-free or tax-deferred, just like a 401k or traditional IRA.
And so it becomes an investment if you're not using it for health care anytime soon.
Okay.
And so little stuff, like a deductible, I mean, if one of us had a tiny surgery or something
and we had a $1,000, $2,000 thing, we'd just pay that.
Just pay it.
Right.
And we'd leave the HSA alone.
But that's in a high net worth situation and Baby Step 7 situation.
That's right.
Prior to that, you wouldn't use it except just to cover chronic stuff,
stuff where the money's going in and going out every year.
But the HSA, we're huge fans of that around here.
And this is the first time I've ever seen the question come up as a long-term care issue.
But you do need long-term care insurance.
What dollar amount is it that you think that someone is self-insured?
What would you say?
You know what?
I've got a cheat sheet laying around here somewhere on the long-term care insurance.
And I think it's important, while I dig that out, just to touch on this whole subject a minute.
Because it's such a good subject.
We're such a proponent for long-term care insurance.
Yes.
Without a doubt.
And the reason is that 75% of you ladies will outlive your husbands.
And so the typical thing that happens is the – I can't find it.
The typical thing that happens is the – you know, you lady –
the papa goes into the nursing home, burns through $50,000 to $100,000 a year for a couple, three years, and burns up the nest egg.
Cracks and scrambles the nest egg.
And so the typical long-term care stay, that's what I was looking for the cheat sheet on.
Is it under my, oh, maybe it is.
Nope.
Nope.
It's got its own thing over there somewhere, James.
But that's okay.
I'll find it later.
Bottom line is, is the typical stay is not that long.
So it's a $300,000 to a $500,000 event is typically the max.
It's very unusual to hear somebody going over $500,000 in nursing home care.
But the problem is for most people, that's everything they got.
That's right.
But if you're sitting on an everyday millionaire situation, they got $5, $10 million,
and they got a half million dollars sitting in that HSA
or $300,000 sitting in that HSA.
They can pay for their nursing home or in-home care themselves
and self-insure it, and it's all tax-free
because the HSA going in is tax-deductible.
Going out for medical, there's no taxes on it.
And so it's a very, very good program.
That health equity company that we endorse is who we've got our HSAs invested in, and
they've got good mutual fund options in there, and we'll do that.
Yeah, it's important.
And again, if you're out there and you're a millennial and you've got parents or whatever
that are in their mid-50s, please bring this up because you want to make sure that that policy is in place by age 60.
And don't overdo it because your chance of using long-term care insurance in a nursing home setting
or in-home care setting prior to 60 is one-tenth of 1%.
But as soon as you turn 60, it's like all hell breaks loose.
The statistics get really high.
Very dramatic increase that you're going to need some kind of care in your last couple of decades of decades of life.
And by the time you get in early 60s, the price goes up astronomically.
So you want to be proactive.
Love your parents enough to bring it up.
Just tell them, hey, you saw two bald guys talking about this stuff.
And mom, dad, I love you.
And do you have this in place?
And if so, you're just asking.
And that's doing it out of love, not out of greed.
There you go.
Robert is in Orlando.
Hey, Robert, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.
Hey, how are you guys doing today?
Better than I deserve, man.
How can we help?
So I will be starting law school next fall.
I'm 23 years old, and my only debt is a $17,000 car loan that I might sell
depending on where I move to. Currently, I make $32,000 a year and have about $15,000 in state
stock. Hopefully, that'll be able to grow to about $20,000 before I start. I do have an emergency
fund as well as a Roth that I contribute to every month. My question is, should I use that $15,000
to $20,000 to pay for rent and living expenses while I'm in law school or just take out enough student loans to be able to pay for those living expenses
and just focus on school?
Robert, did you really just call the Dave Ramsey Show to ask Dave if you should take
out a student loan?
Are you new to this, Robert?
Are you brand new?
As a matter of fact, I am.
Okay.
All right.
Well, let me keep him calm.
Then you just be nice to him, Chris.
Don't scare the man.
I'm the nice one.
Robert, here's the thing, buddy.
I love the fact that you've got a career track.
I even love that you know the direction you want to go.
But here's what I want you to avoid.
We have a $1.7 trillion epidemic going on.
Excuse me, billion dollar epidemic going on.
It's going to get
to that pretty soon um with student loans it's a situation and so what i don't want you to do i
want you to chase your dreams but i don't want you to grab student loans i really and truly don't uh
you've got an opportunity to look at this and start to think you can go to night i've got friends
that have done this my friend where you're enrolling and going to law school at night while you're working and it might take a little bit longer
but for you to come out of that without student loans would be a game changer yeah the um the
stories that we've heard robert over the last 20 years 25 years of doing coaching with people
financially that took out a law school loan uh they're two hundred thousand dollars in debt
and um all on the
premise that this was all going to work the way it was supposed to work and life never works
exactly the way it's supposed to work and so they end up not passing the bar
and let me tell you what your law degree is worth then economically speaking not so much um or so
they end up deciding they want to be more of a public servant and they
want to work for the government as a lawyer which means you get paid squat but you've got big old
student loans that you've got based on the fact you're going to be a rich lawyer someday and so
it doesn't turn out the way people think it's going to turn out always there's all kinds of
different things that happen it takes longer to get get the law career started and get the income to go with it,
all those kinds of things.
So you put yourself in a dramatic disadvantage when you take on these student loans.
And so that's why we're always trying to talk people out of it.
Open phones at 888-825-5225.
You jump in.
We'll talk about your life and your money.
It's a free call.
Chris Hogan, Ramsey Personality, author of the number one bestseller, Everyday Millionaires, is my co-host today here on the air.
This is The Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. Chris Hogan, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today.
Open phones at 888-825-5225. That at 888-825-5225.
That's 888-825-5225.
Brittany's in Amarillo, Texas.
Hi, Brittany.
Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.
Hi, Dave.
I'm hoping that maybe you can help me decide if I should delay going to school for one year to save up money
or if I should just jump in.
A little bit of information is I'm a 28-year-old
single mom and I make $40,000 a year. I'm in baby step three and I have $4,000 saved.
And I've been cash flowing school part-time right now with grants and different things,
but I'm pursuing a degree or a career in dental hygiene, which is a full-time program,
and the cost increases once I get into the program.
So I'm looking at going this fall for that,
but I don't know if I should wait and save up a bunch of money
because I'll have to be working part-time,
or if I should just go and try to cash flow and work like crazy while I'm in school.
Okay.
Can you cash flow the school and your life if you work like crazy and go this fall?
And have a relationship with my daughter, maybe.
I don't think.
I'm not sure.
How long is the school?
It's two full years. How long is the school? It's two full years.
How old is your daughter?
She's three.
Oh.
Yeah.
Okay.
And I'll have, the initial cost is going to be like $11,000 at the beginning of the first semester, but it goes down after that because I have to buy a $7,000 kit and things like that.
So that's why the initial cost is going to be more than what it will cost for the rest of the program. Okay, so your concern is the only way you can cash flow it is a lot of hours of work in addition to going to school.
Yes, and I'll have to quit my current job because the program...
But if you wait a year, what happens?
What changes?
You're going to have just a pile of cash you could live on and you wouldn't have to be
gone so much working.
Yes, I'm just scared that I'll lose some momentum because I've been going and I've been believing
in myself enough to get through.
I'm just scared that I'll quit.
I don't think you're going to quit.
No, you sound motivated.
You sound very, very focused on not only doing something for yourself, Brittany, but also for your daughter.
I really want.
I can hear it.
I can hear it in your voice, the passion.
Do you have a support network around you to help you with your daughter?
Yes, I do.
Okay.
A great one.
That's good.
My parents are here, and I have a really supportive boyfriend that believes in my dreams as well.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Okay, so you're going to quit your full-time job, and you're going to dental hygienist in the fall,
and you're going to work a part-time job to pay bills while you're going to school, right?
Yes.
Doing what, and what are the hours?
I don't know.
I assume I've had, I'm working retail somewhere, like just somewhere working nights and weekends or being a waitress or something.
Okay.
I think if you solve that part of the equation and have more detail, it could give you peace.
Let me give you an example.
Okay. it could give you peace. Let me give you an example. Let's pretend that it was neither one of the things you mentioned,
but that the new part-time job was something where you made better money than those two things,
and I'm making this up in my head, but also you had control over your time.
Maybe it was a little bit of a small business idea.
Maybe you were, what do you do now?
I'm an administrative assistant for an accounting firm.
Perfect.
Let's pretend that you were an off-site,
and let's open a business called Virtual Administrative Assistant,
and you are going to become an administrative assistant
for three different small businesses that cannot afford a full-time one.
And you're a part-time for all three of them,
but it does not require you be answering the phone during a certain time of the day.
It just requires that you get administrative assistant work done,
which, by the way, you could do after the three-year-old went
to bed okay and you'd make more than you will and the dadgum retail yeah yeah yeah i'm just making
this up but but what my point is is if you had something like that mapped out that you believed
was real and you start working towards that i think a lot of your
worry and stress about abandoning your child which is where the tears are coming from is going to go
away yeah but if you have to work 40 hours a week at retail just to barely scrape by because you're
not making any money and your schedule is at their beck and call, they own you, then you are going to have a real stress point with the baby, right?
Right.
Oh, yeah.
And so let's just take that off the table.
Either design something where you control your time
and you make more money as your work-through gig,
or you wait a year.
Okay.
Because you're not going to quit.
Brittany, what baby step are you on right now?
I'm on baby step three.
And I have $4,000.
Okay.
You are on three.
Okay.
I don't think, even if you delay it a year, I don't think you're going to give up.
I really don't.
I think, you know, what I would ask you to do, though, is to really search your heart and see, is the dental hygienist, is that the thing you're absolutely passionate about?
Yeah.
Because you're going to be making too many sacrifices for something that's a maybe.
So I think in that period of time, you can be, as my grandmother would say, prayerful and careful to get certain about what it is you want to do and then begin to make the sacrifices necessary so you can get there let me tell you what i know
about um people in your situation i've worked with single moms for 30 years uh and they uh
they never think not not never but the they work so hard They work so many jobs just to try to get by.
And they never think they're doing as good a job as they are.
And, lady, you're a warrior.
And you don't even know it.
And you're doing so much better as a mom and as a woman than you think you are.
Because you've just been a raw nerve for so long yeah that you forget how good you are and i man i tell you and the other thing i got is i got a whole building
full of millennials and a whole bunch of them were raised by single moms and they all stand up and
salute their warrior mom including chris hogan yeah without a shadow of a doubt you know it's
one of those things where let me be the first to tell you,
Brittany, if you hadn't heard it, you're doing a good job.
Amen.
You are doing a good job.
And keep being that role model for your daughter,
because I'm going to tell you what you deposit in that little girl right now
are the things that she'll begin to amplify and replay in her head and in her heart.
And that's the stuff that she'll begin to believe about herself and, more importantly,
about the mom that raised her.
So keep up the good work, keep your priorities in order, and keep people around you that
believe in you, and remove those that don't.
I hadn't thought about it, but you and Christy Wright.
Hmm, yeah.
Both warrior, both were raised by warrior women.
Yep, without a doubt.
I mean, Christy's mom running a bakery.
Yep.
And your mom raising two boys.
Two boys working as a nurse.
Yeah.
No.
It's just, I mean, it's a feat.
It really is.
And it goes unsung.
And it's not anything you'd sign anybody up for.
No.
I don't think, it's not the way to go.
It's not like something to aspire to but the but when you're there the the way those ladies rise to those
occasions and fight their way through that's exactly right pretty stinking amazing very well
done you're going to be okay either way i think if you design a better job that pays more and you
control your time more,
something like I outlined, you're going to get a lot more peace
and you're going to go on and go in the fall.
This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you. Chris Hogan, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today here on the air.
This is the Dave Ramsey Show.
Isaiah is with us in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Hi, Isaiah. How are you?
I'm doing just fine.
Thank you for taking my call.
Sure.
What's up?
All right.
So there's no debate that tithing is important, and at least 10% is what we're required to do.
But I just got to a point where my tithing has gotten larger, and I've also noticed that through my local church, there is a statement at the bottom that shows how much I tithe, and I'm having
a moral issue here on whether it is morally acceptable to claim what I tithe on my taxes.
Okay.
You mean spiritually?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so you're just checking your heart and going, am I doing this for the wrong reasons?
Yes.
That's a good question.
I'm glad you're asking that of yourself.
I actually wrestled through that one many years ago myself, and I kind of did it at the same point you did.
When my tithe got a little larger and I went, whoa, that's some money.
I always wrote it off when it was small.
I didn't think anything about it, but it was a big deal.
It was a little bit bigger, and I went, yeah, that's like a big tax write-off.
Here's the thing.
I think you can ask yourself in prayer, honestly, before the Lord,
if you are doing this because you feel like it is one of the disciplines,
one of the things we do in our spiritual life that God tells us to do because
it's good for us, in other words, am I being obedient, or am I tithing because of the tax
write-off?
99.99% of the time, someone who asks this question doesn't have the problem.
That's the one who doesn't ask who might have the problem.
The very fact that you had a tender enough heart to even ask the question tells me you're not doing this for the tax write-off.
Am I right?
Yes.
Okay.
If you're not doing it for the tax write-off, then it comes down to, if I take the tax write-off, have I done something wrong?
When the intent of your heart was you didn't do it for the tax write-off,
you did it because giving is a part of your faith walk.
Agreed?
Yes.
Okay.
Then it comes down to me, to stewardship.
And in my mind, to be a good manager of money,
one part of that is to keep the government's hands off of as much of it as possible
because they are not good managers of money.
So sending them any money that I don't have to is, by definition, a bad manager of money.
And so it is it's beyond it is in my mind.
Once I got there, I said to myself, I would not be spiritually correct to not take the write-off.
Because by sending them the money when they misbehave with it is a bad use of God's money.
I'm not managing his money well by sending it to someone that's wasteful when I don't have to.
Now, I wouldn't lie about it
and i wouldn't cheat and i'm not gonna have incredible integrity on my taxes it's ridiculous
how much integrity i have uh every stinking little dollar and piece of cash and everything
is counted we don't let anything slip under the table um not because i'm afraid of an audit but
because i want to be honorable before the Lord and have integrity about my taxes.
But integrity also includes paying as little in taxes as the law allows because they're bad managers.
How does that sound?
That sounds a lot better.
But I have run into people in doing what we do. And, Chris, you probably have, too.
And usually it is where there's some size to the giving.
That the reason they're giving is for the tax write-off, which, by the way, is bad math.
But also it's really bad spiritually.
And then sometimes I run into people who are giving because they want to be noticed.
Yes.
And that's, you know know i want my name on
the building or i want you know i demand this or i demand that now we've put our name on a few things
when we did giving but uh but it wasn't like that was our was not again it was not our motivation
wasn't your heart yeah isaiah you're in the right place buddy um and i think you know as your income
grows the dollar amount's going to continue to
grow, and you're totally fine to be able to claim that on your taxes as you move forward.
Let me give you another prediction, okay, Isaiah? Well, I got you. A guy who asked this question
is managing the money well because you're sensitive to what God's use of the money is.
And are you in his will?
Are you doing that?
That makes you an excellent manager,
and I will give you a prediction that your money will grow because you're an excellent manager.
The parable of the talents tells me that those who manage well
will be given more to manage.
Yep.
And those who don't manage well are given less to manage.
Yep.
And actually, that's God.
Yep.
And so there's a wealth inequality thing for you right there.
That'll mess you up.
Well, and he'll also be very aware of how the church is using the funds and what they're
doing, how they're impacting the community.
And so your heart's in the right place, bud.
Yeah.
Very good.
I love that question.
I haven't had that one in a long time.
Thank you for calling in with that.
Open phones at 888-825-5225.
You know, Chris, I'll take that a step further.
I want to continue that discussion a minute.
Because one of the things I find is, and you and I have both observed this, see if you agree with this statement,
that people who have a very noble reason, a higher calling, so to speak, for handling their money well,
have more of a tendency for handling it well.
I would completely agree.
So, in other words, if I want to change my family tree, so I'm doing this for the good of my kids,
so that my kids don't have to grow up.
I grew up poor.
Some guy says I didn't, but I mean, I grew up middle class.
But if you grow up poor and you say, well, I don't want my kids to have to grow up that way, that's a higher calling.
That's a nobility.
It's not selfish.
It's not I want to get wealthy so I can get a car.
Right.
It's not wealthy.
I want to get wealthy so I can go to St. Lucia.
You know, that's not your reason. That's a fairly shallow reason. It's an can go to St. Lucia. That's not your reason.
That's a fairly shallow reason.
It's an okay thing to do, but if that's all the bigger a reason you have, you're not going
to go.
But probably the highest calling, the most noble calling, are when a person of faith
says, I've got to do this because this is what God requires.
It's not my money.
I'm managing it for him, and I've been doing a bad job managing his money,
and I've got to straighten my act up.
When they have that kind of motivation,
those are some of the people who will sacrifice the deepest in order to win.
They're the ones, their budget is clean.
They're not cheating.
There's no ish ever comes up in their language because the
the nobility of their why is so high yeah absolutely and that's the gauge that's the
thing that keeps them on that track and won't let them veer off you know they are intentional
and uh that's uh i remember having that awakening uh some 15 16 years ago you know the other thing
that does for those of you out there that are people of faith, okay,
when you take that position, then you're no longer taking a poll from your parents
who turn their nose up or roll their eyes or your friends who go,
oh, yeah, well, nobody ever gets out of debt.
You're like, I'm not taking a poll because I'm not doing this for you.
I'm not doing this for your approval.
I'm not even doing it for my own approval. I'm doing this because I feel I'm doing this for you. That's right. I'm doing this for your approval. I'm not even doing it for my own approval.
I'm doing this because I feel like this is what God requires.
That's right.
Because the borrower is slave to the lender.
That's right.
And people don't get a vote.
You know, your need to please other people goes away.
It goes away.
In tandem with you having that level of higher calling.
Sure does.
And that's another
element that causes people to win when you are trying to be a people pleaser and everybody in
your freaking life has a vote yeah and you're trying to impress them you're trying to make
them think you're cool you're you're doing whatever you're keeping up with the joneses
or the instagrams or the kardashians or whatever it is you're trying to be that person you are
never going to have any money.
That's right.
You're going to be broke your whole freaking life.
And, you know, part of not needing to please other people sometimes
is having something bigger to please.
I like that.
And that's, you know, I have seen that with my fellow believers,
the ones who say, okay, I've got to do this because this is what God says to do.
And I want to stand before him and hear, well done, good and faithful service.
When I manage his money, I want to feel him smiling by the way I did it, with my generosity, with my diligence.
It causes you to get a will.
It causes you to get life insurance.
It causes you to be on a budget. It causes you to get a will. It causes you to get life insurance. It causes you to be on a budget.
It causes you to get out of debt.
It causes you to buy things more carefully and wisely.
It changes everything.
It does change it all, and it's so worth it.
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