Dear Paul and Anne,
Greetings in Christ! Before I say anything else, I’d like to let you know how much Chelsey and I value your friendship. You are a beautiful couple with a very special family. Your love of each other, of Christ, and his Church has always been a great example for us.
A Source of Stress
You both have hearts of gold. I think of the many acts of kindness and generosity you show to us and to so many others. The burden you have on your heart for sharing Christ’s love and His Teaching, especially to our young people, is an inspiration to me.
I am sorry to hear that your financial situation is causing stress. You know that this is common for marriages in America. Too few people take the steps necessary to properly manage their finances — even from a secular perspective. A much smaller number take the time to consider how our faith in Christ should impact our handling of money. The failure to manage our money properly is a result of a number of factors — but I’ll point to a few primary ones.
First, very few people receive training in the basics of money management. We learn so many things in school, but checkbook management, budgeting, organizing skills, and setting financial priorities are not among them.
Second, to the extent that people’s attitudes are formed, they tend to be impacted heavily by the trends in our society rather than looking to Christ as the model to follow. We fall prey to the consumer culture and want what we want now, without considering the impact on either our checkbooks or our spiritual lives. The late Larry Burkett once said that how we handle our money is an outside indicator of our interior life. That’s a pretty perceptive statement — one thinks of order vs. chaos; an attitude of detachment vs. attachment; being a responsible steward vs. acting irresponsibly; living a life of generosity vs. selfishness.
Encouragement and Hope
Each one of us will find both strengths and weaknesses as we examine how we relate to money from an interior perspective. Most often, we will uncover a “predominant” fault or tendency that will require extra effort to overcome. In hindsight, we often see that this effort leads to a great deal of growth. We find we are better persons — persons who more closely imitate Christ as we apply the virtues to how we handle our money.
Finally, there is a certain level of discipline and consistency that needs to be brought to managing one’s financial affairs. With all of life’s demands, especially in a larger family, it seems like we barely have time to just pay the bills, let alone set up a budget, track our expenses, reconcile bank accounts — in other words, all of those things that lead to success with our finances. You cannot expect to succeed with your financial affairs if you don’t devote the time to managing them properly. I want to offer you encouragement and hope. It can be done!
However, I also need to mention a caveat. No one can do this for you. It is up to you to make the commitment to be a good steward of the gifts God has given you. There are resources that can help, and it will be a privilege for me to provide whatever counsel I can. But the resources and counsel amount to nothing if not acted on consistently over time.
I understand that the recent breakdown of the car and the $900 repair bill brought you to the point of saying, “Enough, we need to do something!” While I wouldn’t wish the breakdown and $900 bill on anyone, in time, you may consider it to be a real blessing if it becomes the trigger that causes you to take control of your financial situation.
Step by Step
There are some immediate steps you need to take to get on the right path:
• Work together to assess your situation and get it down on paper. Use the forms in the book to summarize your assets and liabilities, list your debts and develop a first pass at an annual budget. It might work best to set aside a weekend, farm out the kids and do nothing else but this task.
• Review the details of your debts. It’s important to understand the repayment terms on each of the loans, especially the interest rate. List them in order based on interest rate, with the highest interest rate debt coming first. Establish an immediate plan to eliminate any consumer credit as soon as possible. I’ll help you develop this and provide options for consideration.
• Review your giving. I encourage it to be at a level that requires stretch and trust in our Lord. You are a very generous couple and may very well already be fulfilling this responsibility well, but it is good to take an objective look at it. Remember you can take into consideration the expenses of educating and forming your children in the faith.
• Establish a “rainy day” fund — you can start with a goal of three months' living expenses, but it should really be at least six months'. Open a savings account and have the money direct-deposited from your paycheck. Don’t touch it except for a true emergency.
• Set a schedule to go through the first half of my workbook — review the references to Scripture and the Catechism, and answer the self-study questions together. Perhaps taking one principle per week would work for you. It’s important to talk about finances as a couple, and even more important that we move from having “his” and “her” attitudes toward money to putting on Christ’s attitude. This study will help you do that. Your marriage will be strengthened and your children will benefit from your example.
• Determine who will take responsibility to handle the basics — paying bills, checkbook management, budget development, and all of the organizing responsibilities. Then make sure time is set aside weekly for this person to handle these responsibilities. I use Saturday mornings to do this, and you should plan on two hours each week. I’ll help you design a system to keep you organized.
• Start having weekly “dates” to review what’s going on with your finances. Maybe you can barbecue — it’s the perfect way to “grill” each other (just kidding). Work extra hard to be kind, understanding and patient during these dates. Over time, you can have these less frequently, but for now weekly is important. This is where you’ll set priorities as a couple — as a team — and then act on them.
Once you’ve got the debt repayment and rainy-day-fund plans in motion, there will be time to consider longer-range goals, such as funding the education of the children, paying the mortgage off more rapidly, and retirement issues. But first things first — let’s walk before we run.
Paul and Anne, I look forward to providing resources and counsel that will help you become more effective stewards, leading to freedom from debt and the related stress and worry. True financial freedom awaits you — shall we get started?
With Love,
Phil
© Copyright 2005 Phil Lenahan
Phil Lenahan is Director of Media and Finance at Catholic Answers and author of Catholic Answers’ Guide to Family Finances. If you have a question you would like Phil to address, contact him at plenahan@catholic.com.
