Money Matters - Consumerism

This week's topic in our church class on money was titled Consumerism. The leader had some simple instructions, starting with:

Spend Less Than You Make - step one to any successful money management plan

It Is Hard - especially if you have developed bad habits

No One Will Do It For You - this is a decision and exercise that we each must do for ourselves

Pay Attention -

• Read something regularly (book, magazine)
• List assets & liabilities
• Find net worth (assets minus liabilities)
• Track your spending
• Prepare a budget

List Your Life Goals

Laid Off - Now What?

No I'm not laid off, I still have both my day job and my 2nd job. But we are doding a "Money Matters" 6-week class at church and that was the title of last week's lesson. Here are the suggested steps.

1) Pray
2) Protect your family
3) Assess your situation
3a) Assets & liabilities
3b) Cashflow
4) Stop spending
4a) Quit Charging
5) Network
6) Explore all opportunities
7) Everybody over 12 contributes
8) Sell stuff
9) Avoid internet scams
10) Don't Wait

Hopefully I'll have time to expand on these but right now I need to read Matthew 6 to prepare for tomorrow's class.

Where has Sassy Beskey gone?

A couple of weeks ago George "named" his stuffed monkey. He told me he was Sassy Beskey. We had great fun over the next few days with this name. It is very much fun to say.

"Sassy Beskey, Eat your lunch!" "Does Sassy Beskey want a nap?" "Read a story to Sassy Beskey."

Well, yesterday George told me Sassy was gone. The monkey is now called Airplane Po. Not nearly as spectacular but it will do.

Dave Ramsey Town Hall For Hope

I attended Dave Ramsey's Townhall For Hope last night at our church. Here are the notes that I took during the seminar.

For many years, we have experienced unprecedented prosperity.

The current situation may lead to a spirit of fear, which is not healthy. Pray!

Government interference is a dumb idea.

John Maynard Keynes & FDR came up with the New Deal
- Full employment can be maintained only with government involvement
- Government should promote public works projects and hire the unemployed
- Government must deficit spend

Many people believe the New Deal brought us out of the Great Depression. However, WW2 was actually more responsible - Pearl Harbor 12/7/41

Milton Friedman challenged Keynes, saying the depression was produced by government mismanagement.

Our hope is in capitalism.
- Political Freedom
- Economic Freedom
- Moral Restraint - serve your clients, do not milk them dry

Sometimes life is not fair. It can hurt or be scary.

We must love people enough to allow them to fail. When people have no chance to fail, they also have no reason to do their best.

Perseverance leads to success.

Money is not like a cake, it is more like a candle. No has become a lost word.

Personal Responsibility
- Take care of your house
- Feed your kids
- Work

For some, prayer has become a code for I don't want to face reality.

You can pray while you are working.

The Bible says the diligent shall prosper.

Children of the Great Depression were permanently changed and became more responsible with money.

During the Great Depression, unemployment was 25% and the market was down 89%. Today unemployment is 8.5% and the market is down 57%. 2009 is not as bad as 1974 or 1982.

Investing & 401k
- 100% of all 15-year periods, the market makes money.
- Today's market is artificially low.
- Since 3/9/09, the last 7 weeks, the market is up 22%.

Where there is no vision, the people shall perish.

Continue to invest
- The market
- Real estate

(Opinion) Housing will lead us out of the recession
- Interest is under 5%
- On sale everywhere
- Pent up demand

Foreclosures
- 60% have been in 5 states
- 35% have been in 35 counties

Baby Steps
- $1000 in the bank (short term emergency fund)
- Get out of debt
- 3-6 month emergency fund

Who to trust
- someone with the heart of a teacher
- not someone trying to sell

Banking
- No big banks
- Small community bank of local credit union
- For a better level of service

Invest in things that go up with inflation
- Growth stock mutual funds
- Real estate

Gold is a crummy investment. Gold is at a 176 year high.
- From 1833 to 2001, gold increased 1% / year
- From 2001 to now, gold increased 15% / year
- Gold is now volatile (like the .com bubble)
- Gold has not been a medium of exchange in a failed economy since the Roman Empire
- After hurricane Katrina, the medium of exchange was goods & services (water & gas)

Starting a business
- You know where you stand, as all the weak competitors are already driven out.

Jobs are a symptom of the recession, not the cause.
- New jobs alone will not solve the problem.
- Unemployment is only up 3.5%

Bible - Those who plow should do so in hope.

Three perceptions for those struggling with hope.

1) Get up, take action, get moving
- Your best (only) chance at success is you
- A great place to go when you are broke, to work!

2) Don't participate in loser talk
- Read & associate
- Dan Miller - 48 Days To The Work You Love
- Who Moved My Cheese
- The average millionaire can't tell you who got thrown off the island.

3) Learn to give again
- Money or time
- We could give the government out of business.

Quiet Easter Weekend

In about an hour we will become a family of 3. My 3 are with their mother until Tuesday. Emma leaves at 4:30 for a church trip. Nathan is visiting his grandparents in Florida. Jacob is with his father (I'm not sure how long).

George is stuck with us!

The Ultimate "Blended Family"

This story, as reported on CNN, is pretty extreme and would not fly in our situation. This woman and her new husband moved in with her ex-husband. The woman and the ex have joint custody of a couple girls.

Other than financially, I can't see that this is a good situation for anybody. The girls must be very confused, one of them even remarked that her mom had "2 husbands".

Birthday Dinner and Christmas Activity

In our large family, we can't afford to eat out at restaurants very often. We've mentioned here before but we do let each child choose a restaurant for their birthday and we go have a special meal as a family.

In the past couple years we got months and months behind, we ended up starting over in January with Emma. Well Nathan's birthday is coming up Sunday so we went on Friday night to Red Robin.

It was a good night, everybody seemed to enjoy their food and the staff came over and sang a silly birthday song intended to embarass the birthday boy.

Then tonight I stopped in at Pizza Hut but they had more drivers than business so I was able to take the night off. Brooke was at a sleepover with a friend, and Nathan & Jacob were at their dad's, so Luke asked if I would take him to BW3.

Victoria had a great idea for Christmas to make coupons so that each kid got some special 1-on-1 time with their parent. Luke's activity was a night at BW3. We ate wings (blazing and teriyaki), played NTN Countdown trivia, NTN Poker, and then another music based trivia game called Payback.

It's a 6-round game and the 6th round you get to wager some % of your points (like Final Jeopardy. I wagered 30% of my 15k points and missed on the question, "What Eminem song samples a 197x Aerosmith song? I was very frustrated that I didn't remember that Sing For The Moment is built on the core of Dream Weaver.