Katy McKenna Raymond  
Personal blog of christian writer Katy McKenna Raymond in Kansas City, Missouri

Personal blog of christian
writer & fallible mom
Katy McKenna Raymond
in Kansas City, Missouri


Katy is represented by
Greg Johnson at
WordServe Literary

Read more Katy at
LateBoomer.net

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New Math

So I always spend the first few days of any new year reassessing our financial situation, and 2009 is no different.

Of course, I am the type of O/C chick who does at least a cursory net worth statement on the first of each month. And until recently, that always proved to be a rather enjoyable exercise.

I gotta tell you, though, I failed to calculate our net worth from September 1 until now, because honestly, I just couldn’t take the anguish. As you know, I haven’t been overly well these past few months (or is it a whole year now?) anyway, and to add crunching negative numbers to my list of stressors just didn’t seem wise.

Now, if you are one of those people who’s thinking, “But wait! When you add two negative numbers, don’t you end up with a positive?”, you might want to review that sixth grade math book again. You have to MULTIPLY two negatives to get a positive, and I’m starting to think even that calculation must be a lie!

Yesterday, after pouring over the ledgers, I ended up in a whine fest. (Can’t afford a wine fest, just so you know.) I told Doug that after all these years of attempting to apply Biblical principles to our finances, I was beginning to wonder whether we’d misunderstood the whole enchilada.

I mean, people! We are debt-free, except for our house! And we could pay it off in less than two years, if we wanted to! And yeah, it’s lost some value like everyone else’s house, but we’re sure not upside down on the deal. And another thing: we drive two old cars (a 1998 Taurus and a 2002 Saturn), and we’re saving to replace them with cash when we have no choice left but to purchase. Heck, we’ve got an emergency fund! Why, if something happened to our income today, we could support ourselves on our savings for upwards of 3.7 weeks!

And now, in case you are not duly impressed yet, I’ll boast some more, because I can: We are actually among the supposed 6% (a shockingly low number!) of self-professing Christians who tithe. Now, when I say “tithe,” I don’t mean “throw a few coins into the collection box.” In the Bible, a tithe represents 10% of all your income. TEN percent. We were raised as young Christians, furthermore, to tithe on our GROSS and not our net. The question pastors used to put to us in the old days was, “Do you want God to bless you on your gross or on your net?” Well, THAT’S a no-brainer, huh?

I’d love to add that we’ve never racked up any balances on a credit card. In addition, I would like to tell you that we did not, during years past, consider our shiny home equity to be our children’s college education fund. But I KNOW what the Bible says about lying, and while I’m questioning what it says about money, I’d rather not push my luck too far.

So yesterday, I whined to Doug (and to God, too…) that I wasn’t at all sure that the good Lord was keeping up His end of the bargain. We do not attend a church which preaches the “prosperity gospel,” but darned if I wasn’t positive that we were supposed to reap what we’ve sown. Haven’t we given faithfully to our church, our chosen charities, and the individuals God leads us to help? Haven’t we provided for our own household to the best of our abilities? Haven’t we, almost always except for that time we bought our first house in 1979 and our monthly payment was more than HALF our income, lived well within our means?

Haven’t we deferred gratification out the wazoo, so that in our old age we wouldn’t be a burden to our children or to the state?

Unless I end up to be happily mistaken, I’m pretty certain my generation is now facing a financial scenario we never anticipated in our wildest nightmares. Even the fiscally conservative among us have no choice but to admit that we may not be able to make up the losses we’ve endured in time to provide for ourselves in old age.

God’s principles have not failed, although it’s highly possible I have never understood them as He intended me to. Remember that line from The Princess Bride? “I don’t think that Word means what you think it means.”

The truth, of course, is that Doug and I have lived a bit too high on the hog during the boom years. Somewhere, in our pea-sized brains, we latched onto the belief that the good times would keep rolling forever and that if we threw a few bucks at the stock market every now and then, we’d end up on Easy Street.

But that’s the problem, isn’t it? While we’re dreaming of ending up on Easy Street someday, (if we play our Scriptural cards right,that is), the real truth is that we’ve been living on Affluence Avenue for a very long time.

I can’t help but be reminded of another Biblical principle, one that would serve all of us really well right about now——humility.

The Bible says that even when we’re unfaithful (and that includes those times when we believe we’re being faithful, but we’re wrong…), He remains faithful.

No matter how many Scripture verses I may have misunderstood along the way, I think I’m finally starting to understand this one, after all.

 

Posted by Katy on 01/03/09 at 09:23 AM
Fallible Comments...
  1. I love you blog Katy! Hope you are good! Maybe we will see you all at Seth's wedding the end of April. I will be ready to pop!!! Luv ya!!!
    Posted by Lindsay Strain  on  01/03/09  at  10:46 AM
  2. We're way oder than you and Doug, but been debt free for a decade or more. Hooo Raayy
    Penny is still driving her '93 Explorer. She wont give it up.
    So far, we haven't taken a hit. We have been safe in FIXED annuities.
    Posted by Balfour'x  on  01/03/09  at  05:31 PM
  3. Hi Katy, I want to have your blog listed in the Kansas City Bloggers blog. But for some reason it show that it hasn't been updated in 3 years, which I know is incorrect. Any clues why?
    Posted by Spyder  on  01/03/09  at  09:49 PM
  4. Katy,
    Don't feel like the Lone Ranger here. I guess when it comes to sowing and reaping, the spiritual benefits outweigh the financial ones. At the same time, you are still able to make you housepayment and buy food, so for now at least you are not part of the crisis. There's something to be said for that. My husband has a retirement plan he calls the "Three KIDS" plan. WE have three children (pretty obvious, right) We will live with each of them 4 months per year. WE will borrown the car and stay out all night and return it with no gas in the tank, sit on the phone all day with our friends, take hour long showers and leave the towels on the floor when we are done. You gotta love reciprocity!!
    Rest in HIM. Sandi
    Posted by Sandi Thompson  on  01/05/09  at  05:28 PM
  5. Might be time to re-read the Book of Job.
    Posted by Terri  on  01/05/09  at  07:08 PM
  6. Katy,

    As I was visiting Kansas City for the Christmas Holiday, I ran into Doug in the driveway.

    He asked me a question regarding a mutual connection we have in regards to Olatha.

    It is a small world.

    Well, if you would pass on a hearty hello ...I would greatly appreciate it.

    In the mean time, a rather unusual Lawrence-Naramore connection has come full circle to remind my attention of my passing conversation with Doug.

    I would love to have the opportunity to discuss this with Doug.

    Would you be so kind as to have hime e-mail me.

    This odd story might just be worth a chuckle ...I hope.

    All the best,

    Bill Landman
    Wichita, KS
    Posted by Bill (Bob's brother) Landman  on  01/05/09  at  07:51 PM
  7. Like you and Doug, Phil and I have tried to be conservative, keep out of debt (except for our house), really tithe, and invest in 401k's and other investment options. Also like you, I have not wanted to look at our quarterly investment reports. But what the Lord keeps reminding me is that our security should be in Him and not what our retirement account looks like. He never said that life would always be easy, but He did say that He would provide. Now that provision may not be exactly what we have been planning for, but I do believe He will provide. We may have our kids living with us or maybe even OTHER people....sounds like back in the 70's, shades of Agape. At any rate, His ways are not our ways nor His thoughts our thoughts, so we need to be close to Him and trust Him in these times. It is a lot more peaceful to trust Him than to worry about our retirement account. Who knows, we may be long gone before we ever need that money!
    Posted by Mary Anne Green  on  01/06/09  at  08:51 AM
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    Posted by uujqumjo  on  01/09/09  at  01:48 PM
  9. I think I've mentioned to you a time or two that most of the financial planning taught in church is a bunch of bunk created by someone who made himself rich playing off of Christian's guilt. OK, having said that, I will admit that I have (in my less spiritual days) actually said to myself, Imagine how much money I'd have in the bank now if I never gave any to the Lord. How sick is that?
    Posted by Alison  on  01/09/09  at  02:55 PM
  10. I'll just add one more thing - our problem is that we're American Christians. No Christian in a 3rd world country would ever have the kind of expectations of God that we've been mislead into expecting.
    Posted by alison  on  01/09/09  at  02:58 PM
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