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We share stories of how the blood of Jesus has transformed ours and others' lives.
βHey everybody. Welcome to the Red Ledger. I'm Denna LaBelle and today I am really excited to have Amberlee and James Rich from Rich Living Coaching join me. They are financial coaches. They help people get out of debt, get their financial health in shape. Is that fair? Yeah. Okay. And I met you years ago and I really loved your story.
You guys were paying off your house in just a few years. And all of the interesting things you did to sacrifice and make that happen were very inspiring for me. So I'm excited for you guys to share some of that information today. But we will also put their information in the description. So be sure to follow if you don't get all the information you need today.
So today we're going to talk about a really complicated topic, I think. But also very important in that. It's finances and marriage and I think that can get really sticky for people. I know, you know, I've been with my husband for 32 years and it is, it's a, it's a hard conversation to have. So I am kind of excited for you, like not that you're going to do counseling for me, but you might.
We don't know. We don't know where this goes. But I think in today's economic environment, a lot of people are struggling. A lot of people are having a hard time even figuring out how to budget. You know, the inflation, the wages aren't keeping up. We have credit card debt at all time highs. All of the things that people are struggling with.
And I'm sure you guys are going to talk about it. But. I was kind of looking a little bit when I was thinking about doing this, I was doing a little research online and saw that 38 percent of all divorces are caused by financial stressors. That is the leading cause. And then we have Uh, the other 50 percent where it's a cause, and I think that's how the enemy wants to take us down.
He wants us to not live in the abundance that God created us for. And he wants us to be a slave to debt. I mean, he couldn't be happier if that's where we're at. And I think I love what you guys do, because it really helps what God wanted for us to have that abundant life, to give people freedom so that they can walk where they need to be.
And. The problem I think that I see a lot of, like with younger people, is they're not willing to sacrifice to get that. And my husband and I, we, we don't see eye to eye on finances at all, but one thing we do agree on is to live below our means. And we, we just do. It's just not hard for us to do, but you know, we're older, we got started when things were cheaper.
Yeah. But why, do you guys see that with younger people that they're having a hard time? You know, I don't know that it's age dependent. Okay. You know, it, it really has to do with the, the individual. Um, and one thing I want to mention that when it comes to personal finances, um, you, you mentioned how it's complicated.
The reality is it's, it's actually simple, it's just not easy. Okay. And so, like, when you think about personal finances, you're looking at very simple math. Like, this plus this equals this. Is that more than I bring in or less? So in, in terms of, in a practical sense, it's super simple, but it is way not easy.
Okay. And, and, and what I mean by that is. You bring in emotion, you bring in another, a partner, you bring in all of these complexities. That's when it becomes less about the simple math and more about the emotions behind it. I think even if you're not married, you may be going to get married one day, or you know someone who is married, so I'm sure there's something in here for everybody.
But in my marriage, we come with very different mindsets. And it does cause a lot of emotion. I have a very There's more money out there, we can get it. And he's the more, I want to retire one day. I don't, you know, and I just, you know, there's not, there's not the word retirement in the Bible. So if I ever say the word retirement, he gets pretty excited.
But there is a different emotion from even how we grew up. Yeah. And, and going into your financial story, I think it's so important for couples to understand why they, Relate to money the way that they do, and so much of it is because we don't have an education where we learn in school how to manage our finances.
It's normally, we see what our parents do, we see what our, the people around us do, and we just kind of absorb naturally. What we get from them and the way that you were raised in the way that your husband was raised is going to be different. We have differences in the way that our parents interacted with money and it has impacted us and it's important to have those conversations.
Because when you do, then you start to understand why. Your spouse responds the way that they do. And a lot of times it's passed from one generation to the next. And so like, I think especially since we have kids of our own, that we want to pay attention to how we're handling our finances because the way that we are handling our finances is going to be the story that our kids are going to be living out when they get married.
Whether we talk about it or not. I always think that there's this like scarcity mindset versus abundant mindset. Do you? Do you see how that impacts people on how they handle their money? And I'm wondering if my guess on that is right or wrong and how it works out. Yeah, I mean, I, I see it all the time of what you think about money changes how you interact with it.
Like, we have so many clients that they come in saying, I'm bad with money. Like, I just can't stop spending or I'll always be in debt. I'll always have a car payment. It's at an identity level. Yeah. And when you have that thought and that belief that you're going to always be in debt, you're always going to, um, you know, struggle that you're always going to be living paycheck to paycheck.
You start to make decisions that line up with that belief. And so when you start changing your belief, and like, that's one of the things that we work with our clients, is helping them to, to notice their financial wins. Because we all are doing good things with our money. From, in one, it could be paying your bills on time, it could be, um, spending less at the grocery store, it could be, you know, like, A myriad of different things.
But when we start recognizing those good things, we start changing how we perceive how we spend money. And so it really does help our clients have a different perspective because when you start believing that you are good with the resources that you have, that there is enough, you start living and making decisions in a way that reflect that.
Hey everybody, sorry to interrupt you. I just wanted to quickly tell you about a new store that we're opening. It's called redledgergifts. com. It's a Christian gift store. Um, some of our items aren't Christian. They're just candles, right? But we wanted to create a store that had meaningful, thoughtful gifts that you could give people.
Because gifts are important. People like to receive them and it makes us feel good to give them. And it's good to give something that's meaningful or that actually can impact their life in some way. Our store has a lot of different cool gifts. Um, we have candles. Cool mugs. You still don't know God. Um, and, uh, we also have really cool Bibles.
This is like a small one, you know, um, it's very like, it's kind of manly. It's got like a nice black leather to it. Um, and it's, it's nice and compact too, so I can fit in my man purse. Anyway, these are just kind of a small sampling of some of the things we're going to offer. Please check us out. I have, um, two kids in their twenties and late twenties and thirties.
And I've always taught them, you know, regardless if they do it or not, I talk a lot about, you know, it's just a good rule if you don't follow anything else to only spend half of what you make. That is impossible. How do these kids even get started? How does anyone even get started now? Because the cost of all of these things have went up, but Their wages haven't.
One of the first things that we do with our clients is we gain clarity on the situation. Um, we, let's say Amberly and I just took a two, two month long trip not long ago. Uh, we just returned from it and we had to do a lot of planning before we left. We had to have clarity of which way we were going, um, what we were going to do when we were there.
And on the way home, clarity on what we're going to do, um, coming back. The, the one on, on coming back was, was the biggest thing because going out there, we didn't have to deal with weather. But coming back now that we're getting closer to winter, we had to deal with weather. We had to look ahead to the forecast, not only in the area that we were at, but we also where we were going and the direction we were going.
We had to look along the path and see what the forecast was. And so. So that had to, we had to get that level of clarity on our, our trip to get just to drive. It was a 12 hour drive, 13 hour drive. Uh, so there was a lot to look at and a lot to plan for. But the same thing is with your finances. If you don't have a good level of clarity, you're gonna.
You're going to take the wrong route and you're going to spend the money, spend money in areas that you shouldn't. And so what we do is we sit down with our clients and we go through, we look at their, their current engineering when it comes to their, their finances and we look at where they want to go.
And then we, we try to devise a plan on how to get there. Now, We, we look at those things like income is not keeping up with inflation and the, the superpower, like the thing that really helps with that is. Looking at your values. So we've already talked about identity and, and shifting your identity. But one of the biggest things that we do with our clients is we figure out what are your values and there's always a misalignment, um, of values.
Um, sometimes there's a misunderstanding of values and especially with. with couples, there's a lot of misunderstanding of values. But if we can take values and we can figure out, and this is something that, uh, something that we do with our clients all the time is we, is we go through, we have a process of helping them determine what their values are.
Once we figure out their values, now we take that and we use that as a lens. So if we're. If we're overspending in areas, if we're overspending overall, and in general, we've got to figure out a way to cut back. We either cut back or we increase our income. That's really the two ways to do it. There's gurus out there that focus when you're cutting back on the restriction.
Um, don't go out to eat. Don't buy anything fun. Don't go on vacation. Don't, don't, don't, don't. Don't, doesn't work. Oh, cause that's what I would want to do. That's what I want. I see these kids on TikTok complaining about their situation or I watch this Refinery29 once in a while and they'll, they do this whole budget thing where they say where they're spending their money.
I'm like, this isn't hard. Quit going to Starbucks. Yeah. But that doesn't work for, especially with this generation coming up, you saying, don't do that. Don't do that. They're like, what? Forget you. What, what does work is when we align our values with our spending, with our goals, with everything else, we look at that.
We, we. Put on the lenses of our values and we look through, through the lens of our values in everything we do. This could be your, your pocketbook. This could be your schedule, your calendar, everything that you do in life. If you look at it through the values that you hold, the things that are truly important to you.
And you'll start seeing waste. And so instead of restricting spending, you reduce waste. It's a similar concept, but it's a completely different mindset. If you're reducing waste, guess what you get to do with that waste. You get to put it towards those things that, um, that, that you hold true, the values that you.
And so we see this all the time with our clients. They, they're just like, I, there's, I can't cut anything. There's nothing. We have one client that, um, they were overspending by, was it 4, 800 a month? And, and when they came to us, they said, we tried everything. We've looked at our, our expenses. Everything that we have on that we're spending is so important to us.
We don't know where to cut. And. I think in our early years of coaching, it would be really easy for us to go and be like, I can show you where to cut, like, give me the red pen and I'm going to just start cutting that doesn't work. We found out very quickly that doesn't work. So what we did is we went through a values exercise with this client.
Slowly, we just watched and they started looking at their finances through the lens of their values. And guess what happened? They started cutting out way more than we had, would've even told them if they, if I would've done the, the process of taking that red, red line and, and I would've cut out way less than they they did when they looked at, they're not spinning in accordance to their values.
We'll have clients come to us and be like. You're going to think I'm crazy for the way I spend money. And I tell them, I should. I should think you're crazy for spending money that way because we shouldn't have, we likely don't have the same values. And, and our spending should look crazy to other people.
And your spending should look crazy to us. It would. Yeah. It was, we were just talking the other day about how a friend of mine was irritated me because I had holes in my sheets and my towels. Well, you just saw my towels because I don't care. But I might spend a lot of money on a pair of shoes. Yeah. Do you find that people don't really know what their values are when they come in?
Totally. Yeah. Yeah. It's really interesting, and we normally see that the couples, a lot of times their values, their core values do not align. And you know, opposites attract. And so it really is helpful for couples to go through this exercise and, and understand why their spouse wants to spend money the way that they want to spend money.
Because it's based off of their values and so there's just so much clarity as a couple to understand each other in a much deeper level and also just go through and like I was working with a client today and their values are not being shown in their daily life like they've been able to step back and realize all of their top values are unsatisfied right now and they just came to this realization that they have to change.
so much. What they're doing and it's going to have to be drastic and so they're going to their their homework assignment was to to dream up what their life. their ideal life would look like and, and to think beyond just where they're at right now, because there's so many people that are just living in survival mode.
They're not, they're just trying to get through the day, through the week, through the year, and they're not stepping back and looking at their life and saying like, They're realizing they're focusing on the future, trying to get a good life in the future, but they're not enjoying their life now. They're not able to spend the time that they want with their kids.
They're not able to bring their kids to school, um, and be able to make bread like they want to. And just like the little things that they want to say yes to, they can't at this moment. And so, you know, having that values exercise has been really helpful for them. And I'm excited to see what changes they're going to make once they, they really do look at those values and, and look at what they want their life to look like and make some big changes.
So what do you do when, like my husband and I, we just, we, I mean, we have some core values, right? We both love our children and want good and we want to be able to spend time with our grandchildren. Right? When we have them. Anytime soon.
Yeah. So we go back to that, that whole clarity issue. Um, if you don't know what your husband's core value is when it comes to finances. I'm just judging it. Yeah. And not a nice way. I'd love my husband, but this is an irritation for us. This is a problem for us too. But have you sat down and actually worked through and figured out what truly is important to him versus what is truly important to you?
I just think he's wrong. I'm just kind of joking. I'm kind of joking. Yeah. Let me give you an example. So we had a client, Um, a married client that came to us and they were on the brink of divorce, they, they said, uh, we, we would like you to coach us on how to split our money and how to prepare for us to be, um, financially wise as we start splitting.
The transformation when we did this values exercise for them was incredible. Okay, so we apparently need to set up a time to see you. So here, here's, here's what happened. The top value for her was security. There's so many women out there that their top value is security. Can you guess what his top value was?
Well, see, I'm not that girl, so I don't understand it. His was adventure. Oh, oh no. How do you think those play? How do you think those play together? If they were a divorce, I should have figured that out. And so they, they realized, and I asked them, look back on all the fights that you've had. How many of them are real?
stem from you wanting security and, and you and him wanting adventure. Okay, so this is me and my husband, but opposite. Okay. Yeah. That's interesting. And so now how does that align with how you spend your spending for adventure? He's spending for security. He's wanting to save and, and yeah, he's a good saver.
And that causes, I praise God that he's a good saver. Yeah, that causes tension. But once you have something, once you have that understanding, now you can. You can start this discussion and be like, Hey, I understand that your security value right now feels like I am just crushing it. But man, I really want to go on vacation.
I want to have an adventure. And so now you start with those parameters. You're, you're forecasting. You're looking, okay, two months ahead or 58 miles ahead, there's a storm coming. How do we navigate around that? Now you have. You have the weather pattern, you have the understanding, you have the clarity so you can work together and, and you can avoid the storm just by knowing.
You know, we've avoided the storm by avoiding the conversation. Yeah. And I think for the first part of our marriage, we kept our money separate because I didn't want someone. Because he's a saver and I'm not, and I wanted to buy a pair of shoes if I wanted and I don't want to think about it. I know shoes are not a big deal, but I like them because you can gain weight, you can do whatever you want, you can always buy shoes.
So, um, but, and I like to go on vacations and I like to travel and I like to do things. I like to go see my kids and he's okay with that. Like he's, he's fine. We just combined our money probably, the closer I got to God, the closer I realized that this is, we're a team, we need to be acting as one, and we still fully haven't done that functionally, that our money's together, but I still kind of think mine is mine, and I think he still kind of thinks his is his.
Yeah. It is a, it's, it's dysfunctional, but I think it's just avoiding all of those conversations because I think we came together on the one that makes us okay, meaning we just say more than we make. And if we can agree on that, we can get through it. But then I think there's a lot of unhealthy stuff happening because we, well, I guess I'm gonna have to set up a time with you because he would love to do like a budget.
Yeah. And I'm like, no, we're spending less, we're good. Yeah. And we see that all the time. Yeah. And I honestly, I don't want him to see what I spend my money on because we have a competition every year at the end of the year I, cause we code everything at the end of the year, we have a competition who spends the least and I don't, I don't know, we win bragging rights that were one is better than the other.
Yeah. And, um, I don't know, I guess that we do that for fun, but it sounds unhealthy when I say it out loud. Has it been fun? Um, I'm not going to win this year, so it's not going to be fun. Last year, I definitely won, so it was fun. Here's a perspective to think about. Cause, cause, especially at the beginning of your marriage, you were thinking, my money is mine, your money is yours.
The reality is You don't own anything. A new product that we've started is called Steward Lab. It's, it's an, an opportunity for people to come in and experiment with their money in a way of, how do I experiment with my money to become a better steward with God's resources? And so if you, if the book, the two of you went into the mindset that like, okay, this money is actually not ours.
This is God's. What, what vision do we have? Does God have for us? What, what does God have for us? And how can we use the resources that he's given us to, to, you know, play out this vision that God has for you. I like that. That is good. That is so cool. And when you, and when you work as a team, as a spouse, like two is better than one.
Like if you both have, instead of it being a competition between the two of you, like what if you had a competition of where you're working together? Like you have a same, the same goal, the same vision, how much faster you're going to be able to reach that goal and that vision if you're working together.
It will help you to, to say yes to the things that align with it. It helps you to say no to the things for financially and for your calendar. It really, like, it's been amazing to see couples who were kind of just, normally when we see a couple, one person's doing the finances and the other person is kind of checked out of it.
And so when they start both looking at their finances and both having a say and both having clarity on their finances, how much more they connect in more than just their finances, because money touches all the different areas of our lives, but their marriages get better. They're able to, to have better relationships with their kids.
They're able to have just more enjoyment when they're at work. Like it just has this ripple effect. And so I just, like, when we work as a team, we're, we're able to go so much farther. The words are ringing truth, but causing a little bit of anxiety, because I think that, I, I saw the word financial infidelity.
Mm hmm. I think I hide a lot of financial stuff from my husband to not stress him out. Mm hmm. Because it wouldn't do any good anyway. Like, not, we're, we're okay financially, but. Like, I, I wouldn't share with him maybe if I did something that was expensive, which is really not how you're supposed to be in a Christian relationship.
I get that. We're just, this is, we're not a place where we have victory yet, hence why you're here. Um, so that's interesting cause I believe what you're saying is true and I will have to trust you on it, but it does produce little, yeah. So here's what we found is. When it comes to your finances, a lot of us have the order mixed up, um, and in a lot of different ways and what we have found is, what if you didn't have to worry?
What if you had a chunk of money that you just didn't have to worry? Um, your husband was like, yeah, whatever. If you spend that on, on shoelaces, like all of it, it doesn't matter. Here, here's what we do with our clients. And this, this works with those that have, um, excess and this works for those who don't have enough.
Um, I'll, I'll kind of tell it through, through a story of one of our clients who was a single mother. She felt guilt and shame at the end of every single month. And it was because no matter how much money she had in her account. Maybe, uh, maybe she had an extra paycheck come in that month, no matter how much was in there, it was all gone at the end of the month and she felt guilt and guilt and shame because she did not put money towards her, her goals.
She wanted to pay down debt. She wanted to do all these things and she couldn't do it. Just felt guilt and shame. And I will say, side note, guilt and shame are the worst motivators. If you have somebody speaking into your life and helping you with your finances and they're using guilt and shame as a motivator.
Stop listening to them. It doesn't work. Once you move things around and when the money comes in, say when you get your paycheck and you automate, we, we talk about automating good financial behavior. You automate that financial behavior, you automate the goals that you have. You automatically, the, the payment comes in and then the payment goes out to, to decrease your, your debt, increase your savings, all of those, and then you're left with a sum of money.
You can spend that guilt free. Because even though I'm okay, I do feel the guilt I'm spending. Yeah. Yeah. If you and your husband sat down and said, okay, as a married couple, as a team, what are the things that we want to do with our money? And you listed that out and you said, when do we want, let's say for you, I'm guessing on that list would be a vacation.
Yeah. Experience. Yes. We want to go on this experience. It's going to cost this much. When do we want to do it by? We divide that by how many months it's going to take and we start putting money into what we call a savings bucket or a sinking fund. You just drip and you automate that. And then you say, okay, we want to increase our, our investments.
How much do we want to do? And we, we set that just as a, as something in your, your spending plan. You set it up, you forget about it. You'll get to a point where you are now funding all of the things that are important to you and you have this chunk of money left over. Now, you spend that money guilt free.
Your, your husband, his, uh, his security. Well, we have permission, right? We both agreed, everyone's happy. And that's what it is. Oh, so the secrecy isn't the good part. Yeah, per, permission over restriction. So a lot of people are dealing with lack. So. How do you help them increase? Like, do they get side jobs?
Or how do you encourage them to gain more so they have less restriction? Well, the first thing, like we said earlier, is to have clarity of where their money is going because there's a lot of times that They actually have more wiggle room than they think. And so it really depends on the situation. We are not people that are like hustle, hustle, hustle.
That's not like our, um, our belief or, you know, I do feel like some people getting a second job for a season, like that can be something that could be positive. But it really depends on the individual and what that situation looks like. Um, and so figuring out where you're at financially and then figuring out what the gap is.
Like, I did this with a client today, I worked with a couple of them today, and we figured out if they, like, what is the gap between how much they need and how much, like, what that looks like. Do they need to have an extra 1, 500 after tax that is coming in per month? Like, are they going to change the way that they're spending or are they going to increase their income or do a combination of the two?
And, and, like, some of the first things to look at. Is there a possibility of getting a raise? Do you have the opportunity of overtime? Like, there's, there's some things that are, that are closer. Also, figuring out if they get a high tax return. Like, maybe your, your withholdings need to be shifted because you, like, it depends on the person.
Yeah, if somebody's getting. You know, 12, 000 back in taxes. That sounds like it could be crazy and it doesn't have, it happens all the time. 12, 000 in taxes back, they can have an extra 1, 000 per paycheck. And we have a ton of stress. And then what happens is that 12, 000 that uncle Sam is saving interest free, not giving you any interest on it.
And then giving it to you, you feel like that's a reward and you go and spend it on something that actually. isn't, isn't providing for you. And so if you, if you allocate the money when it's coming in and you make sure that you're, I'm a big advocate of not getting refunds, not like we, we always try, like, how can we get to the closest to where we don't owe anything and we don't get anything back?
Because I'm going to be a much better steward with God's resources than the government. Yeah. Amen. I don't know if we can say that online, but it is true. We'll probably get demonetized. Yeah. And so, so there's these little things like that, like where, where can we find found money that's already there, but.
Because, and it's a mindset thing, the money is still going to come, you're going to get that money, but when you get it in a large chunk, it feels different than when you get it as a paycheck. Yeah. And when we recommend, like, if, if a couple feels like a side hustle is something that they want to do to look at, like, what would actually support your values and what would line up with that?
I mean, we've had clients that, like, there's a pastor and they're working on, um, Doing artwork on headstones, which I would have never come up with that, but they do that and they, they listened to the Bible and they do all of their like sermon prep, um, during the time that they are, you know, using their hands and creating artwork, something I would have never come up with.
And so like, how can you. You know, further the things that matter to you, um, based off of, instead of just like, well, this would be like the fastest and easiest way, which, you know, that, that can be a good thing if you're like really, really tight. Um, but a lot of times there's just so much when you start looking at clarity and I think also not keeping up with the Joneses.
I think that's a huge thing of, you know, when you have your values, it helps you to see what you're focusing on. And it puts blinders on, like when you think of a horse, how they've got their blinders to like. Not pay attention to what the world is telling you, and I feel like the world, especially now with social media and being advertised to everywhere, and they're so much better because they're tailoring their ads to you, like, there's just this need to spend, spend, spend.
And also to expect that, you know, the way that my parents are, you know, like their financial situation should be my financial situation and, and realizing like it took them decades to get to where they are. And I think a lot of times for, for younger people that they expect that, you know, when they graduate college, they should earn what their parents are earning.
The reality is it doesn't normally pan out that way. I mean, there's a rare occasion, but it normally doesn't. One of the financial advice, um, things that my mom said to me years ago was to live like a college student as long as you can. And there is that, um, lifestyle creep. And if you can live below your means and enjoy it, It makes it so much easier.
And if you do it when you're young, then you're not going to have this, like, if you are enjoying a high lifestyle and then you have to reduce it greatly, it becomes like a shock and it's really challenging. It's a lot more difficult. Yes, I've had to do that. But if you, but if you're doing it from the beginning and realizing like this is, we're being strategic, like you were saying earlier about living on half of your income.
Like, it is possible, like, it is much more challenging now than it was decades ago. Oh, yes. I mean, that's what I'm saying. It is easier for me. I'm older and we've been doing it for a long time. Yeah. And so I think just being more strategic and, and, you know, working on ways to, to spend less and understanding your triggers of what makes you feel.
Like you need more. And is there a way that you can, can have that satisfied without spending money? Like if things are really tight, like we've had clients that just love going shopping. And one of the things that they do just to, to have like a simple swap when they're feeling that urge is to go to the library.
You can check out anything. You can check out anything and it's free. That's really interesting. And like you can do little things like that. Um, instead of going to the store when you're bored, What about going on a walk? Or, like, looking at what are the other things that they really enjoy doing that, um, is life giving that isn't going to cost them anything.
Amberlee had a client one time who Um, loved, had the shopping bug, bug loved to shop and she also needed more income. So, they figured out that she would go and do personal shopping for people. She would still get that itch scratched. Mm hmm. Genius. And she's making money. So, she's get, she gets to go out there and put the stuff in the thing and look for the deals and all that kind of stuff.
And she's generating income by the thing that she loves to do. Oh, that's awesome. We lost everything in, in 2010. And I think before then I loved to shop, but we, I had accumulated such garbage, like just expensive keep up with the Joneses stuff that it was, it was embarrassing that I had spent money on that.
And we'd lost everything. And I am selling. Handbags online. I will never spend that much money on a purse again, but do you know what I mean? Mm-hmm . I'm like selling these things that were cost so much and there were so much little in return Yeah. Of happiness, satisfaction or, and it's obviously not an investment.
I mean, some people they say it is, but I don't believe it. Mm-hmm . But so I think that is so interesting. I just, I mean, it made me lose that desire to shop, just going through that. Mm-hmm . Process, probably some. Yeah. Rewiring God was doing. Years ago, we kind of went through this transition, Amberly starts, Amberly starts most things in our family.
She's the one that has, her middle name should be intentional, like Amberly is intentional. That, that, that is her gifting. That's awesome. Awesome. But it, it expands out to the family. When you have one person being super intentional in your family, everybody else is going to kind of follow. And. Especially the mama.
Yes, yes. And she, at one point, she was very much into this thing called minimalism. And, um, and so we practice minimalism and we practice means we didn't perfect it because we kept practicing it. And what we found out is, one, it is very helpful, um, but it also can become, Unhelpful. So we've coined this term lism.
Yes. And, uh, it's not minimalism because minimalism is get rid of as much stuff as you can and, and it becomes, I want as little as possible. And that becomes kind of the, the, you know, the thing you hold onto Oh, becomes an identity too, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. And we just thought less wisdom. Can we do with less?
Yeah, we don't need this, like this doesn't align with our values. Um, we got rid of our TV because it didn't align with our values. We wanted more family time. We found sitting down in front of the TV took away from that. And so Amberly, um, said let's put this in timeout. It went in timeout for a year in our closet.
And we found out we didn't need it. And so now we switched and we got a projector. That purchase aligned better with our values than a TV because a projector, you have to set it up and you're creating this experience. And that fed into the value of our family getting together. And so we would pop popcorn, we'd pull it out.
We'd have to be intentional about setting this up. And so it's about making purchases that align with your values. What's going to bring value to your life? So let's say somebody has a good value, like they're super generous, but their spouse isn't. How do you deal with that? Because, I mean, this is, and they're both Christians, like, God calls us to be generous.
And somebody just maybe hasn't had that heart change because they're wrong or something. Just joking. I'm joking. Totally being funny, but kind of. Yeah, well. How do you, do you deal with. I mean, because you're Christians too. So I'm assuming this is part, this, you feel like this is your ministry. Yeah. Is that a correct assumption?
Yeah. So I grew up in a family that was very generous and I learned generosity at an early age. So when we got married. Like I was super generous and, and I guess Amberly, I'll let you say it. So it doesn't sound like I'm throwing you under the bus. I was just starting to practice generosity. It was something that I had never done before.
And it was in college that I really felt God was telling me like, you need to trust me in the area you've been holding back on. Like I was trusting him in other areas of my life, but money seemed like a super scary thing to. let go of and I still struggle with it. I think it's, it's an easy idol. It's an easy thing to put our security in, in my bank account and, you know, in our investments and all the things when in reality, that's not, that's not healthy.
It's not true. And, um, you know, God is really. Like, it's hard to believe that He is our provider and it's something that I have a, a daily prayer that, that I wrote about stewardship. And I, I have like in it is, um, thank you for your continued faithfulness for you are my provider and I trust in you. And it's this daily reminder that I need to trust God in our finances.
And so, you know, going back to what you were saying early on. In our, our marriage, it helped that you were more generous and it really pushed me to, to start, um, trusting God in that way. And I still, I've, I've noticed that when I, when I am holding tighter to what we have. I've, I've had the conviction that that is a time that I need to give more because I'm holding on to things that I don't need to be holding on to.
And so, like, with our clients, one of the things that we've done is, like, we, we, for us personally, is, like, tithing and, you know, helping missionaries and doing things like beyond that, but to actually have a generosity fund. And so we've had that set up and it has been so helpful and such a fun thing for us to do that we have money that we put aside every month in this generosity fund.
And it could be to get, you know, pay for someone's coffee or to, um, help a need that isn't above and beyond. And if we don't use it that month, it just keeps growing and growing. And it has been really fun for us to see that and also to realize like, Oh, you know, we've seen some people that are so generous that they're not able to pay for their, you know, their own needs.
And like, that's a different story. But having that money set aside has helped me to just be able to be more generous and to realize like we are, we are wanting to be generous. Above and beyond, and doing that has just freed us up to, to do things like, it's been fun as a family, like our daughter and I were on a date, um, in the village and we saw our pastor and his wife, um, having dinner and it was really fun.
Like we got to, we talked with them and we realized it was their anniversary. And so, you know, my daughter and I were able to, to, to talk to each other and we're like, we looked at our generosity fund. Would it be so fun for us to just pay for their anniversary dinner? And so we went and we, we just. paid for anonymously, and like, it was something that we were able to share with our daughter and like, she's seeing that we have this extra money that is not for us, it's for us to bless other people, and we were able to, to bless our pastor in a way that, um, that was just really fun and enjoyable and it felt like, Like something that I know before in the past, I would have felt, um, just like, Ooh, kind of like tight.
Like, do we have the money to be able to spend whatever the meal costs? Like, but with this, I just felt like it gave us more freedom to be on the same page. And so for a couple who have different views of what generosity looks like, if they have a shared idea of like, we're going to put X amount of dollars per month in this generosity fund.
then it doesn't become this debate or a, uh, area of conflict. That's right. There's money there for them to be generous. Yeah, and, and it comes down to what we talked about before, being a team. And so if you're working as a team, you're devising a plan together. And if you plan to be generous and, uh, and when we put that generosity fund, I wanted it to be bigger.
Amberly wanted it to be smaller. But we, we talked it through, we figured it out. Um, Where'd you come? Did you come in the middle? Or did you? And it's adjusted. I think that's one thing. It's gone down. It doesn't have to be, you know, like set in stone. It can move. Oh. Depending on. Yeah. The season. You guys just give so much permission.
It makes me feel like I want to do these things. Yeah. And, and the thing is, is like when we, when we set up a plan, it's so much easier to be when Amberley had that plan set up that this is specifically for generosity. She's already okayed it. She's like, I have a hard time with generosity, but. I, I can get on board with that.
Let's do that. She can spend all she wants, but it also reigns me in because we, we do have some people who they, they're so generous that it's hurting them. So. So they are giving themselves permission to spend up to this amount. With boundaries. With boundaries. That's awesome. Yeah. I think, I love that. I love, okay, so I've learned if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
Yeah. Boundaries are good. They take the emotions out of things and then you can come together as a team. Yeah. Like, this is really, really good stuff. stuff. Too, too often people look at their finances as restrict, with a restrictive mindset. I, I do. And so most of the people that hate budgeting, and we don't use the word budget a lot because there's that negative connotation of budgeting, budging.
We're basically creating a plan. Like most people, if you say, Hey. Let's plan a vacation and let's go do it. They're going to be excited about the planning. Like, okay, so it's going to cost this much to do that. So we want to make sure we have enough for that. We got to do this. You're, you're building this plan of, of experience.
You're building this plan of purpose. And so if you think of your money in, in that, that realm and you're thinking, okay, how can I've got this much money coming in? How can I take this and build a life? Like you, you, you mentioned us paying off our house a while back. We sat in a hot tub for three hours and got super pruney.
And all we did was we dreamed up our future. And that's something that most couples don't do. And if they would just sit down, it doesn't have to be in a hot tub. Um, but if they sat down and they dreamed and they just said. If we had nothing holding us back, what would we want our life to look like three years down the road, five years down the road, 10 years down the road?
And what we figured out in that one session was that we want to be missional, we want to be a team, we want to be able to say yes to things. That trip I talked about, that was a two month trip, that was one of our first times that we were able to say yes because it goes back to that three hour conversation.
And that one three hour conversation allowed us as a family. To serve some another family and say yes to a two month hiatus from our life. Wow. And be able to help them because we had dreamed and then we reverse engineered. We saw, we realized that our current engineering was not gonna get us to that life that we wanted.
So what did we do? We li lined out all the things that we had to do. Some of it Inc. Included increasing Our Ex or Inc. Some of it included us. Um, increasing our, our pay, how much we were bringing in some of it, we, we realized that if we have debt, we're not going to be able to say yes as much. And so we lived off of 25 percent of our income.
We threw everything at our house and we paid it off and that gave us the opportunity to say yes. Too many people look at their, their finances and think, I just keep being told no, no, no, no. Well, if you start with dreaming and then you look at your values and you devise a plan. You get to say, yes, yes, I will do that.
We, we talked with a friend who was going through a tough time and, and, um, they had multiple deaths in their family. We said, what do you need? Like, we have no words. What do you need? And they said, we really need somebody to, to move and stay in a place for us. We don't have anybody watching over our, our family ranch.
Oh, wow. And so. That was our first yes, like this has been in the making too many people think that you just flip a switch and you're there this took years of planning for us to be able to say yes, we didn't know what those yeses were going to look like, build your life, build your finances in a way that you can at a whim's no to say yes.
So when God wants you to go do something, you can say yes. You. You don't have to say, no, I can't do that 'cause I don't have the finances. No. You've been a steward with your finances in such a way that when God says, I want you to do this. I've given you everything you need, you can say yes. Yeah. Sounds like freedom.
Yeah. And God opened God so many doors when when you start to dream like it was just. Unbelievable. Like we had that, that conversation, the hot tub, the very next day, James got a job offer. We weren't even looking for a job. Like it was just one thing after the other of just God blowing us away. And that has just been something we've seen time and time again about God being faithful.
And I, I do believe that like when we start stepping out and living the life that God is calling us to live, He will make a way. in ways that we, we can't even think of or feel like it's even a possibility and he shows up and he's faithful. And so if you have something in your life that you feel like God's calling you to do, but it seems outlandish and you don't even feel like with that conversation in the hot tub, like we, we brought up things that were scary to say out loud because they seemed so unrealistic.
It's kind of like when you're a kid and you want to be like, I never want to be a football player, but like little boys want to be like a professional football player. Like something that seems like. You know, you have a better chance winning the lottery than doing that. Sometimes we have things deep inside of us that feel as absurd or crazy as that.
But God has put those things inside of us for a reason and he has a plan for us. But so often we just think that, that like we're limiting God because we're like, this is not even a possibility. When in reality, God's just like. Why aren't you stepping into this? Why aren't you taking the steps and, and looking at how that could actually come true?
And during that conversation, there were things that Amberly shared that were scary for her to share. There were things that I shared that were, that was scary. But then we realized I think God had an idea when he put us together because like, yeah, and I adopted some of her exciting plans. She adopted some of mine and they become ours.
We, we are a family team, our marriage as a team, our kids. We talk about we are team rich and we're going to do this together. When we went out to, to do that two month thing. there was apprehension. They did not want to go. They did not that my daughter was like, how many Sundays am I going to miss? It was all about the Sundays because, um, she has friends there and she has connections and she, she's like how many, and we, we got to talk to them about sacrifice and how we get to help somebody else.
We get to say yes. And, and we get to do this together. And what that did is it formed. It formed our team even stronger because we were doing this together too many times, a couple, maybe they're together, but they're not bringing their kids along with you with them. This is a team effort. And, and a lot of times when the couples are not together, one is walking ahead and the other one is like, all right, reluctantly going, what if you guys could get together, create a plan together, build a life, dream up a life of like, I would love our life to look like this.
If you guys start working together. for that goal. Now there's this connection. There's this team play and giving up those things that you thought would never be able to get be given up Starbucks or whatever it is, you know, like it's so much easier to give something up when you are going towards a plan and don't going towards a goal.
It is. Yeah. You know, when we lost everything. It was really easy to give up all of the things and to come together as a team and do, we did fun things that didn't cost anything. And I mean, you have to, sometimes you have to come together as a family. So it was more fun. It really was. So my kids are grown now, but I love how you guys parent.
I remember some of the things when, um, we were talking early on that you did with your kids. That was amazing. I love that you were including them in this because there are. No classes in school, people are not learning financial education, and they're coming into this world and not knowing why they can't balance a checkbook, or I guess we don't do that anymore.
That's not even a word anymore. Nobody's going to know what that means. Yeah. Stewardship is not just about finances either. A lot of people think when they hear steward, they either think that they're getting, um, uh, a drink on a airplane or, or it's about money and stewardship is God has given us so many resources.
He's given us our children. He's given us our spouse. We're supposed to steward that. In a way that glorifies God. And so, I don't remember, Amberlee, you'll have to tell me, who is it that says, um, our, our job is to unfold our kids? Oh, I don't know. I know it was from a podcast you were listening to, and I just happened to walk by.
But just this, this vision of, of God has created our kids to be this certain person. It is not our job to create our children into something else, but our job is to help unfold them into the person that God has created them to be. Amen. And so, So it's not just, we talk about finances a lot, but, but it's stewarding all things that we have.
We just focus on finances because finances is the one thing that touches everything in our life. And it's amazing that once you start getting in tension with your finances, it just has this ripple effect. Like it, It bonds marriages. Like I've had so many couples. I don't even know how many they've said, like, this is the best their relationship has ever been.
And a lot of them have been married 20 plus years and they're coming in and they're experiencing this connection. And a lot of those people too, they, they realize that. Their, their current engineering of like how they've been doing their finances for decades isn't working. And it's easy to just get stuck in a rut and just feel like, well, we've been doing it for so long.
What's the likelihood of us changing? At 52 and 57. But it is so possible. Those couples that ignore or don't talk about finances, what are the situations that cause them to end up talking about finances? Well, let me tell you. Well, we, we avoid the conversation because it creates an argument and we just.
I'm just kind of old and I'm sick of strife and I don't like it. So we get along better if we don't talk about it. Yeah, yeah. But like you, I'm, I am grabbing the vision of the teamwork. And I do, I am excited about that. Yeah. But when something does come up that is exorbitant, this is when the discussion comes where I can't say, okay, this is an amount that I'm going to have to run by him.
Yeah. Or, or vice versa. So, so what you're telling me is you only talk about finances when it's a stressful thing. When something negative happens. And it absolutely has to be talked about it because I'm not going to get away with it. So we, Amberlee has created an agenda. We have a lot of these couples that finances is a taboo subject.
And the only time they talk about it is when it's. Just laced in so much stress and what if you talked about, you talked about finances when it was positive, like if you had more conversations that were positive about finances than negative, could you imagine when those negative things come up, how much more equipped you would be to talk about finances?
I so wish my husband would have joined us for this. No, because, I mean, he would totally be on board with all this. I would be the reticent one because I'm probably the problem. So if I were to define the problem area, it would be me. Well, like one of the best marriage advice that we got Early on, it was to get marriage counseling every year, whether you feel like it or not.
And that way, when you do need it, it's not this taboo subject. I feel like it's the same kind of thing with your finances, like us having the marriage, like every year having a check in, like you have your annual exam at the doctor. We did that with our marriage and it's been something that's been really healthy for us.
And the same thing. needs to happen with our finances. A lot of times we avoid the subject. It's like the ostrich effect that you're digging your head in the sand. But a lot of times the people that are, that are doing that are stressed. And a lot of times they're stressed and they don't need to be as stressed.
Like they're carrying more stress by not knowing what's going on. And by avoiding the conversations and actually having the conversation. And so having a more regular agenda that you're, you're meeting, like a lot of our clients are doing this on a weekly basis with them to get them through it. I'm like, how do we get through this the first time?
You know, I have some couples that like, the times that they do have conversations together is when I'm there, and it helps to have someone. To, to be that middle person that walks them through, especially if they're really, you know, not on the same page. And so, you know, that is definitely something that's really helpful, but having this agenda really walks them through of like, okay, these are the things that we're doing.
And it's not just about your finances, like. I'll just share, um, like an example, like, what are the positive traits you've seen in your spouse this week? And this, this like. That's the first question. Sets it up. Yeah. So there's, there's like, and we also talk about like, this is the meeting purpose. Our goal is to strengthen our relationship, align our financial goals and ensure we both feel heard and valued on our financial journey because our finances hit our calendar.
So like part of this is going through the calendar, seeing, you know, where, where you need to go. And. And figuring out all of those just household tasks and then also going through and looking back at your finances this week. Like what are some things that we need to adjust and, and reflecting on those things.
So there's a lot of different things going on, but the final questions we have them ask is, ask your spouse, how can I support you this week? If you make it into a, a conversation where it's not like you did this, you spent that, you. It's our end of the year competition. Yeah. Like if you, if you change that perspective and you make this into a meeting that actually you are, you're seeing, you're getting filled up because you know, James would be saying, these are the things I'm seeing in you that are so good this week.
Like you, you start anticipating and want to have that conversation because for one, you're getting on the same page in all the areas of your life, but you're also being intentional with your finances in the midst of it. I'm thinking of Pavlov's dog, ringing the bell. Yeah. So that's interesting. One of the questions Amberley didn't mention that's on this agenda that I think is worth noting is, uh, it says reflect.
Reflect on and list your financial wins from the past week. And so when the conversation includes talking about the wins, that changes the dynamic. And, and the other thing is, because we do this with our clients, I think Amberly mentioned earlier, we do this every time we meet with our clients. We asked them, what financial wins did you have this week?
Because it does a couple of things. One, humans have a negative bias. Recency bias, negative. We're always looking for the negative thing to happen. And we're looking, and, and we'll jump over any positive thing and be like, well, I overspent this time. Well, what about all those bills that you paid on time?
What about that extra 20, 20 bucks that you put in your savings account? Like, we're, we're not looking at those things. And I, I think we're robbing ourselves from the. The opportunity to thank God for the things that he's doing in our life when it comes to finances. But if you reflect on and list out your wins, we do that.
We, we list out every win our client has, and we have that list at the end of our time working with them and they get to see in one. One session, we'll read through every single win that they've had and what typically happens that, that couple that I talked to you about that were, they were spending 4, 800 more than they had coming in.
By the time we read that list to them, a lot of times they're in tears, not, not realizing how, how far they've come. We read through that and I said, well, what's going through your mind? And she says, I just, I can't believe how much I've cut out. Like I didn't realize I cut out that much money in my, and I said, well, tell me more.
What were your thoughts? She says, the crazy thing about it is. I don't feel lacking, like I cut out 4, 800 in my, my spending and I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. The reason for that is her identity shifted, but also she leaned into what, what her values were and she's spending money on her values.
And that's what it is all about is, is making sure that we're focusing on the wins. One, so we can give God glory for those wins. Thank God for, for me being able to pay my house down. Thank God that I was able to, um, on this trip, we, we bought hot Cocos for the kids as we were driving 12 hours in a car.
And that was a huge thing for them. We don't normally just go out and splurge like that, unless it's something special. And, and when it made it super special. Yeah. We don't go and get stuff at a gas station. Just don't. Yeah. But we did that time because it was something special and we had the money for it and we, we set it aside and look how special it probably was for them.
'cause it's not every day. Yeah. Mm-hmm . Yeah. How cool. These are such good parents. . Why you do another one on parenting? . . Yeah. And so mine are too old, but . So yeah. It's just about like, we have to be celebrating our wins. Mm-hmm . With, with our, our spouse. Um, when you celebrate something together with somebody else, you feel like a team.
And so if we did more celebrating about our finances, then, then saving up all of our conversations for negative conversations, just imagine the dynamic that would be different in not just your finances, but also your marriage. Amen. Amen. I think about the Israelites, how they were so forgetful about God's faithfulness.
And that was something that like, they wandered in the wilderness because of that. Like, what if we start recognizing how God is faithful and celebrating those things? I think it's so easy to just bypass how God is faithful. And because we just think, well, I, I have food on the table. Like I've, you know, I've seen people that they come home from the grocery store and they pray a blessing over their, the food that they brought home because.
They have enough food to, to feed their family. Like I was struck that I've never thought about like thanking God that I have groceries in my fridge. And like, there's little things like, you know, you can thank God for paying the bills that you, you're, you know, you have a water, running water in your home.
There's, there's people around the world that don't have that. And a lot of times we can just get frustrated that like. Things are going up and all of these things, but we can also change our, our attitude and our, our mindset and, and really recognize and thank God for the, the little and the big things.
Do you find when you guys have clients that are now, you can just kind of see this gradual change of attitude, their complete attitude even by the end? Yeah. And a lot of times it's just, it, it happens so quickly. It's, I love our job because we get to experience. People have, you know, enormous transformation and it, it just impacts their lives in every single way.
And so it's just, it's so rewarding to see. You know, the, the shift in, in feeling like, you know, shackled and, um, just feeling like there's no hope to being to the point where they're living in a way that is just like, they feel that freedom and they feel that they have opportunities and they can say yes to the things that God has put on their heart.
Yeah. We, we have some clients that. There's just little tweaks that, that will make the huge difference. But then there's others that make huge tweaks, massive changes. I think of one client that they were, I think they were about 1, 800 in the hole every month. And, and we're like, how, how can we do this? We went through the values and they realized that they had way too much house.
And it didn't even line with what was important to them. They've made the decision. And this is the thing, as a coach, we don't make decisions for people. We, we bring clarity to the situation and help guide them to make the decisions that's right for them. How do you resist yourself? I would be like, God, this is so obvious.
Most of the time, what they come up with is completely different than the solution I would have come up with. And, and our job is all, is all about creating sustainable changes. And if we tell somebody, this is how you need to do it. It's not going to be sustainable, but this, this couple, they realized that this house was way too much house for them, way too expensive.
It was eating up so much of their income. They said, we don't need this. So they sold their house. They bought an RV and now they're living in an RV, which for some people is crazy. And, um, for others, it's like, this is great. It has freed them up to where now they can travel. They take their house wherever they go.
Oh, that's so cool. And, and they're able to, to, to live the life that they want. because they gave up somebody else's dream that they were living. Is that, do you think that is the biggest problem you see? Are people living somebody else's dream or the dream they think they should be living? And it's just chasing this, this dangling carrot that is always moving.
Like if you're always trying to, to wear the trendiest clothes and to have the nicest house and to have the upgrade of whatever, like it's always this moving target. And it becomes this chase of other people's values versus figuring out what really matters to you and what are you going to start looking at?
And, and putting those blinders and, and realizing, like, I, I like to view it like sunglasses. You know, when you, you wear sunglasses, it changes how you see everything. And when we look at things through our, our values and what matters to us. It helps us to see like, okay, is something just not, it doesn't look right.
Like it doesn't go along with our vision. Do you see that? Um, so when you're coaching somebody and we can cut this out if it's wrong, just joking, do you see somebody when you're coaching who do they fall back or do you, do you see them just, this becomes their way of life and everything? Cause I'm, I'm seeing these principles that maybe I use in other parts of my life, but not.
Yeah. Not here. Yeah. Yeah. But. Yeah. We, we've had lots of clients come to us and say, I've tried this all before. I've tried these, I've tried this and I've fallen back and I can't. The problem is they haven't created a sustainable plan. Yeah. It's been like a bandaid effect. It's like, it's the diet approach and if you, no diet is something that you can do forever.
Like it's just, it's, you can do it for maybe a short season and you, it just is not sustainable. And so for. So many of our clients, it's, they're at the point that they've tried it all, and they're like, nothing has worked, and one of the reasons I feel like a lot of people keep getting in this hamster wheel, especially when it comes to debt, is that a lot of people will pay off debt, and be super aggressive with it, they restrict, restrict, restrict, and then something comes up, like an emergency, and then they have to go back into debt.
even while they're in the debt process or they just pay off debt and then they get back into it. And so it becomes this cycle and it's defeating when you feel like I'm working so hard. I'm, you know, I'm not living like I, I really want to, I'm holding back and I'm, you know, restricting, restricting, and I'm still in the same place.
And it becomes. You know, overall, like, why is it even worth my time? Like, this is pointless. I think I've, I've restricted myself from doing anything fun for two years and I've cut everything out. I have an emergency and now I'm back to where I was. Whereas if we build out a sustainable plan where we're, we, we, we look at finances kind of as a little bit different than a lot is, is we, we look at as, as offense and defense.
So your, your money coming in, your money going out. If we create an incredible, I played soccer in college and high school, and if you had a really, really solid defense, like you're going to win games and, and so the fullbacks, if we had the best fullbacks and our goalie wasn't that great, so long as it doesn't get past the fullbacks.
The keeper doesn't have to be that great and and it's the same thing with with finances if if we start building out these things that are put are protecting in this case, we call the goalie the emergency fund. So we want to have an emergency fund, but if we If we just pour everything into an emergency fund and end up going into more debt on the other thing, it's kind of like this give and take.
So we want to make sure that we're building all the little pieces as we're going so that we don't just fall back into debt. If we go in full force and we try to pay off all of our debt, but it leaves us without a good defense, then we're going to end up getting scored on. We're going to have to go back into more debt.
And what that does to your identity when it comes to your finances is it tells you. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm doing this wrong. And when it comes to identity, I love this. So many people come to us and say that I am terrible with money. And at the identity level, they say they are. Well, we try to help them understand that they are not the problem, their system is the problem.
And when we can create a system that they can lean on, they no longer have to real, have to think, I'm the bad person, I'm the bad link in this. No, you're not. It's the system. If we can build the correct system, we automate good financial behavior. Then you start changing your mindset. You start changing the way you think about how you interact with money.
And let's say we automate 70 to 80 percent of your finances to do good behavior. You're left with that, that last little bit. How are you as a person going to deal with that money that you manually spend when you're seeing all of your other finances? In your life doing good things. You're going to start thinking I'm, I'm good with my money.
Like I've got savings going, my D I like all these little things are happening. My debt is going down. My savings are going up. It's like. I can do this. I'm good at this. And when you think you're good at something, you continue, be, continue to be good at something, you start spending that money as somebody who is good with money.
So I gotta ask the obvious question that probably comes up. I need a financial coach, but I'm already in debt. How do I pay for a financial coach? Yeah. Does that come up? That comes up a lot of times in in people. Okay. Because I was just thinking of somebody I got to send to you. Yeah. That doesn't have the money to do it.
Mm hmm. Yeah. And sometimes you have to have to take a leap and do it. Um, we, we, on average, we see somebody working with us on average. We're, we're saving them 800 a month. Our services do not cost 800 a month. Once you get a professional to come in and look like I'm looking at all this podcasting equipment.
Um, if, if you set all this up by yourself without professional help. Somebody who knows what they're doing. Would you be doing a podcast right now? No, no, no. Sometimes we have to lean on, we have to lean on the expertise of somebody who's been there and has done that. And once we do that, that, that gets us.
To our goal faster, more efficiently, and the thing is, is when somebody stops working with us, that 800 that they're saving, and I say saving, but actually reallocating to things that are important to them, when that 800 doesn't just go away. It continues to grow year after year. And so the investment that somebody makes in getting coached doesn't stop when they stop getting coached.
It continues forever. Do you work with non Christians? Yes. Non Christians, or unbelievers? I don't know. What do we call? I don't remember. Pre Christian. Pre Christian. Oh, I love that. Do you work with pre Christians? Yeah. So we do have, uh, a variety. The majority of the people we work with are Christians. We have a lot of pastors that we work with as well.
Um, but yes, we do work with people who are not Christians. I'm just wondering if it would be harder to Some of these principles bowls would be harder to teach somebody who wouldn't be open to that But I'm wondering if you're leading or do you end up leading them to Christ? Do you end up? We haven't had that experience, but we're not people know that we're Christians and and we let them know that we coach based on biblical principles and so if If we're not a good fit for them, we can help them find somebody who's a good fit for them.
And, and we've seen this, because we, most of our clients are Christians. Uh, most of them, Amberlee says, are, are pastors. And, and in fact, we've seen that there's a lot of people out there, kind of going back to your last question too, that, that want this financial coaching, um, but don't want to afford it.
They, they either, they, they think they can't or they don't want to afford it, um, which is more so than, more so true than not that they don't want to afford it. Um, if I know what that means, if you want to afford something. You can't afford something, but we've created an online coaching program called Steward Lab.
And so what, what that does is it allows somebody to have a low, um, low point of entry. Um, it's, it's less expensive. They can get in, they can get their, they can get a lot of the principles. The thing about coaching versus education. So education, they can get everything that we talk about. Online for free, like it really can, like, like everything you, you look it up and you can find out how to pay off debt.
You can find this. The thing is, is education. It's been said that knowledge is power. It's not true. Application of knowledge is power. And what a coach does is helps you apply the knowledge that you have. Well, it's similar to like, even when you were talking about your example. Of all the restriction and I was thinking of my weight loss journeys, journeys and how it doesn't ever work.
It just never works because then you end up gaining more than you lost to begin with and it's the same thing and it is when you work with a coach, somebody that gives you accountability and support and reality and sees and sometimes, yeah, seeing the reality because sometimes when we're in it, we can't see it.
We can't see and you show up differently when you have a coach that is, that is it. You know, you have someone that is keeping you accountable, that's really pushing you to, to reach the goals that you have. And. It's like a personal trainer. It is. You're helping them with form. We're a personal trainer for people's finances.
We have a shirt that says. We do. Personal trainer for your money. Oh, that's awesome. Because, you know, like you were saying about people affording. Financial coaching. The thing is, is when you are paying for it, you show up at a different level. And it's just, it's true. Like, when you are showing up, you have an invested interest that you're going to make it happen.
And we have not had anyone, like, fail. That's awesome. And it's just, every single person we've worked with have our success story. And maybe we'll have something that like, it really, you know, that might happen. But the main thing is like, if you're coachable, if you are willing to change, like, if you're willing to do the work, you know, financial coaching is for you.
And we have people that, that overall, you'd think like, man, like, I think sometimes people think that these are, you know, getting financial coaching is for people that are like, at, almost at bankruptcy, or like, in, in trouble. Debt up to their eyeballs. But the reality is that every one of us, like, The people who hire a personal trainer are not the people that are like, I don't know, 400 pounds.
Like normally it's people that are. typically like more fit and they're just wanting to up their game. The same thing with, with financial coaching, that it's not always the people that are near bankruptcy, which we've had worked with people that are at that point. But a lot of times it's just people that are like, we just feel stagnant.
We don't feel like we're, we're reaching the financial goals that we have. We don't even feel like we have any financial goals. We're just. Um, So I'm just, I'm just living life and we're just living paycheck to paycheck and we're not feeling like we're having any traction. So what I, cause I want to set up a time with you guys.
And the reason that I want to is I really liked your vision, but I, and we're okay financially. Like we're in our fifties, we've been working and we're okay. But I think what, what sold me was what could we really do? Yeah. What could we do if we came together? What could we do if I let the. The, the fear, because that comes from the enemy of this argument.
of these ideas out of my head. Like, what could that be? And I do think we need somebody to facilitate that because we will show up better. Yeah, we will show up. I know us, we will show up better. We will show up because especially if we pay for it. Yeah. And the thing is, is when you're looking behind that we see this, especially with people who are paying off debt, when you're looking behind at your mistakes or behind it, the way that you did things and you're using that as a motivator to push you forward, it doesn't work.
You don't, but if you have something in front of you, so it's kind of like, um, do I give a carrot or do I, I give a stick like I smack somebody to get them to do what they want or do I dangle a carrot in front of them? If we can start dangling carrots in front of us and um, and then once we get those carrots we eat the carrots and our eyes are better so then we can see the carrots better and we can get more carrots.
You know, like, it's kind of this. I'm using that one. Stealing that. Um, if we start looking forward. We're going to be more motivated than if we look behind us. So those that are on a debt free journey, if, if, if they're looking at debt as this big, scary beast that's behind them and chasing them and around every corner, and they just have to get away that debt's evil, you got to get rid of it.
You got to get, you just got to run. You got to go, you got to go, you got to go and get away from it. That's how I feel. Like I hate it. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. But if you say, okay. What do I want my future to be like? When I'm debt free, what does that free me up to? What yeses can I say yes to? What, what can I do when I'm debt free that I'm not able to do now?
You're going to be so much more motivated and you're going to be, it's going to be more sustainable to do that than if you're running away and saying that this is a scary beast that's following me, I might as well give up and let it eat me. And, you know, we don't have a lot of debt, but I, I, I, I don't like even like the word.
I feel like it's bondage, like it's slavery. So I have a really bad connotation, like it just feels wrong to me. Yeah. And then we do have some debt, but I'm not, it's more tax issues why we do it, but. It's, and it's interesting, it's, it's an interesting thing that the ideas, the thing, the stories, the narratives that we create, yeah, that also keep us in bondage that we don't even realize until I'm hearing you guys speak of all this freedom, um, which is what I believed.
But I think I just have a deeper revelation of what I was missing. And I think when I was preparing for this, which I really didn't prepare because you guys did, but, um, thinking about it, I've been thinking about you guys. And you've been on my heart for a long time, because we talked about this maybe a couple months ago, right?
Mm hmm. And it's been on my mind to have you. I didn't realize it was all for me and it'd be a counseling session. But, um, I can't remember what I was going to say about that, but it, it was, it was, it's really been highlighting, because as I'm preparing and reading through the questions that we didn't get through, um.
how dysfunctional my thinking is about it. And as you say things that, I mean, that's. That's what I believe. I believe in freedom. I believe God put me here for freedom. I think I even said it at the beginning of the podcast, but this is a deeper revelation. And I hope other people are experiencing that too, because this is really cool.
I love that you guys do this. This is really a cool ministry. I love it. I love, I think, um, especially with how important finances are. I mean, we just have to pay for things. This is the world we live in. It's a reality. Yeah. Um, is there anything? that or any strategies or anything that you guys want to share that we maybe missed on or that because we, I don't think we did this.
That's all right. Yeah. One thing, especially for those that are Christians out there, um, there's sometimes a mindset in the Christian realm that. We shouldn't talk about money. We shouldn't focus on money. We shouldn't do this. Let me just share some, some stats if that's okay. So there are 2, 162 verses about giving.
There are 2, 350 verses about money and possessions. To put that in perspective, one out of 10 verses in the New Testament are about money and possessions. That's interesting. Do you think Jesus is, God is trying to tell us something? Well, and this is, takes me back to when you were talking, you were talking about a lot of pastors.
Mm hmm. And that bothered, that troubled me. Because I do think that the church focuses on. Poverty is a virtue and lack as a virtue. And I don't believe that that is from God. And I think that there's some misunderstanding in there. I do. And I think what you said just proved my point. You know, God knew we would need things.
He knew we would need money. To trade, to barter, he knew that, and he asked us to feed the poor. He didn't ask us to do that with nothing. Yeah, we can't feed the poor if we don't have stuff to feed them with. Exactly, and so I don't know, and if this is, you know, just the modern church that created this virtue of poverty, but I don't really see that in the Bible.
But I do hear it in the church, or I see people get upset if a pastor has something nice. Yeah. Like, we aren't supposed to give them nice things. We aren't supposed to tithe so they can have good things. It's an interesting thing, but I, I see. Where it's happening, you know, it happens within the church, within the congregation, and also, I think, within the pastors.
They start to believe this mindset that they're not supposed to have, and I don't know where it comes from. I think a lot of pastors struggle with even talking about finances from the pulpit, because Like that's how they, they make their income. And there's just this, um, this dynamic that really is a challenge for them.
And a lot of pastors quit the profession because they aren't getting paid enough to sustain and live on what they're making. And a lot of times the spouse of a pastor has to have a high income to be able to. Um, like I was working with a pastor today and they, they have five jobs between the two of them as they're doing pastoring because they cannot, like, that's the only way that they can make it.
That makes me angry for them and not for them, for them that they're not being taken care of. Yeah. And it's sad that it's just not the reality. too far? No. It's, but it's not the, like, the reality is there's so many pastors that. That are struggling and the reason that they're not keeping up with, they're not continuing being in ministry full time is because of the finances.
I recently had a conversation with a pastor, um, and he was struggling and he, he doesn't go to my church. He's a friend and. It was this story and it really much felt like his mindset that this is what he deserved and how it was supposed to be. Do you see that within them? That they, that this is the virtue they're supposed to uphold somehow?
It just depends on the person and I do see that the spouse, especially if like, you know, if they're not a pastoring team that the spouse feels this burden to, to make a good income, to not be able to a lot of times, like stay home with their kids because they're funding their, their life. And so I do feel like there's just like, they're, they're making sacrifices for their own family.
So that way they can, you know, serve other people. So if we have a pastor and they're working five jobs, who's taking care of the kids? The kids are at school and they're having to just navigate that and that's part of the problem is that it's just challenging. So is the church not paying them enough or is there not enough tithing?
Yeah, and what is your thought, not on this pastor, on as a whole, like, and we do not have to include this. Yeah, I think tithing is a huge component of it. Um, some of like just church boards not realizing like what the standard of living, like what, what actually is an appropriate amount that a pastor should make.
And I think a lot of times. Like, if you do the research and see like, okay, this is nationwide, what the average is, and it depends on the cost of living of where you're at, how big the family is for that, that pastor, like, there's just, there's a lot of factors in there, but I'm a pastor's kid myself. And so I do have this heart for these pastors because they are sacrificing and they are pouring into us.
And I feel like there's just. This belief and expectation that pastors just need to be perfect in every area of their lives. They need to have it all together. They need to have their finances together. They need to have the perfect children. They need to have like the perfect everything. And the reality is it's just not true.
And so many pastors don't feel like they can talk to someone. About their financial struggles because like, if there's someone in their congregation, like that just feels maybe uncomfortable or just showing like being real and having, you know, this reality that like they don't have it all together and that's okay.
And so it's been fun to be able to work with pastors and, you know, all across the country. And they don't know me personally, but they're able to just be themselves and have someone pour into them and pray for them and speak life into them when they don't probably have that happening in their daily, in their daily life.
And so I just love that, like with working with a pastor, it is a ripple effect because when they get their finances in order. And then they feel comfortable and confident to actually share it with our congregation. Then giving goes up and it just becomes this ripple effect that these, these people in the congregation, it's not about just the giving but like one of the things that we're passionate about is what if God's people were freed up to say yes to the things God's calling them to do.
If there is a need. That we would just be able to say yes and do it. Like, what if God's people were able to do that? If we didn't have to go to, you know, nine to five jobs that we hate. Like, what if we were freed up to, to start our own business or to, you know, to go on mission trips and to fund the things that we see in front of us.
To have fun with God. Yeah. Our lives would look so different. People would, would want to be part of, of this movement. And. Like, you look at the early church, no one was in need because everyone supported and brought all of their needs together. I was going to mention that. And we don't, we don't experience that today.
And, and, you know, sometimes we can get a glimpse of that, but one of the things that we were just passionate about is like bringing that to, to the world. Like I, I do believe that God has this, this belief that like God has this view that we We're supposed to walk in abundance and we're supposed to rely on Him for faithfulness.
Like God provided manna just enough for them to, to have exactly what they needed, not more and not less. And I think it's so easy to, to just forget about that, that God can provide. We look in Matthew how he provides for the sparrows, he provides, you know, everything, how beautiful a flower is, how we can't clothe ourselves in, in that kind of beauty and how we just don't need to worry about, about our finances because God has us.
It doesn't mean we need to just like put our foot off the brakes and our hands off the wheel and be like, okay, I don't have to do anything. I just have to wait on God. I think there's this, this give and take that like. We need to be, to be partnering with God and following Him, and part of that is when we are starting to walk in the freedom that God has given us, we're able to say yes to the things and not have money hold us back.
I think it's very funny that the very thing, especially for Christians, the very thing that, that Christians have a hard time trusting God with. Has it imprinted on there as a reminder to trust God and God, we trust is on our, our money. Isn't that interesting? And, and until we trust God with our money, we're, we're not going to, or his money
Yeah. Yeah. . Until we, until we trust God with his money, it's, it's not gonna feel right. And that is interesting. Yeah. That is so interesting. So I think, uh, my takeaway is remember to give to your pastors . Because they do. They, I mean, you know, I, um, I need to be careful with this because he may watch this. I, um, had lunch with the pastor and he, he did have multiple jobs too.
And I was really, really upset that he wasn't being taken care of. But what did I do about it? What did I do about it? Nothing. Tell it just now. I just thought about it again. But there are some pastors that really love having, they love being bivocational because they're having ministry and like touch points of reality, more of reality of what.
Their congregation is going through. So I think it really does depend on, you know, on, but there is this, this burnout that is so real and, um, when a person can't do it all, they just can't, our expectation of them. Not mine personally, because I, I just happen to not have that, but I think ours as the church, the expectation that people put on pastors to be their everything, they forget that we are the church.
Like it is our job, you know, they're there to equip the saints. They're there to help us go, but it really is our job. And I wonder too, if, you know, we hear on the news, like, Celebrity pastors that have all this extra money. And like, we see the extremes and I think for some pastors, they feel like. Well, we're going to just like do the opposite and try to be different.
And I think there, there's like this, there needs to be more of a healthy medium between the two. Yeah. We typically rebuttal with the extremes. I mean, we just came out of the political season and every rebuttal on, on every side is always the extreme of the case. Yeah. And it's not the reality of the issue.
Yes. We just did a podcast on it and I'm, all right, I'm off social media. Just joking. Not, I'm not. It is. It is. I think, but it is the extreme where it moves us right to, Oh, I can see that this was too much. Yeah. We, you know, I think everyone kind of saw that there was too much on one side, but it, you know, there's a reason it got there because it was too much on the other side.
Yeah. Yeah, I think the, the key to all of this is gain clarity on where you're at and create a plan and make sure, make sure that plan is sustainable. That, that is our jam. We love creating sustainable plans that people can get on board and get excited about. That's the other thing is like, if, if you have somebody.
If you're, if you're working on your finances and trying to make progress and the plan that somebody has said, this is the only plan you should use, there's a lot of financial gurus out there that say, this is the only way you can do X, Y, or Z. If, if that's not working for you, find something that's actually sustainable and you can do.
Well, I'm going to have to say thank you. Our battery is dead. No, thank you guys for joining us. Thank you so much. I. We'll make sure to put your contact information and your links in the description, so you guys please. Reach out to you. How, how do you like that? Do you, can they sign up for our newsletter?
Do they send? Yeah, we, we can, um, actually we have a couple of resources we can give. So the, the good steward prayer that Amberley created, if you want something to be able to pray every morning to get your heart right with your finances, um, you can sign up for that. We'll give you the link that you can put in the description.
And then those of you that are couples and you want this agenda, we'll give you this agenda so we can give a link for that. And then Um, that'll put you on our newsletter and we can send you information out that way. Thank you so much. I'm sorry you guys can't see Amberley as she is, or somebody, but thank you guys so much for joining us.
This is a very interesting conversation and I really didn't mean it to turn into a counseling session, but I'm hoping that maybe some of the things that I deal with, others are also dealing with. And, um, thank you. Thank you guys. Thanks for having us. All right. Bye guys.