Note: I was asked to speak in church last Sunday, Jan. 18, on the topic of 'family finances'. These are the thoughts I shared.
Many of the thoughts for my talk today come from the pamphlet: “All is Safely Gathered In”, published by the church in 2007.
The pamphlet is small and to the point, and begins with this Message from the First Presidency:
Dear Brothers and Sisters:
Latter-day Saints have been counseled for many years to prepare for adversity by having a little money set aside. Doing so adds immeasurably to security and well-being. Every family has a responsibility to provide for its own needs to the extent possible. We encourage you wherever you may live in the world to prepare for adversity by looking to the condition of your finances. We urge you to be modest in your expenditures; discipline yourselves in your purchases to avoid debt. Pay off debt as quickly as you can, and free yourselves from this bondage. Save a little money regularly to gradually build a financial reserve. If you have paid your debts and have a financial reserve, even though it may be small, you and your family will feel more secure and enjoy financial peace in your hearts.
May the Lord bless you in your family financial efforts.
Signed, The First Presidency
The pamphlet then lists some areas to focus on that will help us develop a family financial plan. These areas are:
1. Pay tithes and offerings
2. Avoid debt
3. Use a budget
4. Build a Reserve
5. Teach Family Members
I am not going to talk about all of these, but I have selected some that have special meaning for me personally and for my family. Having said that, I don’t want to give the impression that the Gubler’s are perfect (because we are far from that) in the way we do things in our household. But I believe we have been blessed over time by trying to follow these simple principles, and when adversity did come,
and it comes to everyone, we have been able to weather the storms feeling secure and at peace in our hearts, knowing that the Lord had and would continue to bless us.
The first principle I feel strongly about is to “Pay tithes and offerings”:
The First Presidency has counseled us that: “Successful family finances begin with the payment of an honest tithe and the giving of a generous fast offering.” I can testify that this principle is true. We have been the recipients of those great blessings that come from the opened windows of heaven - pouring down blessings upon those who follow this principle in faith (see Malachi 3:10 and Isaiah 58: 6-12)”
We have been taught by our leaders that… : “If our tithing is the first obligation met, our commitment to this important gospel principle will be strengthened and the likelihood of financial mismanagement will be reduced.”
I can’t emphasize this enough, Pay your tithes and offerings…and blessings will come! “…the likelihood of financial mismanagement will be reduced.”
While living in Washington State several years ago, James was out of work because of a strike at Boeing that had lasted longer than we had expected or prepared for. We were a young family then with three small children at the time. Finances were very tight and our food storage wasn’t as appetizing as we had hoped… During this same period of unemployement, our son Reid had to be hospitalized for treatment of a potentially serious infection in his eye - peri-orbital cellulites. One day while talking with my neighbor Debbie, who is of a different faith, about what all was going on with our family, she stated that during circumstances like this it would be wise for us to not pay our tithing…that surely our church and the Lord would understand. I tried to explain to her the connection between faith and obedience, and what an opportunity this was for our family to go through this together, and that we had already been blessed and would continue to be blessed in the future, I just knew it.
The truth was we were quickly running out of cash and really didn’t have money for anything, but we had been paying our tithing and we just knew things would work out alright. Looking back now we can see that we were blessed at that time because with James being out of work he could spend a lot of time at the hospital with Reid so he wouldn’t be left alone, since I still needed to care for our other small children. We were blessed when gift certificates to the local grocery store appeared on our doorstep We never knew who left them, but the timing couldn’t have been better. A couple of weeks later we were blessed when James and some other similarly unemployed engineers were provided an opportunity to work at a rock quarry. The pay was $15 dollars an hour with a paycheck every Friday, which helped relieve our cash flow problems until James was called back to work after the strike.
The other principle I feel is very important is actually the other half of what I have been talking about already…fast offerings. The scriptures always talk about “tithes and offerings” together. Often we become good at paying our tithing, but forget about the other offering we should be making. Our church leaders have instructed us that… “On fast day, we go without food and drink for two consecutive meals, if physically able, and then give to the bishop a fast offering at least equal to the value of the food not eaten.” Those words sound familiar to all of us. We hear them all the time in primary and Sunday school. It is the counsel of the First Presidency that follows that statement that I would like to emphasize. After talking about fasting two meals and making an offering equal to the value of the food not eaten, the brethren then continue – and this is where many of us quit listening. Their counsel continues… “If possible, we should be very generous and give more.” To me that last phrase comes across as though it were spoken with a “still small voice”, and sinks deep within my heart. When was the last time you sat down and really looked at how much you have been paying for a fast offering? If you are not currently paying a fast offering, please start. If you are paying fast offerings, do the two meals represented in your offering look like a bowl of corn flakes and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or is it a Big Breakfast from McDonalds and the all you can eat soup, salad and breadsticks from Olive Garden or something more?
Shortly after we moved here to Tucson, during a stake High Priest Quorum meeting that my husband was attending, President Kern asked all the quorum members to carefully examine the amount of money they had been paying for fast offerings in the past and then make a commitment to double the amount of their fast offerings in the future. Promising great blessings would come to each of them and to all the members of our stake if they did so. My husband came straight home and changed our old mathematical formula for fast offerings we had been using for who knows how many years, from corn flakes and peanut butter and jelly times number of family members, to something that would both take in the request of the First Presidency to give very generously and give more, and President Kerns’ challenge to take what we have been paying and double it. That was at least four years ago. A lot has happened in our family since then, and we need to revisit this question again – Are we giving generously and can we give more? Please do the same in your homes as well. I promise you that you and your family will be blessed. And because the money offered is distributed by Bishop Boerup within our ward boundaries to care for “the poor and needy”, our whole ward will in turn be blessed.
Another area the First Presidency addresses in this pamphlet is living within our means by getting and staying out of debt and by using a budget.
“The key to spending less than we earn is simple—it is called discipline. Whether early in life or late, we must all eventually learn to discipline ourselves, our appetites, and our economic desires. How blessed is he who learns to spend less than he earns and puts something away for a rainy day” (see Conference Report, Oct. 1979, 119; or Ensign, Nov. 1979, 81).
Consider the following statement by President Gordon B. Hinckley, the 15th President of the Church:
“The time has come to get our houses in order. So many of our people are living on the very edge of their incomes. In fact, some are living on borrowings. …“I am troubled by the huge consumer installment debt which hangs over the people of the nation, including our own people. …“I urge you … to look to the condition of your finances. I urge you to be modest in your expenditures; discipline yourselves in your purchases to avoid debt to the extent possible. Pay off debt as quickly as you can, and free yourselves from bondage” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1998; 70, 72; or Ensign, Nov. 1998, 53–54).
“We must learn to distinguish between wants and needs. We should be modest in our wants. It takes self-discipline to avoid the ‘buy now, pay later’ philosophy and to adopt the ‘save now and buy later’ practice.
Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin taught: “All too often a family’s spending is governed more by their yearnings than by their earning. They somehow believe that their life will be better if they surround themselves with an abundance of things. All too often all they are left with is avoidable anxiety and distress.”
The “All is safely gathered in” pamphlet states: “Spending less money than you make is essential to your financial security. Avoid debt, with the exception of buying a modest home or paying for education or other vital needs. Save money to purchase what you need. If you are in debt, pay it off as quickly as possible.”
I recall when my husband and I were looking for our first home to purchase. We were recently married and both of us were working professional full time jobs. We had a dollar amount which we had decided upon ahead of time which we were interested in spending for a home and were only interested in looking at homes in that range. Our realtor expressed to us that we qualified for much more and that he could show us much nicer, newer, larger homes. We, however, knew that we wanted to begin a family soon and that if I was going to stay home with our future children we could not consider my income as something we would always have to rely upon. I believe the realtor was discouraged by this.
We ended up with a 23 year old ‘fixer-upper”. By the worlds standards it was meager, but that first home of ours served us well for about ten years. Back then we didn’t have cable t.v., call waiting, cell phones or receive a daily newspaper…we didn’t own a Game Cube, a Nintendo Wii, or a trampoline. There were no elaborate vacations, but rather we enjoyed a lot of family camping trips. Yes, we were living within our means and yes, we were bursting at the seams in that small home, but we were bursting with love. It was what we could afford and we felt comfortable and secure in our surroundings.
Ever since those early years we have consciously made the choice to live within our means. We have always placed paying our tithing as a priority and enjoyed the blessings promised us. We have had time to develop strong relationships with our family, neighbors, and friends and to serve freely in the church because of the habits and standards we adopted early on in our marriage. Our church callings and temple attendance were both of importance to us and we had time to spend with our children developing the relationships that will last into the eternities. No one in our family looks back at those years at what our family did not have, but rather at all we did have.
Family financial problems are an epidemic. The things mentioned in the pamphlet “All are safely gathered in” are words of the Lord. And as stated in the message from the First Presidency, we have been told for years that we have a responsibility to obtain financial freedom.
President Hinckley has said, “Great are the promises of the Lord,” “The marvelous thing to me is that the Lord never asks us to do anything that He does not attach to it a blessing. It is not a sacrifice to live the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is never a sacrifice when you get back more than you give. It is an investment. And the living of the gospel of Jesus Christ becomes a greater investment than any of which we know because its dividends are eternal and everlasting.
I would like to end my talk today with this quote from President Benson:
“When we put God first, all other things fall into place or drop out of our lives completely.”
I bear you my testimony that this is true. If we will just put God first and pay our tithes and a generous fast offering, all other things will fall into place (such as using a budget, building a reserve, teaching family members), or drop out of our lives completely (avoiding debt).
