My Mother's Wisdom...

Mom in 2007, age 81

I think about my mom everyday.  She taught many simple, straight forward lessons to my brother, my sister and me.  She had four core principles regarding money.

1)Always pay your tithe.  No matter how small the account in your bank, a Christian can not afford not to tithe.  Tithing is an act of love, because all we have comes from God.  And the Bible says God will bless us if we tithe.  She told me many times, which I learned to be true, "It is amazing how much you can do on 90%, when you give 10% to God."

2) Always pay your bills on time.  This is simple common sense.  But it helps to have a systematic process for doing this.  Most of my parent's bills came in at the first of the month. In our kitchen was a two-drawer, tan filing cabinet. Using hanging files and folders, Mom organised the bills alphabetically.  At the first of the month she sat down, wrote out cheques for each bill, and then made sure each envelop was stamped.  Remember--on-line banking didn't exist until the 1990's.  She had a ledger card with each bill listed on it, with a column for each month.  When she had paid the bill, she put a tick in the corresponding month column.  She would tear off the customer copy of the billing, write the cheque number on it, as well as the date she paid the bill and place it in the correct section of the bill folder.  Because she had a systematic way of paying the bills, she never missed one and she never had to pay a penalty. 

An example of her bill-paying card

3) Always balance your cheque book to the penny each month.  Some of my younger friends will have no idea as to what a cheque book is.  For those of us who grew up with them, or saw our parents use them, each month a statement from the bank arrived.  On the statement was a list of cheques which had been cleared, which included the amounts for which they had been written.  The purpose of the statement was to inform the account owner/user about the activity of the account.  In order to know if it was accurate (sometimes mistakes are made), Mom made a point of reconcilling her ledger with the statement.  I will write an exact process for balancing a cheque book another time.  When we opened my first chequing account, she sat down with me and taught me to reconcile to the penny!  It kept me from going overdrawn and having to pay penalties.  This principle is also biblical.  
"Be diligent to know the state of your flocks, and attend to your herds; Proverbs 27:23  Now some people might not get the correlation between balancing a cheque book and knowing the state of your flocks.  The bottom line is, know exactly what you have so that you can prepare for the future.  If you don't know what resources you have, you can end up in serious financial trouble.
4)  Delayed gratification, in other words, if you don't have the money for it, don't buy it! By waiting until you have saved up the cash for something (apart from a house), it gives you time to really think about how seriously you want that item.  For example, as a child I wanted to buy a Ken doll.  The first one I received for Christmas had a pull string to make it talk.  But I wanted another Ken doll--as I had two female dolls.  I saved up my allowance for several weeks until I had enough to buy the second Ken doll.  By working for the money, saving the cash and waiting I had time to decide if I truly wanted the doll, or maybe a record album instead.  I bought the doll.  And I was protective of this toy, because I had invested time, money and desire into acquiring it.  This meant I appreciated it.

Those four principles have guided me all my life.   John and I sit down and review our pay each month, make sure all our financial commitments are covered and then decided what to do with the rest.  

I priase the Lord for giving me such a wise mother.

Serving Jesus, Author of our faith,

"Lady Helene"