Three words I hate & why I'm willing to try…

So most of you know that I am already a penny pincher.  Winco and Goodwill are my best friends.  I budget out our money to the dollar.  In fact, some of you are about to receive a pretty gold Christmas card in the mail.  I will have you know that I took 6 trips to Michael’s over the past few weeks, using a 40% coupon each time (they won’t let you use more than one at a time), in order to get that screamin’ deal on those cards. Aren’t they beautiful?  And for less than buying printer paper!   However I will admit that during those 6 trips to Michael’s I developed a hatred of that store.  I won’t rant and rave, but I swore to Jeff that I would never set foot inside Michael’s again.

See I have this love/hate relationship with coupons and deals and discounts. I love the idea of saving money, but I always feel like it’s so frustrating that I end up hating the process so much it’s not worth it.  Hence my post recently about Discount Distraction.  However… I am humbling myself and saying perhaps I will give it another try.  Here’s why:

At church we’ve been doing this AMAZING series on generosity. I almost typed that it’s been my favorite series ever, but I think I write that about every series we do, so I won’t say it, but I feel that way!  It’s been awesome, and SO challenging to think of more and more ways that we can quit living like fat American consumers and start giving more for the Kingdom of God.  So get this:  A few weeks ago, we did this fun experiment at church, and just for fun we had every family just jot down on a little piece of paper what 10% of their household income was. Just to see what it would look like if everyone in our church tithed.  We actually didn’t do it for our Saturday night service, so I think they figured we got about 70% percent of our total church.  Still a good amount, enough to get an estimate, right? Just for fun.

So over the past few weeks we’ve been curious to hear what the tally was, what it would look like if our church tithed.  Well tonight during Joel’s message he showed a video to give the results… (if I can get it I’ll post it on here).  Let’s just say I was weeping.  The lights went off and the music began, and the total was over SIX MILLION dollars. They had it counted out to the dollar, and showed the number on the screen, THEN went through silently listing the things that could be done with that extra money, paying off our mortgage, quadruple our missions fund, aid millions in foreign countries.  It was staggering.  People this is a LOT of money, and that is only 10% of our church family’s income.  By the time the video was done Joel was weeping, I was weeping, and I’m sure a lot of others were as well. It was just amazing to see the potential, and so exciting to think of what God could do with Christians, if we only were willing to give.

So while yes we tithe, yes we give to missionaries, yes we support an awesome kid in Rwanda, we still live like kings.  Did you know that if your household income is $45,000 or more you are in the top 1% richest people on the planet?  Yes, 1%.  We are filthy rich.  So, I’m challenged by all of this to ask God to stretch me, show me how I can spend less to give more. Show me ways that I’m not stewarding your finances well.

And I kept hearing mentioned the three little words I hate to hear:  Cash, coupons, envelopes.  Now don’t get me wrong, I think that whole envelope thing is awesome if you’re really having trouble with spending habits, but we are by and large really budgeted people.  Plus, coupons seem infuriating because it takes so much work to hunt them down and they’re never for what I want, blah blah blah complain complain complain. Well tonight Joel shared that studies show (now you’re speaking my language) that people who use cash instead of a card spend 12-18% less.   Now, that could just be that generally people who use cash are those trying to cut costs, so they are already those who will spend less anyway. But still, 12-18% is pretty good!  Now I’ve always had a million objections such as: Do I have to carry around all that cash in my purse all the time??  What about when I’m at Costco and I get 1)diapers 2) groceries 3) a Christmas gift and 4) stamps.  That could conceivably come out of 4 different envelopes and that sounds totally frustrating to me.

But enough being stubborn.  I’m willing to give it a try. So tonight I sat down, with our 2010 budget, and mapped out a way I could try this crazy cash thing.  Plus, I’m even going to give coupons another chance. Joel shared a statistic about their family grocery bill savings and it was enough to get my attention. Let’s just say I’m a skeptic, out to try to prove myself wrong.

So hear I go.  I have my scissors in hand, a stack of envelopes.  And whatever we “save”, we’ll give away.  Deal?  Will you help me in this experiment by sending me links to good coupon places, advice on this crazy envelope thing, tips on carrying cash, etc. I need all the help I can get!