Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Use This Unfair Advantage for Stress-Free Christian Finances ft. Bob Lotich

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Use This Unfair Advantage for Stress-Free Christian Finances ft. Bob Lotich · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  If I look at all the students that I've talked to over the years, all the different readers we've talked to, the ones that I see who get the miracles the most, who see the biggest financial breakthrough are the ones who aren't just praying for a miracle, praying for God to help them win the lottery, praying to put all their money in Bitcoin, but they're the ones who are actually.
• 0:23
  Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. I'm excited to be joined by Bob Loddick, who is here from Seed Time. Bob, introduce us to what you guys do over at Seed Time. Yeah, no, it's an honor to be here. Thank you, Jeremy, for having me. Seed Time, long story short, is a blog I started 17, 18 years ago.
• 0:41
  about money and Christianity and the intersection and stuff like that. And since that point, we've done a whole bunch of things. We've written a book. Our main thing right now, honestly, is helping churches kind of equip their congregations. We have a little class to help churches go through that video course and stuff like that. A bunch of courses for individuals and things like that. But long story short, we're helping people understand money, Bible and intersection, what that looks like in everyday life.
• 1:07
  Awesome. A huge part of what we do with family teams is it definitely overlaps with, okay, is there a more biblical way to handle finances than the way the world tends to think about it? Is this just a matter of, you know, discipline and understanding kind of how money works? And so I'd love for you to kind of maybe pull back a little bit of how do you think about the, this overall topic? How does a Christian family approach finances differently than somebody who isn't trying to follow Jesus? Yeah.
• 1:37
  Yeah. No, that's a great question. And I think, unfortunately, I think so many of us in the church, like we have just followed the world's pattern. And I know you've seen this in so many other areas of our lives, like we just kind of often default to the world's pattern. I think that's what's going on in the church when it comes to our money. And I think, you know, like we were talking beforehand a little bit, part of this comes down to
• 2:00
  The differences of following a cookie cutter approach to your finances and a one size fits all approach. I remember when we wrote our book, one of the things I was asking people, it's like, what are the things that bother you the most about money books? And so many people said,
• 2:16
  Every time I read a money book, it feels like it's a one size fits all approach. And the really cool thing that we have as believers, really the unfair advantage, if I'm being honest, is that we get to pray and we get to talk to the God of the universe who has a unique and specific plan for my life, for your life, for everyone listening and watching for each of our lives. And therefore,
• 2:39
  what does he have for us to do? Because Jeremy, I will tell you what, like there have been times where I've made financial decisions based on the leading of the Lord that any financial advisor who wasn't hearing from the Lord would be like, that is the worst idea. That's insane. Don't ever do that. But when God is calling you to do something, it's always the smartest idea. It doesn't matter what the financial advisor's spreadsheet says. It's like, so we have to make sure that we're not putting our dependence in
• 3:06
  uh the world's methods and and really the world's math like god has a different way of doing math and um and if you follow jesus and you obey him and enough things you probably know what i'm talking about where it's like sometimes it's like this doesn't look this doesn't seem right you know and so we've gotten to experience a lot of really cool miracles with that a lot of our students have as well but i think that's a big big piece of what it looks like to begin
• 3:32
  breaking away from the world's way of handling money and moving into God's way. Awesome. Yeah. So help me like, think about maybe the two, uh, maybe ditches on the side of the road of trying to follow exactly how God might be speaking to you. When I've approached this topic, but there's been on one side, Hey, this is all just dollars and cents. I just need to become a disciplined investor. You need to kind of get, get into the spreadsheets. You need to, you know, if you want to get this in the Bible, just study Proverbs. Don't go
• 4:01
  Like, it's just wisdom and wisdom is like not unique to Christians. On the other side, I would say I have definitely run into people that I would say have fallen prey to what I tend to call magical thinking. Like, I feel like the Lord is telling me to go all in a Bitcoin.
• 4:16
  I don't know. Like, and so they just like, they do lurch to some kind of, I think, I think that, you know, like lottery, this lottery number, I don't know. So I'm curious, how do you process that? Because I, I find, I find myself like sometimes struggling with, man, I, are we getting, are we getting too into there? But I do want to, we should have an unfair advantage. I mean, we have the Holy Spirit, like we can listen to him. Like, yeah, how do you think about that?
• 4:40
  Yeah. So it's funny you mentioned that. I had a mentor early on in my walk with Jesus who was a little bit in that direction. And he believed that God was going to have him win the lottery. And he kept on telling me, he's like, Bob, when I win the lottery, I'm going to cut you in. Yeah.
• 4:56
  Which makes him sound like way crazier than he was. Like he actually was pretty grounded in a lot of areas. So I understand the tendency of even smart people to be drawn in that direction. One of the stories I love talking about is the story of Jehoshaphat in 2 Chronicles 20, I believe it is. And I think it's a great kind of framework for...
• 5:17
  maybe keeping some of these things in check a little bit. And so in that story, basically Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, I believe it was at the time, has these three different armies coming up against him simultaneously. They're greatly outnumbered. And it's a situation where it's like, you know, I would equate it to, as we're talking about finances, a impossible financial situation that you just can't get out of in your own strength. Mm-hmm.
• 5:42
  And so what he does, he immediately starts praying, he immediately starts fasting, and then gets direction from one of the guys in the group from the Lord, essentially to, I want you to march down to the battle line first thing tomorrow.
• 5:57
  So don't wait for them to come to you. I want you to march down to the battle line. Oh, and then why don't you lead with the praisers? So get all those guys with the tambourines, put them on the front lines, you know? And so they're marching down in worship. And again, I tried to put myself in their shoes and just thinking of what was going on at that time. It's like, had to be terrifying, you know? I've seen Saving Private Ryan. It's like.
• 6:20
  You know, so it's like, it had to be so scary. But the point is they felt like I heard from the Lord. And so they began marching down there and then they get down there and all three and all three armies are completely dead. The Lord wiped them out and defeated them on their behalf. Mm-hmm.
• 6:38
  But the point is, in tying all this up, the point is they had some specific and natural steps that they had to take. And this is the lesson that I feel like has shaped our approach on money more than anything else, is that it's not all God and it's not all you. But there's this combination of the natural and spiritual working together together.
• 7:00
  that allows us to see some of these really cool miracles. And you go all through the Bible and you look at so many of the miracles and you'll see this pattern at play. It's like very often God did something really cool, but someone was required to do something and take a natural step. You know, Jericho is another really fun one that comes to mind. It's like, here's the battle plan. March around seven days and then yell real loud. You know what I mean? It's like...
• 7:23
  It's absolutely insane, but they had a part to play. And so kind of bringing all the way back to your question, I think it can be easy to lean on, like you said, on both ditches. But when it comes to managing money and stewardship and what this looks like,
• 7:43
  You know, there are times where God does really cool things, but far often, you know, if I look at all the students that I've talked to over the years, all the different readers we've talked to, the ones that I see who get the miracles the most, who see the biggest financial breakthrough are the ones who aren't just praying for a miracle, praying for God to help them win the lottery, praying to put all their money in Bitcoin, but they're the ones who are actually running a budget while they're doing that, actually trying to pay off their debt,
• 8:13
  while they're praying. And that combination of the two seems to be the thing that helps you stay out of the ditch, stay in the middle.
• 8:21
  Yeah, because God wants us to learn wisdom and dependence on the Holy Spirit. And so I think that there are Christian traditions that so over-index on wisdom that they decide to discount any level of dependence. And so if you do succeed, you're like, hey, I'm so wise. Your problem is that clearly you're not as smart as me. And so you just really can destroy...
• 8:43
  create all this haughtiness, this pride. Then on the other side, obviously, if people are depending on the Holy Spirit in such a dramatic way that they're not becoming more and more wise, then they are getting disappointed with God. If things don't work out, they just blame God. That's who else do you have to blame? I listened to you, God. And then you told me to...
• 9:01
  you know, buy, you know, $10,000 worth lottery tickets. And, you know, like, so you have to figure this out. Um, so I'm, yeah, I, I, I, you know, there's that verse in Philippians three that says, you know, work at your salvation with fear and trembling for it's God who works in you and willing to act according to his good purpose, which is, I think, I think those two ideas that, you know, do this really, really hard work at your salvation because God is doing something inside of you. It's like,
• 9:24
  There's something in, I guess, kind of the Western mind that really kind of, I think, just tilts at that. It's that you've got to tell me which one it is. Like, am I doing it or is God doing it? I can't. It cannot. It can't be this sort of integration of the two. Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious if there's any other, like, because I'm trying to picture somebody who's listening to this and say, okay, we've got...
• 9:44
  Um, we've got financial issues. Um, maybe some of them are our fault. We got some debt that we probably shouldn't have. Um, we aren't investing money the way we should. Um, uh, where, where do I start as a family? Like we want to get out of this situation, but I want to do in a godly way. How do I do this so that my relationship with God is integrated into our finances? And I don't just pick off the shelf, you know, something that's completely secular. Yeah.
• 10:09
  Yeah. The way I really like approaching this, and it's common sense, but I think we often miss this, is by actually praying and asking God. Like literally bringing him into the conversation, because for whatever reason, money is one of those topics where I think a lot of people feel like they can't pray about it. Because it feels wrong to pray for more money, and I don't want to just taste money, and wrestling with that. I think a lot of people struggle with that.
• 10:36
  And I get that, like I've struggled with that, you know, for many years until I began to understand that it's all part of it. And when you understand that like God wants to use us as a hands and feet, wants us, I believe, to be able to use our finances to fund kingdom stuff and to advance the kingdom. And that's my desire. It's like, how do I help more people do that?
• 10:59
  And so anyway, so back to like getting out of debt or kind of taking these first steps, I think it starts with that, okay? And the byproduct of that, like when you ask God for help, if I'm coaching someone, it's this, pray, ask God for help, and then listen. Actually get quiet, actually listen, because man, the number of times where I feel like the Lord is like whispering something after that, that feels completely unrelated, okay?
• 11:25
  You know, maybe it's a whisper or a nudge to go start that business, or maybe it's a whisper or a nudge that it might be time to leave this job, you know, and start looking for something else or whatever the thing might be. Like, it's so common, it's so frequent, and it's also really easy to dismiss and to be like, well, that's not what I'm praying about. That's not the thing that's going to solve the problem. And I'll just share a quick crazy story from our life. Um...
• 11:50
  I remember like this really clicked for me when we had paid off all of our debt. So my wife and I got married and we had a ton of credit card debt, car loans, all this stuff. So we had paid all of that off, like by the grace of God. And it was really, really cool. And I remember having no debt left, but our mortgage. And I remember going out to this field and I was praying and praying a super American prayer because I had done my spreadsheet and my spreadsheets that it
• 12:20
  Which again, most people are listening, they're like, that's amazing, that's awesome. Like, you know, but I was going to God and actually praying, Lord, can you help us pay it off even faster? So that's my American microwave prayer. It's like three to four years wasn't fast enough. And I remember as I was praying, it was one of the clearest things the Lord ever spoke to me after I prayed that bold prayer about our finances that some people would even say is like selfish, you know, and I'm praying this thing and God's not afraid of our big prayers, you know?
• 12:49
  So I was praying that and then the clearest thing he spoke to me was if you really wanna see me move on your finances, I want you to begin giving your age as a percentage of your income. And so I was 31 at the time and we were giving 11% at the time. And so this effectively meant tripling our giving. And I remember standing there like just kind of with my jaw dropped as I'm like processing this and like, Lord, this makes no sense. This is crazy and dealing with all the emotions and whatever else.
• 13:19
  and kind of get into a point of frustration where it's like, I just came to you asking us to pay off our mortgage quicker. And now you're telling me to give all of our money away. This is the worst idea. This is terrible.
• 13:30
  And the truth is, is that I had at that point kind of made an idol out of paying off this debt. Like it had become such a thing in my life that it was the primary focus. And I think God was saying, hey, are you willing to lay that down and let go? And I went back and talked to my wife and she was awesome and great counsel and all this. And we kind of decided,
• 13:51
  I think we should do this. You're really sensing this from the Lord. She felt a strong peace about it. And so we decided, all right, from that point on, we're going to start giving our age as a percentage of our income. So that month we began giving 31% of our income. Okay. So I went back to my spreadsheet and I typed in all the numbers. And now, because we're giving all of our money away, basically, it looks like it's going to be like 10, 11 years before we get this mortgage paid off.
• 14:17
  And I remember like just kind of on one hand being a little bit frustrated with that, but also just like doing it in the posture of like, God, I just trust you. Like I don't, I'm sold out. I'm bought in. Like I'm in this for the long term. And I don't know why you're asking me to do this, but I'm going to do it anyway.
• 14:36
  And so the next month, not much happened. The following month, not much. And then the following month after that, things in the business started picking up. And the next month we got like this huge, unexpected tax refund. And then it was like one thing after another, after another, Jeremy, to the point where 10 months after we started doing that, we walked into the bank and wrote the final check to pay off that mortgage. So the spreadsheet told us it was gonna be 10 years and God did it in 10 months.
• 15:03
  And I'm saying all this because that was birthed out of us praying a bold prayer about our finances. And again, and back to the idea of, you know, cause some people listening, like, might even feel like that was selfish to pray that. Cause it's like, you're gonna get it paid off in three years, why would you even pray something like that? And the thing that I think is worth highlighting here, just cause we're having a conversation about this, that people so often miss, because yeah, we've gotten comments on social media, you know how social media is.
• 15:32
  people come with all their educated opinions. And I've had people really come at me about this, like that that was greedy for us to even pray that. And what they don't realize is once we paid off that mortgage, now we had an extra couple thousand dollars a month to be able to give into the causes that we deemed really important, human trafficking being one among others. And so fundamentally that prayer allowed us to be able to give tens of thousands of dollars more into certain causes. And so,
• 16:01
  It's just the way of the kingdom and the way God does things where it's like, he can answer that prayer where it's like, yes, we do get benefited by it, but a whole bunch of other people get to be benefited by it when our heart is submitted to him.
• 16:14
  Man. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that story because I think I know that for our family, these are the stories that completely change the character of your family. Like part of what we're talking about is, you know, when our family is enjoying the benefits of our work at whatever level that is, or that's,
• 16:35
  struggling with the challenges of our finances, we're telling our kids a story about God all the time, you know, and, and they're like, can you trust God? Does God show up in special ways? And you know, one of the, we do this festival every year, Tabernacles. And one of the things we do there is always have a whole night where we say, how has God provided for our family? And we'll tell
• 16:57
  all kinds of stories all the way back to my grandparents, to my parents, to all kinds of things that happened in the last, you know, 20, 30 years with me and my wife. And we just want our whole family to be saturated in these stories. And then we keep realizing when we're telling these stories is if we don't take risks, if we don't hear from God, there's no stories to tell your children.
• 17:16
  And your grandchildren, you know, it's like, I was really miserly and I, I figured out, I read these spreadsheets and we just didn't drink coffee for 10 years and voila, you know? And so it's like, it's not quite as inspiring as what you just shared.
• 17:32
  No, that's so true. Like, and I, I'm really excited. Like we're trying to be more intentional about sharing these with our kids and honestly having a yearly acknowledgement of like what God did and just that remembrance. Cause yeah, this is obviously something that we will never forget. Like our lives are so radically changed by it. But, but again, like it's also easy to look at that as like this big financial blessing and see that as the core benefit. But honestly, like
• 18:00
  it's so much deeper than that. It's so much richer than that. And I was just reading about Peter, um,
• 18:06
  And the two different times where Jesus, I didn't even realize this. I don't know how many other people have missed this, but there's two different instances in the Bible where Jesus comes on or basically sends a load of fish to Peter. I thought it was just one time in multiple gospels. It was actually two different times. One is at the beginning of Jesus' ministry and the other time is after he was resurrected. And what's beautiful about the second one is that,
• 18:33
  like Peter jumps out of the boat and runs to Jesus. He doesn't even care about the fish anymore. Like he's like, Jesus just did this. Yeah, just did this amazing miracle that's a huge financial blessing to him. And he's like, I don't even care about that. I just want Jesus. And there's something so beautiful about that, that when something that does yield all this financial fruit, as it did in our case, where it's like, yeah, it's great. But man, it's second, it's third, it's a hundredth compared to Jesus. That's good.
• 19:02
  Yeah, well, one of the topics, Bob, I'd love to get your take on is, so obviously there's these two elements of our financial lives, our expenses and our income, right? And my experience with so many Christian conversations around money is it's like 95% expenses, 5% maybe on the income side because we just sort of, you know, whatever...
• 19:27
  is going on in our career. It's for whatever reason in this industrial economy, oftentimes we just don't feel like we have much control over that side of the, of the, the ledger. And so I, I think that even in your story that you described, one of the reasons why I really love to see families try to build assets is so that they can experience God pouring blessing into their family.
• 19:49
  Oftentimes, if your only source of income is your W-2 paycheck, one of the problems is it's difficult. What can God do if he wants to just bless your family financially other than just maybe get an incremental raise? It's like the way it's designed is just, it's tough. It's tough. Anyway, so this is, I've wrestled a lot with that. We talk a lot about, even if you have a normal job, is there ways for us to start to,
• 20:15
  Think about how to increase, you know, income, how to work together as a family. So I'm curious what you found because, you know, even in like the Dave Ramsey world, so much of it is so expense. And obviously in his life, there's been huge amounts of business success in him and his family. But I'm just like, we don't talk about that enough. I don't know why. So yeah, give me, give me more insights. How do you think about this, this rest of the income and how these two really balance together?
• 20:39
  Yeah. No, I mean, this is really important. I mean, cause at the end of the day, uh, you can only cut expenses so far, but income, there's no limit, you know? And so I, and the 95, five thing you're talking about, like it, it really is true. And I, and I lived that for a long time, uh, where I would focus so little mental energy on actually developing the giftings that God had put in me, you know? And as a result, like career wise, I was just kind of stalled and just not moving forward.
• 21:09
  I do talk about that a good bit in the book and in other places, but I think this is more important than ever, Jeremy, because like now that we're moving into the insane hockey stick, exponential curve of technology and of the world changing with AI and everything else like that, it's like, there are going to be massive, massive changes to what this looks like for all of us of his next few years. And, and I think being able to, um, um,
• 21:36
  to find other sources of income. And really, again, like do this with God, like to be able to identify what are the things that he has put in you, that he's wired you uniquely to do. Yes. Uh, cause I am, I am so sold out on that. Like, I remember this quote, um, I,
• 21:51
  that reportedly was said by Einstein, something to the effect of, if you judge a fish by his ability to climb a tree, he will spend his whole life thinking he's an idiot or a fool or something like that. And the reality is, is God has made us all unique.
• 22:07
  And I've spent years basically being a fish, trying to climb a tree, which is just doesn't work out well, especially when you're competing against squirrels or monkeys or whatever, like it's just the wrong environment for you. And so when you're doing work that is not lined up with what God has created you to do, it just, it's not gonna be great. You're gonna work really hard and just not get anywhere. And so that's why it's so important, I believe for us to go back, figure out, Lord, what have you created me to do? What are the giftings you've put in my life?
• 22:37
  And then how can I begin developing them? And how can I, again, like back to the parable of the talents, I don't want to take this gift that you've given me and just bury it in the ground and just sit on it, you know, for 80 years until I die. Like I actually want to take a risk, just like the two stewards in the parable of the talents did. They actually risked and the one who played it safe is one the master didn't have great things to say about. And so there is a component of like,
• 23:05
  being bold and taking risks. And the good news is that we've never been in a better time in the history of the world for you to be able to take any unique skill gifting that you have and monetize it in some way. It's like the number of full-time YouTubers and TikTokers there are right now talking about the most random things, like whatever, how to work on Honda alternators. It's just like
• 23:30
  It's just insane the opportunity that's available, but it requires some boldness and it requires some developing of the gift that God has given you. And so I think that on a really high level, that's an important place to start. So good. Yeah. Yeah. When we onboard about 15 to 20 families every couple of months into our Family Inc. program and they're trying to figure out how do I move from regular W-2 income to...
• 23:52
  you know, starting something. And it always starts with, okay, we're going to, we're going to like go to StrengthsFinders. We're going to like, we're going to take some of these tests, put them in AI, start to generate like, like lists of things where you have an unfair advantage. That's great. You know, and, and so many people like discover
• 24:09
  Um, oh my gosh, I didn't even know I was built for that. And they, they start to like, so we start, okay, where, where are the businesses? And they don't realize that yeah, their whole life they've been trying to yeah, be a fish climbing a tree. It's so common, but it's so easy now to get out of that and start to get into your lane. Um, like you described, I love that moment. I love it when families like have that shift. So that's, that's, uh, that's, that's super encouraging.
• 24:31
  There's always a tension in the Christian world around money, especially when we start talking about any kind of abundance. There's a poverty mentality that's very strong in the Christian world. We're very suspicious of prosperity gospel. We're very concerned. You're looking at a New Testament document that has some pretty harsh things to say about being rich. And so how do you process that? Do you ever sense that that's getting people's way? Or do you also think maybe there's...
• 24:58
  Is there a unique attitude that we need to approach this with that makes sense of that tension in the New Testament?
• 25:05
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• 25:34
  Yeah, so what's interesting about it is, I was reading a book by Rabbi Daniel Lappin, who writes about money a lot. And I was talking to my wife, Linda, about this, because it's fascinating reading his book. So he's a rabbi, so Jewish guy, but like the freedom and the lack of
• 25:57
  bondage that he has when he talks about money. It's so matter of fact, it's so- It's good. It's so good to have money. He's like, it's a certificate of appreciation every time somebody pays you a dollar. Yeah, it's like- Exactly. And like, I was struck by that because it's like, you don't see that very often in the church because even if someone has that level of comfort and freedom, it's like, you know, there's a peanut squad of whatever, all these people like criticizing that.
• 26:26
  And it's heartbreaking to me that so many in the church are so bound up, again, on both sides, both ditches, like of the poverty mentality or the, I just wanna chase money and chase wealth because that's the thing that matters. And there really is, I absolutely believe there is a sweet spot where we fully understand that 100% of it is God's and that we literally are just managers of what he's entrusted to us
• 26:55
  And again, like if we think about this, if I'm a manager at whatever, a restaurant, or I'm a manager for a company or whatever the thing might be, it's like whatever my purview is, that's what I'm responsible for. And so my boss...
• 27:09
  might give me a smaller Chipotle to manage or might give me the biggest one in New York City. Like, it doesn't matter. It's not mine. I'm simply managing it. And I have a responsibility to manage it well. So it doesn't matter whether I have $100 in my bank account or $100 million. Like, if I know that that's not mine and I'm just managing it for his purpose and for his glory, like, that's right. And that's spot on. And I think even within that...
• 27:33
  Like it's insulting to the Lord, I believe, for those people who he's calling to manage $100 million, like to be like, no, I don't want to do that because I'm a little bit nervous about whatever, blah, blah, blah. If he's called you to do that, like I believe that we should have a boldness to run forward and to do that and to back down out of fear. Yeah.
• 27:56
  And again, and I see the same verses and I wrestle with the same things and honestly, less the verses, but really just the dichotomy, you know, and Paul in 1 Timothy 6, it's like, he's talking about rich people, but he doesn't say, give all your money away, you know, and he says, be rich in good deeds, you know, give to the poor. Like he's given instructions of what to do, which honestly applies to pretty much all of us in America. We're all rich, you know, in the grand scheme of things. But yeah.
• 28:24
  But there's something there about truly being a steward, truly understanding it's not ours, it's all his. And there's a freedom that comes from that, that I think is the healthiest way to approach this. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. Like, I like to try to read 1 Timothy 5 and 1 Timothy 6 together because 1 Timothy 6 has...
• 28:42
  you know, probably the strongest statements about do not, you know, those who, those who want to get rich, uh, fall into a trap. And that just sounds very scary. And I think he's right. I mean, we have to take that seriously, but it's interesting. First Timothy five, what it says is it, it really expands the scope of responsibility that you are financially responsible for. He says, if you don't provide for your family, you deny the faith and are worse than unbeliever. If you have a widow in your family,
• 29:10
  do, you know, like make sure that she's not a burden on the church, but you provide for her. Like most of us are not like, okay, I need to make sure I'm providing for my parents. I'm providing for my kids. Um, I'm providing for myself, the future, all these things that says in first Timothy five, and then turns around and says, you know, yeah, in that context, um,
• 29:26
  Of all those responsibilities that are going to require you to really generate a significant amount of income, be careful that this doesn't get a hold of your heart. But I think oftentimes, yeah, these are not, 1 Timothy 5 is so helpful to me because it did, like once I started reading in, I was, you know, I was very excited when I was, you know, in my 20s. I didn't want to think about money. I just wanted to go serve the Lord. I wanted to be in ministry specifically.
• 29:49
  one of the reasons was I did not want to think about money. And I was like, I, this is, it can be very confusing. It's going to get, get my heart. And I was on a trajectory to, to do a great job of fulfilling first Timothy six by completely ignoring first Timothy five and not, you know, not thinking about all the responsibility that was coming on my shoulders. We were having more and more kids and my parents needed, you know, some support. It's like, so I think that tension is very real in the Christian's life and we need to be really like, this was spoken in a culture, you know,
• 30:16
  That was very, very good at understanding how to how to bear those responsibilities across multi generations where they were inheriting from the generations a lot of assets oftentimes in order to steward that for the future. So that context to me there has been always really important.
• 30:34
  Yeah, and it's absolutely a tension. And it's one of those things, I mean, I have a lot of these things where it's like, when I get to heaven, I'm like, Lord, why didn't you just, I don't know, draw some clearer lines and make some things? There's so many things in the Bible where it's like, there's this kind of mystery of these two sides and in his wisdom, I'm sure there's a reason for that. But yeah, it's definitely one of those areas for sure. Yeah.
• 30:59
  Well, I'd love to go one layer deeper into the practical. Yeah. Probably, I don't know, maybe the number one thing people say in general to us is we are so busy. Like, how do we do all this stuff? And if we have to go and have lots of meetings and I have to track every dollar and I have all these envelopes, like, how do you how do you approach this in a way that doesn't feel like the world's biggest project?
• 31:29
  The detail, especially today where there are, I mean, finances can be, can be so intimidating.
• 31:35
  Yeah. Well, there's a lot of different people on the spectrum. Like they're, you know, right now we're talking to people who have been, you know, budgeting with Quicken for 40 years and people who have sworn off budgeting 40 years ago. And, you know, so there's a wide range of people in here. But one of the things that I like talking to people about is a good first step. Well, I mean, the first thing is to actually pay attention. Like, because there's so many of us that think that we are,
• 32:01
  handling our money well, but we have no idea what's actually going on. Like we were talking to a couple not too long ago who they came to us because they were basically about to lose their house that they were in. They felt like they couldn't afford it anymore. So they need to sell it and go rent something else. And so they brought us, we're on Zoom talking and everything else like that. And so I'm asking them some questions. And one of the questions I was asked is like, all right, how much are you guys spending eating out every month?
• 32:30
  And they're like $200, maybe 250 or something like that. And so, you know, they're just giving me their guesses, what they estimate, because they weren't actually paying attention. And so I said, all right, here's what I want you to do. I want you to go get this app, Rocket Money, and we can get into more of that if you want.
• 32:47
  Go get this app. I want you to plug in your credit cards or debit cards or whatever. And then in five, 10 minutes, it's going to spit back out all these different transactions. It's going to categorize most of them for you. And I want you to go through there. Any of them it missed, like just fix it. And then tell me what you spent eating out the last three months over each month or whatever. And so they came back to me and they're...
• 33:08
  basically shaking. And they're like, I was so wrong. We thought it was $200, but actually the last three months we've averaged eight or $900 eating out each month. And that story is one I hear all the time. It's like, we think one thing, but it's just not accurate. And so you have to see the numbers. You have to look at them. And so there's a whole bunch of different ways you can do this, but again, that simple app, I love doing it with that because it's so quick and so easy. It's not sponsored, I just enjoy it.
• 33:35
  But that's where it starts. What was the app called? Rocket Money. It's just a simple app. It's yeah, you know, the website or the app on your phone. But yeah, but that helps. Like, and so that's just a great starting point to actually understand what's going on with your money. And again, I believe as stewards, as managers of what God has entrusted to us, like you would never hire a money manager
• 33:57
  then manage your money and then come back to him, ask him how things are going. He's like, oh, I don't know. I don't know how they're going. I don't even know how much you gave me. And that's what so many of us are doing with the money that God's entrusted to us. And so I think that's such a simple way for just a few minutes a month that you can actually begin paying attention to what's going on because you can't spot problems when you aren't seeing them, you aren't looking at them, you know?
• 34:22
  Okay. Awesome. So, so that's a great like initial step. Make sure that you're actually facing reality. You're, you're living in the light. You're not trying to hide from reality, which is so like it, which is understandable for so many of us are just like that, that financial houses is not an order. Let's, let's just keep, keep that in the fog. All right. So we, we, we have the courage to, to face it. Yeah. Give me the, give me another step. What have you seen work for, for families that like, what, what's a transition once they see what's happening and,
• 34:52
  And they're like, okay, but the problem, and the other problem with seeing what's happening is now I have to do something about it. What does that look like? Yeah, so next step. So I'll just take that couple that we were just talking about a minute ago. So they come back to me. They say, all right, we're averaging, say, $800 a month on eating out.
• 35:08
  Okay. And so then the conversation is, all right, so you thought it was 200, it's actually 800. And again, I'll highlight this because it's worth highlighting. So what was so powerful about that for them is that allowed them to be in a position to make the decision. So they didn't have to move out of that house. They simply had the choice of where they're gonna move out of the house or we're gonna change how much we're eating out. So it's not about like forcing you into anything, it's giving you information so that you are empowered to make the decision.
• 35:36
  And so in this case, that was a conversation, you know, where it's like, all right, what do you want to do? Do you want to cut back into eating out? It's like, yeah, we'll vote for that. Let's see if we can dial that back down from 800 to even 300 or 400 each month. And...
• 35:52
  So what that process looks like, one of my favorite exercises to do, this is the simplest way to begin budgeting. Like, because a lot of people are afraid of budgeting and think it's going to take them forever. And you can do it wrong and you can spend whatever, dozens of hours every month. And that's just not our approach. Like we take an 80-20 simple, fast, efficient approach to all this. But one of my favorite things is what we call the one category budget, where it's essentially that 80-20 for budgeting. So you get 80% of the results with 20% of the work. Mm-hmm.
• 36:21
  And so what that looks like is you identify the one category that you are most overspending in. And this is the byproduct of doing the exercise that we just talked about, beginning to pay attention and actually seeing the numbers. Okay. So now what we're going to do in our case, if we're spending $800 a month eating out, we want to spend 300. What we're going to do is we are going to identify that as our one category that we're going to focus on. We're not going to focus on any of the other ones right now. We're not going to worry about Amazon purchases or.
• 36:49
  Target or kids stuff, like we're just focused on this one category that seems to be the biggest problem for us. Okay. Okay. And then what we're going to do is a couple different ways we can handle this, but one of them that we love to do is actually go to your bank, open an entire separate checking account.
• 37:06
  And what you're gonna do is move in there $300 at the beginning of the month or whenever you get paid. Okay? And so now that is the $300 for the month to spend on eating out. So all of our eating out purchases come out of that one account and that's it. And that way we have some walls, some accountability to hold us towards that. And we can see throughout the month, it's like, all right, we've eaten out three times. It's all right, we're down to $160.
• 37:33
  You know, do we, you know, and so it gets you thinking about spreading it out over the course of the month rather than just eating out every single time you feel like it. Okay. Now what's so cool about this too, because everybody listening is like, I hate budgets. I don't want to be controlled. I don't want stuff like that. It actually ends up doing the opposite and empowers you to do it more when you do this right. And so that's, what's fun. And even like, you know, taking a side note tangent here too, like, yeah.
• 38:00
  eating out becomes more fun when you do it less frequently, you know, and I'm not saying, I'm not trying to tell everybody to stop eating out, but like when you actually are intentional about it, rather than this is the default I do every night I come home from work when I'm worn out, which happens to be quite often, like it just helps you make better decisions across the board. And so I'll leave it there. Oh, I love it. So, um, after this month is over, um,
• 38:26
  Do you go after another category and just kind of let that one go and say, okay, we've, we've figured out what a $300, uh, amount feels like, or do you add a second category? Like, yeah, talk to me about month two. Yeah. So, I mean, it's going to depend on individual and kind of what they have going on and really how they do that first month. Yeah.
• 38:46
  But like, yeah, I mean, if you successfully do that, like I would probably, I generally recommend like sticking with that a couple months. I mean, so this is kind of like the first stab. I won't get into all the details of this, but we have a budgeting kind of approach that we call the real money method that is essentially building off of this idea of kind of not using budgeting apps or anything like that, but using your own bank account to budget. And it's effectively this where you do continue to add categories on.
• 39:15
  And that's what's happening in that process is that you're actually just working through each one of these, creating some walls of real accountability because it's real money in that bank account. It's not like an app that you can cheat. Because again, I don't know about anybody else, but I use so many budgeting apps and I would just overspend eating out every month because all it did, it turned red. And I'm like, well, whatever, there's money in my checking account. So I'm just gonna go do it. I'll deal with it later. I'll kick the can down the road.
• 39:43
  I would do that over and over and over again to the whole budget shot. But anyway, this approach, though, because it's an actual checking account with real money, you can't fudge it. You can't cheat it. And so it forces that accountability. And so, yeah, I think you can approach it either way. But at the end of the day, that's where it starts. Okay.
• 40:00
  Man, what, one of the things I love about this approach is you're, you're identifying, I feel like the problem underneath the problem, right? So people think, oh, I need, I need a, like an extremely detailed budget, but the bigger problem it does seem like is, uh, I need to make very small incremental changes that really matter. Ones that actually are, I'm, it's possible to make, and I need, I need to, I need a higher level of like a more. Yeah.
• 40:25
  automatic accountability with within that, that one area and that we underestimate the impact that that very simple step can take, um, and maybe overestimate what we, what we think we could accomplish if we had, you know, 40 categories on day one and tried to like tough it out, which we're all going to give up on that. So yeah, that, that's actually feels super free to me, Bob. I love, I love that. Um, yeah. Yeah.
• 40:48
  No, and it's so true. It oftentimes is the simplest things. And I like how you said that. What did you say? The thing under the thing? How do you word it? Yeah, like there's something to that. Because even like from an investing standpoint, like I, you know, I love talking about investing and getting into the weeds with that. And so often I'm talking to people who haven't invested anything and like, well, Bob, tell me what's the best investment that's gonna whatever, give me the best return over the next couple of years or whatever.
• 41:12
  And I'm like, the best thing you can do is automate, set up an automatic system to funnel money each month to an investing account. It's like, I don't even care where it's investing. But like right now, like you have nothing. So you just need to start automatically stockpiling it into something that then we can figure out what to get the best return on. But it doesn't matter whether you're getting 10% or 12% or 13% right now because you have nothing there. Yeah.
• 41:37
  And so you have to start building that pile so that it can actually have something to grow. Like that's where the major change in input is going to come from, you know? Yeah. So good. Bob, this has been super helpful, man. I thank you so much for just sharing this with our community. I got your book here, Simple Money, Rich Life.
• 41:55
  And, uh, tell people where they can find you. What's, what's a really good, like there are people like, wow, I like, I need help. I need to dive. I need to go down the rabbit hole. Where do people start? Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, just like you were on YouTube seed time money and we have a podcast, um, but our website is seedtime.com. We have a bunch of courses on there, different programs, the books on there, all the different stuff. Um, we're on Instagram. Come find us, hang out, say hi.
• 42:20
  Absolutely. Thank you so much, Bob, for what you guys are doing. Your content's amazing. And this is like, yeah, it's so aligned with what we're doing here as well. So appreciate it. Yeah, well, I feel the same about you, Jeremy. Keep up the good work. I love seeing your posts and everything you're putting up as well. Thank you for listening to the Family Teams podcast. If you're enjoying this content or have learned something new, please make sure to leave a rating and review and share with a friend. To stay up to date with our events, new content and products, you can follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Family Teams.