Sow, Save, Spend

Teaching your children about money is right up there with “honor thy mother and thy father,” in my opinion. Why? Because so much of their lives will revolve around the decisions they make about it when they become adults.

Have you ever heard that “hindsight is 20/20”? Well, it certainly was in regards to money in our case. My husband and I were barely out of our teens when we first moved out of our parents’ homes and into our own abode. I still recall the excitement of the keys to our very first home being placed in our hands.

We rented a small, two bedroom four-plex from an elderly couple who fell in love with our brand new family. In fact, as my husband and I toured the place, the little old lady held our then, five-month old son, as her husband showed us around.

That first night, neither of us could sleep. We had done it! We had officially moved into adulthood, and with the exception of our son being born, nothing had felt better!

It didn’t happen overnight, but as our income increased, so did our sorrows. It seemed like the more we earned, the more we spent. And, that always seemed to leave us with too much month at the end of our money.

Neither my husband or I were taught about the importance of money when we were still under our parents’ care. So, what did we do? We did what we saw them do: inappropriately use the most powerful tool there is in the world – money.

It didn’t start off that way. For whatever reason, the two of us realized our parents had made some unwise decisions in regards to money, and we decided we would do better. And, we did in those early days.

When we were at our worst, financially, we thought back of the days when we first moved out. We marveled at how much we accomplished on so little. How had we moved so far away from the freedom we experienced as those youths?

We decided to investigate, and what we found astounded us! Back then, we SOWED, SAVED, and SPENT. That was it. And we lived like royalty on our meager income.

We SOWED, which means we gave at least ten percent our income to our church. And it’s true what you’ve heard: When you give, you always get back more than what you gave in some form or fashion!

We SAVED. My husband developed the awesome habit of putting another ten to fifteen percent of our take home pay in our savings account before we ever “missed” it. And at the end of each year, we were shocked to find several thousand dollars sitting in our savings because of tucking away so little.

We SPENT. After we paid our bills (which we kept to the bare necessities), we always seemed to have a little extra for entertainment. Whether it be a movie, dinner at a sit-down restaurant, or a fun activity with our son, we had the opportunity to enjoy the fruit of our labor.

We asked ourselves, “Could we do it, again?” And unbelievably, implementing the three “S’s” of money again, helped turn our financial situation around! We now teach those simple principles to our son to help him avoid the monetary mistakes we made when we were younger.

Try them, today! Teach them to your kids! When your finances do a one-eighty, you’ll smile all the way to the bank! nn