Book Review: The Money Saving Mom's Budget

Book Review: The Money Saving Mom's Budget (Slash your spending, Pay down your debt, Streamline your life, and Save Thousands a year) by Crystal Paine

  

Overview:

Crystal's book is an excellent book on living within your financial means, creating and living on a budget. It contains helpful resources. I appreciate Crystal's approach-slow and easy! She emphasizes to not try and do a complete overhaul overnight. She has an extremely thorough chapter on coupons. If you ever wanted help in using coupons, this is the book for you. At the end of the book, she also has an appendix on "10 tips for a successful garage sale" and "10 ways to earn an extra $100 per month."  There is also a list of websites and specific book recommendations on various topics.

A Few Quotes:

"If you want to get your finances in order, you must learn to say no. Not only do you need to learn to say no to overspending and no to buying things you can't afford, but first and foremost you must learn to say no to over-booking your life. You'll never be able to take control of your bank account or make significant traction toward your financial goals if you spend the bulk of your time running around like a chicken with its head cut off."

"When your children have a birthday and get new toys, have them choose the same number of old toys to get rid of. Without much effort, this rule keeps clutter from prolific breeding in the closets behind your back."

"A budget gives purpose to your money and it frees you up to enjoy living life rather than spending most of your time worrying about how you're going to afford to live."

"On occasion, challenge yourself to see how long you can go without going to the grocery store. When we do this, I often find we have a lot more food on hand than I realized."

My Thoughts:

Crystal's book is so valuable. It helped me to see that money itself is not the only thing that needs to be budgeted. Time and priorities show first and foremost where your money goes. Every hear the saying "show me your checkbook, and I'll show you where your heart is?" It's true. So, unexpectedly, I really got the most out of Crystal's chapter on setting personal goals, knowing what I'm good at, what I want to see happen in my life in the next 5-10 years and the end of my life. I did this and it really opened my eyes. I saw what is REALLY important to me. What goes across the board in all the areas I wrote down is where I found my priorities and where I'll deposit my time and money. For example, rather than buying a new outfit, I learned that if I really love to write, I'd rather put money towards a writer's workshop, some sort of class, or babysitter so that I can write. I like to look nice, but what's my goal? Crystal's book really helped me to think about my goals long term and how my finances affect them.

I loved her chapter towards the end of the book on contentment. It is so important to make a gratitude list and remember what I've been given by God-the list is endless. If I can keep a grateful perspective, it will help me remember that eternal things are much more precious than earthly, material things. God is so good!

 *You can check out Crystal's blog here.

       

Book Review: Experiencing God as Your Provider

Experiencing God as Your Provider

By Brian Kluth

Best For:  This book is a must read for every Christian believer. I highly recommend it!  I suggest women read it because we give every day in many ways. In addition, we also can greatly affect the decisions our husbands make on our family’s behalf.

Overview:   In this book, Brian Kluth goes to great depths to detail God’s perspective on provision, finances, and generosity. He separates the book into three parts:  “recognize God’s provision,” “receive God’s principles”, and lastly “respond to God’s plan.”  Right in the very introduction he brings a challenge that there are about “2,350 verses in the Bible on these subjects that affect our lives every day”. Kluth goes right to the heart when he shares that “studies would show that Americans (including Christians) have built their lives on consumerism more that contentment, greed more that prudence, leisure more than labor, and debt more than diligent savings.” The truth hurts sometimes!

            Author, Brian Kluth, describes numerous true stories and testimonies of people putting God to the test with their money because as he so accurately reveals that we are simply just stewards or managers of the money that comes to us-not owners. He encourages giving first to God, living debt free, saving, being generous, and investing in eternity. There are so many valuable and wise words written in this book, it is very difficult for me to not write it ALL down in this review.

Few Quotes:

“Transfer ownership of all we are and all we will ever have back to God… once we do this, we become managers and stewards of whatever God entrusts to us to utilize in the various seasons of our lives.”

“We need to learn to be Jesus with skin on. We need to be the answer to someone’s need and prayer. Not only should we learn to receive from God, but we also need to learn how to be God’s agent of blessing for someone else...whether it’s by your time, efforts, resources or whatever”

 “How we handle money is a leading spiritual indicator of our faith. If we hold tightly to ‘our’ money, it’s a clear sign of spiritual trouble.”

Application:  I was personally challenged by a true story he told about a time when he pastored a church and shared with his congregation Isaiah 45:3 from the Bible:, “I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places, that you may know that I, the Lord, who call you by your name am the God of Israel.” He was telling the people that money comes into our hands from unknown sources that we don’t know about or expect, and the key is that we must seek God about that for what is His purpose for it? Kluth was asking his church to be sensitive to God if they get money in the following ninety days; they had a deadline to purchase a massive new church building worth 2.2 million for only $500,000. One man was irate the pastor (Kluth) said these things and this scripture from Isaiah. He told Kluth how he felt after church. The next day he was at work and was called upstairs into the office, which always meant you were getting fired. The boss handed him an envelope and inside was a five hundred dollar bonus! In all the years he’d worked there he had never heard of them doing this. When he walked back to his work area the Bible verse Kluth shared at church came to his mind and God touched his heart. He knew what had just happened was like the Bible said, it was true. He signed over the whole check to the church.       

Honestly, I had never heard this scripture before and was quite jealous of this man’s experience. I wanted something that blatant to happen to my husband and me! I had been reading this book and so challenged in my giving that I asked my husband if we could give some money to someone because I knew that person was in great need. He quickly agreed and we gave it. About eleven days later we received a check in the mail that we had NO idea about- a refund check from a property closure many years ago! It happened to us! We knew right away this was like that Scripture in Isaiah and prayed what God would have us to do. We tithed on it and waited what God would have us do. Then an urgent need came to our attention that we were able to help out with. Looking back we can see that check was definitely for that purpose it got used for. We are so thankful we asked God what to do and did not spend it all right away. Also, I want to give a testimony and thank God because since this time my husband has received an increase in his pay at work (he works another job besides being the pastor of a church).

My Thoughts:  This book is a reference point in my life in the area of giving and being generous.  Author Kluth challenges people to be “open handed in a tight fisted world”…which happens to be the title to another one of his books.  I really believe that as my husband's wife, I can greatly influence our financial decisions for good or bad. My husband wants to hear my opinion on matters before he decides. My attitude and heart can affect many things-one of the main areas being money (how it is spent, how it is saved, how it is given). I’m so thankful my husband desires to give to God and others. 

 “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper.”

 ~ Psalm 1 from the Bible