This program will help you undo financial bondage.
I worked in a meat packing plant and saw that many different brands of meat with essentially the same ingredients were packaged by that plant using the same machinery. It might add different ingredients for some of the different brands, but basically it produced much the same types of meats for each brand.
This process works the same way for many different types of merchandise. Thus, what you’ve been buying may not be any better quality that what’s sold by others at a cheaper price. In order to be a better steward of your money you should research purchasing items from reputable discount retailers whenever possible. And when you use other retailers, you should consider whether or not items on sale or on clearance actually fit the quality and design that you are looking for. You might just find that what you were getting ready to pay full price for is also on a clearance rack at a sharply reduced price.
For most of your wardrobe and things often used, you should purchase conservative apparel and other belongings that maintain their utility and remain in style for long periods of time instead of choosing faddish things that will quickly be out of style and unusable. Finally, negotiate discounts or simply find out what discounts are available on homes, cars, furniture, appliances, other products, and services because most sellers provide them if you ask.
When used with the strategy of eliminating unnecessary spending, these methods can save you thousands of dollars per year that you would otherwise pay out by purchasing items at higher prices because you didn’t research less expensive alternatives that met the same style and quality standards. If you follow this strategy in tough times, you'll build habits that will pull you out of the pit of financial despair and put you in a future position to comfortably splurge on merchandise that you desire without bills eating you up and unpaid creditors constantly calling you up.
Please email any questions and pray for this ministry. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!
Exodus 12:35-36, Nehemiah 2:4-8, Proverbs 8:19-21, Matthew 21:1-3, Mark 14:13-16
Please forward these bondage breaking articles to other people who can use helpful insight!!!
Monday, May 31, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
MoneyWalk 57: We're born again to be givers
This program will help you undo financial bondage.
Prior to accepting Jesus as Savior, I thought I was financially savvy. However, I was so ignorant of the truth that I mired my family in debt while thing I was smart enough to know how to manage money without anyone’s help. When I accepted Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, I finally recognized the truth of my incompetence. It was then that I asked the Holy Spirit to show me how to manage the money He entrusts to me so that I could do His will and be successful in sharing His Word with other people.
He showed me financial principles in my bible reading times that I could employ like honoring God through my lifestyle, fellowship, and giving. These activities borne of a heart for Him keeps His blessing flowing down on us. We were challenged by the Lord to begin tithing at a time when we did not see that we had enough money to give to God and pay all our bills. At the same time, the satan tempted me with the thought of giving only small offerings in church until all our bills were paid off. However, I didn't succumb to this temptation and the result is that we've been immensely blessed to see our debts totally eliminated, giving increasing, and assets accumulating for the greater part of the past decade.
I encourage you to faithfully tithe and give offerings to your local church along with budgeting, saving, and investing as the foundation for getting out of debt in order to prosper in life and be in a position to do God’s will to the degree He desires. Before long, you'll receive income increases, promotions, bargains, and gifts that allow you to retain greater amounts of income to pay off your bills and accumulate wealth much faster that you can imagine. Your results will totally confound the many that follow the world’s financial principles and never prosper.
Please email any questions and pray for this ministry. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!
Proverbs 11:24-25, 19:17, Malachi 3:8-12, Luke 6:38, 2Corinthians 9:7-9
Please forward these bondage breaking articles to other people who can use helpful insight!!!
Prior to accepting Jesus as Savior, I thought I was financially savvy. However, I was so ignorant of the truth that I mired my family in debt while thing I was smart enough to know how to manage money without anyone’s help. When I accepted Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, I finally recognized the truth of my incompetence. It was then that I asked the Holy Spirit to show me how to manage the money He entrusts to me so that I could do His will and be successful in sharing His Word with other people.
He showed me financial principles in my bible reading times that I could employ like honoring God through my lifestyle, fellowship, and giving. These activities borne of a heart for Him keeps His blessing flowing down on us. We were challenged by the Lord to begin tithing at a time when we did not see that we had enough money to give to God and pay all our bills. At the same time, the satan tempted me with the thought of giving only small offerings in church until all our bills were paid off. However, I didn't succumb to this temptation and the result is that we've been immensely blessed to see our debts totally eliminated, giving increasing, and assets accumulating for the greater part of the past decade.
I encourage you to faithfully tithe and give offerings to your local church along with budgeting, saving, and investing as the foundation for getting out of debt in order to prosper in life and be in a position to do God’s will to the degree He desires. Before long, you'll receive income increases, promotions, bargains, and gifts that allow you to retain greater amounts of income to pay off your bills and accumulate wealth much faster that you can imagine. Your results will totally confound the many that follow the world’s financial principles and never prosper.
Please email any questions and pray for this ministry. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!
Proverbs 11:24-25, 19:17, Malachi 3:8-12, Luke 6:38, 2Corinthians 9:7-9
Please forward these bondage breaking articles to other people who can use helpful insight!!!
Sunday, May 16, 2010
MoneyWalk 457: Focused Steps to Good Stewardship
This program will help you undo financial bondage.
Do not live with your eye on this world, rather live with your eye on the world to come. If you hope to become the good steward God instructs you to be and intends for you to be, then you are going to have to develop a deeper fellowship with Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit that motivates you to follow the pathway the bible lays out for your life and financial health, wealth, and well-being.
Just like Jesus focused all His energies on obtaining the goal of the Father’s will for all mankind to have hope of salvation and a heavenly home, you too must focus and take the steps necessary to achieve the Father’s goal for you. Your focus should be on these steps through which you climb the ladder of spiritual financial success one step at a time. Do not attempt to move to the next step until you are firmly established in accomplishing the task on the step you are on.
1) Understand it is all God’s. Through daily worship, praise, prayer, and bible reading / studying tell God that all the income and assets you have and will ever have access to are His and that as His steward you are now willing to following His instructions and do what He directs with His money and resources.
2) Show contentment. Continue or start tithing to your local church or a worthwhile ministry each time you receive income. Choose delayed gratification instead of instant gratification. Do not buy that bigger house, more expensive car, new furniture, new jewelry, etc. until you have reached the priority goal of being a faithful tithing member of a local church and totally debt-free. Stuff to buy will still be there at prices you can afford to pay after you reach your goal.
3) Tell your income what to do. Draft a 3 to 6 month plan that shows:
a) Your after tax income each pay period
b) The tithe and offering to be subtracted from take home pay
c) Each minimum bill payment that must be paid from that pay period’s income (mortgage, rent, credit cards, car note, etc.)
d) Other miscellaneous amounts that must be taken from the income (groceries, personal money, gas for car, monthly amount of annual property tax payment, monthly amount of annual home and car insurance premium, monthly amount of annual life insurance payment, 2 or 3 low cost weekend vacations each year, low cost monthly entertainment, etc.), and
e) Any amount left over. If there is nothing left over then you will need to work with your spouse and a close friend who is good at managing his or her money or a budget counselor to determine ways in which you can cut current expenses, determine which bills receive priority for payment at the current time, or find other jobs that can help increase your income for awhile to get you out of the rut you are in.
4) Build a one-month emergency fund. Use any amount left over and other assets to build or establish, in a government guaranteed savings or money management account (MMA), an emergency fund equal to one month of all your expenses identified in items 3.c. and 3.d. above. This will help you stop turning to credit cards and loans to take care of problems and emergencies. You will get on the right path to using cash instead of burdening your future with debt.
5) Pay off all non-mortgage loans that charge interest. Chances are that these credit cards, car loans, personal loans, etc charge interest that is well above what you can earn in savings or MMAs. Thus, after you have built the one-month emergency fund, you should use the amount left over during each pay period to pay off your smallest debt. Then, move to the next smallest debt and so on until you have finally paid off all your debts. The only time you break this cycle is if you have an emergency that needs immediate attention and you must use money in your one-month emergency reserve. Then, you would take the amount left over each pay period to build it back up and afterward resume paying down your debt with it.
6) Build a six-month emergency fund. After all non-housing loans are paid off use the amount left over each pay period (which now should be much larger) to build your emergency fund to six-months of all your expenses identified in items 3.c. and 3.d. above.
7) Start funding retirement vehicles that match the amount you invest. If your employer offers a 401k, 457, 403b, etc. that matches your investment up to a certain amount start investing the amount necessary to get the maximum matching investment from your employer. Put the money in a safe and sound investment (like a stable value account, guaranteed investment contract, etc.) until you study and understand the history, nature, risk, and investment costs / fees of other types of investments like stocks, bonds, mutual funds, real estate, etc.
8) Pay off your home loans. Use the amount left over each month toward principal pay off of your mortgage until it is fully paid off. Commit to not purchasing another house until at least 5 to 7 years after you have paid off your current mortgage(s). If you have a desire to purchase another home, set the purchase as a faith goal to pursue on a debt-free basis using the equity in your current home and savings that you are able to build each month after your current home mortgage is paid off. Remember contentment and deferred gratification pay off more in the end than encumbering yourself further in debt.
9) Increase your giving and investments. At this point, the amount left over should be huge because it includes the amount you used to pay on your mortgage. Consider increasing your free-will offering as thanks to God for helping you reach the goal of total debt freedom and ability to fund kingdom building to a much greater degree, help those in need, and build wealth to maintain these priorities and care for yourself and family.
Some will ask why funding college for kids is not a top priority. The answer is that your financial plan must operate similar to emergency landing safety instructions given on airplanes. Make sure you are safe and secure first before attempting (outside of your means) to help your children or other people be safe and secure. It is very difficult to truly help others until you have made sure that you are on solid footing, otherwise you risk harming yourself and not saving anyone else.
Following the above plan will help you get to the point in debt-freedom and wealth building where you will have disposable income and assets that you could use to help your children and possibly others with educational expenses and other worthwhile goals that can brighten their future.
Please email any questions and pray for this ministry. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!
Revelation 4:11, 1Timothy 6:9-17, Matthew 23:23, Hebrews 7:8, Habakkuk 2:2-4, Proverbs 21:20, Luke 6:38, 14:28-30
Please forward these bondage breaking articles to other people who can use helpful insight!!!
Do not live with your eye on this world, rather live with your eye on the world to come. If you hope to become the good steward God instructs you to be and intends for you to be, then you are going to have to develop a deeper fellowship with Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit that motivates you to follow the pathway the bible lays out for your life and financial health, wealth, and well-being.
Just like Jesus focused all His energies on obtaining the goal of the Father’s will for all mankind to have hope of salvation and a heavenly home, you too must focus and take the steps necessary to achieve the Father’s goal for you. Your focus should be on these steps through which you climb the ladder of spiritual financial success one step at a time. Do not attempt to move to the next step until you are firmly established in accomplishing the task on the step you are on.
1) Understand it is all God’s. Through daily worship, praise, prayer, and bible reading / studying tell God that all the income and assets you have and will ever have access to are His and that as His steward you are now willing to following His instructions and do what He directs with His money and resources.
2) Show contentment. Continue or start tithing to your local church or a worthwhile ministry each time you receive income. Choose delayed gratification instead of instant gratification. Do not buy that bigger house, more expensive car, new furniture, new jewelry, etc. until you have reached the priority goal of being a faithful tithing member of a local church and totally debt-free. Stuff to buy will still be there at prices you can afford to pay after you reach your goal.
3) Tell your income what to do. Draft a 3 to 6 month plan that shows:
a) Your after tax income each pay period
b) The tithe and offering to be subtracted from take home pay
c) Each minimum bill payment that must be paid from that pay period’s income (mortgage, rent, credit cards, car note, etc.)
d) Other miscellaneous amounts that must be taken from the income (groceries, personal money, gas for car, monthly amount of annual property tax payment, monthly amount of annual home and car insurance premium, monthly amount of annual life insurance payment, 2 or 3 low cost weekend vacations each year, low cost monthly entertainment, etc.), and
e) Any amount left over. If there is nothing left over then you will need to work with your spouse and a close friend who is good at managing his or her money or a budget counselor to determine ways in which you can cut current expenses, determine which bills receive priority for payment at the current time, or find other jobs that can help increase your income for awhile to get you out of the rut you are in.
4) Build a one-month emergency fund. Use any amount left over and other assets to build or establish, in a government guaranteed savings or money management account (MMA), an emergency fund equal to one month of all your expenses identified in items 3.c. and 3.d. above. This will help you stop turning to credit cards and loans to take care of problems and emergencies. You will get on the right path to using cash instead of burdening your future with debt.
5) Pay off all non-mortgage loans that charge interest. Chances are that these credit cards, car loans, personal loans, etc charge interest that is well above what you can earn in savings or MMAs. Thus, after you have built the one-month emergency fund, you should use the amount left over during each pay period to pay off your smallest debt. Then, move to the next smallest debt and so on until you have finally paid off all your debts. The only time you break this cycle is if you have an emergency that needs immediate attention and you must use money in your one-month emergency reserve. Then, you would take the amount left over each pay period to build it back up and afterward resume paying down your debt with it.
6) Build a six-month emergency fund. After all non-housing loans are paid off use the amount left over each pay period (which now should be much larger) to build your emergency fund to six-months of all your expenses identified in items 3.c. and 3.d. above.
7) Start funding retirement vehicles that match the amount you invest. If your employer offers a 401k, 457, 403b, etc. that matches your investment up to a certain amount start investing the amount necessary to get the maximum matching investment from your employer. Put the money in a safe and sound investment (like a stable value account, guaranteed investment contract, etc.) until you study and understand the history, nature, risk, and investment costs / fees of other types of investments like stocks, bonds, mutual funds, real estate, etc.
8) Pay off your home loans. Use the amount left over each month toward principal pay off of your mortgage until it is fully paid off. Commit to not purchasing another house until at least 5 to 7 years after you have paid off your current mortgage(s). If you have a desire to purchase another home, set the purchase as a faith goal to pursue on a debt-free basis using the equity in your current home and savings that you are able to build each month after your current home mortgage is paid off. Remember contentment and deferred gratification pay off more in the end than encumbering yourself further in debt.
9) Increase your giving and investments. At this point, the amount left over should be huge because it includes the amount you used to pay on your mortgage. Consider increasing your free-will offering as thanks to God for helping you reach the goal of total debt freedom and ability to fund kingdom building to a much greater degree, help those in need, and build wealth to maintain these priorities and care for yourself and family.
Some will ask why funding college for kids is not a top priority. The answer is that your financial plan must operate similar to emergency landing safety instructions given on airplanes. Make sure you are safe and secure first before attempting (outside of your means) to help your children or other people be safe and secure. It is very difficult to truly help others until you have made sure that you are on solid footing, otherwise you risk harming yourself and not saving anyone else.
Following the above plan will help you get to the point in debt-freedom and wealth building where you will have disposable income and assets that you could use to help your children and possibly others with educational expenses and other worthwhile goals that can brighten their future.
Please email any questions and pray for this ministry. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!
Revelation 4:11, 1Timothy 6:9-17, Matthew 23:23, Hebrews 7:8, Habakkuk 2:2-4, Proverbs 21:20, Luke 6:38, 14:28-30
Please forward these bondage breaking articles to other people who can use helpful insight!!!
Sunday, May 9, 2010
MoneyWalk 56: Don't Cosign
This program will help you undo financial bondage.
Once you have refused a person's request to cosign, you must encourage him to use biblical money management principles. You have a responsibility to help those truly in need according to your ability. However, you must discern the devil's strategy to have you waste money God entrusted to you on people who mismanage their money and responsibilities, will continue to do so, will not regard God or His Word, and will have you squander money on funding their desires (cars, houses, boats, etc.) that could be spent leading people to Christ.
When a true need exists, it's best to give a person whatever cash or resources you have on hand that you do not need to take care of your priority items like family, mortgage, rent, and bills that you owe. Instead of cosigning a loan thinking you’re going to help him or her by doing so, you inevitably enable the person to continue his or her irresponsibility toward family and good stewardship and help him or her forsake the issues that really should be a priority for his or her family, time, money, and resources. In addition, you enable the person to forsake good stewardship habits that come only from the knowledge of God’s will, trials, errors, sacrifice, contentment, delayed gratification, and complete trust in Him.
Unless you see someone beaten up on the road who needs assistance right now or someone who is hungry and needs food, or who has some other emergency need problem that the person did not bring upon him or herself and will not continue to perpetuate by his or her continued mindset and activities, then you should really, really know the person to know whether or not he or she is truly in need but is normally responsible or is really ready to become responsible. This helps you be prudent in providing the type of help that will truly help him or her take care of the abnormal situation or get out of the irresponsible activities that led to the situation.
Of course, there are times where you extend help to people in the community or in another part of the world, simply because you’ve identified an emergency need. Sometimes, we don’t know entirely the situation at hand and whether or not the person is irresponsible and it led to the sad situation. So, whenever the Holy Spirit directs you to help a person or give to a need, you must obey Him for your best to come to pass, for Him to bring what is important to the attention of the person being helped, and for it to be an example to others of completely trusting the Lord’s guidance.
However, consider that He never asks you to do anything in a way that violates scriptural commands or principles found in the bible. This should be a basis for how you measure the person’s situation and the help that you should give or sometimes will not give. The bible never encourages people to take on monetary debt either through borrowing or cosigning. So, just don’t cosign for anyone unless you already have the money saved in a safe and sound place and are truly prepared to pay off the entire loan when they default on it.
If you have cosigned a note for someone, the bible tells you to quickly go to the lender and attempt to remove your name off the debt. It also tells you that your belongings are subject to be taken if you are not released from the debt, because in most instances the person you cosigned for will fail to pay the debt off. Please don't fall out with a friend because you failed to make the right decision by refusing to cosign for his debt because your failure might be one of the reasons the person has not become responsible in his or her financial dealings. Continue to love the person, pray for financial wisdom, stay away from co-signing in the future, and guide them to complete trust in and obedience to God’s spoken will in the area of finances. This takes the pressure and stress off of you trying to be your friend’s savior and puts the concern squarely upon the person of Jesus Christ.
Please email any questions and pray for this ministry. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!
Proverbs 11:15, 17:18, 20:16, Romans 13:8, Ephesians 5:15-17
Please forward these bondage breaking articles to other people who can use helpful insight!!!
Once you have refused a person's request to cosign, you must encourage him to use biblical money management principles. You have a responsibility to help those truly in need according to your ability. However, you must discern the devil's strategy to have you waste money God entrusted to you on people who mismanage their money and responsibilities, will continue to do so, will not regard God or His Word, and will have you squander money on funding their desires (cars, houses, boats, etc.) that could be spent leading people to Christ.
When a true need exists, it's best to give a person whatever cash or resources you have on hand that you do not need to take care of your priority items like family, mortgage, rent, and bills that you owe. Instead of cosigning a loan thinking you’re going to help him or her by doing so, you inevitably enable the person to continue his or her irresponsibility toward family and good stewardship and help him or her forsake the issues that really should be a priority for his or her family, time, money, and resources. In addition, you enable the person to forsake good stewardship habits that come only from the knowledge of God’s will, trials, errors, sacrifice, contentment, delayed gratification, and complete trust in Him.
Unless you see someone beaten up on the road who needs assistance right now or someone who is hungry and needs food, or who has some other emergency need problem that the person did not bring upon him or herself and will not continue to perpetuate by his or her continued mindset and activities, then you should really, really know the person to know whether or not he or she is truly in need but is normally responsible or is really ready to become responsible. This helps you be prudent in providing the type of help that will truly help him or her take care of the abnormal situation or get out of the irresponsible activities that led to the situation.
Of course, there are times where you extend help to people in the community or in another part of the world, simply because you’ve identified an emergency need. Sometimes, we don’t know entirely the situation at hand and whether or not the person is irresponsible and it led to the sad situation. So, whenever the Holy Spirit directs you to help a person or give to a need, you must obey Him for your best to come to pass, for Him to bring what is important to the attention of the person being helped, and for it to be an example to others of completely trusting the Lord’s guidance.
However, consider that He never asks you to do anything in a way that violates scriptural commands or principles found in the bible. This should be a basis for how you measure the person’s situation and the help that you should give or sometimes will not give. The bible never encourages people to take on monetary debt either through borrowing or cosigning. So, just don’t cosign for anyone unless you already have the money saved in a safe and sound place and are truly prepared to pay off the entire loan when they default on it.
If you have cosigned a note for someone, the bible tells you to quickly go to the lender and attempt to remove your name off the debt. It also tells you that your belongings are subject to be taken if you are not released from the debt, because in most instances the person you cosigned for will fail to pay the debt off. Please don't fall out with a friend because you failed to make the right decision by refusing to cosign for his debt because your failure might be one of the reasons the person has not become responsible in his or her financial dealings. Continue to love the person, pray for financial wisdom, stay away from co-signing in the future, and guide them to complete trust in and obedience to God’s spoken will in the area of finances. This takes the pressure and stress off of you trying to be your friend’s savior and puts the concern squarely upon the person of Jesus Christ.
Please email any questions and pray for this ministry. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!
Proverbs 11:15, 17:18, 20:16, Romans 13:8, Ephesians 5:15-17
Please forward these bondage breaking articles to other people who can use helpful insight!!!
Saturday, May 1, 2010
MoneyWalk 55: Don't Borrow Unnecessarily
This program will help you undo financial bondage.
This process starts by saying no to any loan for items that depreciate in value when you cannot immediately pay cash for them and when accepting the credit won't immediately benefit you by allowing your savings to accumulate at a higher interest rate than the interest rate you would pay the creditor on the loan balance.
It’s impossible to meet these requirements with most types of borrowing, including revolving credit card and store charge card accounts, because most institutions that offer such credit charge you very high interest rates. For example, the interest rate for most store charge cards is usually greater than 20%. While the interest rate for some credit cards can be lower, by accepting them you’re generally allowing the credit card issuer to raise interest rates sometime down the road if it believes you then represent greater risk of not paying or not paying on time, etc.
For the most part the rates on these cards hover in the teens and are much too high to presume that you can invest and monthly, annually, or over the long haul generate more investment growth than you’ll pay out in interest. This inability to generate greater growth does not even encompass the various penalties you will pay if you are not able to meet the card issuer’s payment requirements down the road.
There is a very small percentage of people who have played the hedging odds and seem to have beaten the system; people who have financed their business ventures using credit cards and yet experienced such a surge in customers that it seems their revenue has overcome the interest they paid on the credit cards. The small group that seems to have been successful probably represents less than one percent of business owners who have used this method. Don’t let what seem right now to be their success fool you into thinking that this is a prudent strategy for financing a business. Most of those who have tried this method have gone belly up.
Biblical instruction strongly guides you to pursue your financial life, personal and business, from a debt-free mindset; asking God and seeking a number of godly counselors who can help you find prudent ways to start and invest in business endeavors and purchase personal merchandise that is desirable to you. The vast majority of people I’ve met who did not follow this method have found themselves in financial turmoil at some point in their lives and the turmoil for many continues today because they still refuse to utilize biblical money management instruction to guide their financial affairs.
If you have a history of undisciplined use of credit cards, then you should immediately discipline yourself to stop using them, build at least three months of income in an emergency reserve account, and even eventually cut up the ones you have and throw them away because they will continue to bring torment into your life.
If you are a disciplined spender who stays well within established budget boundaries, a low interest revolving credit card will generally not hurt you because you will only use it for convenience and record-keeping purposes where you will only make purchases already accounted for in your budget and you never charge more on these cards than the amount of cash you have available in the bank minus your monthly bills, saving, investing, tithing, and giving.
Though scripture does not absolutely say that you cannot take on any debt, it strongly advises you to live debt-free and that God desires debt-freedom for you. The compounding interest nature of most debt will wreck your ability to build wealth for the future. The enemy knows this and tempts you to satisfy the cravings of your flesh using debt instruments. However, when you commit to God’s plan of living debt-free He will provide your every need without you having to borrow to supply it. When you refuse to take on debt, you enable the LORD to supernaturally provide by moving others to provide needs and desires at no cost when you're unable to purchase them.
Please email any questions and pray for this ministry. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!
Deuteronomy 28:12, Psalms 37:21, Proverbs 22:7, 27:23-24, Romans 13:8
Please forward these bondage breaking articles to other people who can use helpful insight!!!
This process starts by saying no to any loan for items that depreciate in value when you cannot immediately pay cash for them and when accepting the credit won't immediately benefit you by allowing your savings to accumulate at a higher interest rate than the interest rate you would pay the creditor on the loan balance.
It’s impossible to meet these requirements with most types of borrowing, including revolving credit card and store charge card accounts, because most institutions that offer such credit charge you very high interest rates. For example, the interest rate for most store charge cards is usually greater than 20%. While the interest rate for some credit cards can be lower, by accepting them you’re generally allowing the credit card issuer to raise interest rates sometime down the road if it believes you then represent greater risk of not paying or not paying on time, etc.
For the most part the rates on these cards hover in the teens and are much too high to presume that you can invest and monthly, annually, or over the long haul generate more investment growth than you’ll pay out in interest. This inability to generate greater growth does not even encompass the various penalties you will pay if you are not able to meet the card issuer’s payment requirements down the road.
There is a very small percentage of people who have played the hedging odds and seem to have beaten the system; people who have financed their business ventures using credit cards and yet experienced such a surge in customers that it seems their revenue has overcome the interest they paid on the credit cards. The small group that seems to have been successful probably represents less than one percent of business owners who have used this method. Don’t let what seem right now to be their success fool you into thinking that this is a prudent strategy for financing a business. Most of those who have tried this method have gone belly up.
Biblical instruction strongly guides you to pursue your financial life, personal and business, from a debt-free mindset; asking God and seeking a number of godly counselors who can help you find prudent ways to start and invest in business endeavors and purchase personal merchandise that is desirable to you. The vast majority of people I’ve met who did not follow this method have found themselves in financial turmoil at some point in their lives and the turmoil for many continues today because they still refuse to utilize biblical money management instruction to guide their financial affairs.
If you have a history of undisciplined use of credit cards, then you should immediately discipline yourself to stop using them, build at least three months of income in an emergency reserve account, and even eventually cut up the ones you have and throw them away because they will continue to bring torment into your life.
If you are a disciplined spender who stays well within established budget boundaries, a low interest revolving credit card will generally not hurt you because you will only use it for convenience and record-keeping purposes where you will only make purchases already accounted for in your budget and you never charge more on these cards than the amount of cash you have available in the bank minus your monthly bills, saving, investing, tithing, and giving.
Though scripture does not absolutely say that you cannot take on any debt, it strongly advises you to live debt-free and that God desires debt-freedom for you. The compounding interest nature of most debt will wreck your ability to build wealth for the future. The enemy knows this and tempts you to satisfy the cravings of your flesh using debt instruments. However, when you commit to God’s plan of living debt-free He will provide your every need without you having to borrow to supply it. When you refuse to take on debt, you enable the LORD to supernaturally provide by moving others to provide needs and desires at no cost when you're unable to purchase them.
Please email any questions and pray for this ministry. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!
Deuteronomy 28:12, Psalms 37:21, Proverbs 22:7, 27:23-24, Romans 13:8
Please forward these bondage breaking articles to other people who can use helpful insight!!!
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