MoneyWalk 176: Principles For Prospering

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

No matter what anyone tells you, there are only three fundamental steps to financial freedom and the start with the belief in first Giving to glorify the Lord, second Saving a reasonable portion of your income second, and third establishing a Spending that is only allows you to spend no more than approximately 70% of your gross pay after taxes, tithing, offering, and saving have been accounted for.

Some say you have to earn a certain amount of income, own a business, or invest in specific things to become wealthy and bypass poverty. Such pursuits could work, however scripture doesn’t say and reality doesn’t show that income levels, entrepreneurial endeavors, and specific investments always lead to financial freedom for everyone or for most people.

Yet, the bible does say and show that in order to build treasures in Heaven and gain financial freedom on earth, you must consistently tithe and give free-will offering for ministry work, live well beneath your pay (income), and save a reasonable portion of your income in diversified investment vehicles.

When His will takes priority over your fleshly desires your faith and obedience helps you build wealth to support ministry and family responsibilities. Thus, you will no longer need or seek loans where you have to pay an ungodly middle-man (banks, financial institutions, retailers, etc.) a high amount of interest with your payments.

Instead you will be able to earn and save enough cash for purchases you want to make. When you no longer have to pay high interest bills and you are operating on a debt-free basis the money you formerly doled out to the banks, etc. can be used to further God’s kingdom. Twenty to thirty years down the road, through compound interest and growth on your accumulated surplus, you will likely have a larger annual income from your investments than you earned while working.

Please pray for this ministry and email any questions. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!

Genesis 14:20, Habakkuk 2:2-4, Proverbs 12:11, 13:23-25, 2Corinthians 8:9-12

Please forward these bondage breaking articles to other people who can use helpful insight!!!

You can find books authored by Randy and Karen Parlor at www.Amazon.com

MoneyWalk 175: Paying Off Loans Always Makes Sense

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

A lifestyle that moves you to eliminating all debt, including mortgages, always betters your long-term financial condition because it positions you to always be able to honor God with your tithes and offerings so the windows of Heaven are opened to you for the pouring down of greater future rewards.

Some financial advisors tell people it is not good to pay off a current mortgage because you can make more money by investing in the stock market or by leveraging your money to obtain more loans to get investment real estate and the monthly rental payments they believe will come from it. However, this is tricky at best because even with investment advice most people are not good enough investors to be able to get greater annual investment return than the interest charged on their mortgage(s).

Financial advisors have their place and reputable ones should be consulted to help educate you to be a responsible manager of the money entrusted to you and to help you maintain emotional composure and reasonable investment allocation / diversification when the economic environment looks good, bad, or indifferent over short and long periods of time. But, you should not use them because you believe they have the ability to pick the greatest investments and guarantee gains on investments. For good reason the SEC requires investment firms to put the following type of statement on their investment literature, “Past investment returns are no guarantee of future investment results.”

In addition, most people are simply not good landlords and managers of rental property business or good at fixing up and flipping properties and so they lose money on these investment choices and find that over the years they are not in a better financial position than if they had simply paid off their mortgage and saved and reasonably invested over the course of the years of their lives. The problem is exacerbated when the properties are not within close proximity to where they live.

Another thing that people are often told by financial advisors, accountants, and tax preparers is that they should keep their mortgages because of the tax reduction that the interest payments afford them each year. However, they usually make a flawed analysis of this situation in that the amount of interest you pay needs to be greater than the standard deduction on your federal tax return in order for you to itemize deductions to be able to get a tax reduction.

For this and other reasons, many people with mortgages do not itemize their federal tax returns. In addition, even if you could get a tax reduction, you should consider whether it is smart to pay out $1,000 when you do not need to in order to get 15 to 25% of it back through a tax reduction ($150 to $250), especially when you cannot get a guaranteed return on the investment that you would supposedly engage. Let’s be honest, most people will never make or maintain an investment when they don’t employ rapid mortgage debt reduction plans. They usually spend the extra money on frivolous stuff that they cannot remember a few years down the road. Yet, rapidly paying off your mortgage will build the right kind of discipline and always be remembered and cherished.

I understand that part of the benefit you may get from a mortgage is the ability to get a house that you want right now with the price locked in because you do not currently have the assets to immediately pay the full asking price. However, that does not make it smart to continue paying mortgage interest when you could in fact pay off the mortgage.

You will lift a great debt burden off your shoulders and will feel extreme freedom and will have removed the possibility that you could one day be in a situation where a financial institution is foreclosing on the home(s) that you have made monthly payments on for so long. You can at the point of mortgage payoff begin saving what was your monthly mortgage payment and then not have to worry about whether or not you can actually earn more than the mortgage interest amount.

You are also free to take extra investment risk with a portion of the money if you choose to do so without running into the possibility that you may one day owe financial institutions money that you cannot pay them. This type of financial freedom relieves stress and pressure and puts you in a position where God can entrust you with far more money and resources because you have proven to be a good steward whose eyes and actions are on Him and His way rather than the way of the world.

If this situation is best for mortgages, it is even better for other type of loans (car notes, revolving charge cards, student loans, etc.) because they generally offer none of the tax reduction options that home mortgages provide and have much higher finance charges.

That is why I implore you to save a one month emergency fund, then pay off all non-home mortgage debt (car loans, credit cards, etc.), then save at least six months of emergency funds or at least twelve months if you are self employed or have uneven / uncertain monthly income, and finally to pay off your mortgage as fast as you can by making extra principle payments on it.

Eliminating debt and being debt-free for ten, twenty, or more years will usually afford you with hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions of dollars more of assets that you get the gains from and use of in order to properly care for your family, fund the gospel, pursue your God-given purpose, and enjoy good things without being stressed out and pressed out. Therefore, paying off loans always makes sense, so that you are not ensnared by the awful consequences of debt that can so quickly overtake you when you least expect it.

Please pray for this ministry and email any questions. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!

Deuteronomy 28:12, Proverbs 22:7, Romans 13:8, 1Peter 5:8

Please forward these bondage breaking articles to other people who can use helpful insight!!!

You can find books authored by Randy and Karen Parlor at www.Amazon.com

MoneyWalk 174: Let The Truth Be Told

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

Home ownership is usually touted as the foundation for and means for all Americans to build wealth. However, irresponsible people, those misinformed about the costs of home ownership above the monthly payment, and those who move to higher cost homes every 5 to 10 years generally have not become wealthier than the average renter. Many are as debt laden as many renters having purchased more home than they can truly afford for many years to come. Not to mention, many of their mortgages are severely under water owing far more to the financial institutions that hold them than the homes are worth.

It is not automatically true that owning a home makes you wealthier or will do so in the future. Believing this lie and acting upon it without first counting the true cost of home ownership and debt freedom will cost you dearly as it has many millions of people in the past. Believing the lie will move you to do anything to get a house like accepting predatory lending terms with high interest rates and costs. It will also lead you to believe you can afford what the banks say you can afford rather than you making an honest assessment of your finances to know what you can truly afford while building and maintaining a large emergency fund cushion to handle unforeseen home ownership costs and other emergency life situations requiring large outlays of cash.

Home ownership can be great when you truly can afford the home you are going to purchase. It can bring peace from apartment neighbors making noise bouncing off the walls and it could provide more space to entertain friends. Yet, for many millions of people it is not as financially fantastic as the pundits make it seem.

The 10-35% federal income tax deduction that one may be able to use with regard to mortgage interest / property tax payments is only useful to the extent that your itemized deductions are greater than the standard deduction for your filing status. Also, you must remember that every year throughout your ownership of the house you will pay thousands of dollars in property taxes to your local governments for which you may only get a fraction of a discount via federal taxes or homestead credits. In addition, all the maintenance, repairs, and renovations will not bring greater return for most people given the amount of principle and interest they will pay on the loans they acquire to do these things.

You would say “NO” if I offered you the great deal of giving me $10,000, so I can hold onto it and then give you only $1,000 to $3,500 back next year? You should think of home ownership in the same way, so that you are totally sober and realistic regarding your financial situation being currently able to handle homeownership. It is always best to have absolutely no debt and the cash needed to purchase a home outright. This alone would help people be much more reasonable about the home they would seek to purchase.

However, if you believe home ownership is worth obtaining a loan to make it a reality then you should follow a few simple rules:

1. Pay off all other debt, build at least six months of income as an emergency reserve and also put away enough money in savings to make a 20% down payment at closing.

2. Inventory your work / business picture to ensure that you are not subject to bouts of unemployment or wild swings to lower monthly income within the few years leading up to and after a house purchase. Remember, approximately 100% of foreclosures are a result of the purchasers’ inability to continue paying the mortgages or property taxes.

3. Look to buy a house in an area where the history of home ownership shows steady price appreciation over the last 10 to 20 years, unless the Holy Spirit has spoken that you should move to a particular area He has selected for you for ministry purposes, etc.

4. Only obtain a low interest 15-year fixed rate mortgage and seek to have enough in extra disposable income that you can pay it off much sooner than 15 years.

5. Do not purchase any house where the monthly payment of principle, interest, property tax, and insurance would require more than 28% of your monthly gross income.

If you will act prudently to do these things you will likely find that home ownership will be very kind and good for you and eventually lead to paying lower housing costs than being a long-term renter and it will not stand in the way of the wealth building that the Lord wants you to engage in.

Remember, home ownership is not the key and being a renter is not a disadvantage. Wealth building is accomplished by honoring God, by continually keeping your monthly expenses well under your monthly net income, by becoming debt-free, and by saving / investing your excess cash over long periods of time (5, 10, 20 years, etc.).

Please pray for this ministry and email any questions. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!

Matthew 25:26-29, Luke 14:28-30, 16:8-14, Romans 13:8, Hebrew 7:8

Please forward these bondage breaking articles to other people who can use helpful insight!!!

You can find books authored by Randy and Karen Parlor at www.Amazon.com

MoneyWalk 173: Avoid Predatory Lending

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

You should search the bible to find out the tactics of the enemy. Also, you should ask the Holy Spirit to help you understand all the ways in which these tactics will come against you or be presented to you as though they are good.

Be aware that upon Jesus beginning His earthly ministry, satan presented instructions to Jesus taken from Old Testament scriptural descriptions:

• Turn these stones to bread to relieve you hunger

• Throw yourself down from the pinnacle to show you are great by angels catching you

• Fall down and worship me and I’ll make you king and give you earthly riches (you’ll gain the world)

To many people, these instructions would have appeared acceptable to the human mind (the flesh, the eyes, and human intellectual capacity), especially given the natural situation that Christ was experiencing (hunger, thirst, weakness, desire for safety, etc.) and the desires that rage in humans (wanting pleasure, notoriety, power, etc.). However, they were off the mark for Christ because the attempted to lead His heart away from trusting the Father to complete the work of the gospel.

Following such instruction was not the heart of the Father, especially when spoken by the evil one (the father of lies). It would have turned Jesus to toward satisfying selfish desires instead of trusting the Father and hearing His voice to know how to move forward. Worse yet, there would have been no way for us to be redeemed from the eternal death brought about by sin.

Like Jesus, we should also refuse to follow satan’s instructions, no matter what way it is given (through worldly counselors, the Joneses lifestyle, or our ungodly thoughts). When you are not ignorant of satan’s tactics, you have the information you need to stay away from being satan’s prey. You can avoid the hurt he would otherwise bring into your life.

One tactic to be aware of is predatory lending. Lenders who employ such techniques generally get you hooked into closing loans that charge very high interest rates and closing costs. They ethically defraud you by offering loans that are too much for your income to handle in the future.

They’re not interested in truly serving you for your good by helping you get out of debt and stay out of debt. They intend to place you and many other people in a position that keeps you locked into a continual series of loans or payments with very high interest payments. When you can no longer sustain the payments, they will repossess the material things you’ve become so accustomed to and attempt to gain further profit from them.

Many people feel trapped by these lenders because they do not apply godly wisdom to their stewardship of resources the Father entrusts to them. They fail to:

• Refuse high interest loan offers

• Budget to know exactly what amount of payment they can afford

• Crucify their lusts by refusing to love their homes, cars, etc. so much that they won’t part with them even when they can no longer afford them.

Don’t be a victim of these schemes and those who perpetrate them, be more than a conqueror that uses godly wisdom to walk in victory by refusing such predatory loans and the poor money management and lifestyle practices that precede and follow obtaining them. Remember, the borrower is slave to the lender: no son or daughter becomes entangled in pursuits conflicting with the Father's instruction when his / her aim is to satisfy the one that enlisted him / her.

Please pray for this ministry and email any questions. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!

Deuteronomy 28:12, Proverbs 22:7, 2Corinthians 11:13-15, 1Peter 5:8-9

Please forward these bondage breaking articles to other people who can use helpful insight!!!

You can find books authored by Randy and Karen Parlor at www.Amazon.com

MoneyWalk 172: The Lord Makes A Way Out Of No Way

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

It is the nature of God the Father to open seas and tear down mountains for those who love Him when their enemies and the toils and snares of life seem to entrap them with no way out. Many times He helps them be victorious when they don't have nearly the men of war and resources that the enemy has. This is God's way of showing that He truly loves those who put their trust in Him.

Worldly wisdom pronounces that people cannot live on less than a certain amount of yearly income. Yet, people are not dropping dead all around us when they live on much less income than other segments of society. Meager income does not negate the power of God. He provides so richly through bargains, sales, gifts, and transference of resources from those who have much to those who have little.

He moves mightily to care for the needs of those considered income poor in this world that have honored Him with their lives and meager resources. They live better and with more peace and joy than many others who have substantially higher incomes and who dishonor the Lord. In addition, He does not limit future prosperity to those with the highest incomes, best jobs, and greater education.

His plan is open to everyone at every income level and when employed it is guaranteed to produce everything you need to accomplish your purpose on earth. No matter your current income level He will help you prosper even more when you buckle down and consistently employ biblical money management principles. He truly makes a way out of no way for you. What is barren becomes fruitful and healthy and what is already fruitful will bring forth greater fruit!

Please pray for this ministry and email any questions. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!

Luke 21:34-36, Romans 2:2-8, 1Corinthians 10:11-13, 1Thessalonians 5:1-6

Please forward these bondage breaking articles to other people who can use helpful insight!!!

You can find books authored by Randy and Karen Parlor at www.Amazon.com