The Myth Of A Mother's Paycheck

The greatest excuse women give for not staying at home is that they can't afford it.  They need two incomes to survive.  I live in one of the top 4 most expensive areas of the nation and even here, I have been able to stay home.  But for those who think they need that second job.  I would pose the challenge of sitting down and add up some numbers.  You will be surprised.  Here is a very conservative example.

Annual wage                             $14,000.00

Monthly salary                              $1,166.66

EXPENSES (Monthly)

1. Federal income tax (25%)                $292

2. State income tax (5 %)                          58

3. Social Security tax (7%)                         81.66

4. Tithe                                                           117.00

5. Gas (400 miles @ 60 c per mile)        240

6. Car (maintenance, ins., registration)  35

7. Meals ($6 a day)                                      120

8. Extra clothes and cleaning                 100

9. Forteited savings on thrift

shopping                                                   116.66

10. Hairdresser                                            20

11. Employee insurance                            80

12. Day care

($150 a week, one child)                 200

13. "I owe it to myself" expense             95        


                                       TOTAL   $1,555.32

Net Loss    ($388.66)

 

As you can see, the numbers are pretty conservative.  You may have higher numbers and higher income as well as extra unnecessary expenses.
For some reason, just because a family has two incomes they excuse having extra memberships and things that are not really needed.  Therefore, the numbers are different for each.  Even if you end up with, let's say, $388.88 positive instead of negative, is it worth it?  All that absence from your family, your children, missing out their growing up, having others enjoy them (or not) every day and not enjoying your home because you are gone all day?  Just for a few hundred dollars a month.  God is bigger than a few hundred dollars a month.  He is able to supply all our needs.  When we are face with a need, then we become creative.  Your home can become a center of industry and productivity.

How are your numbers?  Are you willing to let go and let God provide?  Is your husband supportive of you staying home?

 

 

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The Home: A Place of Economics - Part 9

I really want to inspire women to come back home and make it their center for economic affairs.  It can be their source, not a sacrifice.  I wish to debunk the myths about why a woman needs to work outside the home to make it financially and bring in another paycheck.  Although I do not know every situation, impossible and by all means, God is in control of every one of our lives, I would take the topic biblically.  You take your situation to the Lord.  Hopefully, husband will also do all he can to have wife at home.

1. Every member of the family is a contributor

No free riders here.  So many teenagers have been so spoiled with their parents providing everything for them without asking anything in return.  The teen earns some money for his own pleasure.  The young adult starts work for his own interests as well.  Of course, each child can save for personal expenses, but the family has one bank account.  We are so used to seeing each other very individualistic that we have forgotten that we are part of a family unit.  We all work together toward the same goal.

It was well said of years past that the bigger the family the better well off they were financially because each member of the family contributed to the family economics.

It is important that children are trained to understand about bills and being resourceful.  They can contribute by being conservative in consuming utilities.  They should also have work assigned to them that they are responsible for.  I tell my kids everyday, “if you don’t work, you don’t eat.”  Even before breakfast, they have had to do some type of work I assign for each of them.  We don’t give allowance because we don’t believe in free money.  We earn it by working.  If the children want something, they find ways to make money.  Of course, we also give gifts.  We love giving gifts but the gifts are well thought out for a purpose.

Training the children to contribute

At our home, I hold tea parties on a weekly basis.  We call them entrepreneurial tea parties.  After preparing the yummy dainties together and learning manners and respectable behavior, I also tell them in advance to bring all their business ideas.  I write them on a board to brainstorm.  We are impregnated with ideas, tons of them.  We are always pretty busy working on something.  Our home is a booming place of industry.   I like instilling in the children an entrepreneurial spirit.  They get creative and really start going on what we can make to sale and services we can provide.  It is really fun.  It changes their thinking from expecting Dad to be the sole income provided to everyone being actively at it.  We are a six-income household.  That’s right even baby is included in businesses.  Our little Liberty makes great photography poses.

What Can Mom Do?

At this point of my life, I am consumed with the training of my little people.  So I inspire them in business endeavourers and help them make it a reality.  It is part of our home education.  We make things together and sell them.   I also help my husband in whatever I can.  I am overwhelmed by the potential we have at home to generate income.  All we need is creativity.  Other things we can do is to save, stretch the money that comes in.  Practicing frugality doesn’t mean living cheap; far from it.  Many times being frugal for us means living healthier.

Trusting in the Lord for our finances

I have experienced the hand of God on our lives as we have chosen to obey His Word about being a keeper at home, taking the responsibility of training our children, and being a helper to my husband, not some other man at work.  We have had no income for over three years now and we have lacked nothing.  In fact, God has provided over abundantly many times.  We don’t know where our food is going to come next month.  How are we going to pay our bills?  It is interesting that the Lord gave us all four of our children in the times of lack.  When my husband was laid off, our firstborn came.  Then his business close and the last two were born.  During these last three and a half years, we have story after story of God’s Providences over our lives.

I am not the only one to have this testimony.  I know others, and have heard of miracles God has done as mothers decide to stay home and raise their children.  Even single mothers have been able to do it in various creative ways.

If you work outside the home and have a longing to come back home to be with your children and really be a helpmeet to your husband, pray, pray, pray.  God will meet you according to your faith.  He is Faithful.

Do you have fears or concerns? 

If you have creative ideas to share I would love to create a community where we help each other generate sources of income to bless our family and others.

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A Homemaker Is A Full Time Stay-At-Home Woman

Yes, it can be done!  I know this topic is very unpopular and most woman, including Christian woman, would argue that "you gotta do what you gotta do", meaning they have no choice but to go out and work.  I have been sorry for many of these women who do desire to stay home with their children but have bought into the lie that there is no way.  Weekly, I see a beautiful young lady at Trader Joe's grocery store who loves my children.  Every week she talks about her little one year-old girl.  She tells me, "You are lucky to get to stay at home with your children, I wish I could too."  And like her are countless of women.  I believe we are wired this way by our Creator.  We are women, nurturers and motherly by nature.  We long to love our husbands and children by providing a peaceful, beautiful, healthy, nourishing atmosphere at home.   This cannot be accomplish by being part-time at home.  Even if we try to "tough it out" in the work force, the longing to be a woman of our home is deep down in each of us.

I have good news!  It can be done!  I am a living proof.  I've also known other women and known of others who have believed God as well for their provision so they can stay at home.  For my husband and I, it was never a question whether I would go out to work.  I did do ministry full time before our first child was born.  After that, I have dedicated eight years  so far to our growing home and I have a vision and a prayer that not only in my life it will continue this way but in the lives of my future generations of daughters and daughters-in-law.  We have friends who asks us, "how do you do it?"  When they find out we have had no income for more than 3 years (more on this story later).  The answer is simply, "By the grace of God and our full trust that He is Faithful".  And no, we take nothing from Obama or any type or Government "assistance".  God has been giving us our daily bread and healing every sickness. We have determined to stand on God's Word and obey it wholeheartedly no matter what the circumstances around us are.  God commands us to teach our children diligently throughout the day (Deut. 6:4-8).   This is perhaps the most important Scripture passage to the Jews.  They would recite it everyday, at the Synagogue and it is very first passage their children would memorize.  It can only be obeyed by parents being with their children throughout the day.  The next command is in Titus 2:5, for women to be "keepers at home that the Word of God be not blasphemed."  God promises to bless us if we obey His commandments and seek His kingdom first.  For me, if I had to choose between either obey God's Word or go out to work to provide for my family, I really don't have a choice.  God's Word will always be authority over my life.  And He definitely has provided day by day in ways we would never had imagine.  We do have story after story of God's providence in providing all that we need in.

Secondly, the stay at home woman is not the picture you get of one cleaning all day, changing diapers, fixing meals on her pajama sweats and a pony tail quickly put together.  Far from it.  We get an excellent picture from the woman of Proverbs 31.  She is industrious, contributing to the financial welfare of the family and yet, tending to the many needs of her family and community.  There are many ways we, as wives, can help our husbands save money, be frugal and work from our homes utilizing the gifts and talents God has given us. In no way do I imply women are to never leave home.  That would be impossible; it's unbiblical and ridiculous. We can be professional business women right from our homes.  This season of lack of income for us has truly been a period of creativity, inspiration and even health in homemaking.  Many women who work outside the home have very poor health and the whole family would suffer because they have no time to prepare a wholesome meal.

O.K. women have also told me, "...but I love my job, I love what I do."  Others have told me after having a baby, "I can't wait to go back to work, I need to get out of my house."  These are Christian women who are teachers at their churches.  If you are one of these, I would urge you to please pray, pray, pray and study the Word of God  and meditate on His desires for us as wives and mothers.  Our home is the building block of society and when we neglect it, we all suffer.  Just look around you.  This broken society is a result of that mentality.  Many have bought the feminists lie that we have a choice about having a career or being at home.  When we belong to Christ, we don't have a choice.  He is our Lord and we obey His commands.  Men don't have a choice but to work.   Being a homemaker is a full time job.

A goal of Blessed Homestead is to encourage women to embrace their homes and nurture their families.  So for the next month, I will be sharing how important "The Home" and the "Homemaker" are to the family, church and society.  I will also share ideas and stories of other women in similar financial situations who are surviving and even thriving without neglecting their God-given duties.  If you are one of them and would like to share your creativity and resources here, I would love to know.

 

 

 

 

 

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A Word About Debt and Borrowing

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Yes, yes, I know it is very tempting to get into debt, to borrow money.  Especially with all these Government insentives for people to upgrade their cars, houses and appliances.  A few years ago, we prayed for a friend who was undecided about going to college.  We encouraged her but we did not know that she went ahead and got loans to pay her way through college.  Surprisingly to me, this was a Christian College that provided the loan.  How can a Christian college be violating God's principle of not borrowing and slaving God's people.  Especially those seeking a ministry would most probably get funded by donations which tends to be a conservative income. How can they start their ministry in debt?

Debt is the condition of being in bondage to another person.   It is to be obligated to pay back what is owned.  It is allowing a nother person to have a claim against you.

A debt creates a relationship of servitude to a creditor.

In the Old Testament, loans in Israel were charitable, not commercial.  The charging of any kind of interest to fellow Israelites was forbidden.  However, interest could be charged to foreigners.  (Deuteronomy 23:20)

Consequences of Borrowing

1. It violates Scripture.  Romans 13:8


2. It constitutes a judgment of God.  God clearly relates borrowing to His judgment upon His people for failing to follow His ways.  Deuteronomy 28:15, 44


3. It produces bondage to creditors.  Proverbs 22:7


4. It presumes upon the future.  Oh, how we have learned this the hard way.   We had bought a house on high mortgage thinking our income would go up.  The opposite happened.  We went to zero income and we had to short sale the house.


5. It gives the illusion of independence.  It allows final decisions to be made apart from God's provision of funds.


6. It evades self-examination.  When God withholds funds, there is a good reason.


7. It interferes with God's provision.  2 Corinthians 16:9


8. It removes barriers to harmful items.  James 4:3, 1 Timothy 6:9


9. It demonstrates discontent with basics.  2 Timothy 6:10


10. It devours resources through high interest payments.  Luke 16:10-11


11. It stifles resourcefulness


12. It promotes impulse buying


13. It damages God's reputation


14. It weakens personal faith.  A clear evidence of God's will can be obtained by trusting God to provide the funds ahead of time. 


15. It excludes help from others.


16. It causes overspending

My husband and I did a deep study of finances and debt with the Financial Freedom Seminar.  In our deepest financial despair, we found God's mercy and wisdom in His Word.  How we wished we had understood and obeyed His Word.  We will share some stories here when I get to it.

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Credit Score or A Good Name?

I've heard many say "I don't care about my credit."  There are different reasons why people would say that.  "It's a concept of the kingdom of this world", "you should not live by credit, so it's insignificant", "I'm a homemaker, so as long as my husband's is good, my doesn't make a difference",  "my credit is already bad anyways..."

We have been repeatedly having to make financial decisions based on this concept of having a good name.  A good name before God and man tells a lot about the kind of person we are.  The Word of God says, "A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favor rather than silver and gold" Proverbs 22:1.

Our credit score says a lot about who we are.  Are we responsible?  Are we reliable? Truthful? Honest? Trustworthy?  Careless? Psalm 37:21 says, "the wicked borrow and do not pay".

In the area where we live in, many people have defaulted on their mortgages, including us.  Many of these are because of loan modifications that people are waiting for to be approved.  The truth is that almost all don't and won't get approved.  In the mean time people have gotten so far behind their payments that they end up foreclosing on their properties.  We faced this similar scenerio.  But we had to always remind ourselves, "a good name is to be chosen rather than great reaches."  People would advise us to foreclose, even to file bankrupcy.  Just the thought of that would make me sick.   A foreclosure or a bankrupcy is tied to your name forever.  What kind of name do we want our children to inherit?  We fought this idea because it was unbiblical and we chose to walk the hard path in our financial mud pie.

Listening to the world's professionals unbiblical advise has costs us hundreds thousands of dollars.  We haven't had the courage to add up the loses yet.  But we will, I promise, someday, because it's such a life lesson.

4 Reasons why a good name is essential:

1. We represent God's name (2 Cor. 3:2)


2. We honor our parents by it (Ephesians 6:1-3, Proverbs 28:7)


3. We pass it on to our children (Proverbs 10:7)


4. We need it for business transactions,  a good credit score says a lot about you

Beware of Compromise!  Satan wants to destroy a man's name.

What are some of the things you can do to earn a good name?

• Be true to your word.  This includes to God as in marriage vows for example.  To your family and to others

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Living Debt Free

We live in one of the most expensive areas of the United States.  People here believe is a way of life and totally normal to live in debt or at least have a home mortgage loan.  Most families have double income--that's husband and wife. 

We had been there and done that.  And have repented for not trusting God and for not following His principles concerning money.  We had always been very frugal and never had any debt other than a mortgage.  Once our first baby came I've stayed home and have not regret it. 

Where we live people like things.  You know, they like nice cars, subscriptions, nice big houses, a bout, an RV.... Is it like that where you live?

Proverbs 6 talks about debt as a very serious thing.  That's how we began to see it.  We had at that time two houses on mortgage.  My husband's business ran dry and are now 9 months with no income.  We sold our house and moved to our other one in the same area.  We are now selling this one too and believing God to live debt free.

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