Unlock the secrets to a life of financial freedom and say goodbye to the stress of debt with our latest episode where we weave faith into finance and offer real-world strategies for managing your money wisely. Discover how a family transformed their approach to savings, turning debt repayment into an enjoyable and educational competition, and how you, too, can shape a new family culture around fiscal responsibility. From embracing home-cooked meals to enjoying in-house entertainment, learn to reallocate funds for debt payoff and savings growth, and let the dream of a stress-free financial future motivate every step you take towards disciplined saving.
As we wrap up, we delve into resources that enrich personal growth and provide a beacon of knowledge in the ever-changing financial landscape. Our conversation will not only highlight ways to stay abreast of global events but also introduce you to the education-rich content offered through Revive Church’s platforms. Whether it’s podcasts or Facebook Live sessions, each resource is a stepping stone towards embracing the opportunities this new year holds. Join us and be inspired to take action, expand your horizons, and plant your feet firmly on the path to financial prosperity.
Key Takeaways:
- Including God in your finances is crucial for prosperity. Commit to tithing and generosity, and trust that God will open the supply line for you.
- Stop living on credit and start paying off your debts. Avoid using credit cards and focus on paying for what you already have.
- Embrace a month of living lean, where you cut back on unnecessary expenses and redirect the money towards paying off debt or saving.
- After living lean, enter a month of living even, where you can use the money saved to buy something you need or want, paying in cash instead of using credit.
- Develop a habit of saving money. Set aside a portion of your income each month and enjoy the process of watching your savings grow.
- Dream about the life you want to live and set financial goals. Learn to wait patiently and work towards those goals, avoiding impulsive purchases.
- Extend yourself a line of credit by paying yourself the same amount you used to pay towards debt. This creates a sense of financial security and allows you to invest in your own future.
Where To Dive In:
0:00:00 Introduction to the podcast and book recommendation
0:01:02 Step 1: Include God in your finances and be a giver
0:04:47 Step 2: Stop living on credit and start paying off debt
0:06:52 Step 3: Declare a month of living lean and cut back on expenses
0:09:09 Step 4: Experience a month of living even and buy something with cash
0:10:48 Step 5: Save money and learn to save instead of spend
0:11:20 Learn to save instead of spend
0:12:11 Past purchases and second-guesses spending
0:13:10 Reflection on spending
0:14:29 Start a savings competition within the family
0:16:54 Begin dreaming about the kind of life you want
0:18:12 Avoid focusing on monthly payments when buying a car
0:20:21 Pay off the car while it is still worth what it’s worth
0:21:31 Buying cars and the importance of paying off debts
0:22:13 Story of buying a van and creating a competition between dealerships
0:27:18 Importance of learning to wait and delaying gratification
0:28:26 Paying yourself instead of paying off credit cards
0:30:04 Using the money saved to buy a better car in the future
0:31:57 Congratulations on achieving financial freedom and prosperity
0:32:33 How to handle unexpected expenses
0:33:05 Transition from consumer to producer
0:33:59 Resources available on the website
0:34:19 Conclusion and next steps
About the host:
Steve Gray is the founding and senior pastor of Revive Church KC. He has been in the full time ministry for over 40 years and was launched into national and international recognition in the late 1990’s as the leader of the historic Smithton Outpouring, and again in 2009 when he lead the Kansas City Revival which was televised nationally on the Daystar television network. Steve is also a veteran musician, songwriter, recording artist and published author. His books include When The Kingdom Comes, Follow The Fire, and My Absurd Religion.
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Transcript:
0:00:00
Hey, you don’t want to miss more faith, more life. Today we’re going to teach you how to get out of debt and be prosperous in times of recession or inflation. Plus, we’re adding our Facebook live crowd to join us on this. Don’t miss it. Hey, let’s stop right now and talk about the book. If you only knew. I’ve got it right here in front of me. A guide for the clueless generation. It’s worth getting. You need to get it. It’s going to open your eyes to a whole lot of things that are happening in our world today.
0:00:25
Hey, hello, everybody. Welcome to more faith, more Life podcast. You want to stay with us today because we’re going to talk about part two, which we started last week, but we got some new friends on today. So we’re also going to review part one and that is how to prosper in a recession or how to prosper with this inflation, right. Or how to prosper with the interest rates going up and up. We’re going to talk about how to do that and this plan will work for you, but it takes a while to do it.
0:00:54
If you take a kind of work on it for a year, you’re going to see a big, big difference next year. But let’s go through it.
0:01:02
Okay?
0:01:02
So anyway, how to prosper, and that’s very important because we want to get you free of your debt. I’m going to change it around. Last week we started with step one differently, but I’m going to start with step one, the obvious. My friends that are watching and those know that the first thing we need to do is keep God involved. I have it in the list, but I didn’t put it at number one because I thought, well, everybody already thinks of that if you’re really following God. But anyway, include God in your finances and you’ve got to decide you are going to be a tither and generous and giving no matter what. Because we want to build your life, your freedom with tithing built in.
0:01:47
Not we wait and say, I’ll wait and have children when I can afford it. Have you ever heard that one? And go like, you’re never going to be able to afford it. I’ll wait and tithe when I can afford it. You’re backwards. You have to start the blessing of God, which is called tithing. It’s a blessing you give the money that belongs to the Lord back to the Lord, and he then starts the supply line, opens the supply line for you.
0:02:10
So you need to be a giver. You need to be a tither. If you don’t know where to tithe, and I don’t know you, you can always tithe at stevegrayministries.com. You can go to the revivekc.church. And you can go to there and tither wherever you have a church, if you have a home church or whatever.
0:02:35
So you got to include God now. Let’s go with the practical side of it, which would be now step one, which I started last week. But it’s okay if we just want to throw in. You got to include God or this isn’t going to work. Oh, and by the way, while we’re on this, too, I’ve been studying some of the scriptures. Of course, I’ve been studying Gideon. We’re working on a book on Gideon and the river. But I’ve also studied some other places where there were some reforms. And I was looking in second chronicles, I think it was 15, and the people were in distress. It was so dangerous. They couldn’t travel, they couldn’t go from city to city.
0:03:12
And in two chronicles, 15 and nations and being raided and all kinds of stuff going on, and finally they get fed up enough and they get in distress enough that they get a thirst for something else. All right? So what they do is they turn to the Lord with all their heart and soul. I think it says soul and heart. And the distress stopped because God was sending the distress not to harm them, but to cause them to be thirsty and turn to him.
0:03:48
So life would be better than what you can create yourself. It’s a great story, and we’ll have to talk about this later. But then they vowed and they made everybody vow that anybody that doesn’t participate with seeking the Lord with all your heart and soul will be put to death. Oh, I thought about that, Zion. I thought if we started that now, in our culture, Sunday Morning attendance would go way up, wouldn’t it? Yeah.
0:04:18
So God is not causing distress to make you distressful, but he can tighten the screws a little bit on our lives to cause us to learn how to fix it with him involved and turning to him and letting him solve the distress you’re in. So this is part of it. This is financial stress, I guess. All right, number one, as we already talked about, including God, stop living on credit.
0:04:45
Okay.
0:04:47
What you’re doing when you live on credit is you’re using somebody else’s money and you’re making money for them, okay? And the goal is to start using your own money. People get rich in two ways. Either they inherited a whole lot of money, right? And they inherited it, and you already know your parents and grandparents, so if they’re not rich, then that’s not going to happen. So then you have to learn how to do this from scratch, from beginning, how poor people get rich, all right?
0:05:19
How poor people get rich. So you got to stop using other people’s money to get what you want. So you got to stop living on credit and start paying off these things and doing it and get to the point where you’re free of this system. This system of credit is not for you to make money and it’s not to prosper you. It’s for somebody else to make money. And they’re going to take your money, which you’re paying big amounts on your credit card, maybe 18 or 21%, even higher maybe.
0:05:50
And you’re never going to get ahead making those payments. All right? You’re always going to be just on the edge. What you want to do is you’ve got to pay these things off and get to the point where you’re not using them anymore.
0:06:06
All right?
0:06:06
Now, I use credit cards because it’s convenient. I told them last week, I use credit cards because it’s convenient. But I am not spending money I don’t have, okay? So a credit card can be used if it represents I have this money and I’m just using it for convenience because it’s easy to slide in and out in the machine and all that. So we do that. But every credit card gets paid off at the end of the month. So we don’t have any debt on that, 18% to 20 some percent, whatever it is.
0:06:36
So that’s the first thing you got to do after you stopped living off of credit. And that means probably you’re not going to get to buy stuff. You’re not going to go out and just flash the credit card and get something right now. You’re not going to do that anymore.
0:06:52
And you’re going to start sending money start sending money to the credit people and we’ll talk more about that. That’s when you get to part two is start paying for what you already have. Start paying for what you already have, part two. So when you do that, then all of a sudden you’re taking the money. You’re not going to buy anything new. You’re not going to buy anything on credit. You’re going to take everything you can and start sending it to paying off what you already have because you promised to do it and you got plenty of stuff already.
0:07:27
So this is the advice that you want to get do that. And so you want to get rid of all debt and start paying for what you already have. No new stuff.
0:07:37
Okay?
0:07:39
These are review for the people that were last week on, on this. But anyway, then once you do that and this all works together, you declare a month of living lean. Living lean. When you do that, then it’s the lean month. Then you begin to cut back. And cut back, all right? And we’re not going to spend extra. We’re not going to the movies. We’re not going wherever we go, we’re not going out to eat, not this month.
0:08:08
Okay?
0:08:09
And you can get the whole family, husbands, wife, friends, everybody, relatives, everybody can get on this. But mainly your main family that you live with in your house needs to get on board. Kids. Need to get on board. Kids. This is the living lean month. So no extras this month. And everything that we get that we would have spent at the movies or all that popcorn and stuff is expensive and restaurants and whatever else you do, you’re not going to do it this month.
0:08:39
Okay?
0:08:40
Instead, you’re going to take that money and you’re going to start saving it. You’re going to start holding on to it. And now you have some money, right? And you’re going to put that then towards your debt instead of towards your entertainment or whatever. You’re going to live lean. All right. There’s so much more to talk about this because I got so many of them that I don’t want to spend too much time on one and think, well, I think you probably got it.
0:09:09
And then after that, you get to have the month of living even. Okay, so living even means that after you paid all of your bills, you get to now buy something. All right, so you’re paying off your credit cards and you’ve paid off your monthly bills. This is after you paid monthly. You still probably owe credit, all right? But you’re taking credit cards. But you first had that living lien and you’re taking whatever you can get that month without spending on anything else, just towards just credit cards, okay?
0:09:43
But then you get living even month. And that means this month, the money that we save by living lean, we’re going to buy ourselves something. Now, according to what you got, you may have to go small, but you’re going to get what it feels like to go out and buy something and pay cash. And that’s off your living lean. You’re still living lean, but now you’re going to break even, because now you’ve bought something with money, and it’s yours, and it feels good.
0:10:14
Okay, this is too fast for most people. I need to spend more time on it, but you’ll get the point. All right, so we had the living lead, so you’re taking everything you would have spent someplace else. Everybody participates. We’re cutting back, okay? And no more new movies. You got to do reruns, okay? So just for a month, and then you’re going to get even where you feel like, oh, look, we learned to live Lean. We’ve got some money now that we didn’t spend other places. And you can spend it and do something and pay cash. You don’t use your credit card.
0:10:47
You pay cash.
0:10:48
You buy something, do something special, all right? Then after that, you’re living lean. Then you’re living even. Then we have the save money month. Save money. Okay, now we’re going to get ourselves a little boost because you’re going to pay your bills at the end of the month. And now, though, you’re going to take anything you can, go through the look in the couch for quarters, anything you have that you can, and you’re going to save it.
0:11:20
You’re not going to spend it this month. You got to treat yourself, see the living even. You really shouldn’t have bought anything, really, due to the circumstances. But you just get a boost that. But now, the next month, saving, you got to learn to save instead of spend.
0:11:37
Right?
0:11:37
Save instead of spend. You need to enjoy saving. I enjoy saving, okay? I enjoy it. I like it. I like to be able to do it. I don’t enjoy spending that much. Maybe where I grew up, when I was young, I bought a lot of things for myself, especially after my father died. But even before, I’d buy my own school clothes by the 8th grade, save up money. And I started liking to save, but when I would go and spend, I’d always have second thoughts afterwards. Should I have bought that?
0:12:11
Did I spend too much? I remember I was in the 7th grade and Zion in the 7th grade, they came out with these, know, belts now are about like this. They come with these big belts, and they were just real popular and they had big buckles on them and everybody was wearing them. And I saw one, and it was a pretty nice one. And I went with my own money and bought that belt. But after I bought it, I thought, did I spend too much? Because it was a little more expensive.
0:12:39
Did I spend too much money? Did I do the right thing? Oh, maybe. But you know what? I was in the 7th grade, and after I’d been married, like ten years, I still had that belt. It never wore out. I still had it. And it’s probably here in the house somewhere still as a souvenir to that. But I noticed yesterday we got a big snow here in city, and so I had to go find these big boots, and they’re steel toed, great books, boots, waterproof and everything.
0:13:10
And all of a sudden, I remember I went to the store, the boot store with my daughter Bobbie, and I think Brooke was there. We went and they all bought boots and stuff, more like cowboy boot type things. And I bought these boots, steel toed, super sharp. But I remember afterwards thinking, I think, I wonder if I spent too much money. Maybe I didn’t need them. I don’t know how I got to be that way. So I don’t like spending that much.
0:13:39
I just don’t enjoy on myself. I don’t mind on other people. It doesn’t bother me a bit how much we spend. But the funny thing about it, that was 20 years ago, Zion, that we went and bought those boots, and I looked at them, I pulled them out yesterday and put them on for the snow. They look brand new. I can show them to you. They look like we just bought them out of the store because they just a waterproof steel toe, everything.
0:13:58
They’re great. I enjoy saving more than I do spending. That’d be great for you to just get that going. Learn to save. So we have save money, and if you have kids, family, teenagers, whatever, get them all on board. And I remember I did this with one family once, and they had a bunch of kids and they had a bunch of credit. Know, it’s typical. They had debt and. Hi, Venita. I see you came on. Hi. For those that are on Facebook.
0:14:29
And so I got there together and I don’t have a bunch of kids. And I said, and teenagers start a contest. See, in the family, who can save the most money? Save, cut back, whatever kind of a competition between the kids particularly. And so they had save money month. And let’s see who at the end, especially the kids, came out with the most savings. And so you open a savings account for the family.
0:14:57
Everybody in the family knows you just put money in a savings account. And it was a lot of fun learning to save, and it works.
0:15:03
Okay.
0:15:04
All right, now we want to kind of review this a little bit. How are we doing on time? We doing good, Zion?
0:15:10
Yeah.
0:15:10
Great. And so let’s just go back over. So we’re going to start paying on our credit cards and paying for what we already bought. We’re going to pay the debt, and we’re going to pay for what we already have in our house, and we’re going to start sending all the money we can towards that. All right. Then after that, we’re going to have a living lean month where we don’t do anything. We’re going to live lean. We’re going to cut back, we’re going to learn to cook, and we’re going to learn to eat at home, and we’re not going to go out to movies. We’re going nowhere. Nothing.
0:15:47
Okay?
0:15:48
That’s living lean. We’re going to see how much money we can save that we normally just spend without thinking, or we use our credit card and run up more debt.
0:15:56
Okay.
0:15:56
So we’re going to live lean this month.
0:15:58
Okay.
0:15:59
Then the next month was living even where we say, okay, we’re living lean. We got this money now that we didn’t spend at the movies or the restaurants or whatever, we got this. Is there something we should go buy? Something we should buy for our house or for us or whatever? And we’re going to enjoy paying for it because we got the money that we didn’t spend somewhere else when we lived lean. And then we got down to save money month and everybody gets involved. Let’s see how much we can put in the bank this month and start a savings account this month and learn to enjoy saving.
0:16:35
And like I said, I found the kids. They kind of like that because they want to see how much they can continue month after month to put in there. Kind of like a family contest that you’re doing together. Okay? Now you’ve come a long way. That’s a whole lot of stuff. But now we get to what I call dream day or dream month.
0:16:54
Okay?
0:16:55
And we finally get to dream. And dreaming is important. If you don’t dream, if you don’t think what you want, how will you know when you get it right? So you start dreaming, what kind of life will you have? What kind of stuff, what’s your lifestyle? And you start dreaming, we’re not going to have creditors on our back. We’re not going to have these credit cards that we’re just being scrunched every month, little by little by little, trying to pay all these off.
0:17:21
Now we’re going to dream. And a lot of people, let’s make it simple. They dream of a new car, right? So they dream about it. But now you’re going to work towards it because we’re going to learn how to get a car without going into debt or at least making it a good purchase where you’re paying for what it’s worth.
0:17:41
Okay?
0:17:42
So let’s say you decide to do it and you have to go find now something affordable. Let me tell you about buying cars, okay? Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to go into a place to buy a car, particularly if it’s new, which probably in your case, if you’re debt, you shouldn’t buy brand new. You should buy almost brand new or as much new as you can. But anyway, here’s the things you look for. You’re going to go in the car dealership and they’re going to get in a conversation with you and what they want to know, they’ll ask you, they’ll get you, well, how much do you want your payments to be?
0:18:12
How much can you pay per month?
0:18:13
Okay?
0:18:14
And you tell them, and then they’re going to find something, a way. They’re going to find a way, if they can, to get a car that you like with that payment. Okay, now you’re going out backwards. You don’t want to do that, okay, because you’re going to end up making a convenient payment for you, but the car is going to depreciate as time goes on and you’re going to be paying for more than it’s worth. And so in order to get those payments down to whatever, I don’t know what we should say for that.
0:18:49
So they extend it. And so now you’re paying six years on a car.
0:18:55
Okay?
0:18:55
Six years. Five, six years. Well, by the time you get down, the car is not worth what you still owe after four years. Three and four years. Right. Not worth anything. And then the worst thing can happen, you have an accident or the transmission goes out. Now you have to refinance and get that transmission, a couple of $1,800 on your car payment. Now you’re really paying for something that’s not worth anything.
0:19:21
Okay, so when you go to the car dealership first, skip that. No, I want to know the lowest price. I want to know what this car is worth. Show it in the book or show me on paper, whatever. But I want to know what this car is worth.
0:19:35
Okay?
0:19:36
Right now on the market, I don’t care about payments. I want to know what this car is worth. So then you decide, well, this is a good car. I see what it’s worth. And then the second thing you look for is low mileage. Don’t look for a slick car that makes you look cool. Look for low mileage.
0:19:52
Okay.
0:19:53
So you’re not going to base it on payments. You’re going to base it on what’s it worth. I like it because it’s low mileage. It’s in good shape. Now that I know, let’s say it’s a fairly used car. So just say $10,000. That’s a good price. You can get good cars for $10,000. And let’s say they do that. And you look in the book or whatever and it says, yeah, this car is worth $10,000. Then what you want to do is you want to make sure it’s got low mileage.
0:20:21
Yeah.
0:20:21
And then you want to get your. Listen to this. Okay, so the car dealer, what are they going to do? They’re going to work it. So you get your payments as low as possible. Right. Because it’s like credit cards. Yeah. I don’t have to pay for it now, these tiny payments. What, I can get it for this and be splashing around town in this car? No, here’s what you want to do. And you’ve never probably heard this before.
0:20:45
All right, so you pick the car. What’s it worth? Low mileage. And then you want to pay the biggest amount. Not, I want my lowest payment. I want to make my highest payment. This is the highest I can go. Not the lowest. You’re not looking for low, you’re looking for high, because you want to get that car and you want to pay it off while it’s still worth what it’s worth.
0:21:12
Okay.
0:21:12
You want to pay it off. So I want to give the highest payment I can. Good car. You like? It seems. Well, price is right. Now, here’s the most I can pay, and that’s how much I’m going to do. And I want to pay this thing off, and I do not want to finance it for six years. Finance it for four years.
0:21:31
Okay.
0:21:32
Most people can’t do three, hardly anymore prices, but if you could, it’d be great, especially if it’s $10,000. Can you pay it off in two years? Don’t go for four years. Go for two years or three years, and then you begin to make those payments on that car. And you always want to make sure you’re making a payment on something. That’s what it’s worth. Okay, so then if it’s worth that, then you have some collateral. I mean, you have some money in this thing so that you can go the next car, and you got this car, which is either paid for or it’s worth this much money, and you start the thing over again.
0:22:13
All right, okay. Enough on that. I got a lot of stories on cars. We’re laughing because the time that my daughter wanted a van and vans were a little higher. Yeah, I might as well tell her I don’t know how long, and then we can always pick this up next week, okay? Yeah. So she wanted this van, and so she pulled up at our house and said, dad, I want you to look at this van. It’s new. I want to get this new van. And it was really nice new van.
0:22:45
And we’re driving around. Yeah, that’s good. So I said, well, here, let’s go here. In fact, I think she had me drive it. So I drive it and I go, here, where are you going? Where are you going? Why are you going over here to this other down suburb not far away? And I said, oh, just going to go over here and take a look at maybe what, the other dealer, same kind of dealer. I think it was some kind of Chrysler Dodge play with way back then.
0:23:12
And anyway, I said, just go over here. Oh, look, there’s a car dealership of the same kind, and they’ve got vans just like the one, maybe not the same color, just like this one. So while I’m driving the dealer van, then, and you know what, Zion? You know what? I think? A lot of times they don’t let you go by yourself anymore to drive a new car. The sales guy goes with you. Yeah, but we didn’t then, and it’s not then that long ago.
0:23:41
Interesting. But anyway, let’s pull in here. So we pull into a dealership that sells the same thing, same car, same brand. I pull it in and park it, and then they get out, and they’re trying to figure out, well, that’s not our brand new van. What are you doing here? I said, well, listen, my daughter wants to buy a van. She’s going to buy a van today. And she had great credit and everything. We’re going to buy it today, okay?
0:24:06
And so they say, okay. I said, well, here’s the one she’s going to buy, unless you have one that she likes just as well, same features. Unless you can sell us one of yours cheaper than this one. Well, they all began to scramble and scramble, and in the meantime, the dealer calls on Bobby’s phone. Where are you? What do you think she says, well, I’m here, and my dad pulled into the other dealership in the other town, and he’s sitting here. We’re looking at a van here.
0:24:39
So he says, what? No, you can’t do that. Yeah, we can do that. We’re going to bring this back. So all of a sudden, he scrambles, hangs up the phone, scrambles. We get another call in. We talk to the dealership there, and we get a call, and the dealership, this is what we can think we can do. We’ll beat their price if you can do this. So we’re doing that. In the meantime, the other dealer, which actually we have their van, calls Bobby again, says, here’s what we can do. We can do this. And they lowered the price some more.
0:25:09
So we went and told the dealer where we were know and all their new stuff. Hey, they just lowered this price to this one. And so what should we do? I guess we’ll go back and buy it. Unless you can beat it. Well, at that point, it got to be a little tense with the two dealerships, and at that point, the manager then talked to us, and he called the owner, and the owner was a widowed lady. I knew her last name because of the car dealership.
0:25:37
She was widowed. She actually owned the car dealership. And he told her, this is what’s going on. We want to sell these people a man. But the other place has got really great prices now. And so guess what she did. Zion, do you remember the story? She totally says, I do not want that other dealer to get this sale. I do not want them to be competitive. So she said, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to sell this van to the van they want.
0:26:05
We had to pick one out on the lot. We’re going to sell them this van below dealer cost. They’re never going to be able to beat it, and I’m going to beat them. So we said, okay. So we drove back to the other dealer and said, sorry, they beat your price. They’re selling below. Goodbye. We went back and the same day bought that van below what even the employees get, right? Even what her relatives know, the employees and relatives, special deals they make.
0:26:32
It went below that, and Bobbie got to buy a brand new van below dealer cost because we started a competition between the dealers. I don’t guess they’d let you do that. That probably where they started making people ride with you. They said, we’re not going to ever let this happen in this city again. Okay, so we’ll get through these real quick now. So when you get there and you’ve gone through some of these steps, you’re paying them off.
0:26:58
Living lean, started a savings account, you’re starting to dream. But now what you want to do with your dream, because you need to dream, you need to think, this is where we’re going. Need to tell the family this is where we’re going. Then you’ve got to do one more thing. Learn to wait. One of the most powerful ways to prosperity is learning to wait.
0:27:18
Okay.
0:27:19
You can dream about it, you can think about it, but you don’t tell yourself, we don’t have to have this now. So let’s go through all these steps and work for it and let’s wait.
0:27:29
Okay.
0:27:30
So when you wait and you go through these steps, which I have gone through pretty quick, but you go through these steps and you do this, then now you’re learning to wait because you’re waiting because you’re waiting until you can buy it. You’re waiting until you have more money. You’re going to start using your money. So you’re waiting and we leave out the car. It doesn’t have to be a car. A refrigerator, microwave. They’re cheaper. You want a new microwave, okay, you need one, or maybe you just want one.
0:28:03
Well, now you’ve gone through all these steps. You wait and you keep it going until, hey, guess what? We got enough money now in this counter, in our pockets or whatever, we can go out and buy this thing. Let’s go pick one out and buy it and let’s pay for it. And all of a sudden it feels really good because now you’re getting out of debt and you’re living off your own money, okay? And that’s the key.
0:28:26
Live off your own money. And it’s a little hard at first if you owe credit cards and you’re used to just slapping that card down to go do whatever you want, but now you’re doing. So now wait a minute. There’s one more, I think. Let’s see if I got. I think this is the last one, sort of.
0:28:44
Yeah.
0:28:45
So now what you’re going to do is you’re going to extend yourself a line of credit as though you’re sort of financing yourself. That’s a good way to say it. Okay, so before, how much money were you paying per month towards credit cards?
0:29:05
Okay.
0:29:06
I don’t know, but use that. Take that same amount because obviously you can squeeze and do it. You’ve done it. Take that same amount or close to that amount and start, don’t pay the credit cards, you’re paying them off. Or maybe they’re paid off now after a year’s pass by or whatever. And now you pay yourself. Pay yourself. All right. One of the things is great to do if you do pay your car off in two years.
0:29:34
Wow.
0:29:34
I paid my car off. It’s so good to own this car. Continue to make a car payment to yourself for two more years. Can you drive this thing for two more years? Paid for. If you say yes, say, okay, for two years we’ve been making car payment on this thing. Now it’s paid for because maybe it was a lower, it wasn’t the most expensive car. It was a good buy, though. Now you take the next two years and you pay yourself instead of paying for the car. Car is paid off.
0:30:04
Pay yourself whatever it was, let’s say $200 or whatever. So now you pay yourself $200 a month. How do I know that? Because you can afford it because you’ve been doing it. But now you’re in a paid car. What do you do? At the end of two more years, you take the paid for car. Now you’ve got two years of payments to walk in and deal and make a deal on another car, a better one, and plan it out the same way.
0:30:28
But learn to, waiting is a great way to. I don’t have to have this now, but we’ll dream about it, we’ll talk about it, and eventually we’re going to get it. Then we’re going to extend ourselves some credit. We’re going to start paying ourselves what we used to pay everybody else. If you don’t do that, here’s what’s going to happen. If you’re not used to saving and doing well, what’s going to happen is you’ll pay off your car or whatever. You’re getting your credit cards down.
0:30:53
But then now the credit card is gone, okay? And now the money that you used to spend paying credit cards off, now you’re just spending it and spending it and spending it. And so don’t do that because you’re going to have nothing. And what we want to do is get you in another place. So take and pay yourself and live on that same level for a while, a couple of years, whatever that you’ve been living on, just like your paid credit cards. Now you pay yourself, all right, putting it in a savings account. You know you can do it if you want to.
0:31:23
All right, then what we have then is the last one. Now we want to say congratulations because now you’re going to live in the land of plenty, no bill collectors. Sit back, relax, enjoy what you have, and everything’s getting paid for. And take your friends and family out for pizza. You know why? You can afford it? You can afford it because you now have money. And after you get through this thing, I tell people, the first penny or the first dime, hold up a dime, hold up a dime, hold up a dollar, whatever.
0:31:57
Hold that up because prosperity has begun. That’s your dollar. That’s your money. You don’t owe other people. You paid things off, you got yourself out, and you feel so free. And now prosperity has come in. Because now anything over what you owe, when everybody else is paid, everything’s paid, and you have some money left over, that’s prosperity. You’ve heard me say before, prosperity is not how much money you make, it’s how much money you have left over after you pay everybody else. And now you can pay yourself.
0:32:33
Okay, so then now some time passes and the washing machine dies. What do you do? You don’t panic. You don’t use your credit card. You go and say, well, how much do we have in savings? You’re saving it for things like that. You say, well, let’s do it. Okay, let’s pick this out. Here’s the one. This is a good one. And now we’re going to go and buy it with cash. Because now you are producer. You’re not a consumer. You’re not consuming everything that comes into your life.
0:33:05
Every dollar, you spend it, everything around you, you eat, you entertain, you’re a consumer. No, now you’re a prosperous person. Right? And now you’re a producer. You produce money. You don’t consume it. You produce it by your work, by working. You get paid and then you make your money. Now go to work for you and you’re free of it. Now you can buy stuff on your own. You are an investor. You invest money, you invest your life.
0:33:34
You’re free of all the other things that tangle you up. All right, so that’s what I want to talk about today, is to help you understand that and all the people watching on Facebook Live. Hi. And then all you that are on the podcast, more faith, more life, this is going to work for you. I’d like to tell you more about it. You can go to our website, morefaithmorelife.com, or you can go to stevegrayministries.com
0:33:59
and you can get more involved. We have the book, if you only knew, is now for sale. If you don’t have it, it’s not that expensive. You can get that, and that’ll help you get set of what’s going on in the world. What’s going on in our country when the kingdom comes is still there. My absurd religion is still there. And did we decide last week there’s a CD there you will restore, maybe.
0:34:18
Yeah.
0:34:19
If you’ve never heard any music that I’ve done, you might want to get that. But anyway, you can learn more about this. We got plenty of things you can learn. You can start listening to all the podcasts, Facebook live, and start streaming services from revived church. You can do all that and get this going in your life. I hope it was enough to get you going today and start thinking this is a new year. You can start getting new things done and become prosperous in your life. Is that good? All right, till next time. Bye.
