God’s Plan for Prosperity

0:00:00

I’m so excited about today’s podcast. I’m going to talk about how God wants to prosper you and how you can do it by learning how to buy a car. Don’t miss it. Hey, you got to get the book. If you only knew. A guide for the clueless generation. Politicians are getting it, people in the media are getting it, and you need to get it, too. And by the way, while you’re at it, why don’t you consider a donation towards more faith, more life? Because we’re saying things that nobody else is saying, and we’re helping people through life and faith. So think about donating, but be sure and get this book that everybody else is reading.

0:00:34

Hello, everyone, and welcome again to more faith, more Life podcast. So excited to talk to you today. And also, I want to welcome all my Facebook friends that are following along today and joining us by podcast. So we’ll get all of you together, and we’re going to talk today about the economy and what God’s plan is for you because we’re dealing with a lot of inflation. Do you know what inflation is?

0:00:57

You know the effects of inflation. But just to keep it real simple, it’s just blow up a balloon and it gets inflated and it gets bigger. And so the prices get inflated, so they get bigger, more. So we’re living in a time of great inflation. Right. And you’ll feel it. Well, you won’t feel it so much at the pump because we’re supplying our own guest. We’re eating up our own reserve to keep the price down because it looks better.

0:01:28

I think politically, eventually we got to fill that back up again. And if we don’t, the prices will go back up where we don’t want to see them go. But anyway. But what I want to do, first of all, for your faith portion is get you to understand the plan. I hear a lot today. God’s got a plan for your life. Yeah. But first you got to get the plan by faith into your head and your heart. Okay? Jeremiah 20, 911 for. I know the plans I have for you.

0:01:57

Okay. Now, this is a scripture. Used a lot of graduations. Parents give gifts with this on it because it’s a great scripture. Now, the word you here is plural. So it doesn’t just mean you personally, but it can mean you personally. Okay. I know the plans I have for you. Do you know the plan that God has for you? Says, plans to prosper you. That’s first part of the plan. Not that you would do without, not that you’d learn from the school of hard knocks. Not that you have to learn from all your mistakes. Come on. A smart person learns from somebody else’s mistakes. And the Bible is full of stories, for one thing, that says, learn these, learn from their mistakes. All right?

0:02:43

So the plan is to give you hope, to give you a future. But just, let’s just stay with number one, right? Plan to prosper you. That’s the plan. Now, you got to know how to flow in the plan. You need to get God’s prosperity, how God prospers. Okay? And you got to use wisdom and you got to not use the weapons of this world the way the world does things to get it. So I want to talk to you today as an example and start putting the faith in you of how to do certain things because of what inflation and other things out of control.

0:03:23

But taxes, taxes and inflation. Inflation is going up. Taxes are going up. Okay, let’s talk for a minute. And I want to talk to you as an example of a car. Houses are more difficult because they’re so much more expensive, but cars are expensive, too. So did you know this? Okay, most people across our country talking about in our country, but maybe it’s in other countries, too. They owe 6000. This is average. Average.

0:03:51

The average American owes $6,000 more than his car is worth or their car is worth. Okay. It’s called upside down. Okay, so the car is only worth so much, but you bought it maybe on time, so it turns upside down. You want to get a car, let’s say you pick out a $50,000 car and it’s new and you like it, and it’s got all the stuff that you’d like to have. And so you want that car. And so they say, well, I can put you in that car so you can afford it, right? I’m going to make it affordable to you because I’m going to finance it. And you go, oh, great, it got my financing.

0:04:39

I’m going to finance you for 72 months. So your payments are perfect for you. And guess what, though, then with depreciation, what happens is you end up at the end of that loan paying $80,000 for a $50,000 car that is only worth about half the value when you get done. So what happens? It depreciates. So now you owe more money. This is what upside down. It’s when you owe more money than the car is actually worth or will be worth.

0:05:14

And so that’s up. It’s just people are not going to get ahead that way. And they make the mistake right at the beginning. Let’s see. Repossessions are up. People paying $1,000 a month car payment is unheard of a few years ago, but everything’s inflated. Okay, so you’re going to run into this problem. If you have excellent credit, you’re going to get 10%, 7% interest rate. Or if you got bad credit, it could go all the way up to 25%.

0:05:49

25%. Wow, you’re really paying a lot more than that car is going to be worth. And you better hope it doesn’t break down or fall apart. I’ll tell you a story, person that I helped get out of this mess. But they owned the car. It had a big brand name, so it looked like an expensive car, but it wasn’t because it had 175, 50,000 miles on it. So it was in fair shape, but it was old and it had an expensive name on it.

0:06:23

And it was only worth about $3,000, I think, or something like that, or what? That’s what they owed on it. Went along okay till the transmission went out. Now the transmission is $5,000, what they want because it was a foreign car anyway, I think an OD car. Okay? Now, so what they’re going to do is they’ll say, well, we’ll just tack that on to your payment, or you got to go get another loan to pay for the transmission.

0:06:53

Now, at the end of the day, you’re driving your car, you’re still making the payments that you always made, but now the car you owe is what, like $9,000? You got to pay $9,000 back, but the car is only worth three. Now, you’re way upside down. You’ll never get ahead this way, okay? The way you’re doing it, you’re never going to get ahead. All right? So we got to get you out of that because inflation is going to eat you up.

0:07:26

So what do you got to do? Well, first of all, don’t buy that. Don’t buy a car with a lot of miles on it, and don’t do it just to get your payments down to where you want it, okay? Because you’re going to end up paying a lot more than it’s worth, and you’ll never get ahead. You’ll always be upside down. Okay? So now we got to get out of that. I have many times I’ve taught people how to do it. One thing you could, when the car transmission went out, you could try to sell it and to some auction, dealer junk, whatever, get what you can out of it. Try to get 3000 maybe and try to get whatever you can out of it. That’s one thing you can do. And then get out. You’re free, okay.

0:08:12

And not add that 6000 or whatever transmission cost on there. Just don’t do it. The other is if you have that car and you got an upside-down situation is try to sell it as quick as you can and get as close to what you owe out of it and pay it off as fast before that transmission goes out or some electronic thing that’s really expensive because you don’t have a warranty anymore. Try to pay it off as fast as you can. Do whatever you can. You owe 3000, 4000.

0:08:42

Get out and have that car paid for. That would be the best to start. Okay? But more faith, more life and all my Facebook friends, I want to tell you just a little bit about what I would do, which I may, I may buy something in the next couple of years. Who knows? But what I would do. And so the first thing is not to make the mistake, the very first mistake that people make when they walk on a car lot and the guy’s waiting for them or the gals waiting for them, they come out, they talk to you, you got a car? Yeah, I want to buy a car. And the first question they’re going to ask you is what?

0:09:19

What do you want your monthly payment to be? Right. That’s what they want to find out because they can get you in a car for your payment or close to it, a car you’ll like. But then that payment, remember, it extends out so far to keep your payment down and it goes so long that you’re going to end up owning a car that you’re still making that high payment when you bought it new. But it’s not going to be worth that much and you’ll be upside down, okay. And you can’t get out of it by just repeating the process, going, trading in, doing it again.

0:09:55

So first thing, you walk on the lot. They say, how much do you want your monthly payment to be? You never answer that question. Don’t answer it. You know why? That’s none of their business. You’re there to buy a car, not to talk about payments. That’s not their business. Another one, another question they get, well, do you have a trade? Do you plan to trade in what business? That’s none of their business either.

0:10:23

Not at this point. Trade in? No, that’s not why I’m here. I’m not here to talk about my finances. I’m not here to talk about my car? I’m here to talk about your cars. And then another thing you don’t want to do is reveal that you have already money for the down payment. You already got your financing down payment, or you’re going to pay cash or you’re going to pay a whole lot down on it. That’s all great.

0:10:51

But again, that’s none of their business. Not now. Right. What is their business? Right. Their business is to tell you how much that car cost and then you got to figure out how much did they pay for it and how much can they discount it for you? A lot of times they’ll discount it if you’ll finance it through their company. So you got to make sure how much are you going to find? How much discount. I need a good discount if I’m going to use your company.

0:11:22

All right. So those are the mistakes that people make and they set themselves up because they know you want that car now. They’re going to make sure you get it, but it’s not a good deal. All right. I would suggest, too, that you lean back a little bit because car prices have inflated, like 36% in the last couple of years. 36%. So the same 2019, you could have bought some truck new. Now you’ll pay 36% more now new.

0:11:59

So you might be better to go back and find a low mileage. 2019, 2020, got low mileage on the same truck. A lot of them are still the same. They haven’t changed much over the last couple of years. Some have get the mileage down and get the cost down. Right. How much are you willing to pay for that one? But anyway, let’s see what else. I want to tell you, though. What else? I wrote down some things here.

0:12:28

Okay. So another thing, though, that you want to be aware of. So you go on the parking lot or you go on the car lot. Right. Something that you want to ask them. How long? Here’s the car you want to buy. How long has that car been sitting on the lot? Some years ago, I think before the pandemic or whatever, during it, a new car might be on the lot a week, ten days. Now we have cars sitting on car lots now 90 days.

0:13:02

60 to 90 days. Well, that’s important to them because the fact that it’s been sitting there for so long means nobody’s that interested. And they’re paying money for that car to sit there. So you want to realize that one could be a good deal. They want to get it off the lot. So keep that in mind. I forgot to tell you that part, okay? Because remember, the whole thing is God’s plan is for you to prosper.

0:13:31

It’s not God’s plan for you to have that car. You can only have that car if it fits the prosper plan. And it’s going to take faith to do things differently, to not have to buy the car right now, to not have to have that car right now and play this God’s way so you can stay prosperous. All right? So I want to encourage you of a new way that I did. I’ve bought two nice vehicles online. I didn’t go to the lot now. One time I went to the lot just to check it out.

0:14:07

I wanted to drive it. It wasn’t the one I was going to buy. I just want to drive the brand. So if you want this truck or whatever, say, well, I just want to test drive it. And if you say you like it, then go to the Internet, okay, and let’s go to the Internet with it. The reason why is you skip all of the techniques and tricks of the Parking of the car lot where they want to know your payments, all the stuff we’ve already talked about.

0:14:33

All you want to know is the cost of the car. You just shop and shop and shop everywhere and find the cost of the car. Now, don’t be too afraid to go out of your boundaries, because both cars, I bought one. I’m in Kansas City. I bought one in Texas, and I bought one in Meridian, Mississippi. And both of them, of course, the one in Meridian, Mississippi, still running. We still use it for the ministry now.

0:15:01

And so I found out what I drove around in town, found out that’s pretty much what I think I want. And I couldn’t find one anywhere. They were all sold out everywhere until I found one that was perfect for me. We were looking for in Meridian, Mississippi. Right. We’ll think how I got to get it so far away. I paid two or $300 and got it shipped up here. Yeah, possible. And it was private. It wasn’t the dealership. I said, get this guy did the same thing, bought a car in Texas, found some friends down there that were coming this way, and they drove the car up here. I don’t know they asked for any money here. I don’t think they did because they’re good friends.

0:15:44

But they were good friends. But anyway, so don’t forget online because you skip all the car lot stuff. You say, this is what I want to pay. This is what I will pay because this is what the car is worth. Find out what it’s worth. But you might want to drop back and check. Let’s say you’re going to buy a 2020, find out what that car was worth in 2020, brand new, because they may have escalated that price up. You’re actually buying a used vehicle that’s inflated since then.

0:16:17

And so you want to go back and realize they probably didn’t pay that price or it’s not really worth that. You want to pay what it’s worth, get as close as you can, ask for discounts, and then it’s time for you to decide what your monthly payment is going to be. Right. You decide based on that car, is it worth it for you? And try to keep it out of the 72 month, 60 month, try to keep it in the four, how many months is four years, Zion?

0:16:50

Yeah, 48. Thank you. If you can do 36 months on a fairly new car, you’re doing good. Try to keep it no past 48. Set that as your goal said. Listen, I can’t pay for this more than that because with inflation, it’s going to go upside down on me. So I want to get something that I can afford and it’s not going to go upside down. And it’s still going to be worth that in three years or four years for me to then sell it. Don’t trade it if you can sell it for what it’s worth. And now you’re starting to get right side up. Right.

0:17:24

So there’s so much more on this, and I’m only using cars as an example. But you don’t have to have it now. You’re the boss. It’s your money. Get your finance set up if you can, ahead of time. Yeah. If you have good credit and then you already know what you’re going to pay. You know what you can afford. If that thing’s too expensive, walk away. It may have been sitting on their lot for 90 days. They may come back and give you a quick call, which did happen to me with the vehicle I drive. Now, that’s kind of what I said. How am I doing on time?

0:17:57

We do it on good stuff because. Yeah, that’s basically what I wanted to say today is about these Zakar’s examples. Okay. Now you can use that for anything because you don’t want to finance, we talked before using other people’s money. You can finance yourself if you want to. So save up the money if you can. If your car is paid for, pay yourself for a couple of years if you can wait, right? Oh, yeah. One big question I put at the top of the paper.

0:18:29

Why are you buying a car? Why? Because that’s in today’s inflated prices. You don’t want to be silly. I’m buying a car just because I like cars. I think I would look good in that car. I want to pick up girls or guys or I want to be impressive. I want to show that I’m prosperous. When you’re struggling to make your payments, but you want to look like you’re not. Okay, so why are you buying this? Well, I need one, and that’s the best reason we need to. It’s a good plan before this car gives out and it has some value still to it, I want to sell it.

0:19:02

Don’t trade it. I want to sell it. And I’ll give blessed. Maybe bless somebody else with a few less dollars and they’ll bless me by me getting more than I would at the dealership. Anyway, everybody gets blessed then I take that cash then. Now, I know I have this money and I know how much I want to pay, but they don’t know how much I want to pay. So I want to buy a car based on what it’s worth and can I afford to pay for that car? If it’s worth and if can’t, don’t buy it. You don’t want to end up inflating your own payments just so you can have a car that you’re going to be upside down on later.

0:19:38

So, so many people are upside down in their cars. So I wanted to share that with you and get out more if you can. If you need more correspondence, send us something. Say, hey, I really appreciated that, but I don’t know what to do about this. Maybe we can answer that and help you out a little bit. You might consider, too, of course, this whole thing, when we say God knows his plan, his plan is to have God in your life. That’s the plan.

0:20:03

So this doesn’t work if you’re not going to plan on that, right? I know. The plans God has is to prosper you. So start acting like he’s going to prosper you. Stop thinking like a poor person. Right? Stop thinking like a poor person. You get something for nothing. Oh, I can drive that car and I only have to pay $100 a month. Yeah, for how long? Till it dies or you’re upside down and you’ll never get out of that that way.

0:20:28

All right. So I hope you learn how to do this. Do this. Just discipline yourself. Why are you buying the car? Then go get a good deal and let God continue to prosper you. Till next time. Bye.