His or Her money | Transforming Finances in Marriage

All right, what's up, everybody? So good to be with you guys today for another episode of Doing Life with Ken and Tabitha. I'm Ken and this is Tabitha. Hopefully you guys know that. Did you expect me to jump in there? Yeah. Hey, 23 years of marriage has been the best 21 years of our lives and two years was absolutely horrible. We got ourselves together. We did. And now we're able to share some principles of success and also failure. And we just want to say what's up, everybody. Y'all tuning in, listening. We love you guys. Thank you so much for all of your comments and your feedback. We love to hear from you. If you're new to our episode, make sure that you hit the subscribe button so that you can be the first to get the content as it is released. We release a new episode every Thursday at 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, United States of these God-blessed Americas. But before I get there, I wanted to take a moment just to invite our audience out to a live conference. And so every year in October, the second week in October, we have a special conference that we call a live conference. And this is what we say that these three days could change the next 30 years of your life. Our goal is to try to give people at least four times the amount that they invested in a ticket. We're going to have seven main sessions this year, six master classes, three after parties, but one encounter with God. And I believe that one encounter with God is what it's all about. It's so good. AC 23, you know, there are certain things that we do every year, like as believers, like I fast. I do like major fast a couple times a year. You know, sometimes there's certain books of the Bible. I'll study, you know, there's a word of the year, but then something else that we do every year. And that is a conference. AC 23 is that conference. It's that encounter, like you're saying, where you just like Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, all day, every day. You are like enveloped in the presence of God, just daring to go beyond your own personal boundaries. It is amazing. And we're going to be doing a special session on marriage there. It's going to be Ken and Tabitha unfiltered. So you really, what is that like? You got to come. We're already unfiltered. If you're interested with getting more information about our conference, check out the website, mylifechurch.org. And you can also check it out in the show notes. I think there's a link to that as well. You got to get your tickets now because it is going to be a sold out event. And so what's up, sweetheart? You feeling good today? I'm feeling good today. I'm excited to share today. I think this is going to be a blessing to people. And you know what I'm excited about? You said a little bit is that we have so much fun when we do this, but we've been getting feedback. And it sounds like some of you are having just as much fun listening as we are speaking. And so that is just such a blessing. I'm so happy about that. And we do believe that caring is sharing and sharing is caring. And so if you enjoy today's content, like, subscribe, share, comment, all that good stuff. Yeah, it lets us know that it is okay. Today's topic or segment is called his money, her money, his money, her money. And I guess we got one major goal today. And it's to help those of you all who are married, look at his money and her money as our money. And we had to make that transition years ago. And it's probably one of the best things that we've done. Can you talk about that at all? Oh, yeah. I mean, it's just, you know, when the two become one, really become one and everything like one flesh. You know, we have kids. It's not your child or my child. It's our child, right? If you have a problem, it's not your problem. It's our problem. Let's work on this baby. We're going to do this together and same. It's the same with our finances. So I mean what you're talking about is teamwork teamwork and you're talking about the two becoming one. And so but why is that when it comes to money? Why do you think that is? I think it's just society in the world that we grow up in, you know, we're taught to earn and to make and you know, we want to achieve and be successful. I also think that you know, the Bible says that the love of money is the root to all evil. Some people get that's a real test to see whether you love money or not. If you're married is to say is this both of our money or is this mine and yours? Well, it reminds me of a scripture that says where a man's treasure is. That's where his heart is also and so sometimes the reason that people keep their money separate is because the heart is not all the way there yet because you know, I learned years ago that if you follow where a person puts their money you can follow what they really love. Yes, and so when the husband and wife become one one way that we know that we really love one another and like we're all in is that we don't have these separate things. It's our money. My treasure is in you right everything I have and so it's not just that you took my last name. It's just that what got us placed together. Let no man put us under so good. Yeah, you know as you were talking I was thinking about like if you were to look at my bank statement. Since see where my treasure is see where my heart is. It's like in Target and the grocery store and Amazon because I my heart is with you taking care of my house and my family. My heart is with my children. Like I have to all day every day. I'm like I was going to say what do I have to do with talking at Amazon baby? I get the toilet paper for you. I get the groceries for you. I get the paper towels for you your socks. I get them for you. Like that's where my heart is. I actually need some more socks and I have needed more socks for quite a bit of time. I feel working on it, honey. Okay, the divorce rate is 50% in America 50% of people who say I do eventually will say I don't one of the main problems that people are facing our financial hardships and financial constraints and shortage and so forth and so on. And so it's not just our money. It's also how do we manage our money? And I think those are some of the principles that I want to share on today are things that we can do to take some of the financial pressure off of us. And so for us when we first got married, we've been married for 23 years about to be 24 years. And when we first got married, we had tons of financial debt and financial shortage. The first year of our marriage, our combined income was about $10,000 a year. The first home that we lived in was $350 a month in rent and I could barely afford that. I remember the first apartment we got when we moved from West Virginia to Washington DC area was a one-bedroom apartment with roaches and mice and man. It was just like I always had more month than money. I remember waiting for the first of the month, you know, the first of the month wake up wake up just so that we could get food just so that we could handle certain things. You know, we needed government assistance and thankfully that's where we were. That's not where we are. We didn't stay there. God taught us principles of stewardship and living beneath our means and how to debt snowball. And I just think that I want to share some of those things with people today. Yeah. Now, there's a lot of products that you can go. For example, Financial Peace University, which is a Dave Ramsey product. There's a lot of financial gurus out there. We don't claim to be a financial guru, but we do love Jesus and we do have a testimony and there are some things that will work for anybody who works and I think that's what I want to share with people today. And so talk to me. So when back in the day, did you feel a bunch of pressure financially? Honestly, I didn't I didn't feel the pressure. It wasn't, you know, it was something that I think I don't know back then there were other things that I was working on. Honestly, so you were working on cleaning up our finances. I was depressed. I was working on overcoming depression. And so I knew that there was financial pressure because I had constraints. Maybe I couldn't buy the things that I wanted to buy. I couldn't, you know, go the places that I wanted to go. So I felt it but it wasn't as heavy compared to other things that I was focused on. I kind of feel like our personalities are different and I feel like you can do a thing when you can be like out of sight out of mind. For example, when you were when you were in a sorority, what was your line name? Comatose or something. Yes, it was comatose. Where did you get that from? Because I'm thinking like because back in the day, not now, but back in the day, you had this ability to almost compartmentalize life. And like if you were dealing with depression or something else, it didn't matter that the bills wasn't paid. I mean, I didn't care. Yeah, you didn't care. I mean, you literally can turn off stuff. My personality is different. I care and I see every single detail and I care about where it's going. I have a plan. I have a strategy so forth and so on. And so when it came to that question, it kind of feels like you were more like, you know, your credit was bad. I mean, it was like 500 something, you know, you owed people but you probably just didn't care. Yeah, I mean I cared but I wasn't even educated enough to know how important a credit score is. Like I didn't even know and so a lot of it ignorance is bliss. They say a lot of it is because I was just ignorant. Okay, but I think it's a gift. I think to be like, okay. Well, this is over. This is either going to stress me out to the max or I'm just going to not care about it and I'll deal with it when I get to it because I have so many other things on my plate and I think that was more my attitude. Yeah. Well for us, I thank God for you who did care. Well, yeah, I remember years of me trying to improve your credit score, years of me. I remember pulling all of your credit reports. Thank you, babe. You were so helpful. I remember, remember you tried to get a job at the rental car place and you couldn't get a job because your credit wasn't good enough to get a job. So we fixed my credit and then I got the job, but then I took another job. Yeah, but it wasn't as simple as that. I actually, the way I fixed it was by paying off what you owe the credit card. Oh, you did? Which actually is part of the reason that we struggled. I never even knew that. I know. So let it all come out right now. And so that was the pain in our marriage. It was almost like you had this whole world and you're dealing with something, but I'm like, take, and that's why it doesn't matter who you marry. Absolutely. I always tell people, hey, you know, check their credit report before you start dating somebody, you know, check, check their credit score, find out what kind of debt you're going to marry into. Because I took all of your financial weight on me, you know, because the two have become one. And I know that there's a lot of people out there that might be are doing the same. And then, you know, people nowadays, like we got married young, they get married a lot older and maybe, you know, they kind of got this two separate thing going on. But I don't know. I just think it's important for married people to have a financial strategy and a financial plan and financial goals and financial agreement and all of that kind of stuff because it's so important to the marriage. And I found that, I mean, I'm thankful that you didn't just like quit, give up on me and just allow like you helped me, like you really stepped up and helped me with my credit because obviously I didn't know how to do it. Right. And so thank you for doing that. But I think that's that's for someone like if your gift, if you're strong in the finances, step up and help the other person, male or female, just step up and help and not be frustrated. Don't just leave, but help. You know, and I'll add this balance to it just because some of our audience are getting new to you and to us all together. That's not who you are as a person. You're a very detailed person. Matter of fact, you're probably a better manager of money now than I would be because you you use technology. Now we're talking 25 years. We're talking a long, long time ago. And from your upbringing coming out of a place of poverty, coming out of a place where you did not see people steward money. Well, you had no clue of anything. I had a business background. My dad taught me a lot about, you know, managing money. And so I was able to help for that season. And it's kind of like now, you know, since those 20 years ago, you can kind of take it in and run with it and do what you do. And so now I'm happy to announce that your credit score is last time I checked it, 840. And I didn't even know a credit score could go that high. I honestly didn't. Yeah. So it's like 840. And so, you know, we haven't had credit cards 15 years. We live a blessed life. It's not we're not Bill Gates or nothing like that, but God's been good. And so we want to share some of those principles to help a married couple who is just where we used to be. Yeah. Or maybe you have a lot of money, but you're still have financial pressures. Yeah. And so here's some things that we did. And I kind of put down 10 things. Are you ready? Number one, we don't have his money, her money. We have our money. Yeah. And so we kind of hit that one already. Is there anything else you want to add to that? No, I would say just strategies and like, well, how do we make it our money? You know, because there's natural things like, you know, if I get a check in my name or, you know, their savings accounts, checkings accounts and, you know, like all of this stuff. But literally what we do is we have a joint account and that's where all of our money comes to from the most part, you know, like our paychecks go into our joint account. But then you have a private account. I have a private account. You have a private savings. I have a private savings and there's just certain things that we do with the, you know, like my my account. Like I put money in there. Honestly, right now money goes to that private account because our daughters eight who's about to turn 18. Her account is connected to my account. And so she basically withdraws all the money from my account, you know, and so I don't know. There's savings accounts. There's like budgets like, you know, we used to at one point we would take when we were budgeting. We take a lump sum of money and we would put it in my to my private account because that was the money that was allocated for groceries, for diapers and things like that. So you can just be creative and, you know, how you manage his and hers and how you bring it together. But there should be one pot where, you know. Well, yeah. I mean, I think you're talking about the spirit behind it. Then you're talking about the practicality. Yes. Thank you. Spirit behind it is that there is no mine and there is no yours. It's only ours now. Practically. It's not exactly what you said. So our money is deposited in your account is deposited in my account, but we see all of the accounts together. So basically, even though I have a separate savings and you have a separate savings, it's still the same login. Like we can still see the same thing. Yeah, we see everything. So if we ever need to transfer money. So the only reason that we have separate accounts is because you might steward the groceries, etc. Etc. And I might steward something else. So we're basically bringing it all together and then putting it out into these different things that take care of the kids and our responsibility. It gets complicated. Businesses and things like that. It gets complicated, but it can be done. Right? So anyway, the principle is that it's it's it's our money. So number two, this is also what we did. We started living beneath our means. Okay. We just made a decision that we're not going to spend more than what we make. Okay, and so before that there was seasons where there would be something that you we really wanted to buy and we would either put it on a credit card or we would do something. We basically would extend ourself and that's all that is overextending yourself and there comes a place where you just got to say, no, I'm not going to do that any longer. So one of the things I'm most excited about or proud about would be that we have not had a personal credit card. Yes, and probably 15 years more, you know, you stop counting after a while. Yeah, which is problematic when it comes to rent in the car. Yeah, they want to take off a big deposit on your debit card and I don't have a problem having a business credit card, but we haven't had even that. It's just like I've been okay over the last 15 years with cash and debit card so forth and so on. Because we had so much credit debt. I just was like I want to deal with it. I'm looking at a business card now, but it's it won't have a balance. I'll pay it off every single time. Right, but that's one thing you have to do is live beneath your means and I think that was a big deal for I mean that was major for us to just not to not use credit. And if we were going to buy something, let's do cash now, you know, we have home loans and things like that. But other you know, your everyday things like buying furniture, like no, I'm not going to the furniture store and you know, financing the couch. We did all that. We did all of that and they finance the bed, but they hit you with that no interest for 12 months or 24 months. But then if you go to 25 months, all of the interest comes due right from the previous 12 months. It's a trick and we just we just felt like if we can't buy it, we don't need it almost and I think that was golden. Even today. I'm telling you every store I go to there. I mean, it's annoying to me. Would you like to put this on your credit card? You know, like no, no, no, no, no. Well, if you do it today, we'll give you 50% off. No, no, no. No, I don't want credit like, you know, but you can have like 10 20 credit cards. If you just take, you know, you just keep accumulating back in the day. I got credit cards because I lied, you know, I was in college and they, you know, on the application. They say, how much money do you make? Wow, I'll be like, well $40,000 and they sent me like a $13,000 and they didn't check it. They just said this 18 year old kid in college makes $40,000 a year and then they sent you a credit card pretty much. That's how it went happen. That's how I got into so much debt, you know, and I was kind of robbing Peter to pay Paul and I was paying minimal monthly balances with other minimum. That's crazy. And then I married someone who I had to help her and so that's how it happened. I told the truth and they gave me a $500 credit card and I maxed that out. I had a $13,000 credit card in college $13,000 limit. Wow, I thought I was rich with $500. So anyway, the principle is live beneath your means and anything come to your mind practically about how people can do that because I think it's easier said than done. But how do you live beneath your means? To say no to something you have to say no to some things and then all you know, and there's a few different things that come to mind. First of all, you have to say no to like every birthday party every wedding traveling like every summer to family reunions and you know, like you it's cost money to get a plane ticket to go. There's a hotel room like all of these things add up and so people feel like they have to yeah, but you don't really want to get your finances in order. You don't have to say no. Yeah, something meaning that some people are going to have a problem with you, but you're saying no today so that you can say yes tomorrow. Absolutely and our marriage and just just taking the pressure off of our marriage was worth it for me. What that brings me into point number three, which is just stop buying thing. Oh, yeah stop by because at some point so the principle of number two was like you got to learn to say no and this principle would be like you just got to stop like stop buying things. You don't have to have a new car. You don't have to have a new computer. You don't have to have a new phone. You don't have to have new clothes. You would like it right, but you don't have to have it right. But I think that when people live in that they feel like they have to have it and they make up it was like in my mind. It felt like man if I can just do this this will help me get better. This will help me get to where I want to go. Yeah, and I think it's a setup and yeah, you don't have to have anything and I don't know. Kind of like it goes back into living beneath your means is just it does we get used to a certain level and the problem is if you're living at a level that you can't afford you got to back it down. Yeah, you might not have to say okay. I'm never going to go shopping again. But instead of shops shopping at Nordstrom, you might want to shop at Macy's you might want to shop at Target. You might want to shop at the Goodwill. Yeah, I mean shop at thrift stores. Yeah shop online have some secondhand stuff play those closet. You can put the baby in the corner for a minute or you can have a two-bedroom and rent one, but I don't want any roommates. Okay. How much do you really want to get out of debt? How much do you really want financial success? And so there is a thing where we just stop buying a number four would begin would be we began to live on a budget. We began to live on a budget and I remember having the spending envelopes back in the day. I remember. Oh, I did not like those spending envelopes the spending envelopes for they were pressure for me. Well, basically what it was it was saying that this is how much money you have for the month in a certain area for groceries or for clothing and you put the actual cash in an envelope and once the money out of the envelope was spent. You didn't have anything else and it was almost just a way to make sure that you held yourself accountable not to overextend but why didn't you like those? I don't understand. I don't know. It made me nervous to have the money, you know, like in my hands and and what I found is that like, okay. So I spend the grocery budget, right? The there's no cash left in the grocery envelope. Well now I got to go into the household the cleaning supplies envelope so I can get money out of there and it was just stressful for me, but we did it. Yeah. Well, I'm not even saying it's the best way to do it. Yeah, but what I am saying is that that's how important living under budget. What you're saying is that we did what we had to do to get out of debt. That's what I hope people are hearing that you got to do what you got to do. We didn't like it at the time, but we were going to try it. Yeah, because we needed help, right? And so everybody needs a budget. Yeah. Okay, and we will probably suggest like a zero based budget meaning that you get every dollar in assignment. So even if you have a hundred dollars left at the end of the month give that hundred dollars in assignment to a savings account or somewhere meaning that every dollar that comes in your house. It needs to get allocated somewhere. You need to know because you know, the crazy thing is there are people who are struggling financially and they spend hundreds of dollars a month at Starbucks and don't know it or they spend hundreds of dollars a month eating out and don't know it. They spend hundreds of dollars a month. What I'm saying is just not Starbucks. It's basically they're wasting money and they could make coffee at home and have margin or they could say I'm going to make me a sandwich instead of eating out for lunch. I mean, there's so many little things that you can do and but you won't know it if you don't have a budget and so you can just Google, you know how to do a budget.com. I think you know as we progressed we started doing QuickBooks and you kind of oversaw QuickBooks and thankfully now we're able to have bookkeepers and people that will help us because God knows we're too busy to kind of look at everything. Yeah, but I enjoyed having like QuickBooks. You were good at it too because it would just put everything in order. It helped us to organize everything and I liked giving our money an assignment. Yeah, you know, like this is everything that we have. This is the Lord's and I'm going to steward it properly Lord. What what do you want us to do with this extra hundred dollars? My bookkeeper right now? He's using every dollar every dollar is an app. I'm it's been a really good product. He's kind of introduced it to me and I'm kind of just helping us manage money and it's a Dave Ramsey product nice, but it's called every dollar and I think mint.com was some people like that for a while. I wasn't able to get them on customer support. Like you can never get them on the phone or things like that, but it's a pretty good program. But the every dollar seems to be working pretty well for us, but there's all kinds of apps and programs to really help. You know where your money's going. Absolutely. I mean nowadays. I mean you like our every dollar is connected right to our accounts. So it automatically downloads and now my bookkeeper can move money around in it by the end of the month. It's like you overspent on groceries or you did this or why did you you didn't tell me you were going to do that? I mean, it's so good, you know, but you don't need a bookkeeper for that. You can actually any person can do that. If they have the time to do accountability. Yeah, that's great. Number five would be we stopped making everyone else's emergency our emergency. We stopped making and this is huge. Yes, sir. Okay, especially for the newly married people because many married people feel such an obligation to mom to dad to grandma to their brothers their siblings, right? I know that you felt that way. Absolutely, you know coming out of where you came out of you felt like an obligation to take care of your younger brother and sister like what will they do without me right? And then we kind of come over into a mindset where we're handling everybody else's problems, but we're not even taking care of ourselves. And what I learned over the years is that if we can get ourselves together, I will be in a much better position to really be able to help everybody else. Absolutely. Can you talk to me about that at all? Yeah, I feel like you know, sometimes we can be a crutch for people when we want to step in and be, you know, and rescue people when they're in bad situations. But honestly, if we looked at back at the situation, we see that God isn't even helping them in this situation, right? You know what I mean? God is not stepping in because God is waiting for them to do something. Yeah, let me unpack that for a minute because that's a realization that many times we try to meet needs that God isn't meeting. There you go. And it's not that God doesn't see it or want to meet the need. Sometimes he doesn't meet the need because he's trying to build character in them. Yeah, and then what we do is we put our little God hat on and we step in front of God and we come and start paying people's bills without even consulting God. Yeah, you know, and it's so true. Yeah, and I think in that area as well, we have to, you know, we have to be okay with saying no to family and friends. If somebody asks us for money and they say no to us and we feel bad because we know that we have the money and we might not want to give it to them. And I think that what we said earlier is like all of our money has an assignment, right? Okay, so that it's going to savings. It's going to different places. And so I don't have any money that's just lying around idle. Like, well, what do I do with this? No, because I'm a good steward over my money. And so if somebody comes and asks me for something now, I am weighing. Okay, if I have it to give to you, okay, then fine. I'm going to give it to you. But if I don't and I need it now, I need to dip into my savings or I have to go and dip into my kids Christmas gift fund. I need to go in and now, you know, my kids, I'll take in, I'll go into there where, you know, they need to get clothing. So I'm going to take a little bit out of their clothing. That's where, no, I'm not going to do that because I have to take care of my own responsibilities as well. Now, things that we've done in the past is, you know, we don't lend people money, right? Like, okay, I'm not going to lend you anything, but I'll give this to you without expecting anything back. And why is that? There's a scripture in the Bible that says, what does the Bible say about lending? It says, don't be a surety for a friend or a neighbor, which so don't cosign, don't, yeah, don't do those kind of things. And so, but also what we found is that it creates this thing in the relationship that can get toxic. It's like, you owe me something and we don't want to go there. I kind of would rather just give it to you. Yeah. So here's the principles that we, we don't give people loans and we don't cosign for people, right? And I don't, it doesn't matter to me the need. Well, I can't believe it. What if it's your son or daughter? Are you going to cosign? Well, I mean, that's a little bit different. I mean, I'm still not in the cosigning business. Okay. I'm just saying. I don't know. What would you do? I know people who have cosigned for their adult. Oh, you talking about adult children? No. Yeah, I mean, because you can't cosign, a minor can't do anything, but they're adult children. They cosign for their adult children. These children went and wrecked their houses. They wrecked their cars and they leave it, you know, for their parents to take care of. Like, okay. So in that regard, no, absolutely, 100%. No, heavens no. No. And that kid can be like, well, I'm gonna get, I'm gonna go to prison or I got this going on or that's, you made that bed. You gotta lie in it. Absolutely. And I'm going to come pray for you and visit you in prison and bail you out if the Lord leads me to do that. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. I know you're being funny, but it's real. No, because people need to know that they can say no. Yeah. They feel such an obligation to be pulled into other people's toxicity, pulled into other people's drama. And one of the keys to financial success or success period is learning how to say no and to draw healthy parameters. Like, that's your drama, but it's not mine. I love you though. And I'm here for you and I'm praying for you. And just because I don't want to take what I've worked hard for and give it to you doesn't mean I don't love you. Yeah. And so the relative of the friend can be like, oh, see, you got so much money and you don't want to do this and you don't want to, you can judge me all you want to. Absolutely. But my money is not my money. My money belongs to God now. But here's the thing that I will put as the overarching thing. I'm going to do whatever God tells me to do. Exactly. So it doesn't matter if it's kids, budget, whatever. You can be like, no, I prayed about it and I don't have a piece with it. If the Lord tells me to do something, I'm going to go do it. I don't think you're on the page that I'm on. You're saying something different. What I'm saying is that I'm going to do whatever God tells me to do with my money. It doesn't matter where it is. I was thinking of your response because people, especially family members, they will come and make you feel guilty for not. Well, you have all this money, you know, and all of this. And so my response is, oh, you know, I've prayed about it. And no, I don't want to do that. Like, you know, you can just very boldly say no, right? Yeah, it's very good. Very good. And so we don't make other people's emergencies our emergencies because I just don't believe I'm God. And I believe that I want God to be God. I want to be Ken. I want you to be Tabitha and I want God to be God. So that doesn't mean that I'm not moved with compassion. It doesn't mean that my ear is not attentive to whatever God tells me to do. It just means that I'm not going to make your drama mind. And it doesn't mean that we don't give. I mean, we give all the time. Well, actually, we actually have a portion that we just set aside for those kind of things, right? Right, because we want to help people. Yeah, but there are people who just suck the life out of you. They will leech and just suck. Yes, and you help them one time. They're coming again and again and again. And it's like, no, you have to say no to that. Number six would be we began to communicate regularly about our budget and we appointed one of us as the money manager. Yeah, and sometimes it's been me that's been the point person for managing money. Sometimes it's been you. Then it will come back to me. Then it will go back to you. And so the point is that we began to communicate regularly. So we have a thing called family meetings. And those of you all who are new to our show, we have an episode called how to have a family meeting. It is a once a week or every other week meeting where it's like we bring everything that we need to talk about sex, parenting, intimacy, finances. And in that meeting, we talk about money. Now, sometimes it's more detailed than other times. But if we're doing it at the highest level, it's basically this is what we have. This is what we're going. These are the investments we're making. Do you have anything that you want to say to it? I guess what I'm saying is I do not believe that the person who manages the money should manage it and keep the other person out of it. Right. Because once again, it's our money teamwork right now. I have the responsibility of managing it. Let's say that it's me, but I still need to be accountable to you for our money. So this is how it's going. This is where we're winning. This is where we're losing. Would you like to speak into it at all? And that's how we go about. But I think complete communication is important. Then we're on the same page. We know what to pray for. And so the last thing I want is for you to be doing the finances, but you carrying all the weight of it, right? No, we can we can carry this together together and we can pray about this together and we can combine, you know, our experiences and our intellect to be able to be able to come up with solutions. And also think it's important to not be able to just go off and haul off and buy whatever you want to buy just because you are the manager. Now, that's good. Yeah, like you got some guys. They have a midlife crisis and they won't go get him a Corvette and didn't tell the wife that he won't go get a Corvette or she want to go on an all-girls trip. You know, we still we use those principles where I would call you if it was over like maybe a hundred dollars. Yeah, in the past. I mean, we're bringing up way. We're bringing up really old stuff. Things that people, you know, what those principles we still use them in some ways because I was just thinking about this that it's maybe like a month or two ago. I wanted to buy a bike because I can't not that I can't run but you know, my knees I want to protect my knees. And so I've been a runner my whole life and I'm looking for something else like running and so I want to go out and buy a bike and now my friend. She's a biker. She's biked her whole life and she's got this like fancy electric bike and she got me all hyped up about it. It's like five to ten thousand dollars for a fancy electric bike. Okay, and I was like, all right now what I've done in the past is I've bought a bike. And it's set. I wrote it like once or twice and it sat in the garage. We ended up giving it away to boys and boys and girls program, right? And I was like, I'm not going to do that with the $5,000 bike. And so I went out or actually I asked you and what I did how went out basically long story short is I bought a bike that was like $200. It's real price was maybe like $300. I got it on sale for $200, but I actually asked you I was like, babe, do you think it's okay if I buy a $200 bike, you know, and I told you. All of my reasons and stuff like that and you were like, well, it's a cheap bike and I was like, I know I know but it's I just want to get it so that you know, I can figure out whether I'm going to really invest in a $10,000 bike. But anyway, I still use those principles today. There's a few things number one. We're not going to be investing in a $10,000 bike. Is that a no? It's not going to happen. I wouldn't buy a $10,000 bike. I probably there is a one like a $1,500 one that is probably has my eye. But number two, the principle that I think you are extracting is the principle of so back in the day if we wanted to spend over $100, we needed to get each other's permission. We had to get each other's and I think that somebody might can apply that. Maybe it's not a hundred. Maybe it's 500. Maybe it's a thousand. I don't know what it is, but set it in your home. But what it is is that baby, we need each other's approval in order to spend over this amount. And I think that communication removes a whole lot of fussing and biting number seven. We always function as a team more than individually. Yeah. Okay, and I think that's huge for people who I guess what I want to do is breathe a little hope because I remember when we had tons of debt and financial problems. It felt like there was no way out. It felt like a dark hole that was hard to climb out of and I didn't know if it would take 10 15 20 years or if I would ever give out of it. I would want you to know that all things are possible to them that believe and there's absolutely nothing too hard for the Lord and it's amazing how God can change things around in 12 months. He really can you buy the right home you sell it you do some things you get a promotion. He can change some things around but you have to position yourself for this possession, but we came at things more as a team. So there were seasons where like I was in real estate and that was all commissioned. And so you decided to go and get a salary job. Yeah, it wasn't your dream job. You were an assistant an executive assistant, but it helped us pay our gave us been health benefits got our bills paid. Yeah, and then the table and then there was a time after I grew in my real estate business. You left a job and you came and worked with me. Yeah, I think the principle that I can see that we've done for the last 20 plus years is it's always teamwork teamwork. It's even like when we started our first church in Gainesville and you know, I still had a real estate business that was going in Washington DC and we moved to Gainesville Florida. We didn't know a person and in the first 12 months of ministry. We went through all of our life savings. So we came together and say what we're going to do you decide. Well, you do the ministry full-time. I'm gonna go get a job. You went and got a job in real estate because that was our background in Ocala, which was 45 minutes away. And if I recall how much did you make it that job? Maybe like 45. Okay, so it was let's say it was like 45,000. It wasn't anything compared to I was paying a lady 55,000. Yeah, blue. Yeah, continue to run our businesses that were failing because we had left and went into ministry. I was still I still had a business in Washington DC and I was paying that person even more than what you were making right? I guess what I'm saying is that we do what we got to do to get where God's called us to get you. And so you went on in that job for a while and then ended up getting let go from that job and then went right into we had a daycare. And so once again, this is teamwork. It's not like hey, I want my career or you want your career. We want the Claytors. What do the Claytors need to do in this season? And this is not going to be for always we have a saying in our house noted today, but not forever. And so there are some things that as a married couple you got to say no to but we're saying no today, but it's not forever. And so if we can continue in the unity as a team, we will all get ourselves to where we're supposed to be going and I will say thank you for that. Thank you for always, you know, because there's some people like well, it's about my career and I was a dentist and I went to I went to medical school and now you know, it's all it and I'm not saying that's bad. Yeah, you did but at the same time it's all about our team. Yeah, what does your family need right now? Sometimes what do the kids need right now? Do you have a 5 10 20 year plan? Can we get you there, you know? Yeah, sometimes you have to do what's good for the team. Anyone who's played sports before or been a part of any club or something like that you do what's good for the team, but it's worth it in the end because when the team wins you win. Yeah, and I can't you know, like looking at my life now and seeing like right now I get to do what I love to do. I get to do what I'm gifted and talented and purpose by God to do but it took you 15 20 years to get a long time to get here and in between all of those 15 20 years. You did all of the messy work. I did you did all of the well, I don't know nothing about a daycare, but I'm going to start when you want to start a day. I don't know nothing about bookkeeping, but I'm going to be the bookkeeper for the church. I don't know anything. Well, I got a little graphic art degree. I'm going to make the bulletins. I'm going to make the worship guide. I'm just going to do whatever I got to do. I mean we could go through we clean the bathroom. We would I remember when we open our first real estate office. We didn't have money for a janitor, right? You were the cleaner that was me that you were the cleaner you so you were the cleaner and the CFO all at the same time and have a nice office, but I will also at the end of the day. I'm getting out the bucket because you do what you have to do. I don't know if people have that kind of grit any longer, you know, they kind of want something for nothing. Well, I doesn't it doesn't happen overnight. Yeah, and the story is a story of a journey of unfolding of a process, you know, it's it's in it's this like, you know, I think at one time it was the microwave generation, but now it's the social media world where it's like we only see highlights and we only see the highlight reel of people's lives. So you see people Boston. So like if I were to go ahead back then and I took a picture, I'd be like I'd have myself in the office, you know, like CFO. Yeah, you know all this stuff talking about how great the business is going, but I might not put me in the bathroom cleaning the toilets because that's not, you know, so glamorous, but we have to remember that there is a behind the scenes to everything we see that if they're up there being applauded because they're balling and they're there, you know, they got all these awards and things like that. There's something that they're doing behind the scenes that isn't that, you know, worthy of applause. So good number eight point number eight is that we build a team of professionals around us. And I think that's very important. And so to get good CPAs, to get good lawyers around you, bookkeepers, financial advisors. I remember the first year that I made like a lot of money. I mean like we made a lot of money, like a lot of money. I owed the IRS $100,000. Yikes. You know, you say yikes, you don't remember. I really honestly don't, but I know. Okay, but I don't let, like I said, we just, I don't, it's in one year and out the other. I'm like, yikes, we really did that? Yeah, we did. Yeah, but yeah, the IRS $100,000 and I had it to pay, you know, I had it to pay, but it hurt really, really bad. And what happened was, is that I wasn't doing quarterly withholdings. I didn't have enough tax deductions. I was making money and I was spending the money, reinvesting the money, but I did not know some things about withholdings, tax laws, etc, etc. And so I learned it the hard way, but you need to get great professionals around you, bookkeepers, attorneys, you know, financial people who are working for you, people who are working. And in the beginning, when you don't have enough, have a need for these professional people, I mean at least, you know, podcasts, books, friends, other couples, you know, if you're a married couple and you have another couple that maybe mentors you or speaks into your life at all. Hey, ask them what they do. Ask them, you know, how, you know, just get information, right? Get information. Yeah, that will bring us to point number nine is that we put God first in our giving and for us that might be the most important one. And so we're God first family, Matthew 633. And I just feel like there's a lot of people that love Jesus, but they don't love him in a financial way. And the Bible says where a man's treasure is, that's where his heart is also. And if you want to be really, really good with money, I'm talking about you want God to bless you financially. You got to put God at the top of the budget, meaning that God, when you give to me the first thing that I'll do before homes, cars, private school gym memberships is I'm going to give to you first. And so when we began to do that, we saw an anointing and the favor of God come upon us because we're partnered with heaven. And that will bring me to point number 10 is that we filled our hearts and minds with scripture concerning financial stewardship and success. And I think there's a lot of people that struggle his money her money. The marriage is going through financially, but nobody has committed to get into God's word. And so what I did from Genesis the Revelation is I have studied every scripture about prosperity wealth increase stewardship. And what I've learned is that the Bible says more about finances than it does heaven, hell and salvation combined. Wow, God has a lot to say about how we manage our money and even what he did with the people like how he made Abraham a wealthy man and Solomon and David and Job. I mean, there's just so many people and characters in the Bible where you can learn financial principles, but I think that we need to go through a season. So I'm that kind of guy that I love. I like triage. And so if I have a problem in my marriage, I'm going to read a hundred books on marriage until I get it right. Yeah, if I have problems in my finances, I'm going to read everything and go to every financial conference until I get it right. I just feel like there are some people who they have financial struggles, but they won't sow the seed of Revelation into their heart to get into the Bible and today believe the Bible more than the situation they have in a life. And I think that if they could really put in that work to speak the word meditate on the word study the word know the word the word is so rich and it will change every situation. What do you think? I believe it. It's good. Yeah. All right. Anything else that you remember us doing to kind of get ourselves together? No, I just I just remember that I think the best thing and you said this is just the teamwork like it was so refreshing for us when we found out that God didn't want us to be poor that he didn't want us to be in debt that he wanted us to be happy. It was just like that. He gave us the power to get wealth. That was like so like music to our ears and especially someone like me born and raised in the projects like, you know, everyone that I knew didn't have money. We were all trying to struggle and you mean like that's the good news of the gospel to me. You mean I don't have to struggle my whole life and you actually want to bless me. I mean, so when we found that out it spoke life to us. We kind of grabbed each other by the hands that hey, baby, we're on the same team. Let's do this together. I think that's why our finance. We got so blessed. Yeah, you can do this people. You can do this. Okay, his grace is ultimately sufficient for you. Doesn't matter where you currently are right now with the help of the Lord. You do the natural believe him for the supernatural. You're going to get yourself out to the place where generational curses of poverty are broken and you can walk in the promises of our God. We speak the blessing of the Lord over you and your marriage. Don't you allow money to come in between your marriage? If you can walk in the spirit of agreement, there is a commanded blessing when husband and wife dwell together in unity and we just declare that it's yours that God is going to give you witty ideas inventions and great favor his favor that goes before you even right now. Hey, if you enjoyed today's show, please let us know if you're new to our podcast hit the subscribe button so that you can be the first to grab the content as it is released. We release a new episode every Thursday at 3 p.m. Caring is sharing and sharing is caring. Please like subscribe comment review do all that good stuff. Let us know that this content that we're bringing you is impacting your life in a positive way. Hey, we love you guys. Thank you so much for tuning in to doing life with Ken and Tabitha. We'll see you real soon. Peace.