A discussion on tithing

I finally got caught. Yep the bishop finally got ahold of me to talk about why my donations are down. To tell you the truth I was a little relieved that I got called into his office. I could finally tell him my story of how and why I lost my testimony of tithing and I did. I told him how we struggled when we first moved to Utah. How I never asked for help when so many "struggling" families did. I asked questions such as how can a family who is paying on a half a million dollar house with two new cars in the driveway justify asking their bishop for help with food or a mortgage payment when the Husband loses his job. I also talked about my frustrations with the members accepting government assistance while attending college. Why do they get a pass on baby expenses and I don't. It was a good meeting unfortunately my testimony didn't grow as soon as I walked out the door. That will take some time but I truly hope it does. I miss having a strong testimony of tithing and blessings that come from that princable. I have had blessings from tithing but lately have the hardest time seeing them.
Anyways, I've started to pay tithing and it got me thinking. Is there such a thing as negative income or tithing exempt income? The church explanation of tithing is "To tithe is to give freely one/tenth of one's income annually to the church

or as I've heard it before 10% of your annual interest earned. Here's the question? What is that? Well my dad (who I recently found out had 2 of my brothers paid for on the government's dime) Says you should pay on your gross pay. "You have an obligation to pay taxes therefore your income is your gross income" he says. My wife disagrees. My wife says because you don't know how much you truly have to pay in taxes you should pay on net income. If you get a tax return then pay on your tax return. I think the answer lies a little deeper than that. Let me explain with a few scenarios.
Before I begin let me say this. This is not a petition for change. If you feel like you need to pay off your gross pay do it. If you feel like you need to pay off your net, do it. This is not an argument that we are doing it wrong Just a discussion with questions about doing it right.
First question or discussion for those who are gross payers. Within my paycheck I have pre tax items. Dental, vision, medical, 401k and hsa. After those have been deducted then I get taxed. They take out state federal and social security. The social security is future income. The faith is (even though everyone knows it's dying) you will have that someday as income. Because it's impossible to determine how much you will withdraw why are you paying tithing on it right now? Wouldn't it make more sense to pay for it later if you make it to retirement? Or if it's still around. The other deduction after gross pay is your 401k. Same questions why are you paying tithing on that right now. That is future income. It makes more sense to me when I withdraw retirement to pay tithing then. Unless you believe you won't have to pay it later. Both of those pay you more than what you paid plus who knows how much you will be able to withdraw vs what you paid.

Second scenario is my favorite argument so far. Say a person owns a painting buisness. On a particular day this person goes out to his driveway starts his personal/company van and heads to his job sight. On his way he puts gas in his van and buys painting supplies. When he's done with the job his employer/customer who hires him pays him 500 dollars for the job and the painter goes home.
Here's the question. What does he pay tithing on? He got paid 500 dollars so his 10% cut to the church is 50 dollars right?
No. His income is not based on what his customer/employer paid him. In order to get the job done he needed gas for his van and painting supplies. Both are required and included in his estimate. His bottom line. Income, and prophets are calculated after his expenses. It's from that he would declare his income and pay his tithing off of. That brings me to my argument. Should the gas you buy to go to work be includes as tithable income? The example above does not because he owns his own
business but consider these points. If in order to make money you need to spend money, wouldn't the money you spent be considered negative income? A painter needs painting supplies and gas to complete his job. Both negatively impact his bottom line. Gas or as I call it work gas used to go to and from work negatively impact my weeks pay thus I argue that gas from a REASONABLE good mileage car that is bought to "make money" would be a tithing exempt item. I say reasonable because I don't agree with this if it's abused. A person who purposely buys a deisel truck to work at a factory job should reconsider their stance on this argument. Their are so many less inexpensive choices that could be made but if that was your only vehicle you had plans to change it and you had no other choice I would agree that your fuel money should be tithing exempt.

My last and final argument and open Question is this. There are so many things we buy that we NEED that include interest. Unfortunately for most of us owning a house with no mortgage payment will be hard to accomplish. In order for most of us to own a place to live we have to pay a sizeable amount of interest to the mortgage company plus PMI plus taxes that negatively affect our income. If each and every house was interest and PMI free some of us would have an extra 600 dollars in our pocket every month but because we didn't inherit enough money to buy a house we need to take out loans to buy a place to live. We lose money every month on that BUISNESS  investment. Should that not be considered lost income? Taxes say it is. What about credit cards? I just put our hospital bill on a credit card in good faith that I would save money. Not only did I not save any money I probably will end up paying interest on that credit card. I lost money on my decision. Should that not be considered lost income. I could go on and on but will end with this last scenario. I know of at least one couple briefly mentioned in my first post who had their house paid off by their parents. Eventually they made the decision to move to new york to be closer to a specialist because their son has a medical condition which means they sold their house. They sold it for a reasonable prophet. So since they got it for free as a gift did they A. Put all the money including prophets into a bank account to pay for their new house claiming it was a gift and they don't need to pay tithing on a gift. B. Pay tithing on the prophets or C. Pay tithing on the entire house? I honestly don't know but it does bring up a few more questions. Technically it seems to me that a person can make an argument that they will pay tithing on a house after they sell it. They can say that it's an investment and that all payments toward the house are an investment for future interest or prophets. After the house is either paid off or sold then will tithing be paid. An investment  into a future paycheck.
 In closing my argument let me say this. I like how the church makes the rule of tithing vague. There's no rule that says you pay off gross or net pay. If that's what your comfortable with then pay that. I'm just bringing up some thoughts and opinions for an individual with unique circumstances. I have already  decided what is my positive income and what negative incomes affect my positive income creating a annual interest earned that I am comfortable declaring a full tithing paid.

2015 Grand prize winner of CPA'S I CAN'T AFFORD IT AWARD

Alright. One week from when im starting to write this we will have a new year. 2015 will die off and 2016 will be born. This does not give me a whole lot of room to write my last thoughts of 2015. So without procrastinating any longer let's start with 2015's grand winner of the CPA'S (Car Payments Anonymous group)

"I Can't Afford It Award"
In January we had the expectant father who was graduating from a no responsibility fun and adventure don't care where my money flows guy to a sudden family life. After finding out he was expecting twins he finally figured out (what he should of along time ago) that he can't actually afford to finance something as expensive as his truck

So he tries to sell it. When things start to look grim his wife also puts her 2013 hyundai  up for sale.
This is exactly the scenario I talked about here....
http://viscarjones.blogspot.com/2014/08/a-few-more-frustrations-with-bishops.html?m=1
And that was before I started seeing these adds.
Enough said.
I must have missed February.
For March we had The the college kid who thought one day "hey I'd look pretty awesome in a BMW."

I'm not clear if he got married before or after this purchase but I'm posative  his wife had a say in selling it.
Again please don't lease a vehicle this guy lost close to 7 grand in only a few months. Again I emphasize he only had it TWO months before realizing he could not afford it.
Next year's goal is to have 12 winners because again for April no winner.

May was an interesting month. I had 3 good canidates and almost chose the owner of a 2015 suburban but instead found another college married couple who just had a baby (my guess on medicaid) went to an all inclusive resort in Mexico and for their anniversary the young husband buys his wife her FIRST diamond ring. To top it all off they bought their first house while they were trYing to sell this car. So their add doesn't make sense to me.

Your tax dollars at work right here America because you have so generously paid your taxes this couple has enjoyed a nice vaca to mexico a diamond ring and a 12000 dollar car until "their" own money ran out. Just some FYI. this add did stay up for 4-5  months and they eventually lowered the price to around 11000.

For July we had the young family who purchased a brand new 2015 Honda Odyssey  (my dream family vehicle) 

I wish I knew what happened with this. When and how did they realize they could not afford it?? 

I'm running out of time! Need to speed this up!

For August we had another Leaser. This time It's A Lexus 

525 bucks a month that gets you no true value in return? Are you kidding me? Oh and look at that,  unexpected family issues.

Moving on

For September we had the Schnorkie.

Even had a second longer add.

For October we had this guy...

http://viscarjones.blogspot.com/2015/10/financial-integrity-within-yourself.html?m=1

Unfortunately I'm not going to make it to the end. My phone is dying and my time is nearly up. 

The grand winner 

of 2015 CPA'S  

"I CAN'T AFFORD IT AWARD" 

goes to...

October's. (Link is right above)

Second place.

July Honda Odyssey 

And 3rd 

March's BMW 

more to come next year.

Happy new year!!

December's "I can't afford it award"

There is a plethora of canidates this month. I've broaden my search area beyond Utah to North Dakota. I was curious to see with the current economic down turn they are having up there what I could find. So without showing every single add I found I have narrowed them down to 3.

The 3rd place winner for Decembers "I can't afford it award" goes to....
This craigslist add in North Dakota.

I think I've made it very clear my thoughts on responsibly owning a dog. Too many people let their feelings get in the way of responsible pet owning. I sound like an animal rights person trust me I am far from that. I think dogs in particular have too many rights but that doesn't mean I don't care. You need to realize before you purchase or adopt an animal to make sure you can afford it. Having an extra couple hundred bucks one month does not justify being able to afford a dog. Look at your financial foundation debt vs income and make sure you look at the whole picture before you make that decision.

The second place winner is the owner of this escalade

I don't know if it's just me but Escalade have lost popularity over the years. I used to want one 10 years ago but unfortunately since then all I see driving them are semi wealthy people or Latinos who think they are wealthy. Again this proving my point you can't have what you don't own. The bank owns this vehicle. He doesn't. Unfortunately it takes a reality check of losing a job to realize that. He's being selfish towards himself and in the end when there should of been savings there's nothing and his family has to suffer. 

The winner of December's CPA's "I can't afford it award" goes to the owner of this truck add...

There is one particular reason I chose this person. He took a photo from a different view and it pointed out something to me.

Do you see the cars in the background? Now I'm just guessing that his wife drives the Toyota to the left. He paid 41000 dollars for this truck back in July. He has lost 7000 + dollars in value in less than 6 months!! And he has his wife drive a car that's worth a quarter of what maybe even an eighth of what his truck was bought for? Are those cars in the back still being financed? He's being a selfish jerk to his wife showing her no respect with his expectations.  That truck probably has a 600 plus payment on it (plus insurance!) that's if he has the loan for 6-7 years. You realy thought you could pay 600 dollars a month for 7 years!? Why would you want to do that?

Remember this equation when it comes to taking a car loan out. A typical car loan is 5 years or 60 months. Per thousand dollars borrowed, with NO interest, your cost is 16.67. Most loans will be between 17-20 dollars per thousand borrowed.  If this truck had no interest and had he financed it for 41000 dollars his payment would be. 683.47 at 5 years. He's only made it 6 months before he realized he couldn't afford it! Stop losing money when you don't have money to lose. I have no problem with a person having cash to pay the truck off. If thats your decision fine. That person could sell the truck in a difficult time and still have something to show for it. This person has a negative 7000 dollars to show.

I'm ending my rant there MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

next post will be the 2015 grand prize winner of the I can't afford it award.

Celebrating the winter solstice.

Today and tomorrow is the winter solstce.

The shortest day of the year.

The darkest nights of the year.

Take the time to celebrate.

The days becoming longer

By letting go

Of your dark and negative events thoughts or things in your life.

Drop them off here

On the the shortest days of the year

And let the brighter days

Bring positive thoughts

And a happy new year.

So celibrate the winter solstice

As a day to let go and forget

The negativity in your life.

Had to shorten this one up. Only 4 days till Christmas and less than two weeks till new years. Alot to do. Merry Christmas! And happy winter solstice.

My Christmas Rant

So real quick. I have alot of topics to talk about but not enough time to write them so I'm going to just pick a few and be done.

Number 1. I have decided to get the V thing done. Yep no more kids for me. I could write a long post about it but every time I have tried doesn't quite put my feelings into words so here is the short version. A. I think my family is complete B. I'm a little selfish and don't think I've had enough alone time with the wife or enough fun time with the kids.C It's not fair that the government gives one group of people a free pass on baby bills (college couples or young people who CHOSE not to work so they can qualify for medicaid WIC and have their babies paid for.(( *cough byu *cough* Idaho)) while the rest of us pay thousands of dollars plus interest to pay for our babies. D. I don't want to pay any more into the system. Babies are expensive and unfortunately diapers and formula companies are making way too much on me. E It takes my wife around a year and a half to over 2 years from day one of conception to be her normal self again which leaves a lot of responsibility on my shoulders. And ending with F. I'm ready just to turn the page and not have a newborn or baby strapping us down. I've paid around 60 thousand dollars on medical bills diapers and formula and I am done! On to bigger and better adventures hopefully soon achieving my main goal of being an independent and debt free family.
The procedure? Uncomfortable and pretty painless. I would however make sure I had more time off at work. They do say you can be back to work the next day but that's for office jobs. Your better off staying home for up to 5 days if you can.

The next subject is once again Christmas charities. If you haven't read my blog before I have said it over and over be careful who you donate to. There are so many good charities out there but unfortunately alot of freebie grabbing people who take advantage of those programs who through life choices are relying on food banks to keep possessions that could be sold to pay for food such as rifles ATV Boats toys even cars. Then there are those who chose not to work. They too have to milk the system to survive. It's hard to think about donating to charities that those people rely on when you yourself are just barely getting by. Trust me there are days when I feel heartbroken from stories I hear of families struggling but then not a day later I find out that a "struggling" family was just at Disneyland or on a cruise just months ago and NOW they need your help when you are smartly saving and scrimp in so all of your bills are paid. What I am mainly saying is this. 1. There is nothing wrong with having a poor Christmas. Some of my favorite Christmases were when we didn't have alot. I just enjoyed the company of my family. One that sticks out to me was the year my mom worked at the DI thrift store. I had alot of gifts from that thrift store that i thought were awesone. The alarm clock i got didn't even have a snooze button but i still used it until i moved away to college. My wife also has a good story on this subject. When she was younger her dad was discharged (honorably) from the air force. After moving to a different state and into an appt shared with their aunt money was tight. Her dad did not get paid till Christmas Eve that year. They woke up Christmas morning only to be sent back to bed because Santa had not come yet. When they came back to there stockings about an hour later they were filled with donuts drinks and toys obviously bought at the only place open that Christmas morning the seven 11. She loved it. The magic of Christmas was still alive and well.
2. If you are going to ask for help at least TRY to clean up your financial life. I find it funny and alarming when a person will ask for help only to find out they recently purchased a car or a dog but won't get rid of those to help themselves become independent. They rely on you for your charity. I would include examples but would like to shorten this up. If your hardships are backed up with pictures of you on vacation in Hawaii just months earlier it's hard to prove you really need help or your just trying to get help digging you out of a hole that you created.
Hardships help people grow (or become angry like me) if a person doesn't experience loneliness in times of need how are they going to grow their inner strength and become a stronger person?
In the end if it feels right to donate, donate. If it doesn't don't
Have a merry Christmas everyone.

Coming up
Why the winter solace is like new years to me
And
December's winner of the I can't afford it award
PLUS
2015 grand prize winner of The I can't afford it award.

November's winner of the "I CAN'T AFFORD IT AWARD"

If you haven't heard, I have been out of time this month. It's usually the month I get to my irritation with cheaters of the motab Christmas concert or my spill on turkey bags. Back in March or April this year I wrote a little bit on my wife being pregnant. If you do your calculation right you'll realize she is due any day now with that and my job running full speed I don't have alot of time with bloging. I have been using alot of time with my new financial project and that is coming along really well. New developments are pretty much daily so alot of my time is spent on that. Since I'm pretty much the only one who cares let's get to November's I can't afford it winner.

So I was,browsing the classifieds again not looking for a person selling their car when I came across this add.

I thought that was interesting. Alot of money to be asking for car repairs. I mean you can buy a decent car for that price. So it peaked my interest. What kind of car repair needs 3 grand??

For some reason in the car buying world you have certain people who buy certain cars BECAUSE it fits their personality (whatever) take a person who buys a smart car.

They may be concerned about the environment or be a tree hugging left wing nut job who believes they're going to stop global warming.

what about a big huge jacked up deisel

That would be your right winged gun loving nutcase who would put his elk antlers on his grill if that was legal. (Just an assumption don't get offended! P.s. I would love that truck)
When it comes to this guy...

And his fiat, well that brings a new breed of personality to the car buying world. To me a person owning a fiat flat yells out I'm different with almost a demand of respect. It says I've read and seen all the Harry Potter movies but could care less about star wars. It's a guy with nerdy glasses but not nerdly educated. A hair bunned big glasses librarian lady who becomes a man's sexy dream when the glasses come off and the hair comes down. The biggest thing is they are clueless when it comes to asking for help when their problem was totally unavoidable. Does this guy not have a clue of what he is asking for?

Ok ski passes? I thought he needed financial help?? Obviously only working 40 hours a week is exhausting and that 300 dollar car payment doesn't pay itself. And they need ski passes? Again this is another example of a clueless person not knowing what to do when a financial hiccup comes along which is really easy to fix. He still has a job so it's not like he's not making money.

Here is my suggestion. Get rid of the fiat asap. The automaker has only been reintroduced into the US markets since 2009. OF COURSE they're going to have problems. They don't have enough time to prove they're anything but a lemon. Your down 3 grand right? Try to
Sell yours for the max dollar you can. If you sell it and have less than 3 grand left on your loan your AHEAD. 2nd buy a car outright. For 3 grand you can buy a decent car with "heat" to keep you warm through the winter. Yes I know you don't have the money. I haven't written about  this yet on my "classes" but I have discovered a creative way to loan yourself. There's two options 1 find out all the available credit on your credit cards. As long as your not already forking out too much on high interest credit cards use those as a loan. How?? Well first of all absolutely no cash advances. They are not worth it instead because you are working put all of your expenses on those credit cards but make sure you take the amount you would of used out of your bank account in cash or transfer it to a savings account. Continue to do that over several weeks until you have an amount that you can use to buy a car outright. The 2nd option is to apply for a
Zero introductory interest cash back credit card. With this you'll have up to 12 months to pay off the balance. Again use my system of loaning yourself the money through using the card solely day to day purchases keeping track of every purchase and backing it up with cash or savings that you will use as your loan to fix this problem. IF all else fails there's always the option to surrender the vehicle. Yeah your credits destroyed but then for the next 7 years you can really learn how to become an independent person who can live without loans and have his stuff paid for. What's wrong with that??
Anyways I have rambled on way to long and since I don't know how to do a great close of this post I'll just end it with this.

There you have it your winner of the November I can't afford it award.
Next month we will have two winners December's and 2015 grand winner.

 which really doesn't mean anything.

Class 2 (using credit cards to get out of credit card debt)

I'm really struggling on how to teach this. I have a few ideas but unfortunately trying to write them down is difficult for me. If you have accidentally found my page because you researched something about credit cards whether it was grace periods questions about  interest or how to get out of debt quicker I'm going to tell you right now you might want to continue reading. I have found so many good uses for credit cards and new ideas are flowing in every day. Yes good uses. I have been to the bottom where there is no hope. Every tax return I get goes straight to credit cards because every year I go deeper in debt. Using this system which I accidentally found due to my wife accidentally canceling my debit card while ordering her a new one has created 3 credit cards with no interest. 2000 dollars a month will not have interest and I will save 40 dollars a month. 600 dollars of credit card debt has been paid off in only 2 months. There is no change in the way I live my life but I have more motivation to change my financial life. Are you ready to take a financial journey with me and start using everything you got to take your financial life back from your credit cards? Let's get started.

In a nutshell the way this works will be described by the next story.

Jake buys furniture on his credit card for 1200 dollars. After making a minimum payment for a year he pays 130 dollars principle and over 200 dollars interest. So after paying 330 dollars his loan is now 1070. After looking at his expenses he realizes has around 2000 dollars he spends every month. 1200 of that can be put on a credit card. It's the first of the month and he has till the 30th to make his next payment. Imediately he pays his credit card 300 dollars and his balance goes down to 770 dollars he then allows himself to use 300 dollars back on his credit card. He pays his phone bill groceries goes to the movies eats out and puts gas in his car. By his next paycheck  (weekly paycheck scenario) on the 8th his credit card is 1065 dollars he pays it 270 dollars adds that to the amount left over which is 5 (1070-1065=5) and he allows himself 280 dollars to put on his credit card. He pays some more bills buys groceries gets sick buys medicine and changes his oil. On the 15th he gets paid again. His cc balance is 1069 dollars. He pays his credit card 250 dollars then again pays his bills again. (Use your own imagination on what he buys)  The next week the 23rd he makes his last payment of the month of 250 dollars he allows himself to use 220 dollars because his normal credit card payment of 30 dollars is coming up so he deducts that from his allowed amount. At the end of the billing cycle Jake has paid to his credit card 1070 dollars he has used his credit card for all of his expenses spent 1040 dollars. His interest is zero. How? He paid his credit card balance in full by the due date. Even though it was in 4 payments. He also earns a 1 % cash back rewards of 10 dollars which he uses for account credit. So instead of paying 30 dollars and having 20 dollars eaten up in interest where his balance would be 1060 dollars he pays the exact same 30 dollars in a different way pays no interest and gets 10 dollars account credit making his new balance 1030 dollars. This works. Don't use your debit card for expenses your credit card can pay for.
Let's continue.
You need to know some things before you get started.
1 You need to know your credit cards due date. Most likely this is a duh answer but take a person who has it set up on auto payments they may not know. This is important to know.

2 You need to know your billing cycle beginning date and your ending date. Sometimes this can be hard to find. It's on the statement. Starts with a few days after your due date and ends usually one day before. For example a beginning date of sept. 20 usually ends on oct. 19th. This is important because after you complete a credit card cycle you don't want to start it over until the beginning of the cycle or else it will not be as effective.

(Billing cycle example)

3 find all expenses that can be put on a credit card. Write on a piece of paper what expenses can an cannot be put on credit cards. Go through your last statements and find how much you've spent and what of those expenses could of been put on a credit card.

4. Write EVERYTHING DOWN!! This by far is my most important rule.  You need to write everything down. Everything needs to be tracked so you know exactly where you are. At first I used a pen paper and envelope. That became annoying so I'm so glad xcel has finally produced a free smart phone version.

Unlimited access to your card will help. Smart phone laptop even a phone can have some access to your account.

In the next segment I will talk more on opening and closing statement dates as well as interest and cash back. I've decided to keep these short on certain points because I'm finding it hard to focus on it as an entire subject for just a few blogs. There's many parts to it and if I don't go in depth on every part I may not get to important keys of how to make this successful. More to come.