Valentine’s Stewardship Edition: Money and Marriage

When clients reach out to me in their search of a financial coach, I typically witness two camps of married couples.  There is one camp where both husband and wife, though they relate differently to money, are ready to learn to row their financial stewardship boat in one direction.   

And there is another camp.  This is usually the wife who reaches out to me, desperately seeking help as they are in financial disarray.  Regardless of their income, they do not know how to budget, have excessive consumer debt, and are living paycheck to paycheck.  The wife is often not sleeping at night, doing finances alone and often experiencing panic attacks.  Where is the husband in all this?  Often in a state of denial, or simply behaving like a child.  Often, we would pray for the husband, talk with the husband, but eventually, we would stop before we really begin our coaching session.  Why?  Because I don’t generally coach just one spouse.  In fact, I can’t meaningfully help a family if both spouses are not on board.     

When Scripture speaks about marriage and oneness, this union of two becoming one as Genesis 2 speaks more than a physical union.  Biblical marriage speaks of a union of two, however, the challenge is that while we may become one legally and physically after the wedding, the journey of oneness emotionally, spiritually and financially, is a lifelong journey and commitment in our mutual commitment to mutual submission before God.  

According to one Money Magazine poll, 70% of couples argued about money more than anything else, citing the following five as the top money arguments:  frivolous purchases, household budgeting, credit card debt, insufficient emergency savings, and insufficient retirement savings.   Are you fighting about money? 

This Wednesday commences our Christian calendar’s Lenten season while also marking the Valentine’s Day.  Without getting overly historical and unromantic with commercial analysis, I would still like to challenge us Christians to rethink about what it may mean as families or couples in serious dating relationships to prayerfully rethink about how we could better steward what the Lord has given us to financially manage.

My wife and I will be celebrating our 15th anniversary this year, and to be honest, while both of us are pretty good about spending less than we earn, we didn’t spend a lot of time during the first decade of our marriage to talk prayerfully and honestly about our financial values and goals.  

Two things we did talk about from the beginning of our married life was saving up for our first home and buying cash for a car.  We knew we wanted that so we made decisions that positioned us to do so as a single-income family living in New Jersey.  You do your math as we now have three children between the ages of 13 and 9.  This required creativity, commitment and learning the art of contentment with what the Lord had given our family.

The single biggest expense most of us have in our budget is our housing cost, and if we were going to save anything substantial in life for a specific goal, especially like buying a home, we knew we had to make some sacrifices to make that happen.

So what did we do?  Our family lived the first 10 years of our married life with a monthly rental cost not exceeding $1050.  You heard that correct.  $1050.  Whether there was just the two, three, four or five in our family, we committed ourselves to finding places to live in Bergen County, NJ with the total rental cost not exceeding $1050.  Was it hard when we had little children?  Yes.  We had wonderful landlords who didn’t mind us living in a single room apartment with a family of 5!  Then we eventually moved to rent a place with two bedrooms.

My wife was a trooper as she was the one at home taking care of our little kids.  During the first decade of our married life, believe it or not, we didn’t have a written budget.  We did spend less than we made, but we didn’t live with a written budget.  

About 5 years ago, about 6 months after looking into purchasing our first home, when we found a home that we could afford to pay a down payment of 20% and all the closing fees, with our monthly mortgage payment which included our real estate taxes to be less than 30% of our net income, we decided to take the deal!  This was from a couple that was not budgeting, had 3 children, living with a single income, and yes, living in Bergen County, NJ which has one of the highest living cost in this country.  

I truly attribute our ability to achieve such a feat to God’s favor and generosity, as well as my wife and myself having a clear dream of owning a home and our willingness to make sacrifices for that goal for close to a decade.

We have been living with a budget for the past 3 years or so, and we have been learning a lot about each other, our values, our priorities and what we desire for our family as God’s stewards.  To be honest, I had to do a lot of repenting because for the first 10 years of our marriage, while we did really agree on sacrificing for our dream of future home ownership, I did a poor job of really listening to my wife’s desires, dreams, and hopes in the way she wanted to manage the resources the Lord was giving us for our family.  

After close to 15 years of marriage, learning to budget together, listening to our desires and hearing what is important to us and why we are still learning to mutually submit to one another as Christ calls us to do so in marriage.  

Please pray for us and join us in our pursuit of a marriage that seeks to trust in God’s Word more than the cultural pressures of our day and age.  Let us all learn to experience greater financial peace, financial independence, and financial generosity as we get out debt, grow in contentment, save and invest for our future and give joyfully and generously for things that matter in eternity for God’s Kingdom.  

Are you ready to get started?  Contact me at paul@jangfinancial.com if you want to help disciple your congregation as God-honoring stewards from a biblical perspective, or if you yourself want to grow as a steward seeking to practically manage the finances better to hear from our Lord upon his return, “Well done, good and faithful servant.  You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much.  Enter into the joy of your master.” (Matthew 25:21, 23) 

Questions to Ponder:

1.  Matthew 6:21 teaches us that where our treasure is, there our heart is.  Our heart follows where we spend money.  As a family, if we were to examine the way we are spending money, what would it reveal to us about what is truly important?  How might it align or not align with what we say is truly important to God and our family?  

2.  If you were to use the analogy of a boat with two oars for your marriage, how would you describe your financial unity?  How honest and mutually submissive are you as husband and wife?  

3.  If you are not married but are in a serious relationship, and you know you two are not living out a mature biblical view of money, how might you want to invest in your financial stewardship readiness to best start a married life?    

Paul Jang

Pastor | Personal Financial Coach to Individuals & Financial Stewardship Ministry Consultant for Churches

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