Back to the Future Virtues:
A Penny Saved is a Penny Earned
by Don Bromley
We’re in a series called “Back to the Future Virtues.” We’re looking to apply biblical wisdom to our new economic era.
When talking about practical wisdom, virtues, people often don’t see connection between faith and how they should relate to money and possessions. There’s the religious part of my life and then there’s the secular, worldly part. [some even act as though practical street smarts opposed to spirituality]
The interesting thing about the Bible is that it doesn’t seem to respect that distinction.
The Bible offers 500 verses on prayer, fewer than 500 verses on faith, and more than 2,000 verses on money.
In fact, 15 percent of everything Jesus ever taught was on the topic of money and possessions—more than his teachings on heaven and hell combined.
The Bible is full of very practical wisdom.
The most well know wisdom book in the bible is the book of Proverbs, but we find this kind of wisdom writing throughout the Bible (Job, Ecclesiastes).
These bits of practical wisdom can seem out of place if we think of the Bible as only dealing with ethereal “spiritual” subjects.
Wisdom literature (in contrast to other parts of the Bible):
Focuses more on everyday life than on history.
More on the regular & usual than on the unique.
More on the individual than on the nation.
More on personal experience than on sacred tradition.
Like:
The wise store up choice food and oil, but fools gulp theirs down. (Proverbs 21:20)
Choice foods and oil were indicators of wealth in the ancient world. If you had lots of them, you were rich. Used like money, for trade. So another way of saying this, on our modern context, would be:
The wise save money. The foolish spend everything they earn. (Proverbs 21:20)
Or:
A Penny Saved is a Penny Earned. – Benjamin Franklin
Any penny that you don’t waste on something you don’t need is the equivalent of earning a penny. [penny not much, so think $10 saved is $10 earned]
Going to look at life of someone unlikely to leave mark on history (given her social standing), but whose story made national news in July 1995.
Read her story:
Oseola McCarty’s lined brown hands, gnarled with arthritis, bore mute testimony to a lifetime spent washing and ironing other people’s clothes. In July of 1995, the 87-year-old African American woman from Mississippi donated $150,000 to the student scholarship program at the University of Southern Mississippi. “I just want to help somebody’s child go to college,” said Miss McCarty.
Remember this story? Minimum wage worker saves $150,000, then donates it?
How does that work?
Born on March 7, 1908, Oseola was raised in Mississippi by her mother, Lucy. Oseola recalls that her mother worked hard to support her young daughter. She sold candy at the local schoolhouse to supplement her meager earnings as a household cook.
One of the keys to how people end up saving and being secure financially is a hard-working and wise parent, who saves. Kids follow in footsteps.
[Personal examples. Growing up, paycheck to paycheck. Savings unheard of. In HS working at bank. Pay overdrafts with paycheck each month. Moving to Michigan, buying new car on student income. Credit card debt. Brother: bought car with credit card, bad credit.]
Young Oseola also worked. From the beginning, she saved as much of her earnings as she possibly could. “When I got enough, I’d go to the bank. The teller told me to put it in a savings account. I didn’t know; I just kept on saving.”
She saved as much as she possibly could. Wow!
For example, Proverbs 21:20, a very simple proverb: The wise save money. The foolish spend everything they earn.
[Met Julie, I had credit card debt, she had savings. Wow, some people save money! Cancelled each other out! Story of Julie’s dad. Parents murdered. Moved to US. Went to college, paid for by selling ice cream. Dental school.]
Learned about something called the 10-10-80 plan.
In the United States we consider ourselves pretty smart, compared to the rest of the world.
Savings rate in China, 40%
Savings rate in India, 30%
Savings rate in France 11.6%
Savings rate in U.S.? -0.5%
Continue with story…
When Oseola’s childless aunt became ill, Oseola dropped out of school to care for her. “She couldn’t walk and she needed me.” She left school in the sixth grade and was never able to return.
How much education necessary to be smart enough to learn to save?
Tens of thousands of college grads, and thousands of MBAs file for bankruptcy every year.
More to do with wisdom and street smarts than education.
For the next seven decades, Oseola washed and ironed and lived frugally. She avoided the need for a car because she could just walk to church and shopping areas; and she used luxuries such as a window air conditioner only when visitors came to call.
She lived frugally. Proverbs 15:16 says, Better is a little money—meaning a little amount—with the blessing of God than great wealth with turmoil.
Turmoil: headaches, stomachaches, creditors’ letters, threatened foreclosures, phone calls from lawyers, imminent bankruptcies.
More people went bankrupt last year than graduated from college.
How many of us live frugally?
God’s going to provide provision for us. At different levels. But then there are lifestyle choices.
The margin between God’s provision and our expenses. Turmoil.
[examples, Dan & Gloria. Gas bill. Movies subscription. Cigarettes; another person, can’t pay utilities, has cable and high speed internet]
People over time get tired of this turmoil and they change this margin to lessen it. Would rather live without turmoil. Hard way to learn wisdom.
Credit cards. In 1975 average credit card debt $200. Today, $11,000.
$11,000 credit card debt, car payments, mortgage, negative savings. Turmoil.
She lived frugally. Proverbs 15:16 says, Better is a little money—meaning a little amount—with the blessing of God than great wealth with turmoil.
Many of us can’t do much about the provision/income part. Maybe a little. But we can do a lot about the personal choices that contribute to expenses. That’s where the virtue of saving comes in.
When Oseola’s mother and aunt died and left her some money, she added it to her savings.
Converted unexpected income to savings. How novel! [refund check, gift from relative, money at Christmas]. Many use unexpected income to make down payment on something expensive, like a new car.
80% of cars on highway worth less than what’s still owed!
In 1947 her uncle left her a modest wood-framed house in which she lived until the day she died.
1 Timothy 6:6: Godliness with contentment is great gain.
We’re constantly bombarded with idea that more is better. [examples: Apple stuff. iPod, iPhone, Xbox, TV.]
Oseola learned to say a simple word: “enough.”
Next time you go to store: “I have enough.”
Godliness with contentment is great gain.
The customers who brought their washing and ironing to her home for more than 75 years read like the social register of her city. Because of the quality of her work, she did laundry for some families for three generations.
Here’s a lesson for you from Proverbs 22:29: Do you see people skilled in their work? They will stand before kings.
God honors hard work, quality work. In the Bible, some of the earliest gifts of the holy spirit had to do with skills like metalworking and weaving. The wisdom writer says, good things come to those who are skilled and work hard. [remember, wisdom writings dealing with the general, usual]
Oseola did good work and, in a way, she sort of stood before kings [President Clinton]. She had a loyal following.
Oseola was smart enough to know what she didn’t know. She sought counsel from people she could trust: local officers at the bank, an attorney whose laundry she’d done.
Proverbs 15:22 says, In the abundance of counselors there is much wisdom.
Get help and input on your finances. Wilfried Brunssen – Biblical Financial Principles class.
Oseola was wise enough to acknowledge she wasn’t going to live forever. Having never married and outliving her immediate family, she knew she’d be on her own in later years. In some of the earliest conversations with her, her bank advised on how she would provide for herself when she could no longer work.
That little line that says she knew she wasn’t going to live forever—Ecclesiastes 3:2 says, There is a time to be born and a time to die. . .
Quarter of baby boomers have less than $1,000 saved for retirement. A lot of denial.
Oseola’s decisions made earlier served her well in old age. She did conservative mutual funds and CDs and she said, “The money just accumulated.”
$100 every 2 weeks into tax free savings investment. Worth $570,000 after 40 years.
$100 per month, worth $260,000. (for me, equivalent of eating a packed lunch instead of eating out)
Oseola knew she had to provide for herself, but her deeper goal was to use her money to help others. So when her health began to fail, she told her advisor she wanted to give some funds to relatives, some money to her church, and she wanted 60 percent of it to go to the USM scholarship fund. She’d never even been to the college. “I’m too old to get an education, but some of these under-resourced minority students aren’t”
She knew there are not equal educational opportunities across racial lines.
1 Timothy 6:17-19: Command those who are rich … not millionaires, just those who are living somewhere in the world where you don’t worry about food, or shelter, or clothes to cover your back. We’re all rich relative to the majority of the world.
in this present world not to be arrogant … Wealth puffs us up. We want to show it off, feel superior. But every good gift comes from God.
nor to put their hope in wealth, … those who put their hope in wealth are always disappointed. It’s not going to deliver you at the end of the day.
which is so uncertain, … The markets go up and down; industries take hits. You know the whole thing.
but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.
God is not anti-stuff. Some stuff we are meant to enjoy.
Command them (Christ-followers) to do good, to be rich in good deeds,…
What’s real wealth? How big a pile you have or how you find a deeper goal, like an 87-year-old washerwoman found a deeper goal with her $150,000?
… and to be generous and willing to share. Tip: don’t buy anything so nice that you’re not willing to share it.
In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.
Imagine Oseola looking into the eyes of that first student to receive the scholarship. Or 30K people in a football stadium. Or going to the White House. Harvard honorary degree. Because she was wise.
God has invited us into life that is truly life. Not a new life, only to mess it up with debt and slavery. But a life of wisdom.
To get off a destructive path of waste, overspending, debt. A decision to walk toward life that is truly life. A life free from turmoil.
Get rid of what you have to get rid of. Burn what you have to burn. Cut off what you have to cut off. Meet with who you need to meet with. Don’t live outside of the life that God wants you to have.