I was no more than 5, which would have made my brother 3, when my mother decided it was time for us to have an allowance. Knowing her, it was more to learn about money than to start saving for college (though she thought about that too).<\/p>\n
The allowance would be a dime, paid weekly, in pennies. That’s because from the outset, we were to tithe.<\/p>\n
She supplied small jars; one was for God, the other, everything else.<\/p>\n
I’d like to think that I wasn’t concerned that now I only had nine cents, but I probably was. Nor do I remember wondering why God would need anything at all when he already owns everything. Or how my one penny per week was going to make much of a dent.<\/p>\n
No matter; it was part of the stipulation.<\/p>\n
And it stuck. That is, when the allowance came at all. She’d get behind, and things being what they were, it was hard to catch up. But whenever it happened, the ten percent principle was always part of it.<\/p>\n
As time went by it was ten cents out of every dollar, then a dollar out of ten. When I started earning bits of money, it was ten dollars out of every hundred, and so on.<\/p>\n
Where the money would go was up to me. The church offering plate was an obvious one. But even in my rebellious years, when I turned my back on church, the principle was engrained and I found causes that could use my ten percent.<\/p>\n
Skip ahead though a whole lifetime of interacting with money one way or another every day. Early in our marriage Anne and I set up a separate checking account called \u201ctithe.\u201d Money goes there first, even if we don’t yet know where it will be given. Options are always arising, and it’s nice, when they do, to already have something set aside.<\/p>\n
It’s the same with cash. In my wallet I have a separate section where ten percent of any folding money is already cordoned off, ready for the spontaneous moment when I see a need.<\/p>\n
I’m not saying any of this to brag; please don’t take it that way. The fact is, I’ve never made a lot of money, but I’ve never gone broke. I pay for my cars with cash. My children all went through college without debt. We live in a fine house. And we always seem to have enough for what we want to do. And that’s on ninety percent!<\/p>\n
It’s a great principle: Let your money go and it looses its hold on you.<\/p>\n
It also comes back.<\/p>\n
It’s pennies to heaven, something my mother instilled at an early age.<\/p>\n
And to any who have not yet discovered its wisdom, I know what she would say: \u201cIt’s never too late to start!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It’s another principle I learned from my mother, something that has paid dividends for me and helped others . . . and is a key to financial freedom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8057"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8057"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10689,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8057\/revisions\/10689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}