OWE NO MAN!              DO 701            6/78

         1. I CAN NEVER EVER REMEMBER IN MY WHOLE LIFE DOING ANY PRINTING ON CREDIT! That's the craziest thing I ever heard of! We took our material to the printers to have it printed, & when I went to pick it up I paid cash on the counter, then & there.
         2. I NEVER EVEN THOUGHT OF CHARGING ANY PORTION OF IT, or paying in installments or anything. I figured if I didn't have the money in my pocket to pay for the printing, then I couldn't afford it.
         3. I not only don't believe in credit, I don't believe in operating without a financial reserve. I've insisted that every single WS Unit have a certain small reserve to fall back on, just in case there's an emergency, so that they wouldn't have to look to us. When the recent crash came, they were able to keep on operating in spite of the lack of income, because they already had something to operate on.
         4. ANY OUTFIT, NO MATTER WHAT IT IS, THAT IS CONSTANTLY LIVING BEYOND ITS INCOME, IS HEADED FOR TROUBLE, whether it be an individual, a family, an organisation, a company, or even a government. In other words, not only not living within their income & accumulating a slight reserve for emergencies, but living BEYOND their income & accumulating DEBTS instead of RESERVES! That is CRAZY business! I mean that's really insane!
         5. I AM FURIOUS WITH THESE PEOPLE WHO BANK ON THE FUTURE, & NOT THE LORD. Those who bank on forecasting instead of a bird in the hand, which is worth not only two, but a dozen in the bush, had better watch out because I'm not going to stand for it.
         6. IT'S AMAZING HOW QUICK YOU CAN GET POOR. People counting & banking on the future are apt to get a sad surprise, unless it's the LORD they're counting on.
         7. So if there's anything you need to learn, it's how to live on a business-like basis.--Common sense, no credit, cash & carry, & for God's sake build up a little emergency fund or reserve that you can fall back on in case of emergencies.
         8. A good businessman estimates on the outside, not on the inside. He makes his estimates on costs on the upside, not on the downside. He plans, in a sense, pessimistically instead of optimistically.
         9. In other words, his income estimates must be as low as possible, & his outgo estimates as high as possible. So in case he makes a mistake, one way or the other, he will hit it closer to where it really is. It's better to overestimate your bills & underestimate your income, so you can get it together somehow.
         10. If you're too HEAVENLY-minded, then you're not going to be an earthly bit of good. If you've got your head in the clouds but your feet never touch the ground, then you're not going to last very long in THIS World.
         11. You need to have your feet firmly planted on the surface of this Earth. It's a cruel World & you'd better get used to the fact that you can't just live on borrowed time & borrowed money & credit.
         12. The simple plain rule of almost my whole life has been if I don't have the money today, I don't buy it. I don't like credit. It wasn't until I had an assured salary that I ever began to have any kind of credit accounts.
         13. But I'll tell you, when that salary came to an end, I was pretty much left holding the bag because I had bills on charge accounts still rolling in, which it was not easy to pay. So you see, if you bank too much on your income & guesstimate its size a little too liberally & optimistically, you're apt to be left holding the bag like a lot of places are now. c
         14. I TELL OUR HOME FINANCE MAN TO MAKE ME OUT A FINANCIAL ACCOUNT FOR OUR HOME EVERY WEEK, so I don't even get a week, certainly not a month, behind. I want every detail, personal needs, perfume, everything, so I'll know just where the leaks are. And when you can buy a good bottle of locally-made perfume very economically, I mean good strong perfume, not just all alcohol, for $5, we don't have to go & pay $10 or $15 for a bottle of dear so-&-so's favourite perfume!
         15. I DON'T BELIEVE IN BEING EXTRAVAGANT! I'm just a real pinch-penny. I believe that the Lord supplies our needs, at least the minimum, & I like to try to stick to the minimum.
         16. If the Lord wants to give me more, well, all right, that's up to Him. In the meantime, I'm going to operate on an economy budget, just in case He doesn't decide to allow me to be extravagant.
         17. I AM CHINTZY! I AM A PINCH-PENNY. I DON'T LIKE THESE PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN SUCH HORRIBLE LUXURY! I hate to see people putting out so much money. I'll tell you, the extravagant people are going to suffer for it now because they're not going to have the money, they can't live like that any more.
         18. IF YOU HAVEN'T GOT IT, THEN YOU SHOULDN'T SPEND IT. And you kids had better learn that! Thank God for this emergency (drop in WS income) which has taught us to economise more, & cut down on a lot of unnecessary expenses, cut back to only what is absolutely necessary.
         19. I've been teaching you SPIRITUAL values for years, now you need to learn a little something about common MATERIAL values. I'll tell you, if I have ever seen anything you kids are wasteful & neglectful about, it's the way you treat material things. I have even seen it in some of the Homes that I've lived in & I have blown my stack about it. You break a little part & throw the whole thing away without even attempting to repair it.
         20. You'd better quit this ridiculous living on the future, & living on credit & borrowed time, & living extravagantly above your income.
         21. AUDIT THE BOOKS & SEE WHERE THE MONEY'S GOING, WHY & WHAT FOR, & how much income you've got or why not. Get set up on a paying basis that will pay for itself as you go.--Self-supporting. (Maria: Check what kind of napkins you're buying & what kind of perfume.)
         22. If the bills are too high & you can't raise the money, or you don't have it right on the spot, go & make a deal with the creditors. Tell them you can't afford to pay it all right now.
         23. Make a deal to pay it off in smaller payments that you can afford to pay. Creditors like to know you at least intend to pay SOMETHING, that you're honest & you're willing to face them & promise that you'll do the best you can.
         24. They'd rather have a little something coming in than nothing at all. They'd rather you pay it on small time payments than to run out of town & leave the whole thing flat & it never gets paid.
         25. We're going to have to teach you kids something about economising & working, living for the day & not for the future. I'll tell you, when I just lived day by day on whatever money came in the mail that day, I knew where I was at least, & I didn't buy anything I couldn't pay for!
         26. When I finally was on a monthly salary, the very first thing I did with each check was to write out checks for all my bills that were going to come due that month. Even if they didn't come due till 30 days from then, I estimated my bills & set aside the money to pay for them. I wanted to be sure I was going to be able to pay my bills for that whole month.
         27. Then if we had anything left, we ate. If not, we got out and witnessed and provisioned and wrote prayer letters and whatnot.
         28. Well, I'll tell you, the Lord never failed us! As long as we worked & were faithful & diligent in all the jobs & didn't live beyond our income & didn't live on credit, didn't live extravagantly, the Lord supplied every need & even more.
         29. If you live conservatively the Lord doesn't mind sometimes giving you a few luxuries, because He likes the way you hang onto your money & the way you conserve things. He knows that He can trust you with it, so maybe He can even trust you with a few luxuries.
         30. But if you live extravagantly, beyond your means, beyond your income, & buy a lot of stuff you don't need, God's apt to take away even your necessities to teach you a lesson.
         31. Instalment buying is another thing, because you come out ahead in the long run due to inflation. That's why some governments are forbidding instalment buying now.
         32. THAT'S THE ONLY CASE IN WHICH I WOULD SAY THAT IT'S WORTH BUYING ANYTHING ON TIME. But be sure that the payments are small enough that you're not going to go bankrupt & you can easily handle them no matter what.
         33. SO HERE ARE A FEW BASIC PRINCIPLES: IF YOU HAVE ANYTHING LEFT OVER, SAVE IT for a rainy day, because it's bound to rain sooner or later.--It's more apt to be a dry day when you're really going to need it.
         34. Never let yourself get caught short. Always have something to fall back on in emergencies if possible. Then at least you've got a little time to survive the emergency & in which you can still eat & try to find some other alternative in order to pull through. But if you're operating nip & tuck on the borderline of starvation & something suddenly happens, then you're just sunk.
         35. Don't count on the future, & don't have any debts to worry about from the past. Live within your income day by day, or week by week or month by month. Don't spend money you haven't got.
         36. When you start getting credit, you are spending money you don't have. In fact, the worst of it is, you are spending somebody else's money. Then when you can't repay them it's a terrible testimony. It's a strict contradiction of the commandment in the Scripture, "Owe no man anything save to love him".--Rom.13:8.
         37. You can't pay some bills in advance, but you'd better set aside for them & plan on the fact that it's going to be approximately so much. Set it aside so that you can pay it when it comes, instead of saying, "Oh well, when the bill comes due, the Lord will supply somehow." That's the way a lot of you were operating, & all of a sudden the bottom dropped out. The bills came due, but instead of the Lord supplying, the Lord taught you not to do business that way!
         38. IF WE DON'T LEARN A LITTLE COMMON SENSE ABOUT HOW TO BE GOOD STEWARDS OF GOD'S MONEY & TALENTS, WE'RE NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO SURVIVE in this cold cruel World. We are not going to be able to carry on the Lord's business if we don't learn the economics of it.
         39. One thing I know, if you seek first the Kingdom of God & His righteousness, He will add all these other things unto you.--Mat.6:33. And if He hasn't, it's because you're not seeking HIS Will first. And one of the first ways of seeking His Will & seeking the Kingdom, which means seeking & endeavouring to promote the welfare of the Kingdom, is to learn how to live economically & work to raise your own support. If you work at it, the Lord will supply.
         40. There are always going to be emergencies of some kind sooner or later. But if you're prepared for it & have built up enough of a margin to take care of it, then it's not going to be a deathblow to the work.
         41. It's going to take some work now to get out of debt, if you're so far behind, but you're going to have to do it somehow. WORK as though everything depended on WORK, & PRAY as though everything depended on the LORD, & I'm sure He'll help pull you out! God bless you! We love you!--And we're praying for you! Holler if you need help! Praise the Lord!

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family