Kevin Thompson [00:00:00]:
Hey, welcome back to Change the Odds.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:01]:
The podcast for marriage and family.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:02]:
We're never meant to be a game of chance. We got Blaine Neufeld.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:05]:
Hey.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:05]:
My first solo.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:07]:
Oh.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:07]:
Oh, that's true. Adrienne.
Blaine Neufeld [00:00:08]:
Adrienne's getting all this screen time, and here I am.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:12]:
Adrienne.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:12]:
And I got in serious trouble.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:14]:
Adrienne didn't.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:14]:
I got in serious trouble because you had a business appointment.
Blaine Neufeld [00:00:18]:
Okay.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:20]:
Golf. You were playing golf and didn't invite me.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:23]:
And so I was doing a podcast here. And so she made mention of. I wish I had a hobby that would take eight hours. And I'm like, six hours.
Blaine Neufeld [00:00:31]:
First off, let's get clear. First off, let's get clear.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:33]:
And I'm like, no, no, it takes four.
Blaine Neufeld [00:00:35]:
She really was believing it was six until you did that. I've had people say, what's Kevin doing?
Kevin Thompson [00:00:40]:
No. I had so many guys who they comment narc.
Blaine Neufeld [00:00:43]:
Like, I'm like, honest.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:47]:
What do you do? It's part of it.
Blaine Neufeld [00:00:49]:
You made us better.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:50]:
There we go.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:50]:
I don't know about that. I don't know about that.
Blaine Neufeld [00:00:52]:
Oh, you are.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:52]:
All right, Blaine.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:53]:
So here's what we're doing. We're in a series right now, becoming Friends, partners, and lovers. And so it's from the guidebook available on Amazon. You go to changetheodds.com as to companion to my kind of base marriage material, friend, partner, and lover. So on Wednesday nights here at the church that we work at together, we're actually almost up to 600 people now who have signed up for the class. They join us on Wednesday nights. We have a couple discussions, some table talk. You and Adrienne are doing a fantastic job to set the tone and have fun.
Kevin Thompson [00:01:21]:
We're having fun, all those kind of things. And so last night, we had to talk about money. And so on a previous episode, Adrienne and I talked about kind of the first session of that, which was my basically recipe of how to make money miserable.
Blaine Neufeld [00:01:35]:
Right?
Kevin Thompson [00:01:35]:
And y'all are living it, right? Y'all are living it.
Kevin Thompson [00:01:37]:
We're doing it for work. And yet money's not miserable.
Blaine Neufeld [00:01:40]:
No, it's not for y'all. So I. Can I speak to it, please?
Kevin Thompson [00:01:43]:
Why?
Blaine Neufeld [00:01:44]:
Maybe let's do that. We're listening, and I'm, like, dissecting this. I'm like. I get these points. There is. There's two things. There's a big trust. She has a big trust in me.
Blaine Neufeld [00:01:53]:
Money can be overwhelming in the thought process for her. Her dad was a fantastic accountant. Money was always taken care of. Family trips were organized. Right. This is the Budget this. So she has just existed on these moments in life and trusted the funding, the finances were good. And so we've had conversations.
Blaine Neufeld [00:02:12]:
I've told her at times, hey, what do we make? This is what we make. It doesn't stick because there isn't this need for it to stick. Now I will say too that, you know, it's when times do get stressful, she can see it on me. She's like, is everything okay? Right. Well, you know, we took a pastor job, so life is different. You can't work in the States, so there's that. And we get into a spot where I'm far more anxious when I, I can't save as much. I don't see myself as an overspender of let's spend money we don't have.
Blaine Neufeld [00:02:43]:
I think I've been very good with money, but at the same time I get anxious and stressed if I can't save for the future. That's just part of me. And I know that was one of the things last night that we talked about was the 1020 rule and spend the rest, but it's like we make a move, there's little stresses. This is a unique two year season for us where I feel like I'm gonna give ourselves a little grace that we don't have the nest egg that we thought we would. But we're doing awesome work together and we're having tons of fun doing it.
Kevin Thompson [00:03:13]:
Absolutely. And I think an important part for the listener to hear is one, there are seasons of life in which whatever your system is, it changes. But notice what's happened. You've had wisdom for some years that suddenly allows this season. I remember when Jenny started her business, she's working like crazy and stressed out. And I said, why don't you just work for yourself, start your own business? And she goes, oh, we couldn't afford that. I said, oh, yeah. Not only can we afford it, you actually don't have to be profitable for this many months.
Kevin Thompson [00:03:44]:
We have all this set aside. And so it suddenly gave her all this freedom. Now she was profitable by the first month, but it gave her this freedom to do that, that had we not been saving and had we not been wise in the money that we were that season, we could not have experienced. You're experiencing the flow.
Blaine Neufeld [00:04:00]:
It's really that.
Kevin Thompson [00:04:00]:
Yes, yes.
Blaine Neufeld [00:04:01]:
We've been spending savings and dipping into things I've never wanted to because of the season. And I felt guilty at times, but I'm like, we're living what God's asked us to do. We're loving it.
Kevin Thompson [00:04:12]:
This is the whole point of money that's good. The whole point of money is because.
Kevin Thompson [00:04:16]:
I think a guy like me can.
Kevin Thompson [00:04:17]:
Get it wrong the other way. A guy who loves to save so much, I could save, save, save and never spend. Well, what's the point of that?
Blaine Neufeld [00:04:24]:
You never lived.
Kevin Thompson [00:04:25]:
Yeah. You haven't done it at all. Interesting.
Blaine Neufeld [00:04:27]:
Interesting.
Kevin Thompson [00:04:28]:
There is this idea, we talked about it last night. This idea of getting to a point where one of the greatest skills need to develop is how do you meaningfully spend? So we're spending in a meaningful way, which means we're cutting back meaningless spending. But we are being intentional about leveraging our money for beneficial ways to navigate our lives and to nourish our lives. And this is a season for you in which you're doing that. I would embrace that wholeheartedly.
Blaine Neufeld [00:04:53]:
That's great.
Kevin Thompson [00:04:53]:
However.
Kevin Thompson [00:04:56]:
There is something the listener knows.
Kevin Thompson [00:04:58]:
That you don't know yet.
Kevin Thompson [00:04:59]:
I'm good.
Kevin Thompson [00:05:00]:
They have heard last week's episode. You haven't.
Blaine Neufeld [00:05:03]:
I'm good.
Kevin Thompson [00:05:03]:
Because we just shot it, Adrienne and I. Here's what we learned. She has backed out and kind of almost checked out of Yalls finances with full trust in you, which has worked in Yalls relationship. And that's a beautiful thing. Other relationships have done that. And the carpets got pulled out underneath the person. It's heartbreaking. Here was my challenge to her.
Kevin Thompson [00:05:26]:
I see two negatives to this one. I think she's cheating herself in that she's not as engaged or as knowledgeable as she can be. And as a person that needs security, that's actually creating a little bit of insecurity in her because she doesn't know what's going on. And there's actually some risk in that because if you get sick tomorrow, what are you gonna do now? I told her we have loving family, community. We'd all come around support. But a better process would be she kind of has a clue of what's going on already.
Blaine Neufeld [00:06:01]:
True.
Kevin Thompson [00:06:02]:
And then secondly, I think she is cheating you to an extent that this is a team sport. I have no problem with one spouse carrying the load of the day to day. The management. I mean, I do that for us. Jenny does her business. I do our personal finances. But Jenny has to be fully on board to understand what's going on. I think the question even came up last night.
Kevin Thompson [00:06:23]:
Imagine if you and another guy were in a business together. There's no way you would say, oh, I got the finances. And he has no clue what's Going on if he's equally invested. So it's only in marriage in which we would ever run this process. And I think what's happening is you're being cheated out of her perspective, her understanding. Now, if we were honest, it comes with some benefits. You get to do whatever you want, and sometimes that's easier. The illustration I used with her of last week on the show was, I would never want to be a single parent full time by any means.
Kevin Thompson [00:06:56]:
But there are times when the kids were little, when Jenny was gone, it was easier because I was in charge. There was no question you're doing what dad said. Whereas if mom's home and dad says something, they can go to mom and appeal to the Supreme Court, and I get overruled.
Kevin Thompson [00:07:11]:
Well, all right.
Kevin Thompson [00:07:12]:
So there's some benefits to Yalls model where you get to just take care of it. You don't have to worry about. You don't have to worry about conversations and explaining and debating. However, there's some aspects to y'all aren't together. Creating the life that you want, all that's falling on you. And my challenge for y'all and what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna create a date night. Doesn't that sound exciting? A date Night by Kevin Thompson. I'm gonna create a money date night where I want you all to go have a great dinner, literally take 200 bucks.
Kevin Thompson [00:07:43]:
We're going to go have a great dinner. We're going to go beautiful spot, walk around or sit and have coffee. And let's talk about what do we want in life.
Blaine Neufeld [00:07:54]:
All right?
Kevin Thompson [00:07:55]:
The kids are this age, 15 years from now when they're starting to leave. Where do we want to be? What do we want to be doing? Let's start dreaming about that, because what that will do is it will suddenly give you a filter right now. Give Adrienne a filter right now of which is more important, this thing I want on Amazon or this life I want. And suddenly you can begin to evaluate which is more meaningful to me. Because without the picture of where you want to go and the life you're building together and even understanding some basic steps of how we're getting there, then suddenly you have no basis to view this current purchase or this aspect of how life is.
Blaine Neufeld [00:08:36]:
Yeah.
Kevin Thompson [00:08:37]:
What do you think?
Blaine Neufeld [00:08:37]:
I mean, like, an example of that lately was like, so we want to go and buy a house, right? We got the savings there, but we want to save a bit more. I want her to eventually get a green card. This is like insider baseball right now. So that we can get more of an income, therefore we get a better rate. All these things are kind of going through my head. And so I said, k, babe, I know you want to buy a house. We could go and buy a house. It would be a lesser house than you dream.
Blaine Neufeld [00:09:03]:
And I can see that you want. Would you be willing to spend two more years renting while we're saving? And part of that deal would be, let's buy a good couch that you. She's trying to make the home. The home, which is very important to her. So, okay, we'll make that investment. We'll look for. We call them like lifelong pieces. Like things that we want to hold on for a while and care for.
Blaine Neufeld [00:09:25]:
So we'll spend a bit more on the couch because it's the nice one that she's going to have for many years versus a quick fix. So we kind of found, okay, I'm on board with renting a house for two more years if I know the goal is this. And so suddenly we were together on that goal. And now that felt good to be. So to validate your point, it feels good when you actually. And we've done bits and pieces of it. The other thought that I had was, what I have already is a note on my phone with should Blaine die.
Kevin Thompson [00:09:55]:
There you go.
Blaine Neufeld [00:09:55]:
Right, here's this, here's this, here's this here. She's. She's not necessarily looked at this or knows this, but it's there.
Kevin Thompson [00:10:02]:
She'll find it.
Blaine Neufeld [00:10:03]:
Which I think is a really good tool to have because you just assume life is going to be good and they'll figure it out. It's like, no, I love the point that you made the other night. He's like, we've done a lot of funerals where, you know, Susie finds out that her husband had another debt somewhere. What is happening now? You got grief on grief, you said. I'm like, that really stuck with me. That was interesting to find out. You know, you just lost your husband at 70 years old and now you hope the finances are figured out, and now they're not.
Kevin Thompson [00:10:34]:
Now you got a debt to pay off. Yeah. For a boat. You never even.
Kevin Thompson [00:10:37]:
Where's the ad?
Blaine Neufeld [00:10:39]:
So that's where I would never want to get to. But at the same time, we've had some few tricks and. Yeah, it's interesting.
Kevin Thompson [00:10:46]:
No, I love it. Y'all are in great. Y'all are in a great spot. So much further than so many people. I just think there's a little nuance here that we can Play.
Blaine Neufeld [00:10:52]:
Yeah.
Kevin Thompson [00:10:52]:
To really, like. I mean, we talk about it. Of all right, what does a power couple look like? Well, power couple becomes a financial team, right? Totally. That's the next step.
Blaine Neufeld [00:11:01]:
Totally.
Kevin Thompson [00:11:02]:
And y'all are playing a lot of that role, but I think there's a way that we can improve. So here's what we're going to listen to. We're going to listen to the money talk part number two. And in this one, I really got down into detail of. Jenny and I have been married 25 years. We haven't had a fight about finances. How is that? What's the system we use? Started 25 years ago with a little book called the Millionaire Next Door. And then make some recommendations of how.
Kevin Thompson [00:11:26]:
Not that you should take this system on. I'm not saying that at all. What I'm saying is you should have an actual system. And so that's what we're going to listen to and really think if you can ever get on the same page financially, it can go a long way to changing the odds of your marriage. So let's go inside the worship center, bayside Granite Bay, and listen to money talk number two.
Kevin Thompson [00:11:47]:
I've been probably as insecure about this talk as any I've ever given because I don't want to ever come across as, hey, Jenny and I have got it, all right? And you all need to be like us. That's not this at all. Jenny and I play marriage experts on the Internet, not in real life. We're never saying be like us by any means. At the same time, I want to be transparent to assist you and to let you see what this looks like in very real and relevant terms and ways. But I recognize that I come from privilege that some of you haven't had. Whenever I tell a story in the previous session about how I would pool together my birthday money, right. And that's what we would use for ice cream.
Kevin Thompson [00:12:23]:
And I charged my dad interest for it, which I still think he's bitter about. He should have been proud. It was his own fault. He's the one that taught me as an accountant. But some of you didn't have birthday money. Some of you didn't have an accountant dad and a teacher mom that would instill some of these conversations with you. And so I want to recognize the privilege that I have that I come from the blessings that God has given Jenny and I. And I don't take those for granted in any way.
Kevin Thompson [00:12:48]:
But at the same time, I do think there are some general principles that we can walk through. To talk about what this looks like. And where I'm probably most excited about in a room like this is for those young couples who are in this room who are dating, engaged, early married, now, there's opportunity for all of us. But for this group specifically, there is such opportunity that if I can assist you, if we can assist you, I want to help you in whatever way possible. Because really, the earlier on you can figure some of this out, the longer the opportunity to have a return on investment actually is. So I have told you, and you've heard me say, you know. Gottman says the number one indicator of impending divorce is regularly fighting about money. Every statistic, every survey I have seen has put money either as the most significant or the second most significant point of contention in the average marriage.
Kevin Thompson [00:13:45]:
And yet Jenny and I, in 25 years have not had a single fight regarding money. We fought about other things, but not a single one. And it's not a concept of denial, and we're just living in denial. And that's why it's never an issue. It's not that. Until today, as I left the house this morning, I told her this morning, hey, I'm not going to talk to you today. Because I got to make it to 6 o'clock without us having a fight about money. Because I've been telling people and I just literally like, the moment I said it last week on stage, I'm like, that is just setting yourself up for failure is all that is.
Kevin Thompson [00:14:19]:
So I didn't talk to her today, but as of right now, we have gone 25 years and never had a fight about money. How is that? And I want to reveal to you some of the process that we've used in that. So Jenny and I were married in the summer of 2000. It's a great time to be married because how many years we've been married, whatever year it is, you just subtract 2,000. It's the perfect way. I've never had to wonder how long we've been married in January of the year 2000, which sounds like forever ago. I recognize in preparation for marriage, I'd been reading all these different marriage books and I would send them to Jenny and she would read them and we'd have these discussions. It started when I was in Phoenix doing an internship.
Kevin Thompson [00:15:00]:
She was in Montana working at Glacier National Park. Eventually we moved to Birmingham. I was in graduate school. She was working there at a job in trade show marketing. She was traveling the country doing trade show marketing. We're preparing for marriage. She's Living in her apartment, I'm living in mine. We're doing prepare and enrich as our premarital counseling, which is something you can do here as well.
Kevin Thompson [00:15:21]:
And in the midst of that process, I realized money's gonna be an issue. And so in January of that year, I have a little break from seminary. And so I go to books. A million. And I purchased the book the Millionaire Next Door. And it is that book that began to give us a format and a formula by which we would spend the early years of marriage. And this book has a basic concept to it that there are these under accumulators of wealth, what he calls UAWs. They are under accumulators of wealth.
Kevin Thompson [00:15:54]:
And then there are these prodigious accumulators of wealth, what he calls paws. And so the whole book kind of contrasts. What's the difference between being a paw and being a uaw? And what's interesting from this book, because think about it, I'm a seminarian at the time. Jenny has a good job. She's probably, you know, making what, $25,000 a year. Most of that's going to rent. I was living off of $600 a month. My rent was 395.
Kevin Thompson [00:16:22]:
But what struck me about this book is he basically said this, that the difference between an under accumulator of wealth and a prodigious accumulator of wealth has very little to do with income. So in other words, the perception is your salary determines whether or not you can accumulate wealth. And what Stanley and his co author did in this book was to show that many people in America that are actually millionaires, nobody would recognize that they are millionaires because they're your neighbor that look exactly like you. But the difference is they have subtly and steadily over time accumulated this wealth, whereas others have not. And so the mindset that I had with Jenny at the time and we had these conversations about was, look, I'm gonna be in ministry, you're gonna be in business. We don't know where all that's going to look like. Marketing at the time was not something you made very much money at. I don't know how much money we're gonna make, but here's what I know.
Kevin Thompson [00:17:20]:
Given what God gives us, how can we make sure that we are being wise in what's being given to us so that we actually do accumulate more wealth than what somebody else living the same lifestyle, getting the same amount of money might be in to take in? And our mindset was this, that our relationship with Jesus, both of Us having known Jesus for a very long time should at minimum create two things within us. We should be more generous than our peers who don't know Jesus, and we should also be wiser than our peers who don't know Jesus. Because while they might be tempted by materialism and they might be tempted by status symbols and trying to find their identity and their purpose and material things and showing those things off because we get our identity in Christ, not only should that give us more compassion and generosity toward other people, it should also save us from not spending money in some places that other people might actually spend money. And that should give us in some ways, kind of a leg up to where we could accumulate wealth over time. Not that we're ever going to be rich, but that within the concept of where our salaries are and the lives that we're living, that we will have more financial stability than others who are living in the same way. And so that was our mindset. So here's what I want to give you. These are.
Kevin Thompson [00:18:44]:
I think I've narrowed them down to eight. These are the general principles and we didn't necessarily list them out, but these are the general principles that Jenny and I had financially in the year 2000, the very first year of marriage, we said, here's what we're going to do. Now I want you to get this very clearly, whenever I lay this out, I am not about to give you a list that I'm saying you should repeat. I'm not saying that at all. What I am saying is that before we got married, we had a system in place. And I think it is the presence of that agreed to system that has allowed us to go 25 years and really not debate money very much at all. Even on salaries that for some are much higher than what you make. And I get that for others, much lower than what you might experience.
Kevin Thompson [00:19:37]:
So let me just kind of walk through kind of. What our thought was, number one was this, that we would give 10%, we would save 20%, and we would live off the rest. That was not very easy at the age of 23. Now I want to recognize the privilege. We were living in the outskirts of Birmingham, Alabama. We were not renting a house in Granite Bay. Recognize that difference. That literally I could go to Fort Smith, Arkansas right now and buy a house for $170,000 that anybody in this room would live in.
Kevin Thompson [00:20:21]:
You can't do that here. I get that. But here's a principle. We're going to give 10% from the get go. We were going to be generous people. We knew that that was an aspect and an element of the life that we wanted to use. And from the very beginning, we said, here's what we're gonna do, and here's what's interesting about this. You make that decision one time, you never have to make it again.
Kevin Thompson [00:20:43]:
We've never had to debate it. We've never had to discuss, well, he wants to be generous, and she doesn't want to be generous. In our relationship, it'd be the reverse. Well, she wants to be generous and he doesn't want to be generous. Not debated. We made that decision from day one. We're gonna give, at minimum, 10%, and then we'll give above that in capital campaigns and salvage. You know, Jenny was on the board of Salvation army for a long period of time and all the other charities, we're going to give to those things.
Kevin Thompson [00:21:08]:
But we're going to start, first and foremost, 10% to God. And then we got very aggressive. We're going to save 20% to the best of our ability. We're not going to do that every month, but to the best of our ability, we're going to save 20%, and then we're going to live off the rest. And eventually, we couldn't do this in 2000 because the technology wasn't there. But very quickly, what did become available to us is we just then automated everything giving. To this day, giving goes out. Jenny probably don't even know when the giving goes out because it's just automated.
Kevin Thompson [00:21:39]:
Every Friday, there's a check that goes to Bayside. I got the email. The checks come in, it just goes. The 401ks automatically happen before we even talk about it, before we even think about it, anything like that. This is one thing we're trying to instill within our kids. And so Silas, right, he gets his driver's license, he's now driving, doing all these things. He's working hard, he's making good grades. He's working here at the church.
Kevin Thompson [00:22:02]:
And we told him, I get that this is a state of privilege, and I'm not trying to show this to brag or anything like this. And I also don't want to exploit him. So please keep this in this room. Here's what we told Silas. You keep making good grades, you keep doing what you're supposed to do. And as long as you tithe, and as long as you save $7,000 a year in a Roth IRA, mom and I will pay for your car and your gas. But if you don't make Your grades, if you get lazy at work, or if you're not tithing and saving, then everything goes on you. What are we trying to train him? If you will learn to give and to save early on, that process is in place.
Kevin Thompson [00:22:50]:
Then suddenly the next thing you know. Here's what I think is interesting. This is why I love the idea of tithing within God's economy. If you can live off of 90% of what you make, it's a little bit easier to live off of 85%. But if you get used to living off 100% of what you make, it becomes really easy to live off 105% and 110%. And I don't think it's any accident that God has put in place this idea of all right from the get go, I want you to give a part of that away, to create a discipline now, to live in a more restrained way than what other people live, and to find out that you can do that with this great deal of freedom. So that was principle number one. Number two, we will be frugal until the age of 40, but we won't push off every pleasure for later.
Kevin Thompson [00:23:35]:
So I did have a financial advisor very early on that I met with in college, and he said this. He said, kevin, if you can live as frugally as you can until the age of 40, save as much money as you possibly can after the age of 40, you can live however you want to. And so we made the intentional decision that we are going to be a little bit more radical with savings and investments until the age of 40, knowing that the compounding of that, the return on investment over time will pay off in such a tremendous way. And I had some great advice from a friend, and he said this. He said, look, Kevin, part of what I want you to save is cash. He said, here's the reality about being a pastor. There's a lot of downsides, but there's a lot of perks as well. If you will stick aside cash all throughout your 20s and 30s, just consistently stick it away, then have it where it's accessible to you, what will happen is you will pastor a church over a long enough period of time that you will have friends who care enough about you that they will have investment projects that if you have cash available, they will actually come to you and say, hey, if you want to be a part of this, I'll let you be a part of this.
Kevin Thompson [00:24:39]:
But if you don't have cash available, you won't be able to be a part. And sure enough in our late 30s, early 40s, a church member back in Arkansas came to me one day and said, hey, Kevin, I'm putting some money together for this deal. Look, I don't need your cash. I don't want it by any means. But if you have some and you would like to invest in this, then here's the percentage I can return on that. And we have done multiple deals with him since then, starting at very small and then growing in some way. Why? Because we saved all this cash over this time. Had we not done that in our 20s and 30s, we would have missed out on those opportunities in our 40s.
Kevin Thompson [00:25:12]:
That was a gift that we had. Not everybody has that. I totally get that. But to live with that mindset. Listen, dear friends, if you're younger in here, if you can buy in this concept of, look, we're going to live as frugally as possible until the age of 40, and you put that money into investments, then those investments eventually begin to grow and they can begin to make more money than you're actually making in your own salary. But notice this. We did not do this to a maniacal kind of concept, to where we never experienced any fun, because here's where I think you can take this wrong. Do you realize that 50% of all men die within six months of retirement? Well, welcome to Wednesday night.
Kevin Thompson [00:25:56]:
Anybody retiring in the next year. So here's what you got. Not now. Here's what you got to watch out for. If all you ever do, if all you're ever doing is living for a retirement that's in the future, you're assuming that you're going to have that future when there is no guarantee. Here's the mindset that Jenny and I have had all along. We want to plan as though we're going to live forever and yet choose to have experiences knowing we can go like that. And so we haven't hesitated on vacations.
Kevin Thompson [00:26:34]:
We choose certain experiences that we're going to have. And from a very young age, when our kids were little, specifically, we took time out and we said, look, this is important to us, even though we could make so much more money investing this money. No, let's spend money on the vacation as well. So you have to have this discerning kind of process of, I'm not planning and living it as though I'm all gonna wait until I'm 65 or 70. At the same time, you can't just assume, well, I'm gonna live however I want to right now, and the future will take care of itself. So I have this kind of discerning kind of process. So I would say don't delay the whole joy of money until tomorrow for a tomorrow that may not come. Number three, we will regularly talk about money, including giving permission at a certain dollar amount.
Kevin Thompson [00:27:21]:
So here's what that means. And here I'll tell you exactly what it was In Birmingham, Alabama, in graduate school, if we were going to spend more than $100, we did not do so without the permission of the other. Now, back then, you could go to the grocery store for less than $100. You can't buy two dozen eggs for less than $100 right now. But my point is, you need to have an agreed to number that anything below that, we can operate, man. You have freedom, I have freedom. We can make things work above that number. We need to make sure that we're signing off on that.
Kevin Thompson [00:27:54]:
That number is no longer $100. It's much higher now. But early on it was right there. But beyond that, we would just have these regular money conversations, Review kind of where we are, what's going on. Hey, here's, you know, these, the bank statements are coming in. Here's kind of what we spent last month, and here's how much we're saving. And here are the investments that are taking place. Are we being too conservative in one area? Are we spending too much money in one area? I remember back in Arkansas, the church gave me a membership to the country club that was across the street from us.
Kevin Thompson [00:28:24]:
So they paid the initial kind of fee. And then whatever I spent then on that month, it would be charged to me. And one thing Jenny said very early on, she said, I have no problem. She's not a country club kind of girl, right? She said, I have no problem with the country club. Here's what I cannot live with. We cannot be paying more money to the country club than we are the church. She said, I just can't appreciate that at all. I'm like, that's a great point.
Kevin Thompson [00:28:48]:
And so just to make sure that, hey, are we tithing more than what our monthly dues are here at the church or more monthly dues at the church? That's funny. More than what our monthly dues are at the club. And so that was just a general principle. We have these conversations going on. Generally speaking, we would take vacation once a year. And so on that vacation we would have just money talks. How are we doing? And the big picture of things, how are we doing? Anything we need to dial back, anything we need to ramp up. How are Investments and just have these positive things.
Kevin Thompson [00:29:16]:
Of what direction are we going in this moment? Number four, no secret stashes, funds, loans, expenses. Financial adultery is wrong. If you want to destroy trust or respect, take out a loan that your spouse doesn't know about. I can't tell you how many times I have been at the house planning the funeral when one of the adult children says, hey, mom, why do you have a loan at First National? And mom says, we don't have a loan at First National. We always banked at Citizens. No, you have a loan for a boat. And the man who had died had taken out this loan and never told his wife. Do you know the chaos that causes at the funeral? Grief upon grief.
Kevin Thompson [00:30:17]:
So just no secrets here. We're just going to be transparent. I don't have a secret stash that's over here. I don't have an amount of money that's in my golf bag that Jenny doesn't know about. That. That's my golfing money and everything's fine. Now you can divide up golfing money and shopping money however you want to. That's not a big deal.
Kevin Thompson [00:30:35]:
But there's no secrets and there has to be full transparency in what's going on. We will have debt for investments, but not for other expenses, which means the credit card has been paid off every month. We've never missed a credit card payment in 25 years of marriage. Here's what this has also meant for us. We buy cars. Used, preferably low mileage, newer used cars, and we pay cash. So there's no. We never will buy something based on a monthly payment that a salesman is telling me what I can afford because he doesn't know what I can afford.
Kevin Thompson [00:31:09]:
He knows what he wants me to pay, but it's just not a wise way to make a decision based on a monthly payment as opposed to how much is the total cost of this? Is this a good deal or not? And notice this when you ask people what they want out of their life. Take the ideal retirement for you. And if I were to pass the microphone right now and go around what the ideal retirement is for every single person in this room, you know one thing that would never probably come up, man, I want to drive this certain car. And yet for a good number of us, the very thing that is standing between us and. And the lives that we want is actually what we drive. It's the car payment that, if it were less or didn't exist, would actually help. Now, I get that not everybody cannot have a car payment. I Get that.
Kevin Thompson [00:32:00]:
But the question does become Virginia and I. It's the idea of you buy a used car, you pay cash for it, and then you drive it for 10 years, because always whatever you're driving is generally cheaper than whatever comes next. And so I just got a new used car. Why? Because Silas got his driver's license. And I told him, I said, look, buddy, we'll buy you a new car eventually, but you're a horrible driver right now. And so you get the Subaru, like, good luck to you. It's a great car. And he's totally fine with that, right? It's a gift to him.
Kevin Thompson [00:32:28]:
It's a great thing, but we have no problem. So I'm not a Ramsey guy on this. I don't follow Ramsey's financial advice, to be honest with you. If you have debt, I recommend it to you. If you don't have debt. I like other people, but I have no problem with leveraging debt for investments. There's a difference between having debt and being in debt. I don't want to be in debt.
Kevin Thompson [00:32:50]:
I have no problem having debt because of what we can do from an investment concept. Number six, continually up the percentage of savings in 401k splitting bonuses. 50. 50. So here's what that meant. Anytime Jenny or I got a raise, and that happens a lot sometimes, whenever you're in your 20s and 30s, you're moving up the. The kind of the corporate ladder. Anytime we got a raise, let's say Jenny was going to get a 3% raise, okay, we would up our 401k by 1%.
Kevin Thompson [00:33:18]:
So she actually only got a 2% raise.
Kevin Thompson [00:33:20]:
That we actually felt.
Kevin Thompson [00:33:21]:
But guess what? It felt like a raise. But our investments went up. If we got. If she got a bonus or I got a bonus, let's say I got a $5,000 bonus, right? I preached. Well, that year I got a $5,000 bonus. 2,500 of it would go to retirement. The other 2,500, we could spend however we wanted to. And obviously that would impact our giving as well.
Kevin Thompson [00:33:43]:
So any unexpected income, half of it would go to savings or we would creep up our 401k. Well, what began to happen, that means very early on in our 30s, we had actually both maxed out our 401s, just maxed them out. And we never felt it because we.
Kevin Thompson [00:34:00]:
Actually felt all along the way that.
Kevin Thompson [00:34:02]:
Hey, we're kind of making more money. But actually our savings was going up at a tremendous rate. You can trick your mind in some way. Number seven, our dreams matter more than what we drive. And so we're just not going to be truck poor. And a lot of people are truck poor. Number eight, always be saving. So we never had to have a reason to save.
Kevin Thompson [00:34:23]:
There was always a reason to save. Future opportunities are coming along. So I didn't wait till there was an investment opportunity, oh, let's start saving money for this. It was, hey, let's start saving some money. And if that investment opportunity comes along, then we'll do that in some way. Because here's the most useful thing that we got to remember in all of this. It's the aspect of compounding. The greatest gift that we have financially is this idea of compounding that if you save a dollar today and it makes 10 cents, then now you're saving a dollar.
Kevin Thompson [00:34:52]:
Now there's interest being paid on a dollar and 10 cents, and so now that makes 11 cents. So now you have interest being paid on $1.21. And literally that compounding that takes off. Do you recognize that Warren Buffett. Warren Buffett at the age of 65 was worth $81 billion. Okay, that's a lot of money. You know, today is worth $155 billion. Warren Buffett, in retirement post 65, has made $75 billion.
Kevin Thompson [00:35:25]:
Why compounding? It's all those early investments that just begin to pay month after month after month after month. If you can begin to leverage that, there's a great gift that then comes in. So those are the principles that Jenny and I had, I would say, for the first 15 or 20 years of marriage. And really, most of them we still live by. Obviously, we're over 40 now, but we still live by. We still save 20%. We actually give more than 10% at this moment. Everything is automated.
Kevin Thompson [00:35:58]:
These are many of the principles we still live by. I'm not saying do this. What I'm saying is, what are your principles? And if you don't have any, if you haven't talked through them, then literally, if money comes your way or an extra expense comes your way, you don't know what to do about it, which then puts tremendous pressure on the conversation to figure it out. Well, notice this. If you write me a check for $10,000, well, suddenly that doesn't sound as good as what I talked about earlier, now does it? But if you wrote me instead of me writing you a check for 10 grand, if you wrote me a check for 10 grand, guess what? Jenny and I don't even have to talk about what to do with the money. We already know we already know exactly. There's a system, there's a process that we can then take place. So let me conclude.
Kevin Thompson [00:36:40]:
And you can be texting in your questions. Marriage to 56316. Let me just quickly go through at least five closing principles on this topic. Number one, have a system. And it's percentages over dollars, percentages over dollars. And notice this, the big decisions matter more than the small. If you can get your fixed cost at under 65% of your income, you do not have to have a discussion of whether or not you can go to Starbucks every single day. And the truth of the matter is, oftentimes we fixate on how much we're spending at Starbucks or Cane's or McDonald's or wherever we're eating out.
Kevin Thompson [00:37:24]:
We fixate on how much we eat out on, and most of us can cut back on that. But then we pay no attention to how much we spend on our house or our car. And generally speaking, it is the house and the car that is determining where your financial stability is at this very moment. Jenny and I, our fixed cost is 55% currently of our income. If you add the tithe into that, which I would say is a fixed cost for us, then we're right at that 65% level. So there's a lot of flexibility. Number two, both spouses are equally involved. Now that doesn't mean that both of them are paying the bills every single month.
Kevin Thompson [00:38:00]:
It doesn't mean that there can be a practical. Here's how we handle it. But here's what this means. Both are equally involved in the process of what is going on. Do not rob your spouse of the joy of helping to create mutually the life that you desire. Do not rob yourself of staying out and just playing ignorant and just depending upon your spouse to make all this happen. Because what happens if the day comes that spouse can't do it? There are some things you both have to know. You both need to know what your income is, when will you pay off your debt, what is your savings rate? What is your net worth? What is the system? Have we both spoken into that? And the truth of the matter is, in a room like this, we have a couple things going on.
Kevin Thompson [00:38:45]:
We have some who feel so insecure about the topic, they just trust their spouse to take care of it. And while that sounds noble, you're actually robbing your spouse of a partner in this journey. Don't forget it's friends, partners and lovers at the same time. There's another group of people in this room who you Unknowingly use money as a control of your spouse. Well, she can't spend this. She can't spend that. I can't spend this because he's doing that. No, no, no, no.
Kevin Thompson [00:39:13]:
Here's the thing. I get to dictate what Silas spends and doesn't spend. Why? I'm his parent. He's my child. I do not get to dictate what my spouse spends. Why? Because she is not my child. I am not her parent. When one spouse dominates the other spouse with control whenever it comes to finances, that is a parent child relationship.
Kevin Thompson [00:39:30]:
We can figure out why that is. But whatever it is, it's unhealthy and it cannot be that way. Number three, Learn to spend money meaningfully. Learn to spend it meaningfully. So what is it that you can spend money on without any guilt, but with joy to know, man, this brings me life. If money is a tool, let's learn to spend it in meaningful ways. So here's what that means. That means there are some ways we're gonna stop spending money.
Kevin Thompson [00:39:59]:
Why? Because it's not meaningful. It's just not mean. Nobody's gonna say, man, the life that I really want is just eat raisin canes every week. And so you can dial it back on that. But at the same time, I know people who make millions of dollars and they can't spend it. Well, what's the point? So find the places where you can spend it joyfully. Never hesitate to give to the church. One thing with Jenny and I was the kids.
Kevin Thompson [00:40:27]:
Whenever we were little, here was the rule, right? I'm a writer. I would never turn down my kids if they requested to buy a book. Walk into books a million. Daddy, can I have this book? Yep. Can I have this book? Yep. Books for me were just absolute. You can have whatever you want book wise. Now, whenever we get home, I might make it turn off the video game because you've just bought all these books.
Kevin Thompson [00:40:49]:
Let's not be wasteful. But that's just one area, which I just said early on, oh, yeah, we're spending money there. One thing I generally won't hesitate to do if I'm in a place where there's a really nice golf course, I'll pay the green fee for that one time experience. Our 10th anniversary, we were in Carmel. First time, I think I was in California. And we were near Pebble Beach. And Jenny said, hey, why don't you go play Pebble Beach? I said, do what? She goes, why don't you go play Pebble Beach? I said, I haven't even. I literally had not even thought about it.
Kevin Thompson [00:41:23]:
I said, that's a lot of money. She said, how much money is it? I said, it's six and a half weddings. She said, what? I said, well, most people pay me $100 for a wedding. It's $650. And she goes, do you have seven weddings on the calendar? I said, Absolutely, I have seven weddings on the calendar. She said, go play Pebble Beach. And that is an experience that to this day, I remember. It was the day we killed bin Laden.
Kevin Thompson [00:41:51]:
It was the most American day of all time. I shot 79. I was as happy as could be that night. We go into Roy's to have dinner, and I don't know if you remember those of you that are old enough to remember this. We walk into Roy's and news was breaking that the President was going to hold a press conference at midnight Eastern, right? So we're walking to dinner. All this chaos.
Kevin Thompson [00:42:13]:
What's going on?
Kevin Thompson [00:42:14]:
Does he have cancer? Is his wife pregnant? Are we bombing somebody? What's going on? And we walk into Roy's and there's a sign that says, no cell phones. And so I sit down at the table. I'm a news junkie. I sit on the table and underneath the table, I have my phone like this, ironically, the same way I was in staff meeting today, watching The Arkansas game. 100% a true story. Ray caught me. I'll post on social media later. And the manager walks up to me and he goes, excuse me, sir? I said, yes.
Kevin Thompson [00:42:43]:
He goes, when you find out what's going on, could you tell me? I said, yes. We killed bin Laden. I played Pebble Beach. We killed bin Laden. God bless America. It was just a great kind of concept. So learn. This is a skill that many of us in this room need to leverage that.
Kevin Thompson [00:43:02]:
It's one thing to save money, but can we spend it meaningfully in a way that brings us joy and life and there's no guilt and there's no shame? That man, we can go do this without any hesitation. Figure that out regularly. Have positive money conversations. Don't wait until something goes wrong. If you're in a good financial state right now and you feel good about that, but you know something bad could happen. On your way home tonight, have a conversation about money because you know it's gonna go well. Compliment each other. Thank God for the life that you have of what's going on.
Kevin Thompson [00:43:35]:
If you can get in the habit of having positive money conversations, then whenever there is tension or a Little bit of difficulty, it puts you into a much broader concept. And then number five, just consistently make good decisions, not great ones. You don't have to make great decisions. People all the time, man, I got to find just the greatest investment. You know what's better than the greatest investment? A really good investment that you can make faster. Just you got a good investment, make that good investment. If a better one comes along, you can make changes later. But so many people waste so much time.
Kevin Thompson [00:44:07]:
I got to find just the right stock. I got to do just the right thing. And they keep on waiting for a great decision and they lose time. Make a lot of good decisions. One way to a great life is just consistently making really good, not great decisions. Now, let me recommend two books to you. Neither one are Christian. Neither one are Dave Ramsey.
Kevin Thompson [00:44:25]:
My apologies, Dave. He's made enough money. But if you will view these in ways and understand that from a Leave the faith to us. So you have to interpret some of the things that these guys say. They're not going to push giving the way I would push giving, but it's some really good stuff. So the psychology of money will help us understand why we view money the way that we do. And then Ramit Sethi is who I've always used Moneywise, since probably about 2010. He has a book called I Will Teach youh to Be Rich, which is a great one.
Kevin Thompson [00:44:55]:
And then Money for Couples really is a great way to help you begin to understand how to have these conversations. He's done some great work. He has a show on Netflix. He has a great podcast. You can just begin to listen to that. And literally what you'll hear is, is you will hear couples that make $500,000 a year fighting over money. So the thought is, well, if our salary was right, we wouldn't fight over this. That's not true at all.
Kevin Thompson [00:45:17]:
It's the concept of, are we on the same team and how can we move forward?