What's your Net Worth?

Warning: You might not like this post because it talks about uncomfortable things like sinning and finances.

Hello gang! Gosh, I haven't written in a while. So lately, I've been pretty fired up about finances. Yay budgets! But really, I'm pretty passionate about paying off debt right now. I also just read a couple articles on net worth. Net worth is something a lot of people have heard, but maybe aren't 100% sure what it means. Simply, it's your assets - your debts, or a way I like to look at it is, if I died tomorrow and Nate decided he wanted to forget I ever existed, sell everything we owned, pay everything off, and move to China, would he have enough to move to China. Actually, I don't like to look at it that way at all. But it's an illustration.

Nate and I are currently hanging in a balance between a positive and negative net worth. So if you have said, "Those two are good for nothing," you are, in fact, entirely correct. For having a whole bunch in student loans for Nate, a car payment, a mortgage, and being young and newly weds... I'll take it.

As I look at the budget Nate and I have been following, it sure feels like we should be millionaires by now. (< Cut me some slack, I'm part of Generation Entitlement...) About 46% of the money we make/take home after taxes goes towards paying off our debt... the Grand Prix loan and Nate's student loans. About 4% of the money we make/take home after taxes (though I wish it was more) goes to giving to our church or other charities. So we live on about half of our money. 50% of THAT 50% goes toward regularly monthly expenses, aka bills. My house payment, cell phones, internet, water, heat, electric, sewer, blah blah blah. So about 25% is left for groceries... and anything else not covered by a "bill." That includes non-monthly bills like my semi-annual car insurance and our wonderful state of Illinois's outrageous license sticker fees.

Sometimes I think we're geniuses, and other times I want to go buy a really nice Coach purse for myself. Or get a new car. Or a nicer house. I hope this blog entry doesn't sound braggy... because it definitely isn't. But I do get really fed up with people who say "If I only had more money..." right after posting a picture of their new laptop or other purchase.

I get real preachy real fast on this, so I'm going to sidetrack back to net worth. Net worth nearly always refers to money, but what if someone kept a score of your moral net worth? If they quantified the pain you had caused and measured it against how much joy you brought to people in your life. The good news is, when you accept Jesus as your savior, your eternal slate is wiped clean. But, for fear of being a total Debbie Downer, people close to you may be keeping their own copy of your ledger.

Ultimately, God's forgiveness is the only one that matters, and a million good deeds won't buy your way into heaven. But regardless of who you are, Christian or not, people are watching you.

What if someone subtracted 10 points from your net worth for gossiping... added 15 for helping a friend in need... subtracted 5 for lying... subtracted 10 for lying more... How would you measure up?

I truly believe that God wipes our slate clean each day, but we still need to work hard to create a positive moral net worth. Not because we can ever be good enough to pay God back... but because it's our job to make peace with both our debtors, and those who we owe. These debts are harder to pay back than any financial debts. I can set my mortgage payment to automatically come out every month, but I can't tell my self to reimburse exactly so much kindness on a certain date to a certain person. So whether it's money... or your spirituality and morality... create margin, give generously, and look toward the future benefits or consequences. Bye for now!