Why I'm Passionate about Stewardship

This semester (Which btw is my last semester taking classes!) I am taking a class on Women's Counseling. I watched a presentation yesterday that was a little mind-boggling. It was about women and finances. The presentation was about how a woman got herself into and out of $100,000 of credit card debt. She simply couldn't control her spending habits. She lived a life constantly wanting new things and attempting to deceive her husband about how much money she was actually spending. Her tips for getting out of debt weren't what blew my mind. The mind-blowing concept for me was how people perceive money.

I get it - we live in a society that is all about want. We want new clothes, we want wrinkle-cream, we want a new car, we want another degree so we can do something else. We live in a society that is constantly changing. There is always new technology and new trends. You are simply out-of-date without a smart phone, right? Newsflash: we have been brainwashed to want. Have you figured it out yet? Since you were a child, you were taught to want. Whether you were looking through the Sear's magazines and circling everything you wanted or looking in store windows or wanting the cool toy your friend had, you have been wanting things since you were a child. You were encouraged to want things. That's why your parents brought you to sit on Santa's lap, right? That's why you were forced to watch commercials between your favorite TV shows, right? The crazy thing about want is that it snowballs. We start out wanting one small thing, then it grows to wanting something else. Soon we catch ourselves thinking I'll be happy if I only had this one thing. Ever found yourself thinking that? Ever thought that you'll truly be happy once you find true love? Or you'll truly be happy once your boyfriend finally pops the question? Maybe you'll truly be happy once you replace your old car with a newer, nicer one? Or once you get that promotion you've been wanting?

Some of you might think this is the most boring thing on the planet, but I am passionate about stewardship. I know, right? Ugh - stewardship. But seriously, stewardship is one of my favorite topics. I am constantly thinking about stewardship - constantly asking myself if I'm being a good steward. Let's start with the basics and get it out of the way...

What does it mean to be a good steward?
I've written a little about stewardship before in my blog about why I love working about Chick-fil-A. Stewardship is basically taking responsibility for how you use your money, time, and things. Being a good steward means financial responsibility, yes, but it also includes a lot of different areas. It means not being wasteful (Can I get a WOOHOO from my Green friends?). Being a good steward means taking care of your things so they last longer. You can be a good steward by not buying things at the grocery store that you know your family won't eat, no matter how delicious it sounds at the time. You can be a good steward of your body by taking care of yourself and getting enough sleep. You can be a good steward of your time by separating work and home life and knowing your limits.

As you can see, there are infinite opportunities for stewardship. The trick is learning to see them. I'll admit, stewardship is a relatively new concept in my life. When I married Michael, I knew I was marrying a saver, but I had no idea how much it was ingrained into his lifestyle. Michael is by no means a penny pincher, but he certainly won't protest to saving a few bucks. Over time I began to understand his lifestyle. At first, when I knew how much money we were saving, I thought, "Oh great! We can buy so many new things!" And while, yes, this is the purpose of money, I was wanting to buy things just to buy things. I wasn't separating my needs and my wants. I learned that the most important part of being a good steward is:

Living withing your means!
I know, I know, we all hear it and we all think we're doing it. Here's the deal about living within your means: if you have to use credit, you're not living within your means. I'm not saying to avoid using credit cards, because Michael and I regularly use our credit cards, but we don't use our credit cards for their intended purpose. We pay off our entire balance every month. We only use the cards to build our credit (and to earn points!). If you actually have to use your credit card to avoid paying for something, or if you have to wait to pay bills until the next month, you're not living within your means. Plain and simple.

Another key aspect to being a good steward is..

Small things add up!
This is my personal favorite part of stewardship. I love to save money, even if it's only a few cents. I do this through my Target RedCard (Which btw saved me over $200 last year!) and the Target Cartwheel (a coupon app on my phone). The biggest opportunity I have to be a good steward is when I grocery shop, especially since I do my grocery shopping at Target. There are temptations everywhere. I never realize that I need new decor until I walk through target. I never think about getting Misty a new dog collar until I pass the pet aisle. When I go to the grocery store, I have to be super intentional about only buying the essentials. Eggs, pasta, cheese, milk, you know.... I buy ingredients for meals I know how to make, and I leave. I pass the cereal aisle. I pass the snack aisle. I pass the candy aisle. Essentials only. Grocery shopping isn't a complete drag though because I do allow myself to...

Splurge on the important things.
When I grocery shop, splurging looks like sodas and Digorno stuffed-crust pizza. Michael and I avoid regularly eating at fast-food restaurants partly because we work in one, and mostly because we want to save our money to go somewhere nicer.  Want to celebrate getting an A on a paper? Go for it! Need a weekend vacation to get away from your stressful job? Book it! When you save money on the small things, you can spend money on the things you want to spend money on. Which brings me to my final point.

Prioritize.
Everyone's priorities are different. Maybe splurging on getting massages is really important to you, maybe it's not. Maybe getting triple-ply toilet paper is a must have, maybe you buy the cheapest brand possible. The important part is not spending unnecessary money on things that are low on the priority list.

And here's where my challenge begins. If you're in debt, look at that amount of money that you owe and ask yourself if you know where it went. Chances are, if you know where it went, it was important. If you don't know where it went, it probably wasn't. Ask yourself, were those extra trips to McDonald's really worth it? Is living in discomfort now worth the temporary joy that you felt when you bought "the cutest top ever made"? Look, I'm not telling you to save as much money as possible so that your savings account could pay your entire mortgage alone. We can't take money with us when we die, so it doesn't make sense to build it up for nothing. I'm just suggesting that we pay attention to where we spend our money so that we can spend it on the things that matter. After all, there is nothing worse than having bills piling up to your eyeballs, right?



Random Fact: Money fights or differences in spending habits are the leading cause of divorce. Getting on the same page as your spouse will save more than a few bucks!

The Power of the Fitbit

Before I start, I want to give a quick shoutout to my main man Jesus. Last July I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism. After taking the medicine for a month, I had to stop it because it made my heart feel like it was pounding all the time. Yesterday, after several months off of the medicine, I went in to have my blood re-tested and my levels were completely normal! As in EXACLY halfway between the two ends of the ranges! While my hypothyroidism will most likely come back at some point in my life, I am praising God that right now I can celebrate the normal!

Now, on to my newest discovery - the Fitbit. My sister and brother-in-law asked for Fitbits for Christmas and I had no idea what they were. When they showed them to me, I was totally blown away, and I decided to use my Christmas money to buy one. This is my Fitbit:

It's a Fitbit Flex, and it's $99. This isn't the nicest one Fitbit has to offer, but it certainly does a lot. First, it's a pedometer. It counts my steps. I wear it on my wrist and it monitors my arm movements. A lot of people have asked me if it logs steps just by moving my arm. I was curious myself when I first got it, so I looked it up. While it sometimes does accidentally clock steps, it has a 3-point algorithm that only clocks a step when my arm has moved both front to back and slightly up. And considering that it doesn't count steps when you're holding or carrying something, the small amount of mistakes it might make are compensated for.

The Fitbit wireless syncs to my phone. It converts the number of steps I take into the number of calories I've burned and the mileage I've walked. My goal is to walk 10,000 steps a day, and I feel really pumped when I see that I walked 5 miles.

Second, the Fitbit monitors your sleep patterns. I put it in sleep mode and wear it to bed and it monitors how much I move in my sleep. My sleep graphs look like this:

The pink lines represent the amount of time I was asleep, the light blue lines represent the amount of time I was restless, and the dark blue represents the amount of time I was asleep. Last night I slept for 7 hours and 55 minutes, and I was restless 13 times. You can also set your Fitbit up to have a silent alarm. You do this through the app in your phone, and it vibrates to wake you up! (Great for me on the mornings when I have to be at work at 5am.)

Finally, you can also use the Fitbit app to monitor your eating patterns. You can log your calories by scanning a barcode or searching for that food. I don't use this part of the app but I tried it for a day and it was really cool! You can also track the amount of water that you drink. I like this part of the app because I've been trying to drink more water. The goal set in the app is to drink 64-oz of water, or 8 cups. I've only reached my goal once since I got the Fitbit. (In case you're curious, 64-oz equals 2 full Newk's cups.)

You can also link your app with your friends, and challenge your friends. Veronica (my coworker) and I are doing a challenge this week to see who can walk the most steps in the week. The only thing that I don't like about this part of the app is that it's not very user-friendly. You have to know the e-mail address of someone in order to add them as a friend. I wish I could sync it up with my Facebook so that I could add my Facebook friends! Maybe that'll be in the next update?

What I like most about the Fitbit is that it encourages you to have a healthy lifestyle. Wearing a Fitbit is a constant reminder to make better choices. Every time I look down at my wrist, I know I need to walk more, drink more water, or sleep more. It's a constant reminder that healthy choices can be easy and add up little by little! (Cool side note: the Fitbit vibrates when you have reached your 10,000 step goal!)

Living a healthy lifestyle isn't just about looking good. I have tried to constantly remind myself that being healthy for that purpose alone isn't worth it. I try to be healthy to honor God. I have been given two legs, a great set of lungs, and a healthy heart. God gave me a healthy body and I can honor Him by taking care of it! After all, Scripture says...

"Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies." 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

The Value of Sacrifice

As most of my Facebook friends know, I have been having quite the journey dealing with my dogs over the past year. I have Misty, my incredibly sweet, timid, and independent dog that I've had for over 3 years. Last March, Michael and I decided to get another dog, and we got Rocky. Our sweet Rocky was so incredibly sick and died after we had him for just a week. And finally, in April, we got Bailey. Bailey was the opposite of what we wanted, and yet I held onto a hope that she could calm down and become the loving companion that we wanted. Bailey was the worst puppy on the planet. During the first month that we had her, she was waking me up 4-6 times a night because she was lonely. By 6am she was ready for her morning puppy sprints and she was up for the day. She had more accidents than I ever imagined was even physically possible, and I cleaned up more poop than I care to remember. She was loud, hyper, and destructive. I spent months upon months trying to "fix" her.

During my months with Bailey, I learned a lot about myself. I learned that I am not as good at dog training as I thought. I learned that I can be patient and calm when I choose to be. (I'll be the first to admit that I've struggled with snapping at others my entire life.) And, most importantly, I learned that my body deals with stress in a very physical way. About halfway through my time with Bailey, I learned that I have hypothyroidism. My thyroid is under active. This also occasionally causes a heart arrhythmia, or an irregular heart beat. I learned that when I get stressed, my heart feels like it's pounding and I experience shortness of breath. This does not go away until I relax for an extended amount of time. 

During the past couple of weeks, taking care of my body has really been on my heart. After experiencing an especially stressful period, I knew that I had to get this under control. I knew that it meant bringing Bailey back to Heavensown, where we got her. It was a heartbreaking decision, but a necessary one. I realized that I was sacrificing my own health for a dog. (Please don't read too much into that. My health problems are not serious, just annoying.) I realized that all of my time and energy was going into something that, at the end of the day, does not further the kingdom of God. And that's why I had to let go.

What I truly realized was the value of sacrifice. We all value sacrifice. We honor those who make great sacrifices for others. We all live life knowing that we'll have to make sacrifices, have to give up what we want or need with others. At some point along the way, I started putting so much value in sacrifice that I overdid it. I stopped saying "no" to others, including a dog. I gave her all of my time and energy because I thought it was the "right" thing to do. I was left empty and drained. My temper was shorter, I didn't want to go out and spend time with others, my heart was always pounding, the list goes on and on. For a dog. 

Reality is, we only have so much that we can give of ourslelves. Even if we want to give the world, we all have limited means. When you give all of yourself to one thing, you're stealing part of yourself from other places. I wasn't being the loving wife that Michael needed me to be and I certainly wasn't being the patient leader that I needed to be. All for a dog.

Sacrifice is a valuable thing. It's not something we can freely give out. We do not honor God by sacrificing ourslelves for insignificant things. Never saying no is not as giving as we think it is! I know that most of my readers are women, and I know that women have this innate desire to give themselves away. Consider this: does your sacrifice further the kingdom of God? Does your sacrifice unintentionally give away time or energy that is more valuable elsewhere? Are you being a good steward of your sacrifice?

I know I am not the only person who has lost balance here. And I definitely know people who are more generous than I am! Sacrifice is important and necessary, but it's not always necessary. Saying no means that you can say yes later!