“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”

Albert Einstein

What a brilliant quote! Try something new today. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. If you never take a shot, you’ll never make a basket.

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2 On the first day of each week, you should each put aside a portion of the money you have earned. Don’t wait until I get there and then try to collect it all at once.

1 Corinthians 16:2 (NLT)

Save your money. This bible verse has application to your personal finances. Save a little bit every paycheck. If you can learn to save automatically, you’ll be better off in the future. Saving is a key to winning with money.

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Happy birthday, America! Yes, today is the day that we celebrate the birth of our great country! We enjoy so many freedoms in this country. Freedom to worship, freedom of speech, the freedom to prosper. But freedom comes with a cost.

Our freedom was paid for by the many men and women who have served and are serving in the military today. Do not take them for granted. We ought to treat our military men and women like royalty.

Just like we have freedom in America, we have freedom in Christ! Freedom from sin, freedom from death, freedom to live how we were born to live. But our spiritual freedom came with a price. Jesus died for our freedom. Jesus died for our lives. As the fireworks are flying, the grills are going, and the family is together, remember that freedom always comes with a cost.

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So the largest financial swindle in history ended Monday. The judge proclaimed, “Bernard L. Madoff shall be and hereby is sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 150 years.”

Bernie Madoff is the perpetrator of a $65 billion Ponzi scheme that spanned several decades and took thousands of victims. The 150-year sentence is essentially a life sentence as the 71-year-old Madoff is very unlikely to outlive his sentence.

A Ponzi scheme is where someone claims to own a company or “know” someone that has access to investments that have very good returns and are “guaranteed.” This person actually doesn’t invest the money from “clients” (victims), but uses new investors’ money to pay returns to older investors. This is how he gains trust from the investors by paying regular dividends. This makes it seem legitimate. But obviously it’s a scam from the beginning.

Madoff is believed to have started his elaborate scam in the 1980s, but his luck and his money ran out last December when too many investors wanted to cash out.

Some notable Madoff victims include actor Kevin Bacon, Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, Director Steven Spielberg’s charity, former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, and actor John Malkovich.

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“Money is in some respects life’s fire: it is a very excellent servant, but a terrible master.”

P.T. Barnum

This is so true. Tell your money what to do, not the other way around! Have money but don’t let money have you.

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“Blessed are those who can give without remembering, and take without forgetting.”

Princess Elizabeth Asquith Bibesco

Isn’t that quote just plain amazing?

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20 Then David continued, “Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Don’t be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you. He will see to it that all the work related to the Temple of the LORD is finished correctly.

1 Chronicles 28:20 (NLT)

From the Life Application Bible:

David advised Solomon not to be frightened about the size of his task as king and builder of the Temple. Fear can immobilize us. The size of a job, its risks, or the pressure of the situation can cause us to freeze and do nothing. One remedy for fear is found here: Don’t focus on the fear; instead, get to work. Getting started is often the most difficult and frightening part of a job.

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ING Direct has a rare $50 bonus for opening an Electric Orange online checking. Open an account by June 20, 2009 and then just use your debit card to make 3 signature-based (non-PIN) transactions within the first 45 days. On the 50th day, ING Direct will deposit $50 into your account! Make sure you use reference code EM275 when you open the account, otherwise it won’t work.

I’ve used my Electric Orange account for years now and I like it. Mine’s connected to all my online accounts and it’s also connected to my main checking account at WaMu (Chase). The electronic checks are unique and I find myself rarely using paper checks anymore. However, I actually use this as a secondary checking account (currently WaMu’s my main). If you don’t need paper checks (you can still mail checks), this would be a good choice for you.

I’ve found ING’s customer service to be excellent and they don’t have many fees that most big banks charge like overdraft fees. Please note that they will do a hard pull on your credit because of the mandatory overdraft protection. There is no minimum deposit to open an account, but obviously you need money in there to do the 3 transactions.

The interest rate isn’t that high, but you can open an Orange Savings account and you can get a better rate (1.50% as of this writing). If you want a $25 bonus for opening an Orange Savings account with at least $250, let me know. I’m not sure if you can use both, though.

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“Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.”

Mother Teresa

The Bible talks about being faithful with the little things as well.

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As you may or may not have heard, GM recently declared bankruptcy this past Monday to become the fourth largest bankruptcy in U.S. business history. The General obviously had way too much debt on the books. Over $172 billion worth!

But what’s the problem? Well, GM should have gone bankrupt much sooner than Monday. It should have gone bankrupt six months ago. But it was unpatriotic to let GM fail. It was un-American to let GM go bankrupt. Too many jobs would be lost. It would send a catastrophic wave throughout the auto industry. But yet it happened. GM went bankrupt.

So why delay the inevitable and spend $20 billion in taxpayer money (and counting) in the process? We might as well call it “Government Motors”. Even after billions in government bailout funds, GM went under. 21,000 jobs will still be lost. Dealers reduced by 2,600. Plants still shut down. What did we get for $20 billion but a poorly-run company which should have failed months ago?

Saturn was sold off to Penske Automotive Group on Friday and Hummer is reportedly being sold to China’s Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company.

Why do I have a feeling that this country is moving towards socialism? Failure needs to be allowed. Without failure, there’s no motivation for success. Without failure, how can we learn from our mistakes?

So what can we learn from the GM bankruptcy? Get out of debt!!! Debt will make you bankrupt. And vote for someone who actually has your best interests in mind. America doesn’t need socialism. It needs a return to the foundations that this country was based on: a faith and trust in God and a free market. Let freedom ring.

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“Lack of money is the root of all evil.”

George Bernard Shaw

Ha, ha! The love of money is really the root of all evil, but it may feel like the lack of money is the root of all evil. I’m sure that having money is great, but there are plenty of rich people who are miserable. It all depends on your paradigm (the lens through which you view life).

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Christian Finance Blog made it to Bible Money Matters Carnival of Top Personal Finance Posts #5! Check out the blog and make sure you vote for the post that made it: Don’t Get Ripped Off Buying a Car.

Edit: Now you can vote right here. Vote for whichever post you like, but keep me in mind.

It’s currently in fifth place so go on and vote!

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6 Yet true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth. 7 After all, we brought nothing with us when we came into the world, and we can’t take anything with us when we leave it. 8 So if we have enough food and clothing, let us be content.

9 But people who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction.

1 Timothy 6:6-9 (NLT)

Why does the Bible talk about contentment? Being content is a key to “great wealth”. Keeping up with the Joneses is a fast path to the poor house. The illusion of wealth shouldn’t motivate us. Being thankful and content for the blessings we have will ensure that we have the right perspective. It’s not like we’re going to take our wealth with us after we die anyway.

From the Life Application Bible:

It is often helpful to distinguish between needs and wants. We may have all we need to live but let ourselves become anxious and discontent over what we merely want. Like Paul, we can choose to be content without having all that we want. The only alternative is to be a slave to our desires.

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This really makes me mad! I have lost respect for most car sales people (yes, there are woman car sales people). I get a phone call on Friday from a younger coworker of mine asking if she could use me as a reference. I asked her “for what” and she said that she needed five references to buy a car.

Now this is a young single mother of two who doesn’t have a car. She took off work and a friend of hers dropped her off with her kids at a car dealership. She had never bought a car before. Bad idea from the start. The salesman could smell the desperation a mile away.

So I asked her a few questions since I knew she was going to get taken. She had no clue. She didn’t know how much the car was, the interest rate of the loan, length of the loan, etc. All she knew was the payment. $289 a month. Oh sure, I can afford that! Classic sales tactic. Focus on the payment rather than the total cost.

She must have asked the salesman these same questions since she didn’t have a clue. I could hear the salesman in the background giving her the answers. The car was $5900. Ok, that’s not too bad. 48 months. Ok, still not too bad. But get this: 23% interest rate! I thought the salesman was kidding at first. Nope. Serious as a heart attack. I could hear him telling her that it would build her credit, that she could trade it in for something else in a year, etc. Well, she just got ripped off. $289 for 48 months comes out to a whopping $13,872. That’s more than two times the original price of the car.

I told her not to sign anything and that I’d pick her up. Despite telling her that she was getting ripped off and that it was a horrible deal, she would not listen. She hung up on me and proceeded to buy the car. I have absolutely no respect for anyone who would take advantage of a young single mother who was so desperate like this coworker of mine. It should be illegal to prey on people like this. But stupid isn’t illegal. And some people learn the hard way.

So here are some tips so you don’t get ripped off:

1. Don’t get car fever or fall in love with a car.
2. Bring someone with you who can be your advocate (at least someone who has experience buying a car).
3. Do some research. A little homework goes a long way.
4. Don’t focus on the payment. Focus on the total cost.
5. Know what you’re signing. The terms, price, payment, interest rate, etc.
6. Bring your own financing. Having options empowers you. If you already have a pre-approved car loan, you can use it or have the dealer try to beat it. Or better yet, just pay cash.
7. Know your rights and maintain your walk-away power. Remember, that if it starts getting high pressure or if you get uncomfortable, walk away. You’ll always have another chance to buy a car. Don’t get sucked into the sales and marketing pitches.

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Logos is offering a free ebook download of Money Matters by Larry Burkett. Just add the Money Matters ebook to the cart here. Use coupon code BIBLESTUDYMAGAZINE at checkout. You do not need to add anything else to the cart. A valid credit card is required, but it will not be charged. It should show $0.00 at checkout. It only has 2.5 stars on Amazon, but hey, it’s free. And I respect Larry Burkett as a leader in personal finance from a Christian perspective. God bless.

Full details here.

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