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0:00 Mary: So in today’s episode, we are going to take on our most formidable enemy. 

Julie: Welcome to Debt-Proof Living with Mary Hunt. Today's episode is brought to you by Mvelopes. That's M, like Mary, V E L O P E S. Envelopes uses the tried and true envelope budget system. All in one easy app. Give every dollar a purpose. Mvelopes.com.  And now here's Mary. 

0:30 Mary: Hi everyone! Here we are with another episode in our ongoing series on the Seven Money Rules for LIfe. Last episode you probably will remember and if you don’t maybe you want to go back and listen to that. We talked about the two enemies. Our two enemies when it comes to managing money and they are fear. Remember that, Julie?

Julie: I remember!

Mary: Fear. And today, we are going to talk about greed, the other enemy. 

1:01 The way that we deal with the fear part. The fear of running out of money. The fear of never having enough. Fear of losing your job. Whatever having to do with money and we feel fearful. The way to counteract that is to start saving money. Money in the bank changes everything! So that was our second rule of life. The third money rule is Give Some Away. Ok? So easy. Three words. 

1:30 Give some away. Oh, I know what you’re thinking, and I only know that because I know myself. I can promise you that when I was in the most trouble with money, making a lot of money had nothing to do with where we were. Because obviously we were not managing it correctly. But I could tell you that I would have said with complete certainty: We do not have enough money to give any away! If we had that much money, we wouldn’t be in financial trouble. 

2:03 If we could give, if we could be philanthropists, if we could do all of that kind of thing, wouldn’t that be fabulous but, no, we cannot. We’ll do that someday. Honestly, I really thought that. When I get rich, I’m going to give all kinds of money away. I’m going to be the kind of person who donates big chunks to every cause and charity under the sun. Guess what? That never happened. Absolutely not!

2:30 Because the thing that was so prevalent in my life, called greed, it took over everything. It colored everything. So, I want to talk about greed. How we need to get rid of that because I’m telling you what—it will sabotage your situation. While fear and greed sound like they are identical twins, they’re really not. Fear, Fear speaks to the future. 

2:59 We’re fearful of what’s coming in the future. We’ve got to fix it so something bad doesn’t happen. Where greed sabotages the present. Right today. Because it steals something so important in our loves called contentment. As long as we’re filled with greed, contentment can’t get in and invade our lives and give us the kind of joy and peace that we long for. Contentment says I am grateful for what I have. I want what I have. I have enough to satisfy. 

3:31 You know what greed says? Greed says more is not enough. I deserve even more. I want it all. I don’t care what it takes to get it. I deserve it. I’m going to get it now. And you know what happens? We start looking to credit and that is the fastest way to get into debt. You know, I’ve got to have a new house. Got to have a new car. My kids have to go to that school. Got to have these shoes. I’ve got to have this. Uh! Greed is such a horrible, horrible enemy and greed is never good. 

3:58 Julie, do you remember that Gordon Gekko? Remember that?

Julie: Yes, from Wall Street?

Mary: He was the main antagonist of that 1987 film called Wall Street and his whole thing was greed is good. Let me tell you something. Movies are movies. Greed is not good. I don’t think greed is ever, ever good. 

Julie: You know, the funny thing about that is greed, just the image of that in my mind is that greed looks like THAT. Greed looks like someone else. It couldn’t possibly be me. 

Mary: That’s right and it looks ugly in someone else, doesn’t it?

Julie: It does!

4:29 Mary: We don’t see that in ourselves. 

Julie: No!

Mary: Because we call it something else. We call it like, being good to my children.

Julie: Yes.

Mary:  Wanting to provide a wonderful life for my family. 

Julie: Treating yourself.

Mary: Isn’t is amazing the things that, the way we can skew our thinking. It takes going through an awful lot of pain to sometimes turn it around and I don’t want you to go through pain, my dear listeners here. So, I want to talk to you about greed. 

4:56 Greed drives us to do the dumbest things with our money. It really does. It makes us believe that I don’t have the money this month so I’m going to put this $1000 thing on credit and pay it off next month really fast. What makes us think that we’ll have it next month? Because we have all these crazy things in our head. I’m telling you something. Greed is terrible. Contentment is wonderful and that’s what you can have today. I don’t care what your situation is. You really, really can have contentment today. Contentment says, you know, I may not have it all, but I have enough. I may not have the best.

5:30 I may not have what I want, but you know what? Right now, all is well. Don’t we want to have that feeling? Let me tell you how we can get that. It’s rule number three: Give Some Away.  Now, we talked last episode about saving. The goal is that you will save, put away, not spend, get out of your wallet. Get it out of your checking account, 10% of your take home pay and everything that comes Into your life. 

6:01 All the money that comes into your life that you are able to manage, 10% you need to save. Now brace, because I’m going to add to that rule number three. We’re going to give some away. I want this to become the goal of your life: is that you will get to the point where everything that comes into your life you save 10% and give away 10%. And for some of you that are saying, that’s right, and I do that, and God has blessed my life unbelievably because I am willing to step out in faith. 

6:35 Not knowing where my income is going to come from a year from now, which we all want to know, don’t we? We want to know how much it's going to be, but we can't know that. I'll tell you something. That is such a small price to pay for something that will happen in your life that will change things forever.

Julie: Let's take a quick break for just a minute. Hi, I'm Julie producer of Debt-Proof Living with Mary Hunt. You know, many of us have the experience in our lives of living paycheck to paycheck and many people. I know it well, have a difficult time following a budget. But not managing our money as a leading cause of stress in our lives.That's why Mvelopes created a simple, affordable envelope budgeting program that just works. Mvelopes helps you take control of your future by giving every dollar a purpose, every dollar, a purpose, people who use Mvelopes see monthly savings of 10% of their spending within six weeks of getting started and they report less anxiety.

Now, currently Mvelopes is extending their free trial to 60 days for all of their subscriptions. So there's never been a better time to start on a new path. Just click the link in the show notes and sign up today. Risk-free .Okay. Now let's get back to our conversation. 

Mary: It's called contentment. It’s called joy. You will absolutely develop a personal compassion. You'll be putting other people’s needs ahead of your own.

7:05 Because I don't care how bad off you are—where you are right now. The worries you have. The fear of financial money problems you have. The fears you have. There's always someone in worse shape than you are. Now, you're probably thinking, OK, let's say I could do it. Where am I going to give? What do I give? 

7:23 Do you know that was that was my oldest son's biggest problem? His question when years and years ago, we put him on a financial plan where to manage money every month. His rule was that he had to save 10% and give 10% away. His first question was where am I going to give it?  We said, we're not gonna tell you. We'll tell you what we do. Mommy and daddy, what we do. How we do this. But we want you to see beyond yourself. Who’s in need? What if you have a friend at school whose dad just got laid off and they’re really, really in bad shape. Maybe your heart will say I need to help. I need to give.  There's all kinds of needs out there.

8:04 Now my husband and I, we give to our church because we really feel that is what God would have us to do. We give to other ministries or where our heart is touched. So I would say, what moves you? Is there a pregnancy center in your town that’s really, really struggling? Are there missionaries? You know, I'm not going to say where to go. But I tell you something. Once you have money to give away, you're gonna look at the world in a whole different way. When you give it, you want to make sure that you're doing that responsibly.

8:38 I'm so excited to just convey to you what giving is going to do in your life. It's going to take your eyes off your self, your pitiful situation. You're going to have a heart of generosity. You're gonna have a heart of compassion. You're gonna want to keep doing it over and over again for how wonderful it makes you feel to give.  

8:59 It is remarkable how it will it'll pull the drain plug on your greed. It will just drain away. It really will. Now let’s talk again about the amount. I don’t want you ever to think that if you aren’t giving 10% you don’t give anything. That you have to wait til you can give a full 10%. No, No, No, No. I want you to start today. You know, $1? Remember we talked about that with starting savings. Start with what you can.

9:30 Give it out of a heart of gratitude. Out of a heart of I don't know where the need is. I want my heart stirred. I want to know that I am doing something to help someone else who is in worse shape than I am. No one will have to tell you what to do. You'll know. You'll know!  If it's only one dollar and you see I don't know where I can give just one dollar. Put it in an envelope. Next payday put another dollar. You will have that so that when the need comes across your mind, when it comes across your life you will have the ability to be able to give. 

10:10 So there it is, rule number 3. Give some away. Start doing it. Your life will never be the same.

Julie: Mary, you spoke to this at the end there and I was thinking as you were getting, as you're wrapping it up. Which is more important? The habit of giving or the amount of giving? You spoke to that a little bit with a dollar in the envelope.

Mary:  Yeah. I think habit of giving is so much more important. The amount becomes nebulous. Because once you get into the habit of giving and once you start realizing that it's in giving that we receive, and I don't mean necessarily material things, but we receive joy. We receive a change of heart when we're not looking at ourselves. So I would say the habit of doing it is 1000 times more important than the amount. 

11:05 I’ll tell you something. Once you catch the joy of giving and how that enhances your life, you won't be able to stop. You’ll wish you could give more. You’ll have a heart, instead of saying, I wish I didn't have to give this dollar away (Julie: yeah) it'll be I wish it was 1000. I wish I could give so much more. You will start looking for ways that you can give. So absolutely, the habit of giving will change your life just as the habit of saving becomes almost addictive.

11:35 These two steps of managing your money—which if you've been counting—we're giving away 10%, we're saving 10%. Guess what? That's called the 10-10-80 rule. You give away 10. You save 10. You live on 80% of your income. Now that doesn't mean that you spend 80% (Julie: Right) but that's the part that you have discretion over. The other two are solid rules in your life that are unbreakable. The minute you can get to that and you start saying 10-10-80, I wish I could show you all the letters I received over the years who said that brought everything into focus for me.

12:15 Because I had a formula. I love a formula. Have you ever tried to make a beautiful desert without a recipe? It doesn't work. You know you just start dumping stuff in it and then you get discouraged and you waste. When you have a specific formula, it's like a road map. It's like the directions, you know. It makes it easy. I just tipped my hand. 10-10-80. It’s a formula that’ll really change your life. 

I'll see you next time!

Debt-Proof Living with Mary Hunt was created and hosted by, Mary Hunt. Produced by Julie Emerson, with Harold Hunt, Executive Producer.

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