Gather Little by Little

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Mrs. Stew, the brood and I are on the road this week. In fact, by this time next week, I personally will have driven 3,500 miles in the previous ten days. I have doing a lot of thinking about frugal travel.

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On Wednesday, I posted a rant about how our culture sometimes makes the mistake of defining marriage in financial terms. We commit our lives emotionally, physically and spiritually, but we keep the finances separate – just in case things do not work out. I think that this undercuts the purpose and plan of marriage.

Let me discuss the topic further by using the example of Katrina who was so kind as to leave a comment on the article. She suggested that a prenuptial agreement:

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I read a lot these days about signing a pre-nuptial agreement with one’s future spouse or checking the credit report of a possible marriage partner. The character of your future spouse is a perfectly good thing to research, but a money can be a distraction from the purpose and heart of marriage.

I still have the possibly old-fashioned, but still biblical view that marriage is for life. The basic premise behind a pre-nuptial agreement is faulty, regardless of your net worth. I might even go so far as to advise a single person  reconsider the decision to marry a future spouse who even mentions the idea of a pre-nuptial agreement.

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Last week, we gave some tips for shopping on Craigslist. Today, I would like to talk about the other side of the bargain – selling.

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Times are tight for many people these days. Many Americans have had to use and even exhaust their emergency funds without warning. There is a whole other group of people who never had an emergency fund in the first place. However you get there, being in a cash crunch without an emergency fund is a tough place to be.

Here are some options for dealing with a dire family cash flow problem:

Borrow from relatives

Money can be a sticky topic in family relationships. Something like this might take a whole lot of humility, furthermore there can be long-term consequences from family financial arrangements. However, if your need is genuine, you might have family who can help.

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Mrs. Stew and I have used Craigslist a great deal over the past few years and I keep finding more and more reasons to return to the site. The Craiglist concept was invented almost before Al Gore invented the internet. The service was first an email distribution list between friends and then the idea became a website in 1999. I used to view Craigslist just as a free version of the online auction site, Ebay, however while it is true that the best thing about Craigslist is the fact that item listings are free, the site is much more than a place to buy and sell.

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The 2010 FIFA World Cup starts this Friday at 10 am MST. I plan to watch both of the first two matches . . . after that, we’ll see . . . I happened to be in Germany during the first weekend of games during the 2006 World Cup and although I was unable to attend any of the matches live, just being in the host country during the event was a great experience. I am a big soccer fan and I cannot wait for the tournament to start. Every single game fascinates me. My job has enough flexibility for me to watch most of the matches during the first two weeks. After that, I will be traveling quite a bit and will probably have to miss a few games.

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On Wednesday, we discussed the issue of gambling in relation to being a Christian. I am not much of a gambler, but I know that many people enjoy this form of entertainment. If gambling is something that you do in moderation, here are some tips to help you to know whether or not your habit is “moderate” and to keep it that way.

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I used to work in the fundraising department of a non-profit organization and we focused on developing two types of givers: the type who had the ability to give a large gift on one or two occasions and the people who gave smaller, but regular donations – $25 a month or $100 once a year. But what about those of us who cannot even afford to give any money at all? While I faithfully give to my church, there are other charitable efforts to which I would like to give, but I simply do not have the money.

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On Monday, I answered five common questions about Roth IRA’s. Today I thought we could dwell on one aspect of Roth IRAs, namely, the rules governing Roth IRA withdrawals. In fact, there was one comment from a reader on that post asking for more clarification.

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