Continue reading »]]> You may have noticed that we have stopped blogging, and you may be wondering what’s going on. Well, we don’t want to keep you in the dark any longer.

We’re really excited about a new focus in our business. We are taking some time to pull together some new products and services, including new a book. All this means that there will be some big changes with a new name and a new look. You folks will be the first to hear about it, so stay tuned.

We will continue to offer financial coaching, so please contact us if you need encouragement, support, and well, a bit of pushing. Our heart has always been for you, and that isn’t changing.

Abundant blessings,

- John & Rena Bonesio

Continue reading »]]> We’ve been covering various aspects of boundaries and how it affects our money and relationships. This time I’d like to talk directly about boundaries with our money. We need to have good boundaries in our relationship with money.

We can have unhealthy boundaries with our money. Money can become too important to us. Or money can be used assuage guilt. We can be holding onto it too tightly or too loosely. We have to learn to have appropriate boundaries with our money so that it has its proper place in our lives.

Too Rigid

When we have boundaries that are too rigid, money has too high a place in our lives. Perhaps we have an all consuming focus on money. We watch the stock market several times an hour. We place all our security in our money, and we spend most of effort trying to acquire more.

When we live like this, we don’t have money. Instead money has us.

Too Loose

When we have boundaries that are too loose, money becomes a tool to remove guilt. When we live this way, we believe that it’s selfish to have money or that we’re being disobedient if we have money. So, we give money as often as we can, and many times, more often than we should.

Whenever a need arises, we’re there giving away our money. We’ll even give away our rent or mortgage money just because someone else expressed a need.

One of the problems with this is that we never know when we’ve given enough. How much is enough to satisfy our guilt? If our house is foreclosed on because we gave when we didn’t really have the money, is this enough? You see, the guilt never goes away by giving more.

In the process we hurt ourselves and our ability to be generous with money in the future.

Just Right

Having boundaries that are just right means that we think of money as a tool. We are aware that we can fall into a pattern of greed and selfishness if we’re not careful. And we are aware that we need to care for our own needs before we care for the needs of others.

Keep in mind that most of us already have way more than we need. Owning a flatscreen TV isn’t a need – it’s a want. So waiting to get that flatscreen for a few months because we’re giving to a good cause is very reasonable.

Here are a couple tips for getting boundaries with your money in that just-right zone:

1. Give money regularly

It’s so easy to get upside-down on our boundaries with money. One of the ways to avoid this is be generous. When we give money, we loosen our grip on money, and it loosens it’s grip on us.

2. Prioritize spending

Many times we see people spending with backwards priorities. They’ll pay thousands on the credit card bills while their house is being foreclosed on. Instead make sure you take care of necessities first. Necessities are: food, shelter, clothing, and transportation.

With your shelter, pay your utility bills such as electricity, water, trash service. For some of us this includes internet. But this does not include cable or satellite TV. For transportation, we need to get from here to there. This might mean we’ve got a good pair of sneakers and bus money.

Take care of yourself first before you give to other needs. Otherwise, you’re just trading one charity case for another.

Now it’s your turn. What’s the best way to give?

Continue reading »]]> This topic may seem a bit odd, but people often have extremely loose boundaries with themselves. So many promises that people make to themselves end up broken. “I’m going to give up smoking for my New Year’s resolution.” “I’ll get back on my diet after I splurge a little for the holidays.” “I’ll start jogging again on Monday.”

Unfortunately, when someone has broken many self-promises, deep down, he or she won’t really believe it’ll happen anyway. The promises become meaningless and produce fewer and fewer results. But it is possible to change this destructive pattern by examining and shoring up boundaries with oneself.

In order to have healthy boundaries with oneself, a person must have self-integrity. The word “integrity” comes from the same root word for “integer” and “integrate.” It indicates a wholeness; no separation or division. Bringing one’s behavior into alignment with one’s intentions is a key element of self-integrity. Melding intentions and behavior around money is a great place to start.

Unhealthy Self-Boundaries
When a person is lacking self-integrity regarding their money, they are not maintaining healthy boundaries with his or her own self. Self-boundaries that are too loose could include, for example:

• not saving up for things they claim are important
• not creating a plan for their money
• not following a spending plan if they have one
• neglecting to not check in on spending, savings and other financial matters

In contrast, having healthy self-boundaries would mean establishing clear limits and staying within those limits. Also, the person’s spending would be a clear reflection of his or her values—that’s self-integrity.

Establishing Healthy Self-Boundaries
If you find that you are needing to strengthen your own boundaries with yourself, here are some suggestions:

• Make goals and plans for your money that are realistic and clear.
• Make commitments with yourself carefully and thoughtfully and take yourself seriously.
• Start simply with commitments you are certain you can fulfill. It helps to get some “wins” right away as you rebuild your trust in yourself.
• If you will be unable to follow your plan, change the plan. For example, if something you needed to buy cost more than you’d budgeted, don’t just throw out the whole budget. As soon as possible, change your plan, i.e. reduce spending in another area to compensate for the overspending.
• Set up some accountability with someone you trust. This accountability can be very helpful for single people because they don’t share accountability with a spouse.

Rebuilding trust with yourself takes time. You will rebuild it, little by little, every time you do what you told yourself you’d do. It’s wonderful to feel in control of yourself and your choices. It is a feeling of strength, confidence and peace.

Continue reading »]]> Money is an essential part of marriage—it can draw people together or drive them apart. Money problems are often cited as the #1 cause of divorce. However, having healthy boundaries with your spouse regarding your money can help.

Boundaries: Too Rigid
One version of boundaries that are too rigid is when a couple maintains separate finances. We have observed that when couples do maintain separate finances, they often miss out on a certain depth of intimacy. Here’s the main reason: all personal financial decisions reflect a person’s values and goals, which are key elements of a person. So, when a couple can agree on how they use their money, they need to have come to some agreement on their mutual values and goals.

Another version of overly-rigid boundaries is when one spouse has all the control of the finances and the decisions about those finances. Those dynamics are very different compared to the couple that does separate finances, but the results are as harmful, or even more so.

We highly encouraged married couples to do their finances together: share the checking and savings accounts, access to information about all financial accounts and insurance policies and planning how to spend the money. This advice is for couples who are married, not just living together.

We know from our own experience that the new depth of intimacy that comes from this level of agreement together is worth the work that it takes to get there.

Boundaries: Too Loose
Once a couple has blended their finances, they need to agree on how to use their money and they have to follow their plan. We know it’s easy to skip budgeting and reviewing and all that: but failing to do so prevents a couple from developing and maintaining a mutual understanding and agreement. Spending without a plan is haphazard and not goal-driven. It is not based on mutually agreed-upon values. It’s a recipe for conflict.

The solution is to have a plan for the money that both people agree upon. If getting that agreement is a struggle, they can check out our free resource, 20 Tips to Kiss Your Money Fights Good-bye. Of course the plan is a benefit only when both people follow it.

Be aware: when a spouse uses money differently than he or she had agreed, trust is diminished and the relationship suffers. Rebuilding trust takes effort and time—a lot of time. Trust is rebuilt by making clear commitments and following through, over and over again, over time.

Boundaries: Just Right
We have already implied what healthy boundaries for couples regarding their finances looks like. To be clear, this is how it looks:
The married couple

• shares access to all financial accounts (checking, savings, investments, and insurance)
• talks about the thing that are important to them in life
• works together to use their money in a way that matches those values
• agrees on a plan on how to use all their income for the upcoming month
• checks in with each other regularly to make sure they are following their plan
• agrees on how to adjust the plan when needed
• includes in their spending plan some personal spending money that each person can use exactly how he or she wants to use it.

I mentioned that we know from experience that the benefits of doing the personal finances together are well worth the effort that it takes. So, If you are wanting more intimacy in your marriage and the sense of being a team, we encourage you use your finances as a tool toward that end.

Continue reading »]]> Mostly this blog is about boundaries with kids. The same principles also can apply to grandkids, nieces, nephews or other family members who are in financial need.

Have you ever noticed that they don’t teach kids about money in school these days? Rather, it is the parents’ responsibility to teach their kids about personal finances. Having healthy boundaries around money is it important part of that teaching.

Just like all parenting, keep in mind that your kids are always watching you. They learn some from your words and a lot from your actions. Therefore, model the good financial habits you want your kids to have, like goal-setting, budgeting, saving and giving.

1. When your kids are still young, give them age-appropriate financial responsibilities.
I know that it feels good to give your kids things they want and like. Instead of buying your kids the things they ask for, consider paying them for doing household chores and teaching them to save up for the things they want. Trust me, they’ll value it a lot more when they’ve had to work for it!

2. Don’t sacrifice your own security to help other people.
Generosity with family is nice, but not when it puts you in a bad place financially. You have to have some financial security to give without hurting yourself. So, make it a priority to get out of debt and have 3-6 months of expenses in a savings account for emergencies. Then put 15% of your household income into retirement savings. That’s a pretty secure place to be. Then you’ll be in a much better position to help other people financially.

3. Be careful in discerning if you’re giving a hand up or a handout.
Naturally, it’s difficult to be objective when it comes to helping one’s kids. No parent wants to see their kid suffer. Indeed, the heartache of letting an adult child be, for example, homeless is often too much for parents to bear. But giving money may not be the help that person really needs. Be sure you’re giving help that helps instead of help that hurts. When giving a person money enables him or her to continue making poor choices, a parent actually would be hurting instead of helping by giving money. Since it is so difficult to tell if giving money is helping or hurting, perhaps a more objective point of view from a trusted friend would be helpful in this situation.

Maintaining healthy boundaries with your kids can be tough. But through all the times it is tough, remember: your being strong will pay great dividends in the life of your child over time.

Continue reading »]]> We’ve talked about how many of us have negative feelings towards wealthy folks. Even while we are unsatisfied and perhaps envious of wealthy folks, we often believe our lives will be easier if we had more of it.

I Can’t Get No …

John D Rockefeller was asked how much money is enough, and the answer was “just a little more.” The thing is that we never seem have enough. We always would like to have more money. We think that if we had a little more, our problems would be solved. We wouldn’t have to worry about money if we had just a little more. If we had a a little more, we could save for retirement. If we had a little more, we would be a better parent. If we had a little more, we could be a better friend.

The truth is that for most of us, a little more money isn’t enough. Once we get that raise at work, we’d still like to have a little more. We still aren’t satisfied.

The reason is that many if us are on a “bigger, better hunt.” We are always hunting for the next bigger, better thing. We move into that new bigger house, and not long after we’re looking to get into an even bigger, better house in that better neighborhood. We buy a new flat screen TV, and not long after we’re looking at the newest models. We have an iPhone 4, but we’re not content with it because the iPhone 5 is now is out.

Satisfaction

The answer to continual dissatisfaction is to find a way to be content with what we already have.

Here are a few things to keep in mind that may help you find contentment.

1. Everything is temporary

No matter what thing you buy, it has a life span. That iPhone will last only a few years. Unles restoring old cars is your hobby, our cars last for about 10 to 20 years – many even less if they’re involved in an accident. Houses last a lot longer, but they’re not forever either. The Starbucks coffee we buy lasts only about 20 minutes, and after an hour it’s cold.

If we remember that things are temporary, it makes it a bit easier to be content with what we already have.

2. That feeling we get from buying things is short

A lot of time we buy things so that we’ll experience a feeling. We get an emotional high when we buy things. It feels good. The problem is that this feeling only lasts a few days to a few months – sometimes even just a few hours. That new house we bought doesn’t feel so special after we’ve lived in it for a year.

If we remember that the emotional high we will get from making a purchase is short, it is easier to be content with what we have.

3. Things don’t bring true satisfaction

We are always let down when we expect a thing to satisfy us. We get that short emotional high, but then we experience dissapointment. This is becuase things aren’t meant to satisfy us. I believe that until we have a relationship with Jesus, we will always feel a little discontented. Trying to fix this discontent with more stuff doesn’t work. Satisfaction comes from a connection with God, loving relationships, and in living out our purpose.

If we remember that things don’t bring ultimate satisfaction, it’s easier to be content with what we already have.

Now it’s your turn. How do you remain content, or do you constantly feel like you need more? Tell us about it.

Continue reading »]]> There is saying that goes around: “Nice guys finish last.” With this saying and Bible verses that talk about a money, people often get the idea that rich people must have low moral standards. We think those guys must have stepped on the backs of others to get into that position.

Related to this is the concept that money is evil and corrupts those who have a lot of it. People think that money is the root of all evil. We have this strange dichotomy of views, one view for ourselves, and a different one for others. We think those rich people must be evil for having so much, all the while we’re striving to get more for ourselves.

The Truth About Rich Folks

One of the reasons for our views of the rich is that the news media highlights those abberant cases where a rich person swindled money from others. So, we generaize those specifics to all rich people. But the media doesn’t highlight the other rich folks who are very generous. That’s not newsworthy.

As Rena and I are running our business, we are discovering that people do business with people they trust. Trust is rarely built with people who do not have good character – people who don’t keep their word, stretch the truth, or are greedy. I think the truth is that most successful wealthy folks are not greedy, evil people at all, Instead these are the kind of people we would want to hang around and be with.

Money doesn’t cuase a person to be greedy or selfish, but mony can accentuate those traits. I’ve known some greedy selfish poor folks, and I don’t want to be around them. I also know some godly rich folks. Godly folks who acquire money tend to feel a greater responsibility with that money and become even more godly. Greedy folks who acquire money tend to become even more greedy with it.

Evil Money

I also wanted to address the idea that money is the root of all evil. This statement is a misquote of the Bible which states that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. There is no doubt that having money can mess with us if we’re not careful.

The key is this: Do you own money, or does money own you? If you have money in perspective, it can used for for some very good purposes. Money can be used to build a hospital, a group home or a library.

If money owns us, then we become consumed with acquiring more and more for ourselves. In this case, money is a problem for us, and giving it away might be a good thing.

Continue reading »]]> … or do they?

Class warfare seems to be much more common these days. People are mad that the rich have so much money. From those Occupy folks to President Obama, there seems to be a sense that the rich folks are taking advantage of the rest of us.

The common mindset that runs through this is that if the rich have so much money, it must somehow have come from the pockets of poor people. We call this thinking ‘scarcity mindset’. This thinking is that there is only so much money available, and it’s either in poor people’s pockets or rich people’s pockets.

Rena and I do not subscribe to this mindset. We, instead, subscribe to an abundance mindset. The value of money is not in the paper it’s printed on. Money is valuable because of what’s written on the paper – and the value we agree it has.

Two Chickens

If we didn’t have a commonly accepted currency, we would, instead, probably do something like this:

I fix your fence for you. You would give me a couple of chickens in exchange, but I have enough chickens. So instead, you write down on a piece of paper that you owe me a couple of chickens. Then I can trade this IOU (for a couple of chickens) – for something I do need. Maybe I need my short field to be tilled. So I give the IOU to someone who is willing to till my field for the chickens. This person then might go back to the chicken farmer to make good on the IOU for chickens, or he might trade it with someone else.

As you can see from the example, tangible things like chickens can be traded for services such as fixing a fence or tilling a field. An IOU for 2 chickens has become a medium of exchange. Instead of trading IOUs for specific items or services, we use money as a common medium of exchange.

No Limit to Work

When you look at it this way, money is basically stored up work. There is no limit to work. If a rich person does some work, this doesn’t take away the amount of work that a poor person can do. The rich person didn’t steal work from the poor person.

Now you might be thinking that there really are only so many dollars in circulation, so this really is a limited resource. This type of thinking doesn’t take into account that a person’s net worth is not just in the dollars the person holds. If I use some of my dollars to buy a plot of land, I no longer have those dollars. I’m not poor. Instead I’ve made an exchange, and a part of my wealth is in that land I purchased.

Most rich folks don’t have a vault full of money. Instead they own things that have value. They own companies, stocks in companies. and real estate, to name a few. They aren’t holding onto cash making it unavailable to poor people.

Abundance

With the abundance mindset, there are plenty of ways in which we can create valuable goods and services. There is plenty of work to go around. We can invent new ways of creating value and earn money. This happens all the time. How many of you bought an iPad in 2005? The answer is: No one. iPads hadn’t been invented yet. Before 1995, no one ever provided a service to sell people’s stuff on eBay for them. eBay hadn’t started yet.

We aren’t limited by the number of dollars in circulation. We are limited by the amount of value we create in the world, which is not very limited, indeed.

What about you? Do you think rich people take advantage of poor people? Did you get angry reading this article?

Continue reading »]]> I am often struck by the similarities between weight management and money management. I’m eager to share what I’m learning on my own journey toward optimal health because I believe it will benefit other people when they apply the same ideas to their personal finances.

I lost a bunch of weight and stopped. I tried some here and there to get back to working on my weight loss goal, but I found it really hard to stay motivated and to stick with it. Then a couple things changed…

1. My perception of my goal changed.
   In early November I heard a health coach say that if I followed the plan I could lose 20 pounds by the end of the year. I know from experience that the program works when I follow it. So I thought, “Wow, that’d put me only 8 pounds away from my goal weight!” Suddenly my goal looked a lot closer and more achievable. The goal didn’t change, but my perception of it did.
2. I identified some very specific outcomes that I really wanted.
   Since I had already lost a lot of weight, I was looking better, feeling better and even getting compliments about it, too. But there were still a few things about my body that really bothered me (i.e. excess fat). I could point to them and say, “I want this gone!” In a moment my goal became crystal clear. I knew exactly what it would look like when I reached my goal.

I found that having my goal be super clear and believing that it’s doable made all the difference for me. As a result, I think that if you have similar clarity and belief for your own financial goals, you’ll find it a lot easier to start working and to keep working toward them.

For clarity:
Ask yourself some questions and work on forming some clear images in your mind.

• What will it look like when you’ve reached your goal?
• What will be different?
• How could someone see that you have reached your goal?
• What changes would you get really excited about?

For belief:
If you’re not sure about how to reach your financial goals, consider attending our online BREAK FREE! Workshop on January 5th. Having a budget and getting out of debt are the first steps in reaching almost any personal financial goal.

We have helped many people take control of their money and get out of debt (check out some testimonials). We teach principles, tools and techniques that we know work because we use them ourselves.