Malachi Money

I suck at blogging… I really do. Most of the time I don’t know what to say and don’t have enough to say about some of the topics I am interested in. However, I’ve been hooked on all things money recently. Not in a bad way, it just fascinates me! Whether it is earning, spending, giving, budgeting, or investing I love it!

As such, I am going to start blogging about it. I am aiming for posting once a week, if you don’t see a post by next Friday, bug me.

So here is the run down of what all started this…

I moved to Oregon a little over two years ago. I did so, to start a Middle School Youth Group at Clear Creek Church. In order to move down, I had to take some pretty crappy jobs that did not pay me enough to pay my bills. At this point I was about 1.5k from having all my credit cards paid off and I had a single loan for about 2k. Which was really good compared to where I was just a year before that.

Anyways, I moved down and had to live off credit cards and pulling out of my Roth IRA early. After living off credit cards for about 5 months and maxing them all out, I finally got a job that could support me. I also met my future wife Lindy and even more of my money started disappearing.

Fast forward a few months and I now have over $5,000 in credit card debt and about $1,500 in loans with not a dime to my name. It got to the point where I broke down and cried to my future wife (she was my girlfriend then) because I didn’t know what I did wrong. I came down to follow what God called me to and now I am more in debt then ever before and I literally had no money for food that week. I had one almost empty jar of peanut and that was it. I had to swallow my pride and take the $20 gift from her so I could eat. I was at the lowest point I had been in my life.

That is when I realized that money had always been an idol for me. I worry and obsess over it. It controlled my life. I would give my tithe to God every so often and the rest was mine. I was miserable.

I started tithing again and I always had enough money. None extra, but enough. It took a lot of trusting.

Fast forward 6 more months, and I am engaged (paid for her ring by putting it on the store credit card of course) and had just visited the emergency room twice, once for an emergency surgery to remove kidney stones.

I had been paying down my bills but then also took out a loan to help pay for our honeymoon. By the time we were married we had about $40k in debt. So that’s where we stood around August of 2012.

Sorry for the long run down but now you know where I am coming from. I’m going to be posting about how we are doing now, how we are tithing, giving and trusting God, along with my side hustles to get more money and future plans.

P.S. The title for this blog comes from Malachi 3:10. God tells the Israelites that they have robbed him in their tithes and contributions. Verse 10 says, “Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need”

That has basically defined this last year for me and I’m excited to share it with you.