I respect my sister and brother-in-law for many reasons. One of those reasons is their wise financial stewardship. With eight kids (you can read the story of why they have eight kids here), they are able to live on a single income, and they managed to pay off the mortgage on their previous house several years ago. That financial flexibility allowed them to purchase a home with my parents two years ago so they could help my dad whose mobility suffered after a series of strokes. There are many who would like to be mortgage-free. Below is the story of how by sister and brother-in-law learned to faithfully care for the finances God has blessed them with. In my interview, I hope you hear how often Sarah and Anders come back to a desire to be generous.
Tell me about your financial story at the beginning of your marriage.
Anders (A): When we got married, we wanted to make sure that we spent less than we made. We wanted to do a good job with our finances and honor God. We wanted to have money to give and more money to give if we did a good job with it. The parable of the talent loomed large for us. We knew that for those who were given much, much was required.
Sarah (S): Early on, we didn’t have much and so we tried to live within our means. We always budgeted.
A: We had lots of debts to pay.
S: After two years, I left medical school. There were a lot of things that were hard about leaving medical school. The financial piece was one of them. I had big loans without a doctor’s salary. But God provided. I got a job teaching at boarding school. We got room and board and salary. All my salary went to paying off medical school. The Lord put us in a situation where we didn’t have to pay rent. I never felt the repercussions of it.
A: Later on, we thought we were being conservative on the first house that we bought. But we quickly learned we should have been more conservative.
Did you have different journeys to get to your convictions about stewardship?
A: Before we were married, I never wanted to have debt. That was always there. I always did a budget. Doing different jobs and not being content in what I was doing and deciding to quit without a backup plan was unwise. I got into trouble not having money to pay rent. By the time we got married I was willing to do more. If that was working temp jobs or at the factory or giving platelets. Sarah didn’t have expenses before we got married. I made unwise decisions early on and decided I would never do that again.
S: I never felt like we had the typical tension of one of us trying to outspend our salary. We are both savers. The danger for me was money having too much a hold on me for the need of security. I don’t mind driving an old, clunky car. I know that’s a real sacrifice for some people.
A: Neither of us have ever had a loan on a car so that wasn’t a temptation.
S: Med school is weird because you are living on borrowed money. I came from the context at Stanford where a lot of kids are on their parents’ dime.
How did you feel called to move from two incomes to one?
S: We were both working and we were able to just make our budget. We had a pretty trimmed down budget. There wasn’t much fat there. We had four kids at the time and we felt like God was calling me to homeschool, but we didn’t understand how that could work. We knew we couldn’t do the mortgage on one income. But we also felt like having me move from a professional career to homeschooling was what God was calling us to. So we just did it.
Our plan was to stay in our house as long as we can. We figured we would use up all of our emergency fund and then be foreclosed on and then live with our parents. So we knew that God needed to provide. Anders was working two jobs. There was nothing else we could do.
Through Anders’s second job, we met a lady and she recommended a job to him.
A: The job description looked terrible. It didn’t look like I would even like that job. But the lady insisted it was a good fit. So I sent in my resume. And I heard nothing for a long time. Then, finally, I was invited to come down to the plant for a background check. I figured that if I passed that they would reach out for an interview. But I didn’t hear anything. And then all of the sudden I got a job offer. It was exactly what we were making combined. I had never interviewed.
S: Anders is a terrible interviewer. He usually loses jobs in the interview.
A: God just opened that up. When I got to training I realized everyone else had interviewed. They all shared how terrible the interview process was. It was in front of a panel of ten people. They grilled you about details of the job I wouldn’t have known. I would have never gotten the job. God just opened up the door at the right time. This happened a month after we decided to do homeschooling. We followed in faith.
How did you decide to try to pay down your mortgage?
S: Anders taught Dave Ramsey. He became convicted that he didn’t want debt of any kind.
A: I felt that I didn’t want to owe anyone anything. We tightened up the belt and did cash envelopes for four and a half years in order to pay off our mortgage.
That is our personal conviction. I don’t think others have to have that conviction.
We just wanted to be able to save more and give more. We have lots of fun conversations about giving.
What sacrifices did you make to live on a single income?
S: The biggest one is the grocery bill. Especially when we were on cash, we made sacrifices. We appreciate the finer ingredients, but couldn’t do that. Kids’ birthdays and Christmas is always hard too. They want a lot of stuff and it’s fun to buy it for them.
A: Both of our parents would buy the kids clothes. They would buy some meals for us. The kids didn’t feel as much of a pinch as we did. Even in New Hampton, we got hand-me-downs. We are content with hand-me-downs.
S: Not going out to eat gets old. We are a family that loves sports, but we don’t do club sports because it’s thousands of dollars. The kids feel that pinch.
It sounds like God helped provide even for some of your wants.
S: He did! I’m so grateful for all the people around us. We wouldn’t be where we are without all the people around us. We couldn’t choose to send our kids to private school without tax credits.
A: There were times people would just offer us their leftovers because they saw that we are a big family. People’s generosity is sweet.
What’s the most freeing part of living on a single income?
A: I feel like we don’t have to use our money for the normal expenses. We have excess to give. I love the ability to give money to various ministries. Doing a budget gives us the ability to have the freedom to be able to decide when we feel God leading us in different places.
S: It’s a lack of anxiety. I don’t live in fear of the AC going out or the water heater breaking.
How do you feel like your stewardship of finances is worship?
A: As God has given us money, we are called to manage it. If we manage money that is not ours, we can use it for his purposes, using it to spread the gospel. I think it’s important as Christians to be able to have money and to be able to use it in a manner that is glorifying to him.
S: I’ve always had more a mentality that money is evil. The good part is realizing that it can be an idol to me in the security it brings. I’ve realized that it’s not bad if we have an emergency fund, but the more stable we are, the more we have to give away, the more our finances can run over into other people’s lives.
That feels more like worship. They don’t need me in India to preach the gospel. They need money to help provide that. That’s not a cop out to not be doing missions. He has put us here and we get to worship by helping fund amazing things that the Lord is doing in different parts of the world.
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Paul’s Strange Reasons for Generosity: Proof
Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash