Things My Mother Taught Me

We’re officially into fall now. With this change of season comes a whole cycle of activities and busyness that some folks look forward to and others just can’t escape no matter how badly they want to. Kids are heading back to school—meaning “School Zones” are now in effect again. (Wasn’t it kind of nice to be able to ignore those for a few months?) Summer vacation—and warm sunny days—will soon be no more than a fading memory. Church activities start up again in full force. This is life in our culture. It’s just a busy reality.

Yet there’s always a bright side. The beginning of this new season can also be a time for something new. Not just the end of a good season, but a fresh start perhaps. “Renewal” is the first word in the acronym (R.E.A.L.) that our Fellowship Pacific Women’s Ministry is using as their focus this year. (Click here to go to their website.) That’s an interesting word—renewal. It means “to begin again” or “to restore and replenish.” It can also mean to “restore to a former state” which may not necessarily be a good thing (depending on what that former state was) but has the added helpful dimension of “making new or as if new again.” I like that.

With the idea of renewal on our minds, perhaps this would be a good time to make some “Fall Resolutions.” Forget New Years resolutions because they never work. I’ve tried them, you’ve tried them, and we know they don’t stick. Let’s move on. Fall resolutions may be a better strategy.

One thing that Sharyn and I always do about this time of year is a thorough review of our finances. (We do this together, by the way, even though she—the one whom I have on occasion referred to as the “ultimate non-accountant”—looks after the day-to-day aspects of our family finances and spending plan.) We assess our progress toward our financial goals and fine tune our spending plan (that would be our “budget”) to help us achieve those goals. Every couple should do such an in depth review of their finances on at least an annual basis.

If you were to do this sort of review now, what would you see? Maybe when it comes to our family finances we might conclude that we haven’t done things so well in the past. Maybe in our renewal process we find that there is no “former state” to which we would like to revert. So then let’s just resolve to “make it new” or start again as if for the first time. Whatever we do, let’s not abandon the process before we give it a good shot.

If that’s your situation—or even if you feel you’ve done everything right in the area of managing family finances and you’ve got them under control and where you want them—let me tell you about some things that my mother taught me, because you might see some truth there that will help you. They’re about life in general, although I think they also apply quite fittingly to our personal and family finances.

Shortly before I began
to learn about money

A bit of background to start with… I was born of missionary parents in India and lived there until I finished high school. My mother, of English and Irish descent, was also born in India and spent the first fifty years of her life there. My father was Canadian and went as a missionary to India in his early twenties. During my last few years of high school my father’s involvement in mission work necessitated his traveling around India for long stretches of time. So, my mother and I lived together in the city where I attended school, up in the beautiful Nilgiri Mountains of southern India. My younger sister attended a boarding school in another nearby city and my older two siblings had returned to Canada after completing high school. From about the age of fourteen onwards I had been very involved in the management of our family finances. My mother always included me in the financial decision making and taught me many valuable lessons and instilled in me healthy habits in the area of finances. I’ve always been grateful for that.

So here are five things that my mother taught me—in no particular order of importance—along with some practical applications I’ve subsequently learned.

1: “Two can live as cheaply as one.” 

This is insightful, I’m sure. Except what she never told me was that they can only live half as long! So, the lesson from this is that when you’re developing your spending plan (i.e. your budget) make sure you get the whole picture. Consider all the eventualities of the circumstances and never underestimate the cost of groceries and other personal living expenses in the family spending plan.

2: “Hope for the best and expect the worst.”

For some reason my mother would often make that statement after she’d settled on a plan. Of course this did nothing for instilling confidence in the success of her plan. Nonetheless, it does suggest the significant importance of having a positive attitude towards a plan that we’ve made, yet still being prepared for any outcome.

3: “If it’s doubtful, it’s dirty.”

So many times my mother told me the story of the young man going on his first date. He called out to his mother from his bedroom asking if she would check his shirt for him since he wasn’t sure whether it was clean or not. She shouted back, telling him it was dirty. When asked how she knew that without even seeing it, she responded “Son, if it’s doubtful, it’s dirty!”

The moral of this story is that if you have any hesitation in a financial decision, don’t do it. Walk away. Remember that if there’s a good deal today, there will be a good deal tomorrow. There is a proviso to this lesson, and that is to make sure you have all the information before trying to make the decision. Ask for advice from the right people. Get wise counsel, for sure, but there’s no substitute for doing your own thorough research.

4: “Always check for snakes under the bed before you go to sleep.”

Okay, some more context is required here. My parents lived for many years in an area of India where the heat of the summer (mid to high forty degrees Celsius) would motivate snakes to seek out the cool of our house that was built of stone. One summer they killed an average of one deadly poisonous cobra per day in and around the house. My mother developed a healthy fear of snakes. So much so that even when we lived up in the mountains where there were no snakes, every night after she got into bed I had to check under her bed. Just to be sure.

The lesson here is to make sure the job is finished completely before you quit. Never abandon a plan until you’ve given it your very best effort to make it work. This applies very fittingly when developing and using a personal or family spending plan.

5: “If you had to use the same water for both washing the dishes and having a bath, which would you do first?”

There was a rather quirky and eccentric old British spinster we knew who lived by herself on the other side of town. This lady insisted that because of the water shortages in her place of residence, she actually had to make this decision every day. My mother and I often debated the advantages of either option over the other. A tough choice to make, I suppose.

The moral of this story is to recognize that sometimes we just can’t win and we may have to simply make the best of a bad situation. There are times when we need to adopt the attitude that “I can endure anything for a while. Tomorrow the sun will rise again.”

So maybe this is an appropriate time for each of us to gain the fresh start we need. Let’s anticipate some real and significant renewal—a fresh start if necessary. Now’s the time for some new Fall Resolutions. I wish you well in your pursuit of renewal in the area of your finances.

Four More Minutes in India - April 2012

And a year later, here's another video I prepared for a report to my church in April 2012.