We would like to take a moment to thank our sponsor, PreBorn
Dr. Jessica Peck: We would like to take a moment to thank our sponsor, PreBorn. When a mother meets her baby on ultrasound and hears their heartbeat, it's a divine connection. And the majority of the time she will choose life. But they can't do it without our help. Preborn needs us, the pro life community, to come alongside them. One ultrasound is just $28. To donate, dial pound 250 and say the keyword baby or visit preborn.com/AFR what if one moment could change a life forever? Every day, mothers facing unplanned pregnancies walk into PreBorn Network clinics searching for hope. Through a free ultrasound, they meet their baby for the very first time. And when they see that tiny life and hear that heartbeat, everything can change.
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: Hello and welcome to the Dr. Nurse Mama show prescribing Hope for Healthy Families here Family radio. Here's your host, professor, pediatric nurse practitioner and mom of four, Dr. Jessica Peck.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Well hey there friends and welcome to my favorite time of day, getting to spend time with you prescribing Hope for healthy Families. Today we're talking about a topic that impacts every single person on earth. We're talking about money. Today we need money to live. And money can be something that some of you maybe don't think about very much. It can be something that is a great cause of stress for many others for many other reasons and it is really relatable for most of us. I bet you have at one point in your life stood in the grocery Store aisle, doing the math in your head, deciding what can stay in the cart, what needs to go back. Or maybe you've had the experience of opening an unexpected bill in the mail, and you immediately start rearranging the month's plans, how you're going to pay for this unexpected expense that you have. Maybe, maybe your family is meeting its expenses, but you just find yourself wondering, am I saving enough? What, what happens if something breaks? Am I doing this right? Maybe you come from a family that just didn't really talk about money or model good healthy money management. You wonder if you're preparing your children well.
Money concerns follow us into the places that have very little to do with our bank account as well
Money concerns follow us into the places that have very little to do with our bank account as well. They enter conversation. They can cause conflict with our spouse spouse. They shorten our patience with our kids when they're asking for stuff, and we don't want to burden them with money troubles, but we're burdened with money troubles. Or it keeps our mind busy when we're trying to rest because you're calculating a spreadsheet at night when your eyes close and you're trying to go to sleep. Sometimes that concern is an immediate need. Sometimes it's uncertainty about the future. Sometimes it's feeling that, hey, everyone else seems to know something or have something that we don't. Well, my guest today is Crystal Paine, and she has been on the show before. She's known as the time saving mom. Today we're talking to her as the money saving mom, and she surveyed nearly 4,000 women while writing her newest book. Now, that book is called the 7 Habits of Financially Healthy Women. How to stop stressing, begin where you are and build a future you want. But man or woman, boy or girl, we all are called to be faithful stewards of money. But when Crystal looked at the results of her survey that she did, almost every single respondent, almost everyone acknowledged some degree of fear or uncertainty about money, including women who were doing pretty well financially. Because sometimes I think, we think, oh, well, once I make more money, I have more money in the bank, I have more money in savings. I won't worry about this as much. But it seems that that may not be the case. It's a reminder that having more doesn't necessarily resolve every worry around it. We also live in a culture where spending is easy, comparison is constant. Through social media, a, purchase can be really impulsive and happen in seconds. And we're scrolling through someone else's vacation, someone else's home renovation, someone else's beautifully organized pantry or garage, depending on Your priorities. And that quietly creates this, this new expectation, this emotional weight, like we want our kids to have opportunities, we want to have nice things. What's responsible, what's not. We bring our histories into that because usually opposites attract. You've got a saver, you've got a spender. That often happens maybe in your house. Growing up, there were arguments around money or secrecy or it was just taboo, or spending was how you knew that they were your, your loved ones were trying to say that they loved you. Or maybe you just felt guilty all the time about what was spent. Our children are learning from those everyday moments. They hear how we talk about money, what we say when a bill comes in, how we respond to a, a request for a donation, or explain why we can't spend this money, why we're saving for something. They're learning so many things about how we handle our money. And one thing that I've noticed today is that money can feel a lot less t to kids now. When I would give them cash, when I had cash, I certainly knew when that cash was going to run out. I knew how many coins it took to get 1 gallon of gas to
Dr. Jessica Peck: get me to school.
Dr. Jessica Peck: But money just seems so abstract to kids who are using Apple Pay, who are using electronic means of payment. They don't see that actual physical money. They also don't see us a lot of times giving money in church because a lot of times we're not passing the offering plate, we're giving online. Are we talking with our kids about yeah, we are participating in giving or is that just something that we're not talking about? And for Christian families, the heart of this issue is stewardship. We want to use what God has entrusted us with. Wisdom and gratitude and generosity. That includes acknowledging the limitations of our financial resources, seeking help. But financial hardship is not a measure of your faithfulness. Where other wherever you're starting, there may be or faithlessness, wherever you're starting, there is a next step that is going to help us, us approach our circumstances with greater clarity and intention. And Crystal is going to give that to us today. She's going to help us with that. She is a NewSong York Times best selling author, speaker, host of the Crystal Paine show, founder of moneysavingmom.com and she started blogging about frugality while her husband was in law school. Her family was on a tight budget. She has lived this, walked this road and she's here today to share with us what she has learned. Crystal, so glad to have you here. Thank you so much for spending time with us. No pun intended.
Dr. Jessica Peck: I'm really grateful for the investment of
Dr. Jessica Peck: your resource with us today. Welcome.
Crystal Paine: Thank you so much for having me. It is such an honor. I just truly believe if the people of God can get their finances in order, we can do such amazing things for the kingdom of God. And that is really my heartbeat and my hope.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, that is a great place to start. Take us back to the beginning for you. Take us back to when you were saving money in law school. There's a lot of people who can relate to that kind of either age or stage of life. Sometimes it comes at a different age, just depending on our life circumstances. What was it like for you in the beginning? And what kind of journey has God taken you on to be here today to share with us what you've learned?
Crystal Paine: So, my husband, I are really blessed to have great financial models in our parents. And I saw my parents when I was a young child. They set this audacious goal that they were going to get out of debt. And then they wanted to build a house in the country debt free. And so I watched that whole journey as a young child and into my teen years, and I just saw how it gave them such ability to be able to be givers and also to have so much freedom when it came to money. And so my husband and I said, we want to stand on their shoulders. So when we got married almost 24 years ago, we went into our marriage with the goal that he was going to go through law school and we were going to stay out of debt. But then the rubber met the road.
Crystal Paine: You know, you set this big goal and it sounds so great. And then it's like, then you get hungry, oh, wait, this is hard.
Crystal Paine: And you know, it was in those times of, when our faith was really tested, when we didn't know how we were going to pay the rent, when we didn't know how we were going to stretch our. Sometimes we would only have $17 a week to buy all of our groceries, to make all of our meals. But we saw God be so faithful and we learn so much through that time. And I always say, like, you know, we were on a beans and rice budget.
Crystal Paine: Literally, we would buy one bag of chicken and it would stretch for two
Crystal Paine: weeks because that's what we had to do. But I look back and I see we learned so much and it built so much character in us to also just recognize the goodness and faithfulness of God. And so that now it's given us such contentment to live out of that. We're like, you don't need to have a really big budget. You don't need to have a really nice house.
Crystal Paine: We lived in this tiny basement apartment. We could plug in the vacuum in one outlet and, you know, vacuum the whole apartment.
Crystal Paine: But we, we have so many special memories from that time. And God was so good and he was so faithful, and we're just so grateful.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Crystal, one of the things I really appreciate about your ministry and about your message is really, when you're talking about finances, you're not looking at it as a, okay, we had no money. We saved. We were frugal. Now we have abundance, and it's great,
Dr. Jessica Peck: and we can live the life that we want.
Dr. Jessica Peck: It's not just about the money. And in fact, it's not primarily about the money. You're talking about character development, and not only your own character development, but knowing and trusting the character of God, which I think is a far, far better investment with far better returns than just simply a monetary. A, monetary perspective.
Can you talk more about that character development and what you learned about the character and faithfulness of God by stewarding what he had given you?
Can you talk more about that character development and what you learned about the character and faithfulness of God by stewarding what he had given you?
Crystal Paine: Well, one of the things that we had committed to is that we were going to tithe 10% off the top no matter what. And many, many, many months, it didn't make sense on paper.
Crystal Paine: Like, it'd be like, we really need
Crystal Paine: that money so that we can pay our rent. But no, like, that was. That was God's money. It wasn't ours. And so we committed to that. And we saw God be so faithful to stretch the 90%. Many months we'd be like, I have no idea. I have no idea how our bills got paid. And, you know, we, I would say
Crystal Paine: beans and rice budget.
Crystal Paine: I'm like, we couldn't afford. So we had gotten.
Crystal Paine: This was fish.
Crystal Paine: at one point, I did mystery shopping and we mystery shopped a pet store and had to buy a fish.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Your mystery shopped a pet store?
Crystal Paine: Pet store.
Dr. Jessica Peck: I didn't even know that was a thing.
Crystal Paine: I think they paid me $10. So I'm like, sign me up. And then we got this fish. And so we had part of the mystery shop. We'd gotten fish food, and so we had enough to feed the fish, but
Crystal Paine: the fish lived for a long time. And so two years in, we ran out of fish food, and we did not have enough money to buy fish food. I think it was less than. It was like $3 at that time
Crystal Paine: to get the little thing of Fish
Crystal Paine: food, we couldn't afford it in our grocery budget.
Crystal Paine: And so the fish had to wait for two weeks because we're like, it's either the fish or us.
Crystal Paine: You know, just, just as an example of how tight things were, but how faithful God was. I mean, he let our fish live
Crystal Paine: for two weeks without eating.
Crystal Paine: But also I would just put verses around the house of the faithfulness of God. And, in front of my kitchen sink having verses of just, just who God is and what he says he is. And, you know, just reciting those verses to me, the truth. And just over and over and over telling myself, but also praying and saying, God, you have promised to provide. This is your name on the line.
Crystal Paine: This is not about us.
Crystal Paine: This is about us trusting you and seeing you be faithful. And he always, always, always was. Many times it was at the very last minute, but he was so faithful. And I feel like I am so grateful for those lessons that we learned today. we actually fostered a sweet little, who has a lot of disabilities, and we ended up adopting him. And when he came to us in the middle of the night at almost eight months old, he was in really, really bad shape. And we got to see God again with those lessons that we'd learned years before. Be so faithful and provide for us in a very different situation. And it was like clinging to the promises that God had been faithful all those years before that he would be faithful. And I just, I could tell you story after story of the faithfulness of God in that situation, but I just feel like it built this muscle of courage and of, just really trusting that God would be who he said he was. And I just challenge people like, you can trust God.
So often we, we try to white knuckle our way through life and micromanage our life
So often we, we try to white knuckle our way through life and micromanage our life. And we don't get to see God show up in big and mighty ways because we're not trusting him and releasing our life to Him.
Dr. Jessica Peck: You know, I can relate to so much of what you're saying, Crystal, because when my husband and I got married, we got married very young. We were both still college. We lived in a teeny, tiny postage stamp apartment that really wasn't big enough for furniture. And we did h. We were gifted a microwave.
Dr. Jessica Peck: And we, we took the box of
Dr. Jessica Peck: the microwave and that was like our coffee table.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Like I put, you know, like a little cloth over it and that's what we ate off of. And, and I remember one time, you
Dr. Jessica Peck: know, we were saving up to splurge one week because we Wanted to buy all beef hot dogs.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Like we wanted to buy like name brand hot dogs. This is like our big, you know, like, wow, this is amazing. We can freeze these and we can have these every Friday night. Like, so exciting.
Dr. Jessica Peck: But I look back at that Crystal and, and we did the same thing. We said we are going to tithe.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Even if it's 10 cents, that's what it's going to be.
Dr. Jessica Peck: And. And when I look back at the memories of that time, I think God just ripped away every distraction. So we weren't going on fancy dates. We weren't, you know, spending money or distracted by good food or good places. And we have been blessed with some of those things, you know, later on in our marriage. And I'm so grateful for that. But I look back and I know that he was forging us character that we were going to need for the days ahead. And I look back at those sweet, simple times and I am so grateful for those. And Crystal, when we're coming up on our first break, but when we come back, we're going to really dive into the tools that you have because as I said, you surveyed nearly 4,000 women writing this book and you discovered a lot about their money fears that they had. But more than that, we'll talk about some of the ways that you can help us to be good stewards of what God has given us. Because when we take an honest look at our finances, that can begin without shame. And one of the things I'm seeing in younger generations that is pretty controversial on social media, but I actually really like it, is people who are being really transparent and showing you, here's exactly what my paycheck is and here's exactly how I'm spending it. Just normalizing different income levels. It's okay to have friends that we
Dr. Jessica Peck: say, I can't afford that experience, we are going to decline.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Or maybe you have friends that gift that. But understanding what we're afraid of and what our actual needs are, that's where we need to start to make a more thoughtful next step. So after the break, we're gonna talk about doing that honest gut check and creating a money plan that works in the middle of real family life no matter where you are. We'll be right back with more from Crystal Paine, the 7 Habits of Financially Healthy women. See you on the other side of this bridge break. Hello, I'm Jessica peck, host of Dr. Nurse Mama. Ah. Did you know that this content is listener supported?
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Love God Love People by Danny Gokey: I've been running in circles Jumping the hurdles Getting caught in that rush of doing so much I'm feeling kind of worn out all this checking the boxes Trying to be flawless yes has me spinning my head catching my breath too afraid to slow down I tell myself to keep this up that God wants more than just my love But I've been complicating things it's just like me to overthink Got to keep it real simple keep it real simple Bring everything right back to ground zero Cuz it all comes down to this Love God and love people we're living a world that keep breaking but if we want to find a way to change all comes down to this Love God,
Dr. Jessica Peck: love people welcome back friends. That is love God, love People by Danny Gokey And one of the ways that we show love to the people we love in our lives is how we steward the financial gifts that we've been given and how we steward our money. And that is really tied up in a lot of family relationships and dynamics and it can be perceived as expressing love or a lack of love. And it is complicated. But don't worry, don't panic. I have New York Times best selling author
Crystal Paine is the author of a new book called The 7 habits of financially healthy women: How To Stop Stressing, Begin Where You Are, And Build The Future You Want
Crystal Paine with me today. She's the author of a new book called the 7 Habits of financially healthy women. How to stop stressing, begin where you are and build the future you want. And she has a lot of wisdom to share. You should absolutely follow her on social media, you should find her website and you should learn all the things because I know I have learned a lot. She you can find [email protected] and she for this book she surveyed 4,000 women. She shared her own personal story of putting her husband through law school and living on meager resources but committing their finances to the Lord, committing to not go into debt, learning about his character. And Crystal, you and I were just talking during the break how money is such an emotional issue for us. And I grew up in a working class family that lived paycheck to paycheck and many, many conversations revolved around money. You know, we would wait like everybody knew the day that my dad got paid because we would know to tell bill collectors that were calling or you know, all of those things. And it was always like you felt guilty if you had, if you had A need because you knew that financ were tight and there's a lot of emotions involved. How do we look at where we are now? Acknowledging the influences that are in the past, but also having a hope for a healthy future.
Crystal Paine: One of the things I really encourage in the book is that we need to go back and we need to recognize and unpack the baggage that we're carrying. Because so often we don't even realize that it's there. And then it is really causing us to make poor decisions or to be triggered by things or to not move forward in a way that we, we should just because it's holding us back. And so I encourage you to really think about your childhood. Think about the models that you had when it came to money. Think about how you approach and really think about money. Is there fear? Is there shame? Was money used in a way like you talked about? Almost like it was, it was a tool that was used in a really dysfunctional way. And so just understanding that and then saying, okay, now what kind of story do we want to write in the future? And really recognizing that we don't have to be held back by our past, our story in the past does not have to be our story in the future. And so really coming to understand, okay, what do I want to view? How do I want to view money? What is money for me? What is a healthy way to think about money? And then changing the way that we have a mindset around money. I think so many people have this negative mindset of, especially if you didn't have good models. I hear it all the time. It's like, I'm not good with money. And I really challenge you to not say that kind of negativity over your life, but instead a positive approach of, I'm becoming a person who is learning to be more intentional with my finances. When we speak that kind of truth and that kind of life over us, it's going to change the way that we live. So often when we believe these negative things like I'm not good with money, then that's going to actually be an excuse for bad behavior, for poor money decisions. But if we start saying, I'm becoming a person who is living intentionally when it comes to my finances, then we're going to start thinking, when we make that purchase or before we make that purchase, is this in line with a person who is going to be more financially intentional? How would that person live? How would that person act? How would that person approach their day to day finances? And so change the way that you talk to yourself, and it often is going to change the way that you act.
Dr. Jessica Peck: You know, Crystal, you sounded really sweet when you said that, but you said a tough truth in there. You said, sometimes speech like that becomes an excuse for bad behavior. Like, oh, well, this is okay because I'm just bad with money. And accepting that that's a tough truth, but I think a really relatable one. I mean, honestly, probably most people have been there at some point in their lives. And you're reminding me of my conversation with neurosurgeon Lee Warren, who talked about the neuroscience of that positive self talk versus negative self talk and what it actually, the ways that it literally reshapes our brain to prefer negative neural pathways. And so I think that's really important to think about. And when you're talking about, you know, the, this mindset, you're not just using your own personal experience. You surveyed 4,000 women. What surprised you when you got the results back? What, what? Or, maybe what didn't surprise you? What did you learn?
Crystal Paine: So I would, I think the most surprising thing for me was that so many women said they don't even look like they genuinely don't even have any idea what's coming in, what's going out, how much they have in the bank. They're too scared to look, and so they're just pretending that it doesn't exist. And I, I, you know, I have a lot of compassion and empathy for people who feel like that. But at the same time, I feel like you actually are probably holding yourself back because you could be doing a whole lot better. Think about if you were trying to run a race and you didn't know where the start was, you didn't know where the finish was, like, how could you run a race? I am actually training for half marathon in two weeks. And you know, if get there and
Crystal Paine: there's, there's no start and there's no finish, like, what's the point?
And so I just really challenge people when it comes to money
Crystal Paine: And so I just really challenge people when it comes to money. I understand that it can be scary and there can, there can be a lot of stress, you can feel shame, all of those things. But if you don't have a starting point, if you don't know what's coming in and what's going out, then you're never going to know if you're making any progress and you're never actually going to be making any progress because there's no start and there's no finish line.
Dr. Jessica Peck: You know, I remember being at the home of someone that I knew and finding like, a shirt box, like a gift box. And long story short, I opened the box and it was full of unopened credit card statements. Like, they came in, but the person
Dr. Jessica Peck: that I was with was just too
Dr. Jessica Peck: scared to open them. But, like, didn't really want to get rid of them. So just like had them in this box. Just kind of this freeze response, which can be related to maybe even traumatic experiences that we've had around money. You know, it can be really traumatic if you have severe money shortages where you don't know where the next meal is going to come from, you don't know where the next rent payment is going to come from. And acknowledging where that, that that is the fact doesn't dictate our future. How do we. One of the things I love that you do in your book, Crystal, and that you do just through your platform is you help women and anyone to acknowledge there are some circumstances outside my control. Control. But there's also decisions that I can make today that are going to move me in a positive intention. How do we use that as a starting point to maybe break out of healthy, unhealthy habits or unhealthy mindsets that we have about money?
Crystal Paine: M. The first habit in the book, I wanted it to be something that, you know, it levels the playing field for everyone. Because I think so often when it comes to money, we think, well, if I had a better job or if I had a better upbringing or if I hadn't made those bad decisions in the past, or if I lived in a different state, you, know, where cost of living was different, then I could make good decisions when it comes to money. But M, the first habit is about starting where you are. Use what you have, do what you can with what you've got, where you are, and everybody has something. And so instead of looking at what you don't have, start with what you do have. So often when I talk about grocery budgets or money things, I will get a lot of pushback from people. They'll be like, that won't work for me because says, we live out in the country, or I have five boys,
Crystal Paine: or we're gluten free, dairy free, you
Crystal Paine: know, and just like all the excuses, but really instead of saying, I can't do that, ask what can I, do? And instead of having resistance, say, where can I start? And so I just challenge everyone. You're not stuck unless you choose to be. And financial help. Wealth is not that you have a great income or that you don't have any debt or that you've never made poor financial decisions. It's about choosing to be intentional right where you are and aligning your spending with your priorities. And so instead of saying, I can't do that. That'll never work, say, what can I do with what I have right where I am? and that gives you that next tiny step. And moving forward, even at a microscopic pace, is still moving forward.
Dr. Jessica Peck: You know, your book is called the 7 Habits of Financially Healthy Women. And I think the truth is, Crystal, we live in a world where we are trained for instant gratification. So we're watching reels for this instant hack that's going to make us rich, or you're going to win a contest or the lottery or whatever it is. Everybody kind of thinks the answer to financial problems is, I'll just have so much money. But I mean, you can look at any number of examples in the media of people who have. Have all the money they could ever imagine and still don't have satisfaction or still have money troubles. How do we, how do we set our mindset to know that there's no magic fix for this? There's going to be no magic influx of cash that will all of a sudden solve all your money problems? You don't have to think about it. How do we harness what we know with our faith, perspective about discipline like you talked about before, and character development, and really say, okay, this isn't going to happen overnight. Here's the place where I'm going to start. But really set your intention to learn and to grow gradually over time.
Crystal Paine: I think one simple thing that you can start with is just make a commitment that before you make a purchase of any kind, you're going to stop and ask, what am I feeling in my body right now and why am I making this purchase? And the goal of this is not to shame. It's not to convince you not to make the purchase, although that might happen. It's just to be become aware, I think, so often, like you,
You talked about earlier how it's so easy to spend money without thinking about it
you talked about earlier how it's so easy to spend money without thinking about it. Now we just, we have money, quote unquote, on our phones.
Crystal Paine: You know, we can just go into anywhere, just put our phone down, and
Crystal Paine: we're not even thinking about how much that is or how many hours we had to work to pay for that or what we're not going to be able to buy because we're buying that or is that in the budget.
Crystal Paine: We're just, you know, slapping our phones
Crystal Paine: down and, and so I just really challenge people if you stop and say, what am I feeling in my body, body. Because so often we're making purchases because we're looking for a dopamine hit and we're looking to fill something that only Jesus can fill. And maybe we're bored, we're sad, we're lonely, and so we think I'm gonna buy something. And we don't even realize that's what we're doing. We're trying to put a bandage on something by that dopamine hit. And so by just starting with asking yourself that, it can really bring awareness to your spending. And then why am I doing this? Like, why am I wanting to spend this? And really just making sure that you're aligning your priorities with your spending.
Crystal Paine: Then if you want to take a
Crystal Paine: step further, I really challenge people to try a 30 day no spend challenge and only spend on basic, basic bare bones necessities for 30 days. This is just going to teach you a lot about yourself. It's going to probably help you recognize how you might have some addictions when it comes to money that you don't even realize. And also that you might have some discontentment that you need to work on and maybe some idolatry or something related to money. And it's just going to really help you have a different perspective on money. And I think it's just really good for us to have times when it's like fasting where only we're fasting from spending. And I think that it can, it can do something in our heart that can be really, really powerful.
Dr. Jessica Peck: You know, I, I know you're a mom, Crystal, and as you're stepping out in this ministry, I know that your kids are accountability partners for you at home.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Because I know that's how my kids are. You know, if I say something on a ministry platform, they're quick to tell if there's any discrepancy.
Dr. Jessica Peck: And they're also so wise. I feel like they teach me so much as, as I'm learning what it, what if your kids taught you about spending money and what have you learned in sharing this and helping to teach them healthy habits about money from a young age so that they don't carry that baggage in. Because I think there's a lot of people out there, me included, who would love to see the hope of that generational legacy that you talked about inheriting from your parents and passing down from your, your kids.
Crystal Paine: So one of our hopes is like I talked about standing on our parents shoulders and taking it Even further so that our kids and our grandkids can stand on our shoulders and take it even further.
We really started talking about money with our kids as soon as they could walk and talk
we really started talking about money with our kids as soon as they could walk and talk because we didn't want it to be something that a lot of people wait till their kids are 13, 16, 18 to even have these conversations. No, start from the time that they are very little, just teaching them about the value of money. We have two, six years and a four year old right now and it's like, like we just talk a lot about money when we're at the grocery store. You know, just even using that as an example, look, this one is this much and this one's $2 less. And so we should buy the one
Crystal Paine: that is $2 less.
Crystal Paine: Teaching them as they get a little bit older, you know, the grocery store shelves, it tells the cost per ounce. And and then as our kids are older, we also, we have a 17, 19 year old and 21 year old. And so just as they've grown up, giving them opportunities to handle money, we would, when they go to the store and they would ask for something, we'd bring your money and we gave them opportunities to earn money. We have paid chores and non paid chores. Non paid chores are just part of being in our family. Paid chores are things you can elect to do if you've done your non paid chores. And then that would be money that they could use however they wanted to. And sometimes they bought something that was a real lemon and I would just let them because I wanted them while they were still in our home to make the $3 and 30 and even $300 mistake to hopefully prevent them from making the $3,030,000 mistake. And so then we talk about it and we say hm, hm. So why are you disappointed that you spent that money on that, that toy just broke or one time, one of our kids bought something that we said, we think that's going to be a scam.
Crystal Paine: Like they're like, look at this great deal I found online. We're like, I don't think that that's actually what it says it is. And it turned out that it wasn't.
Crystal Paine: But it was such a good opportunity for them to learn. Like do your research and don't,
Crystal Paine: just because it seems like it's a great deal, it might not be. If it seems too good to be true, it might actually be too good to be true.
Crystal Paine: And, and just having all of those conversations with them, taking them to the bank when you know they're 14, 15 years old and helping.
Dr. Jessica Peck: This is all so good, Crystal. I hate to cut us short. We're already at our second break. Listen, you need to get a copy of the book to get all of this goodness.
Dr. Jessica Peck: The 7 Habits of Financially healthy women. When we come back, we'll talk about how Crystal says women can build a personalized money plan in under an hour. We'll go through it when we come back.
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Abide by Aaron Williams and Dwell Songs: for my waking breath, for my daily. I depend on you. I depend on you. For the sun to rise. For my sleep at night. I depend, on you. Yes, I depend on you. You're the way, the truth and the light. You're the world, it never runs dry. I'm the branch and you are the vine. Draw me close and teach me to
Dr. Jessica Peck: welcome back friends that is abide by Aaron Williams and Dwell songs And that's really what we're talking about today is abiding in Christ in every element of our lives, whether that is our spiritual life, whether that's our physical life, whether that's our financial life.
Dr. Jessica Peck: And I am so delighted today to
Dr. Jessica Peck: be talking to New York Times best selling author Crystal Paine Her new book is called called the seven habits of financially healthy women. How to stop stressing, begin where you are and build the future you want. So no matter where you came from, how you grew up, what your financial situation is, both Crystal and I have talked about stages in our life of
Dr. Jessica Peck: having very little but God giving us
Dr. Jessica Peck: so very much and being content with where we are.
Dr. Jessica Peck: And Crystal, this is something, you know, I.
Dr. Jessica Peck: People talk about all the time and
Dr. Jessica Peck: one of the financial things that I'm seeing a lot of is the controversy
Dr. Jessica Peck: around tipping everywhere you go it's like
Dr. Jessica Peck: tipping and I, it's, we were just talking about how our kids respond and
Dr. Jessica Peck: how we're teaching them about money.
Dr. Jessica Peck: And I've got one son in college
Dr. Jessica Peck: who was very aware of the value of a dollar because now he knows like if I want to buy this,
Dr. Jessica Peck: that's this many hours of work. And so if I buy a water bottle and I, I feel like I'm
Dr. Jessica Peck: nice and I feel bad and I
Dr. Jessica Peck: don't want the people to think I'm a terrible person.
Dr. Jessica Peck: If I don't tip, he will just eye me down and see, say, you had better not tip that person for handing you a water bottle.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Don't do it. And then I've got another kid on the other side of me saying, well
Dr. Jessica Peck: that's, that's not okay.
Dr. Jessica Peck: You've got to tip them wherever you are. In the middle of that crystal, you have help for so many situations, for so many practical purposes. And I want to start with one of the things that you say.
You say that you can build a personalized money plan in under an hour
You say that you can build a
Dr. Jessica Peck: personalized money plan in under an hour. You're giving away amazing free resource on your website.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Walk us through how your ministry gives us some of those guidance for some of those practical things. Whether it's do I tip or not? Or how do I make a personalized money plan.
Crystal Paine: Yes. So on moneysavingmom.com really my hope, I've been running this for 20 years with just the hope that it's like a one stop shop. Especially for women who you're busy, you've got a lot going on in your life and you need somebody to just
Crystal Paine: tell you here, here's what you do. And I just give them step by step by step.
Crystal Paine: And so you talked about the money plan. So we have a five day budget reset or budget makeover, whatever you want to call it. Or if you're like, I've never had a budget before, it scares me. This is for you as well. If you've tried budgeting and you're like didn't work at all, this is for you. if you're just a budget cynic, it's for you and just walking you through how to actually set up a budget. Or if you're like, I don't like the word budget, you can call it a money plan or you can call it a spending plan, call it whatever you want, but it's about aligning your spending with your priorities so that you can have so much more peace when you spend. You don't have to worry about, oh Goodness, is this going to mean that I'm not going to be able to, you know, pay for something important? Because I'm buying this over here. I, think of it as like, if you go to the bowling alley
Crystal Paine: and you know, like, I have young kids so that they put the little
Crystal Paine: bumpers up and it's like you can just hit strikes when you have those. That's what a budget is like. It's going to keep your money out of the gut better so that you can just be hitting strikes and winning, with your money and that you just have so much more peace. And so this is going to walk you through that. And we also have some different printables that you can print out to, go through your variable expenses, your fixed expenses. If you're like, I don't know what to put on my budget, how do I plan for the things that don't happen? Every month we talk about that and creating, these basically money plans for future expenses. And so we also have lots and lots of other resources, on the website, lots and lots of freebies and just lots of deals and encouragement for practical ways that you can save money. So that's at money saving mom.com.
Dr. Jessica Peck: yeah.
Dr. Jessica Peck: What I just told you during the break was my producer Stephanie found the birthday freebies on your website. As we're sitting here, I can see her signing up and I hope that means I'm gonna get free coffee.
Dr. Jessica Peck: You know, like we're gonna get birthday freebies.
Dr. Jessica Peck: There so many practical things.
Dr. Jessica Peck: But I think, Crystal, one of the
Dr. Jessica Peck: mistakes that we make is if we're struggling in something, it's just, it's the same thing thing with, if you're struggling with your eating habits or your fitness habits or your finance habits, you kind of think, okay, I'm going to start again on Monday.
Dr. Jessica Peck: I'm going to, you know, I'm going to not spend, I'm going to get control of this.
Dr. Jessica Peck: But really you approach this from a, gradual habits approach, you know, where you, you got to. Everybody's got to start somewhere. And it's over time developing discipline and acquiring knowledge and, and having some savvy in what you do. How do we have patience for the long games to walk into some of those fun things that you have that are, ok, things that I can do today. But how do we develop that mindset to be financially healthy over time?
Crystal Paine: Well, I think some of it comes with, you know, like building muscle. I started strength training two years ago and you just want to like right
Crystal Paine: away see that muscle development, and that's
Crystal Paine: not how it works. And so to recognize that these little habits build on each other and that if you try to overhaul your life overnight, you're going to crash and burn. And so I was encouraged, people, when it comes to, for instance, your grocery budget, instead of being like, I'm going to shave off 40% of my grocery budget right away, say, I'm going to cut my grocery budget by 1 to 3% every month. And that's not exciting, but here's what happens. If you shave it off by 1 to 3%, that's, that feels really easy, like that's really doable. And. But if you keep doing that over time, that adds up to a significant amount of savings. And so I encourage people to really think, think of the, you know, the long game, but actually do the math on it. in the book I actually have, the math on if you were to go buy a water bottle at a gas station every single day versus if you were, when you leave for the day, you bring your own water bottle. And the difference in that is thousands of dollars over time. And so when you, when you actually add it up and look at it over a long period of time and see how much you can save or how, how much you would spend, I think that can give you a lot of just that motivation to keep going on those days when you're kind of tired or you're like, this is not really fun, or I'm not really seeing a difference. You will over time. And it's like two years for me of strength training and I'm like, I've got some good muscle definition.
Crystal Paine: But it did not happen. It did not happen overnight.
Crystal Paine: And it was almost like one day
Crystal Paine: I just woke up and I was
Crystal Paine: like, wait, like, where's.
Crystal Paine: I've never seen that muscle before, you know, but it didn't happen because, because of just it popped out that night.
Crystal Paine: It was like, no, it was two years of me showing up, and doing things consistently.
Dr. Jessica Peck: You know, you're reminding me of a
Dr. Jessica Peck: time when my kids were little and
I was getting alarmed by how much it cost to feed four young kids and I tried to cut the grocery budget
Dr. Jessica Peck: I was getting alarmed by how much it cost to feed four young kids and I tried to cut the grocery budget. Crystal. It was a, it was a terrible failure because I came home with all these unfamiliar foods, all generics. They're like, what, the toasted O's? Is this? Like, where is the, the cereal that we usually eat? And so I, had to learn, okay, it's in discipline and it's all those micro decision over time and, and
Dr. Jessica Peck: the seventh habit that you have in the book is looking way over time, Talking to your 90 year old self and thinking, okay, what does this look like over time? Because we're just thinking about so much. We prioritize convenience. You know, we just want the convenience of I don't want to meal prep,
Dr. Jessica Peck: I don't want to, you know, fill up my own water bottle. I just want to do what's convenient.
Dr. Jessica Peck: But that's a, that's a discipline issue. Thinking of what character traits we want to have. And over time you can really build a legacy. So tell us, take us to the end of habit 7 and if you want to know in the middle, then get the book the 7 Habits of Financially healthy Women.
Crystal Paine: Yes.
Crystal Paine: In the middle we've got all the
Crystal Paine: fun stuff which is like all the cool ways to save money because that's, everybody wants that, you know, but we got to have the foundation of
Crystal Paine: the budget and all that and then the end, which is really thinking long term. And so actually this, this came from my business coach. At the end of the year, she always does an year in review and the first year that we did this, she said, said, she asked me this question, she said, what would your 90 year old self tell you you should be doing right now?
Crystal Paine: And I was like, excuse me, what can you say that again?
Crystal Paine: Like it was something that I never thought of before.
What would your 90 year old self tell you should be doing right now?
What would your 90 year old self tell you should be doing right now? And so habit number seven is consult your 90 year old self and really put yourself in the shoes of you as a 90 year old. And what would that person tell you? That you should be wrapping your time and your life and your energy around when it comes to all things, but specifically when it comes to money. And I think that there's so much that we worry about and we stress about that in the grand scheme of things does not matter. And I think your 90 year old self would be telling you really invest in people, really invest in the things that are going to matter long term and stop stressing over these things that do not matter. Stop getting so hung up and frustrated over things that don't matter and also be really wise with your money, money and so that you can invest and give and really make an impact where it matters most.
Dr. Jessica Peck: One of the most compelling things that I think that you, you present, you know, throughout the book, throughout the advice that you give Crystal is that this is an approach that really is going to give you freedom. This is not about constraining yourself, limiting your spending, about, you know, having self control not buying those things, although that is wrapped up in that, that. But it's really kind of paradoxical. You're inviting people to financial freedom through discipline and building these habits. How have you seen freedom in your life through having healthy financial habits?
Crystal Paine: Well, one of the things I mentioned, our son that we adopted through foster care, he has a lot of medical needs and so when he came to us, he had, he was working with 12 specialists at the that time. And so, so much of our life was spent just taking him to doctors and therapy. And we looked back and we were like, you know, had we not made those financial decisions early on in our marriage, to have the freedom to be able to work wise and financially wise, to be able to just kind of upend our lives for a period of time, we wouldn't be able to save. Say yes to him. And so I look at him and I think like, thank you Jesus that we made those choices years ago and stuck with them when everybody thought we were crazy and everybody was like, I
Crystal Paine: don't understand why you're still renting.
Crystal Paine: And we're like, because we're gonna save up to pay cash for a house.
Crystal Paine: And yes, it's going to take a lot of time. And yes, we're living on way less than we make. And yes, I know we're weird. And yes, we're you know, just continuing to not buy things and shop at the thrift store and live on this little grocery budget.
Crystal Paine: But all of those habits stacked up to a life that now allows us the freedom. For instance, we today we three days a week we take care of a sweet little six month old girl. A single woman in our church is fostering her. And we were able to just say yes to bringing her into our home three days a week so that her foster mom can go to work. And you know, just being able to have that freedom to say yes is such a gift. And, and I think also just seeing our lives as we are just conduits, everything we have is God's. And so when we live with our hands open to just let him flow through us, there's so much blessing that comes from that. But if we live with our our fist clenched, we actually become a cesspool. Like a cesspool, like a stinky, stagnant cesspool. Like keeping it all for yourself. For what? And I would say your 90 year old self would be telling you like, like just give freely, love lavishly and remember that really the only thing that you're gonna take into heaven is God's word and people. And so let's wrap our life and our time and our finances around that.
Dr. Jessica Peck: You're reminding me of, Pastor, that I used to have, who would always say there's only two things that last, the word of God and the souls of people. And it is so very true. When you look at where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And I, I'm just sitting awe of your perspective, Crystal. I really am, because I think there are people who could easily say, oh, look at you, you're trying to do the right thing. You're fostering this child and how horrible that, oh, these got special needs and that's going to cost you so much money. But you're thanking God for the provision that he gave you for the freedom to say yes to care for him. That is a radical shift in perspective. And it makes me think of, a really common misapplication of scripture that I'm sure you've heard before, Crystal. I hear all the time. And when I was stand be feeling pressured, you know, to tip this person that was giving me a water bottle, the sign on the tip jar said, money is the root of all evil. I'd be glad to remove some temptation from your life.
Dr. Jessica Peck: And then they wanted, you know, you
Dr. Jessica Peck: to put cash in the tip jar. But that's actually not what the Bible says. The Bible does not say that money is the root of all evil. It says the love of money is the root of all evil. And you have just really beautifully demonstrated how, how your love, your affection, your devotion is in your faith and not in your finances. Crystal, we have one minute left. I'll give you the last word on
Dr. Jessica Peck: how you'd like to encourage our listeners.
Crystal Paine: I would just say that God is so faithful. And for those of you who right now you're feeling so overwhelmed, you're feeling so stressed, you're struggling, feel like there's no way that you can make ends meet. Trust God. God and prove. Let him prove himself faithful. And I just say, get on your knees and cry out to God every single day. Say God, you have promised to be faithful. We are going to trust you to be faithful. And we are going to live with our hands open and we are going to trust you to be the God that you have said you will be. And then keep waiting expectantly for seeing him showing up in your life in ways that you could never dream or imagine. Imagine.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Those are some of my favorite testimonies to hear. I. I've heard so many people share about God providing in a miraculous way through financial resources down to the penny of what they need.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Our God is. I'm, thinking of the children's ministry song. Our God is so big, so strong and so mighty.
Dr. Jessica Peck: There's nothing that he cannot do, including help us to be faithful stewards of our finances. Crystal, thank you so much for helping
Dr. Jessica Peck: us approach money with honesty, practical wisdom, hope and honestly, a lot of humor. I really laughed a lot today and I love that. And you may have some difficult circumstances
Dr. Jessica Peck: to navigate, but I am thankful for people like Crystal Paine who are stepping into the middle of that messiness. You can find [email protected] and as you do, I pray the Lord will bless you and keep you. Make his face to shine upon you and your finances. We'll see you next time.
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: Hello and welcome to the Dr. Nurse Mama show prescribing Hope for Healthy Families here Family radio. Here's your host, professor, pediatric nurse practitioner and mom of four, Dr. Jessica Peck.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Well hey there friends and welcome to my favorite time of day, getting to spend time with you prescribing Hope for healthy Families. Today we're talking about a topic that impacts every single person on earth. We're talking about money. Today we need money to live. And money can be something that some of you maybe don't think about very much. It can be something that is a great cause of stress for many others for many other reasons and it is really relatable for most of us. I bet you have at one point in your life stood in the grocery Store aisle, doing the math in your head, deciding what can stay in the cart, what needs to go back. Or maybe you've had the experience of opening an unexpected bill in the mail, and you immediately start rearranging the month's plans, how you're going to pay for this unexpected expense that you have. Maybe, maybe your family is meeting its expenses, but you just find yourself wondering, am I saving enough? What, what happens if something breaks? Am I doing this right? Maybe you come from a family that just didn't really talk about money or model good healthy money management. You wonder if you're preparing your children well.
Money concerns follow us into the places that have very little to do with our bank account as well
Money concerns follow us into the places that have very little to do with our bank account as well. They enter conversation. They can cause conflict with our spouse spouse. They shorten our patience with our kids when they're asking for stuff, and we don't want to burden them with money troubles, but we're burdened with money troubles. Or it keeps our mind busy when we're trying to rest because you're calculating a spreadsheet at night when your eyes close and you're trying to go to sleep. Sometimes that concern is an immediate need. Sometimes it's uncertainty about the future. Sometimes it's feeling that, hey, everyone else seems to know something or have something that we don't. Well, my guest today is Crystal Paine, and she has been on the show before. She's known as the time saving mom. Today we're talking to her as the money saving mom, and she surveyed nearly 4,000 women while writing her newest book. Now, that book is called the 7 Habits of Financially Healthy Women. How to stop stressing, begin where you are and build a future you want. But man or woman, boy or girl, we all are called to be faithful stewards of money. But when Crystal looked at the results of her survey that she did, almost every single respondent, almost everyone acknowledged some degree of fear or uncertainty about money, including women who were doing pretty well financially. Because sometimes I think, we think, oh, well, once I make more money, I have more money in the bank, I have more money in savings. I won't worry about this as much. But it seems that that may not be the case. It's a reminder that having more doesn't necessarily resolve every worry around it. We also live in a culture where spending is easy, comparison is constant. Through social media, a, purchase can be really impulsive and happen in seconds. And we're scrolling through someone else's vacation, someone else's home renovation, someone else's beautifully organized pantry or garage, depending on Your priorities. And that quietly creates this, this new expectation, this emotional weight, like we want our kids to have opportunities, we want to have nice things. What's responsible, what's not. We bring our histories into that because usually opposites attract. You've got a saver, you've got a spender. That often happens maybe in your house. Growing up, there were arguments around money or secrecy or it was just taboo, or spending was how you knew that they were your, your loved ones were trying to say that they loved you. Or maybe you just felt guilty all the time about what was spent. Our children are learning from those everyday moments. They hear how we talk about money, what we say when a bill comes in, how we respond to a, a request for a donation, or explain why we can't spend this money, why we're saving for something. They're learning so many things about how we handle our money. And one thing that I've noticed today is that money can feel a lot less t to kids now. When I would give them cash, when I had cash, I certainly knew when that cash was going to run out. I knew how many coins it took to get 1 gallon of gas to
Dr. Jessica Peck: get me to school.
Dr. Jessica Peck: But money just seems so abstract to kids who are using Apple Pay, who are using electronic means of payment. They don't see that actual physical money. They also don't see us a lot of times giving money in church because a lot of times we're not passing the offering plate, we're giving online. Are we talking with our kids about yeah, we are participating in giving or is that just something that we're not talking about? And for Christian families, the heart of this issue is stewardship. We want to use what God has entrusted us with. Wisdom and gratitude and generosity. That includes acknowledging the limitations of our financial resources, seeking help. But financial hardship is not a measure of your faithfulness. Where other wherever you're starting, there may be or faithlessness, wherever you're starting, there is a next step that is going to help us, us approach our circumstances with greater clarity and intention. And Crystal is going to give that to us today. She's going to help us with that. She is a NewSong York Times best selling author, speaker, host of the Crystal Paine show, founder of moneysavingmom.com and she started blogging about frugality while her husband was in law school. Her family was on a tight budget. She has lived this, walked this road and she's here today to share with us what she has learned. Crystal, so glad to have you here. Thank you so much for spending time with us. No pun intended.
Dr. Jessica Peck: I'm really grateful for the investment of
Dr. Jessica Peck: your resource with us today. Welcome.
Crystal Paine: Thank you so much for having me. It is such an honor. I just truly believe if the people of God can get their finances in order, we can do such amazing things for the kingdom of God. And that is really my heartbeat and my hope.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, that is a great place to start. Take us back to the beginning for you. Take us back to when you were saving money in law school. There's a lot of people who can relate to that kind of either age or stage of life. Sometimes it comes at a different age, just depending on our life circumstances. What was it like for you in the beginning? And what kind of journey has God taken you on to be here today to share with us what you've learned?
Crystal Paine: So, my husband, I are really blessed to have great financial models in our parents. And I saw my parents when I was a young child. They set this audacious goal that they were going to get out of debt. And then they wanted to build a house in the country debt free. And so I watched that whole journey as a young child and into my teen years, and I just saw how it gave them such ability to be able to be givers and also to have so much freedom when it came to money. And so my husband and I said, we want to stand on their shoulders. So when we got married almost 24 years ago, we went into our marriage with the goal that he was going to go through law school and we were going to stay out of debt. But then the rubber met the road.
Crystal Paine: You know, you set this big goal and it sounds so great. And then it's like, then you get hungry, oh, wait, this is hard.
Crystal Paine: And you know, it was in those times of, when our faith was really tested, when we didn't know how we were going to pay the rent, when we didn't know how we were going to stretch our. Sometimes we would only have $17 a week to buy all of our groceries, to make all of our meals. But we saw God be so faithful and we learn so much through that time. And I always say, like, you know, we were on a beans and rice budget.
Crystal Paine: Literally, we would buy one bag of chicken and it would stretch for two
Crystal Paine: weeks because that's what we had to do. But I look back and I see we learned so much and it built so much character in us to also just recognize the goodness and faithfulness of God. And so that now it's given us such contentment to live out of that. We're like, you don't need to have a really big budget. You don't need to have a really nice house.
Crystal Paine: We lived in this tiny basement apartment. We could plug in the vacuum in one outlet and, you know, vacuum the whole apartment.
Crystal Paine: But we, we have so many special memories from that time. And God was so good and he was so faithful, and we're just so grateful.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Crystal, one of the things I really appreciate about your ministry and about your message is really, when you're talking about finances, you're not looking at it as a, okay, we had no money. We saved. We were frugal. Now we have abundance, and it's great,
Dr. Jessica Peck: and we can live the life that we want.
Dr. Jessica Peck: It's not just about the money. And in fact, it's not primarily about the money. You're talking about character development, and not only your own character development, but knowing and trusting the character of God, which I think is a far, far better investment with far better returns than just simply a monetary. A, monetary perspective.
Can you talk more about that character development and what you learned about the character and faithfulness of God by stewarding what he had given you?
Can you talk more about that character development and what you learned about the character and faithfulness of God by stewarding what he had given you?
Crystal Paine: Well, one of the things that we had committed to is that we were going to tithe 10% off the top no matter what. And many, many, many months, it didn't make sense on paper.
Crystal Paine: Like, it'd be like, we really need
Crystal Paine: that money so that we can pay our rent. But no, like, that was. That was God's money. It wasn't ours. And so we committed to that. And we saw God be so faithful to stretch the 90%. Many months we'd be like, I have no idea. I have no idea how our bills got paid. And, you know, we, I would say
Crystal Paine: beans and rice budget.
Crystal Paine: I'm like, we couldn't afford. So we had gotten.
Crystal Paine: This was fish.
Crystal Paine: at one point, I did mystery shopping and we mystery shopped a pet store and had to buy a fish.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Your mystery shopped a pet store?
Crystal Paine: Pet store.
Dr. Jessica Peck: I didn't even know that was a thing.
Crystal Paine: I think they paid me $10. So I'm like, sign me up. And then we got this fish. And so we had part of the mystery shop. We'd gotten fish food, and so we had enough to feed the fish, but
Crystal Paine: the fish lived for a long time. And so two years in, we ran out of fish food, and we did not have enough money to buy fish food. I think it was less than. It was like $3 at that time
Crystal Paine: to get the little thing of Fish
Crystal Paine: food, we couldn't afford it in our grocery budget.
Crystal Paine: And so the fish had to wait for two weeks because we're like, it's either the fish or us.
Crystal Paine: You know, just, just as an example of how tight things were, but how faithful God was. I mean, he let our fish live
Crystal Paine: for two weeks without eating.
Crystal Paine: But also I would just put verses around the house of the faithfulness of God. And, in front of my kitchen sink having verses of just, just who God is and what he says he is. And, you know, just reciting those verses to me, the truth. And just over and over and over telling myself, but also praying and saying, God, you have promised to provide. This is your name on the line.
Crystal Paine: This is not about us.
Crystal Paine: This is about us trusting you and seeing you be faithful. And he always, always, always was. Many times it was at the very last minute, but he was so faithful. And I feel like I am so grateful for those lessons that we learned today. we actually fostered a sweet little, who has a lot of disabilities, and we ended up adopting him. And when he came to us in the middle of the night at almost eight months old, he was in really, really bad shape. And we got to see God again with those lessons that we'd learned years before. Be so faithful and provide for us in a very different situation. And it was like clinging to the promises that God had been faithful all those years before that he would be faithful. And I just, I could tell you story after story of the faithfulness of God in that situation, but I just feel like it built this muscle of courage and of, just really trusting that God would be who he said he was. And I just challenge people like, you can trust God.
So often we, we try to white knuckle our way through life and micromanage our life
So often we, we try to white knuckle our way through life and micromanage our life. And we don't get to see God show up in big and mighty ways because we're not trusting him and releasing our life to Him.
Dr. Jessica Peck: You know, I can relate to so much of what you're saying, Crystal, because when my husband and I got married, we got married very young. We were both still college. We lived in a teeny, tiny postage stamp apartment that really wasn't big enough for furniture. And we did h. We were gifted a microwave.
Dr. Jessica Peck: And we, we took the box of
Dr. Jessica Peck: the microwave and that was like our coffee table.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Like I put, you know, like a little cloth over it and that's what we ate off of. And, and I remember one time, you
Dr. Jessica Peck: know, we were saving up to splurge one week because we Wanted to buy all beef hot dogs.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Like we wanted to buy like name brand hot dogs. This is like our big, you know, like, wow, this is amazing. We can freeze these and we can have these every Friday night. Like, so exciting.
Dr. Jessica Peck: But I look back at that Crystal and, and we did the same thing. We said we are going to tithe.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Even if it's 10 cents, that's what it's going to be.
Dr. Jessica Peck: And. And when I look back at the memories of that time, I think God just ripped away every distraction. So we weren't going on fancy dates. We weren't, you know, spending money or distracted by good food or good places. And we have been blessed with some of those things, you know, later on in our marriage. And I'm so grateful for that. But I look back and I know that he was forging us character that we were going to need for the days ahead. And I look back at those sweet, simple times and I am so grateful for those. And Crystal, when we're coming up on our first break, but when we come back, we're going to really dive into the tools that you have because as I said, you surveyed nearly 4,000 women writing this book and you discovered a lot about their money fears that they had. But more than that, we'll talk about some of the ways that you can help us to be good stewards of what God has given us. Because when we take an honest look at our finances, that can begin without shame. And one of the things I'm seeing in younger generations that is pretty controversial on social media, but I actually really like it, is people who are being really transparent and showing you, here's exactly what my paycheck is and here's exactly how I'm spending it. Just normalizing different income levels. It's okay to have friends that we
Dr. Jessica Peck: say, I can't afford that experience, we are going to decline.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Or maybe you have friends that gift that. But understanding what we're afraid of and what our actual needs are, that's where we need to start to make a more thoughtful next step. So after the break, we're gonna talk about doing that honest gut check and creating a money plan that works in the middle of real family life no matter where you are. We'll be right back with more from Crystal Paine, the 7 Habits of Financially Healthy women. See you on the other side of this bridge break. Hello, I'm Jessica peck, host of Dr. Nurse Mama. Ah. Did you know that this content is listener supported?
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Love God Love People by Danny Gokey: I've been running in circles Jumping the hurdles Getting caught in that rush of doing so much I'm feeling kind of worn out all this checking the boxes Trying to be flawless yes has me spinning my head catching my breath too afraid to slow down I tell myself to keep this up that God wants more than just my love But I've been complicating things it's just like me to overthink Got to keep it real simple keep it real simple Bring everything right back to ground zero Cuz it all comes down to this Love God and love people we're living a world that keep breaking but if we want to find a way to change all comes down to this Love God,
Dr. Jessica Peck: love people welcome back friends. That is love God, love People by Danny Gokey And one of the ways that we show love to the people we love in our lives is how we steward the financial gifts that we've been given and how we steward our money. And that is really tied up in a lot of family relationships and dynamics and it can be perceived as expressing love or a lack of love. And it is complicated. But don't worry, don't panic. I have New York Times best selling author
Crystal Paine is the author of a new book called The 7 habits of financially healthy women: How To Stop Stressing, Begin Where You Are, And Build The Future You Want
Crystal Paine with me today. She's the author of a new book called the 7 Habits of financially healthy women. How to stop stressing, begin where you are and build the future you want. And she has a lot of wisdom to share. You should absolutely follow her on social media, you should find her website and you should learn all the things because I know I have learned a lot. She you can find [email protected] and she for this book she surveyed 4,000 women. She shared her own personal story of putting her husband through law school and living on meager resources but committing their finances to the Lord, committing to not go into debt, learning about his character. And Crystal, you and I were just talking during the break how money is such an emotional issue for us. And I grew up in a working class family that lived paycheck to paycheck and many, many conversations revolved around money. You know, we would wait like everybody knew the day that my dad got paid because we would know to tell bill collectors that were calling or you know, all of those things. And it was always like you felt guilty if you had, if you had A need because you knew that financ were tight and there's a lot of emotions involved. How do we look at where we are now? Acknowledging the influences that are in the past, but also having a hope for a healthy future.
Crystal Paine: One of the things I really encourage in the book is that we need to go back and we need to recognize and unpack the baggage that we're carrying. Because so often we don't even realize that it's there. And then it is really causing us to make poor decisions or to be triggered by things or to not move forward in a way that we, we should just because it's holding us back. And so I encourage you to really think about your childhood. Think about the models that you had when it came to money. Think about how you approach and really think about money. Is there fear? Is there shame? Was money used in a way like you talked about? Almost like it was, it was a tool that was used in a really dysfunctional way. And so just understanding that and then saying, okay, now what kind of story do we want to write in the future? And really recognizing that we don't have to be held back by our past, our story in the past does not have to be our story in the future. And so really coming to understand, okay, what do I want to view? How do I want to view money? What is money for me? What is a healthy way to think about money? And then changing the way that we have a mindset around money. I think so many people have this negative mindset of, especially if you didn't have good models. I hear it all the time. It's like, I'm not good with money. And I really challenge you to not say that kind of negativity over your life, but instead a positive approach of, I'm becoming a person who is learning to be more intentional with my finances. When we speak that kind of truth and that kind of life over us, it's going to change the way that we live. So often when we believe these negative things like I'm not good with money, then that's going to actually be an excuse for bad behavior, for poor money decisions. But if we start saying, I'm becoming a person who is living intentionally when it comes to my finances, then we're going to start thinking, when we make that purchase or before we make that purchase, is this in line with a person who is going to be more financially intentional? How would that person live? How would that person act? How would that person approach their day to day finances? And so change the way that you talk to yourself, and it often is going to change the way that you act.
Dr. Jessica Peck: You know, Crystal, you sounded really sweet when you said that, but you said a tough truth in there. You said, sometimes speech like that becomes an excuse for bad behavior. Like, oh, well, this is okay because I'm just bad with money. And accepting that that's a tough truth, but I think a really relatable one. I mean, honestly, probably most people have been there at some point in their lives. And you're reminding me of my conversation with neurosurgeon Lee Warren, who talked about the neuroscience of that positive self talk versus negative self talk and what it actually, the ways that it literally reshapes our brain to prefer negative neural pathways. And so I think that's really important to think about. And when you're talking about, you know, the, this mindset, you're not just using your own personal experience. You surveyed 4,000 women. What surprised you when you got the results back? What, what? Or, maybe what didn't surprise you? What did you learn?
Crystal Paine: So I would, I think the most surprising thing for me was that so many women said they don't even look like they genuinely don't even have any idea what's coming in, what's going out, how much they have in the bank. They're too scared to look, and so they're just pretending that it doesn't exist. And I, I, you know, I have a lot of compassion and empathy for people who feel like that. But at the same time, I feel like you actually are probably holding yourself back because you could be doing a whole lot better. Think about if you were trying to run a race and you didn't know where the start was, you didn't know where the finish was, like, how could you run a race? I am actually training for half marathon in two weeks. And you know, if get there and
Crystal Paine: there's, there's no start and there's no finish, like, what's the point?
And so I just really challenge people when it comes to money
Crystal Paine: And so I just really challenge people when it comes to money. I understand that it can be scary and there can, there can be a lot of stress, you can feel shame, all of those things. But if you don't have a starting point, if you don't know what's coming in and what's going out, then you're never going to know if you're making any progress and you're never actually going to be making any progress because there's no start and there's no finish line.
Dr. Jessica Peck: You know, I remember being at the home of someone that I knew and finding like, a shirt box, like a gift box. And long story short, I opened the box and it was full of unopened credit card statements. Like, they came in, but the person
Dr. Jessica Peck: that I was with was just too
Dr. Jessica Peck: scared to open them. But, like, didn't really want to get rid of them. So just like had them in this box. Just kind of this freeze response, which can be related to maybe even traumatic experiences that we've had around money. You know, it can be really traumatic if you have severe money shortages where you don't know where the next meal is going to come from, you don't know where the next rent payment is going to come from. And acknowledging where that, that that is the fact doesn't dictate our future. How do we. One of the things I love that you do in your book, Crystal, and that you do just through your platform is you help women and anyone to acknowledge there are some circumstances outside my control. Control. But there's also decisions that I can make today that are going to move me in a positive intention. How do we use that as a starting point to maybe break out of healthy, unhealthy habits or unhealthy mindsets that we have about money?
Crystal Paine: M. The first habit in the book, I wanted it to be something that, you know, it levels the playing field for everyone. Because I think so often when it comes to money, we think, well, if I had a better job or if I had a better upbringing or if I hadn't made those bad decisions in the past, or if I lived in a different state, you, know, where cost of living was different, then I could make good decisions when it comes to money. But M, the first habit is about starting where you are. Use what you have, do what you can with what you've got, where you are, and everybody has something. And so instead of looking at what you don't have, start with what you do have. So often when I talk about grocery budgets or money things, I will get a lot of pushback from people. They'll be like, that won't work for me because says, we live out in the country, or I have five boys,
Crystal Paine: or we're gluten free, dairy free, you
Crystal Paine: know, and just like all the excuses, but really instead of saying, I can't do that, ask what can I, do? And instead of having resistance, say, where can I start? And so I just challenge everyone. You're not stuck unless you choose to be. And financial help. Wealth is not that you have a great income or that you don't have any debt or that you've never made poor financial decisions. It's about choosing to be intentional right where you are and aligning your spending with your priorities. And so instead of saying, I can't do that. That'll never work, say, what can I do with what I have right where I am? and that gives you that next tiny step. And moving forward, even at a microscopic pace, is still moving forward.
Dr. Jessica Peck: You know, your book is called the 7 Habits of Financially Healthy Women. And I think the truth is, Crystal, we live in a world where we are trained for instant gratification. So we're watching reels for this instant hack that's going to make us rich, or you're going to win a contest or the lottery or whatever it is. Everybody kind of thinks the answer to financial problems is, I'll just have so much money. But I mean, you can look at any number of examples in the media of people who have. Have all the money they could ever imagine and still don't have satisfaction or still have money troubles. How do we, how do we set our mindset to know that there's no magic fix for this? There's going to be no magic influx of cash that will all of a sudden solve all your money problems? You don't have to think about it. How do we harness what we know with our faith, perspective about discipline like you talked about before, and character development, and really say, okay, this isn't going to happen overnight. Here's the place where I'm going to start. But really set your intention to learn and to grow gradually over time.
Crystal Paine: I think one simple thing that you can start with is just make a commitment that before you make a purchase of any kind, you're going to stop and ask, what am I feeling in my body right now and why am I making this purchase? And the goal of this is not to shame. It's not to convince you not to make the purchase, although that might happen. It's just to be become aware, I think, so often, like you,
You talked about earlier how it's so easy to spend money without thinking about it
you talked about earlier how it's so easy to spend money without thinking about it. Now we just, we have money, quote unquote, on our phones.
Crystal Paine: You know, we can just go into anywhere, just put our phone down, and
Crystal Paine: we're not even thinking about how much that is or how many hours we had to work to pay for that or what we're not going to be able to buy because we're buying that or is that in the budget.
Crystal Paine: We're just, you know, slapping our phones
Crystal Paine: down and, and so I just really challenge people if you stop and say, what am I feeling in my body, body. Because so often we're making purchases because we're looking for a dopamine hit and we're looking to fill something that only Jesus can fill. And maybe we're bored, we're sad, we're lonely, and so we think I'm gonna buy something. And we don't even realize that's what we're doing. We're trying to put a bandage on something by that dopamine hit. And so by just starting with asking yourself that, it can really bring awareness to your spending. And then why am I doing this? Like, why am I wanting to spend this? And really just making sure that you're aligning your priorities with your spending.
Crystal Paine: Then if you want to take a
Crystal Paine: step further, I really challenge people to try a 30 day no spend challenge and only spend on basic, basic bare bones necessities for 30 days. This is just going to teach you a lot about yourself. It's going to probably help you recognize how you might have some addictions when it comes to money that you don't even realize. And also that you might have some discontentment that you need to work on and maybe some idolatry or something related to money. And it's just going to really help you have a different perspective on money. And I think it's just really good for us to have times when it's like fasting where only we're fasting from spending. And I think that it can, it can do something in our heart that can be really, really powerful.
Dr. Jessica Peck: You know, I, I know you're a mom, Crystal, and as you're stepping out in this ministry, I know that your kids are accountability partners for you at home.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Because I know that's how my kids are. You know, if I say something on a ministry platform, they're quick to tell if there's any discrepancy.
Dr. Jessica Peck: And they're also so wise. I feel like they teach me so much as, as I'm learning what it, what if your kids taught you about spending money and what have you learned in sharing this and helping to teach them healthy habits about money from a young age so that they don't carry that baggage in. Because I think there's a lot of people out there, me included, who would love to see the hope of that generational legacy that you talked about inheriting from your parents and passing down from your, your kids.
Crystal Paine: So one of our hopes is like I talked about standing on our parents shoulders and taking it Even further so that our kids and our grandkids can stand on our shoulders and take it even further.
We really started talking about money with our kids as soon as they could walk and talk
we really started talking about money with our kids as soon as they could walk and talk because we didn't want it to be something that a lot of people wait till their kids are 13, 16, 18 to even have these conversations. No, start from the time that they are very little, just teaching them about the value of money. We have two, six years and a four year old right now and it's like, like we just talk a lot about money when we're at the grocery store. You know, just even using that as an example, look, this one is this much and this one's $2 less. And so we should buy the one
Crystal Paine: that is $2 less.
Crystal Paine: Teaching them as they get a little bit older, you know, the grocery store shelves, it tells the cost per ounce. And and then as our kids are older, we also, we have a 17, 19 year old and 21 year old. And so just as they've grown up, giving them opportunities to handle money, we would, when they go to the store and they would ask for something, we'd bring your money and we gave them opportunities to earn money. We have paid chores and non paid chores. Non paid chores are just part of being in our family. Paid chores are things you can elect to do if you've done your non paid chores. And then that would be money that they could use however they wanted to. And sometimes they bought something that was a real lemon and I would just let them because I wanted them while they were still in our home to make the $3 and 30 and even $300 mistake to hopefully prevent them from making the $3,030,000 mistake. And so then we talk about it and we say hm, hm. So why are you disappointed that you spent that money on that, that toy just broke or one time, one of our kids bought something that we said, we think that's going to be a scam.
Crystal Paine: Like they're like, look at this great deal I found online. We're like, I don't think that that's actually what it says it is. And it turned out that it wasn't.
Crystal Paine: But it was such a good opportunity for them to learn. Like do your research and don't,
Crystal Paine: just because it seems like it's a great deal, it might not be. If it seems too good to be true, it might actually be too good to be true.
Crystal Paine: And, and just having all of those conversations with them, taking them to the bank when you know they're 14, 15 years old and helping.
Dr. Jessica Peck: This is all so good, Crystal. I hate to cut us short. We're already at our second break. Listen, you need to get a copy of the book to get all of this goodness.
Dr. Jessica Peck: The 7 Habits of Financially healthy women. When we come back, we'll talk about how Crystal says women can build a personalized money plan in under an hour. We'll go through it when we come back.
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Abide by Aaron Williams and Dwell Songs: for my waking breath, for my daily. I depend on you. I depend on you. For the sun to rise. For my sleep at night. I depend, on you. Yes, I depend on you. You're the way, the truth and the light. You're the world, it never runs dry. I'm the branch and you are the vine. Draw me close and teach me to
Dr. Jessica Peck: welcome back friends that is abide by Aaron Williams and Dwell songs And that's really what we're talking about today is abiding in Christ in every element of our lives, whether that is our spiritual life, whether that's our physical life, whether that's our financial life.
Dr. Jessica Peck: And I am so delighted today to
Dr. Jessica Peck: be talking to New York Times best selling author Crystal Paine Her new book is called called the seven habits of financially healthy women. How to stop stressing, begin where you are and build the future you want. So no matter where you came from, how you grew up, what your financial situation is, both Crystal and I have talked about stages in our life of
Dr. Jessica Peck: having very little but God giving us
Dr. Jessica Peck: so very much and being content with where we are.
Dr. Jessica Peck: And Crystal, this is something, you know, I.
Dr. Jessica Peck: People talk about all the time and
Dr. Jessica Peck: one of the financial things that I'm seeing a lot of is the controversy
Dr. Jessica Peck: around tipping everywhere you go it's like
Dr. Jessica Peck: tipping and I, it's, we were just talking about how our kids respond and
Dr. Jessica Peck: how we're teaching them about money.
Dr. Jessica Peck: And I've got one son in college
Dr. Jessica Peck: who was very aware of the value of a dollar because now he knows like if I want to buy this,
Dr. Jessica Peck: that's this many hours of work. And so if I buy a water bottle and I, I feel like I'm
Dr. Jessica Peck: nice and I feel bad and I
Dr. Jessica Peck: don't want the people to think I'm a terrible person.
Dr. Jessica Peck: If I don't tip, he will just eye me down and see, say, you had better not tip that person for handing you a water bottle.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Don't do it. And then I've got another kid on the other side of me saying, well
Dr. Jessica Peck: that's, that's not okay.
Dr. Jessica Peck: You've got to tip them wherever you are. In the middle of that crystal, you have help for so many situations, for so many practical purposes. And I want to start with one of the things that you say.
You say that you can build a personalized money plan in under an hour
You say that you can build a
Dr. Jessica Peck: personalized money plan in under an hour. You're giving away amazing free resource on your website.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Walk us through how your ministry gives us some of those guidance for some of those practical things. Whether it's do I tip or not? Or how do I make a personalized money plan.
Crystal Paine: Yes. So on moneysavingmom.com really my hope, I've been running this for 20 years with just the hope that it's like a one stop shop. Especially for women who you're busy, you've got a lot going on in your life and you need somebody to just
Crystal Paine: tell you here, here's what you do. And I just give them step by step by step.
Crystal Paine: And so you talked about the money plan. So we have a five day budget reset or budget makeover, whatever you want to call it. Or if you're like, I've never had a budget before, it scares me. This is for you as well. If you've tried budgeting and you're like didn't work at all, this is for you. if you're just a budget cynic, it's for you and just walking you through how to actually set up a budget. Or if you're like, I don't like the word budget, you can call it a money plan or you can call it a spending plan, call it whatever you want, but it's about aligning your spending with your priorities so that you can have so much more peace when you spend. You don't have to worry about, oh Goodness, is this going to mean that I'm not going to be able to, you know, pay for something important? Because I'm buying this over here. I, think of it as like, if you go to the bowling alley
Crystal Paine: and you know, like, I have young kids so that they put the little
Crystal Paine: bumpers up and it's like you can just hit strikes when you have those. That's what a budget is like. It's going to keep your money out of the gut better so that you can just be hitting strikes and winning, with your money and that you just have so much more peace. And so this is going to walk you through that. And we also have some different printables that you can print out to, go through your variable expenses, your fixed expenses. If you're like, I don't know what to put on my budget, how do I plan for the things that don't happen? Every month we talk about that and creating, these basically money plans for future expenses. And so we also have lots and lots of other resources, on the website, lots and lots of freebies and just lots of deals and encouragement for practical ways that you can save money. So that's at money saving mom.com.
Dr. Jessica Peck: yeah.
Dr. Jessica Peck: What I just told you during the break was my producer Stephanie found the birthday freebies on your website. As we're sitting here, I can see her signing up and I hope that means I'm gonna get free coffee.
Dr. Jessica Peck: You know, like we're gonna get birthday freebies.
Dr. Jessica Peck: There so many practical things.
Dr. Jessica Peck: But I think, Crystal, one of the
Dr. Jessica Peck: mistakes that we make is if we're struggling in something, it's just, it's the same thing thing with, if you're struggling with your eating habits or your fitness habits or your finance habits, you kind of think, okay, I'm going to start again on Monday.
Dr. Jessica Peck: I'm going to, you know, I'm going to not spend, I'm going to get control of this.
Dr. Jessica Peck: But really you approach this from a, gradual habits approach, you know, where you, you got to. Everybody's got to start somewhere. And it's over time developing discipline and acquiring knowledge and, and having some savvy in what you do. How do we have patience for the long games to walk into some of those fun things that you have that are, ok, things that I can do today. But how do we develop that mindset to be financially healthy over time?
Crystal Paine: Well, I think some of it comes with, you know, like building muscle. I started strength training two years ago and you just want to like right
Crystal Paine: away see that muscle development, and that's
Crystal Paine: not how it works. And so to recognize that these little habits build on each other and that if you try to overhaul your life overnight, you're going to crash and burn. And so I was encouraged, people, when it comes to, for instance, your grocery budget, instead of being like, I'm going to shave off 40% of my grocery budget right away, say, I'm going to cut my grocery budget by 1 to 3% every month. And that's not exciting, but here's what happens. If you shave it off by 1 to 3%, that's, that feels really easy, like that's really doable. And. But if you keep doing that over time, that adds up to a significant amount of savings. And so I encourage people to really think, think of the, you know, the long game, but actually do the math on it. in the book I actually have, the math on if you were to go buy a water bottle at a gas station every single day versus if you were, when you leave for the day, you bring your own water bottle. And the difference in that is thousands of dollars over time. And so when you, when you actually add it up and look at it over a long period of time and see how much you can save or how, how much you would spend, I think that can give you a lot of just that motivation to keep going on those days when you're kind of tired or you're like, this is not really fun, or I'm not really seeing a difference. You will over time. And it's like two years for me of strength training and I'm like, I've got some good muscle definition.
Crystal Paine: But it did not happen. It did not happen overnight.
Crystal Paine: And it was almost like one day
Crystal Paine: I just woke up and I was
Crystal Paine: like, wait, like, where's.
Crystal Paine: I've never seen that muscle before, you know, but it didn't happen because, because of just it popped out that night.
Crystal Paine: It was like, no, it was two years of me showing up, and doing things consistently.
Dr. Jessica Peck: You know, you're reminding me of a
Dr. Jessica Peck: time when my kids were little and
I was getting alarmed by how much it cost to feed four young kids and I tried to cut the grocery budget
Dr. Jessica Peck: I was getting alarmed by how much it cost to feed four young kids and I tried to cut the grocery budget. Crystal. It was a, it was a terrible failure because I came home with all these unfamiliar foods, all generics. They're like, what, the toasted O's? Is this? Like, where is the, the cereal that we usually eat? And so I, had to learn, okay, it's in discipline and it's all those micro decision over time and, and
Dr. Jessica Peck: the seventh habit that you have in the book is looking way over time, Talking to your 90 year old self and thinking, okay, what does this look like over time? Because we're just thinking about so much. We prioritize convenience. You know, we just want the convenience of I don't want to meal prep,
Dr. Jessica Peck: I don't want to, you know, fill up my own water bottle. I just want to do what's convenient.
Dr. Jessica Peck: But that's a, that's a discipline issue. Thinking of what character traits we want to have. And over time you can really build a legacy. So tell us, take us to the end of habit 7 and if you want to know in the middle, then get the book the 7 Habits of Financially healthy Women.
Crystal Paine: Yes.
Crystal Paine: In the middle we've got all the
Crystal Paine: fun stuff which is like all the cool ways to save money because that's, everybody wants that, you know, but we got to have the foundation of
Crystal Paine: the budget and all that and then the end, which is really thinking long term. And so actually this, this came from my business coach. At the end of the year, she always does an year in review and the first year that we did this, she said, said, she asked me this question, she said, what would your 90 year old self tell you you should be doing right now?
Crystal Paine: And I was like, excuse me, what can you say that again?
Crystal Paine: Like it was something that I never thought of before.
What would your 90 year old self tell you should be doing right now?
What would your 90 year old self tell you should be doing right now? And so habit number seven is consult your 90 year old self and really put yourself in the shoes of you as a 90 year old. And what would that person tell you? That you should be wrapping your time and your life and your energy around when it comes to all things, but specifically when it comes to money. And I think that there's so much that we worry about and we stress about that in the grand scheme of things does not matter. And I think your 90 year old self would be telling you really invest in people, really invest in the things that are going to matter long term and stop stressing over these things that do not matter. Stop getting so hung up and frustrated over things that don't matter and also be really wise with your money, money and so that you can invest and give and really make an impact where it matters most.
Dr. Jessica Peck: One of the most compelling things that I think that you, you present, you know, throughout the book, throughout the advice that you give Crystal is that this is an approach that really is going to give you freedom. This is not about constraining yourself, limiting your spending, about, you know, having self control not buying those things, although that is wrapped up in that, that. But it's really kind of paradoxical. You're inviting people to financial freedom through discipline and building these habits. How have you seen freedom in your life through having healthy financial habits?
Crystal Paine: Well, one of the things I mentioned, our son that we adopted through foster care, he has a lot of medical needs and so when he came to us, he had, he was working with 12 specialists at the that time. And so, so much of our life was spent just taking him to doctors and therapy. And we looked back and we were like, you know, had we not made those financial decisions early on in our marriage, to have the freedom to be able to work wise and financially wise, to be able to just kind of upend our lives for a period of time, we wouldn't be able to save. Say yes to him. And so I look at him and I think like, thank you Jesus that we made those choices years ago and stuck with them when everybody thought we were crazy and everybody was like, I
Crystal Paine: don't understand why you're still renting.
Crystal Paine: And we're like, because we're gonna save up to pay cash for a house.
Crystal Paine: And yes, it's going to take a lot of time. And yes, we're living on way less than we make. And yes, I know we're weird. And yes, we're you know, just continuing to not buy things and shop at the thrift store and live on this little grocery budget.
Crystal Paine: But all of those habits stacked up to a life that now allows us the freedom. For instance, we today we three days a week we take care of a sweet little six month old girl. A single woman in our church is fostering her. And we were able to just say yes to bringing her into our home three days a week so that her foster mom can go to work. And you know, just being able to have that freedom to say yes is such a gift. And, and I think also just seeing our lives as we are just conduits, everything we have is God's. And so when we live with our hands open to just let him flow through us, there's so much blessing that comes from that. But if we live with our our fist clenched, we actually become a cesspool. Like a cesspool, like a stinky, stagnant cesspool. Like keeping it all for yourself. For what? And I would say your 90 year old self would be telling you like, like just give freely, love lavishly and remember that really the only thing that you're gonna take into heaven is God's word and people. And so let's wrap our life and our time and our finances around that.
Dr. Jessica Peck: You're reminding me of, Pastor, that I used to have, who would always say there's only two things that last, the word of God and the souls of people. And it is so very true. When you look at where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And I, I'm just sitting awe of your perspective, Crystal. I really am, because I think there are people who could easily say, oh, look at you, you're trying to do the right thing. You're fostering this child and how horrible that, oh, these got special needs and that's going to cost you so much money. But you're thanking God for the provision that he gave you for the freedom to say yes to care for him. That is a radical shift in perspective. And it makes me think of, a really common misapplication of scripture that I'm sure you've heard before, Crystal. I hear all the time. And when I was stand be feeling pressured, you know, to tip this person that was giving me a water bottle, the sign on the tip jar said, money is the root of all evil. I'd be glad to remove some temptation from your life.
Dr. Jessica Peck: And then they wanted, you know, you
Dr. Jessica Peck: to put cash in the tip jar. But that's actually not what the Bible says. The Bible does not say that money is the root of all evil. It says the love of money is the root of all evil. And you have just really beautifully demonstrated how, how your love, your affection, your devotion is in your faith and not in your finances. Crystal, we have one minute left. I'll give you the last word on
Dr. Jessica Peck: how you'd like to encourage our listeners.
Crystal Paine: I would just say that God is so faithful. And for those of you who right now you're feeling so overwhelmed, you're feeling so stressed, you're struggling, feel like there's no way that you can make ends meet. Trust God. God and prove. Let him prove himself faithful. And I just say, get on your knees and cry out to God every single day. Say God, you have promised to be faithful. We are going to trust you to be faithful. And we are going to live with our hands open and we are going to trust you to be the God that you have said you will be. And then keep waiting expectantly for seeing him showing up in your life in ways that you could never dream or imagine. Imagine.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Those are some of my favorite testimonies to hear. I. I've heard so many people share about God providing in a miraculous way through financial resources down to the penny of what they need.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Our God is. I'm, thinking of the children's ministry song. Our God is so big, so strong and so mighty.
Dr. Jessica Peck: There's nothing that he cannot do, including help us to be faithful stewards of our finances. Crystal, thank you so much for helping
Dr. Jessica Peck: us approach money with honesty, practical wisdom, hope and honestly, a lot of humor. I really laughed a lot today and I love that. And you may have some difficult circumstances
Dr. Jessica Peck: to navigate, but I am thankful for people like Crystal Paine who are stepping into the middle of that messiness. You can find [email protected] and as you do, I pray the Lord will bless you and keep you. Make his face to shine upon you and your finances. We'll see you next time.
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Jeff Chamblee: opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.
Podcast Host and Author Crystal Paine talks with Jessica about moving from financial fear to faithful stewardship by building healthy money habits for your family.
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