Throughout my life, money has been quite a challenge.
I was a pastor for almost 50 years, and as a pastor I did not get much of a salary, barely enough to get by on.
But I didn’t become a pastor for the money, or I would’ve become a televangelist.
I didn’t say that, did I? Both The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage and I worked to be as frugal as possible with our budget. We tried our best not to spend our money on things we didn’t really need. Then when the children came along, that certainly changed our budget.
As a young kid, I was frugal with my money. I didn’t make very much money, but I made sure most of it went into my little piggy bank.
Every week I would look at my piggy bank and count the money several times. I knew how much I had, but I enjoyed counting it and looking at it.
Now that I’m older (but not that much wiser), I check out my savings account every week. At least once a week, sometimes several times during the week, OK, every day.
I enjoy looking at that money in my savings account. What I enjoy the most is seeing the interest I’m earning in my savings account. Like my father used to say, “A penny earned is a penny saved.”
I want all my pennies in my savings account to earn interest.
That money was for emergencies, and boy, when I had to take money out of my savings account, it was the hardest thing that I ever had to do. It was easy putting it in, but it was very difficult for me to pull it out.
I know the savings account was for emergencies, but I had a hard time defining “emergencies.” Sometimes The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage steps in and helps with that definition.
Every time something happened unexpectedly in the financial area of life, I really wrestled with drawing the money from the savings account. I know it had to be done, but I kicked it down the road as far as I could.
Just the other week, there was a mechanical problem with the Sissy Van. It was a problem that needed to be fixed, and it was around $1000. I never kept that much in my checking account because I preferred most of my money to be in my savings account.
When I got the bill, I was very sad. I looked at my savings account and then looked at the bill for the Sissy Van, and I was not too happy about it. It was almost as much as my Social Security checks each month.
As I was looking at my savings account online, The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage came in and asked about getting her mechanic bill paid. We needed to go pick it up, and when we did, we needed to pay for the mechanical services.
“You do have enough money to pay for that, don’t you?” The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage said.
I looked at her with very sad eyes and said, “Well, the money for the mechanical bill is in my savings account. I hate to transfer it to my checking account.”
“You do have it in the savings account for emergencies, right?”
I looked at her, then looked back at my account on the computer, sighed very deeply, and said, “I’m going to have to move money over to my checking account, and you know how much I hate doing that.”
With a very serious look on her face The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage looked at me and said, “Instead of taking it out of your savings account, why don’t you just go and rob a bank this afternoon. Then you might have more money to put back into your savings account after you pay the mechanic bill.” I looked at her, chuckled, and said, “Did you say to go and rob a bank?”
I’m not sure what planet she was on at the time, but robbing a bank never came to mind as I was thinking of my money. Of course, it would make sense if I could rob a bank and get away with it.
“What if I get caught?” I asked her very seriously.
“Then,” she said with a smile on her face, “you’ll have free room and three meals a day and you won’t have to pay for any of that. You do like free don’t you?”
I just stared at her for a few moments and watched her smile back at me. It never occurred to me to rob a bank, but as I looked at my savings account, it didn’t seem like a bad idea at the time.
I finally had to move the money from my savings account to my checking account. That is the hardest thing I ever did in life.
I sighed very deeply and closed the computer, then I picked up my checkbook and said to The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage, “Let’s go and get your Sissy Van.”
Later that day I read Ecclesiastes 5:10, “He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase: this is also vanity.”
As much money as I have in my savings account, there will always be some emergency that needs me to withdraw it.
Dr. James L. Snyder lives in Ocala, Florida with the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage. Telephone is (352) 216-3025, e-mail is jamessnyder51@ gmail.com, and his website is www.jamessnyderministries. com.