Deborah Brown's sermon, "Minimizing Expense and Maximizing Asset Spending in the Home," focuses on financial literacy and practical strategies for managing household expenses to enhance asset accumulation. Emphasizing the teachings of Robert Kiyosaki, Deborah highlights the importance of distinguishing between assets (which generate income) and liabilities (which incur costs). She stresses the significance of increasing income, reducing expenses, and making wise investments to grow net worth. Deborah provides practical advice on minimizing food costs by planning meals in bulk and prioritizing affordability without sacrificing quality. She also discusses the benefits of purchasing used clothing and furniture, encouraging attendees to understand product quality and brand reliability. To avoid impulse buying, Deborah emphasizes self-restraint and planning, advising against shopping without necessity. Additionally, she cautions against the pressures of social media and the temptation to match the lifestyles of others. The sermon concludes with the importance of financial planning, delayed gratification, and setting reasonable expectations for spending, especially in significant life events like weddings.

I'm going to give an introduction to the things Deborah is going to share just very briefly. And I want to speak of it in terms of do dads or assets and to help us think through what we use our money for, whether do dads or assets. I'd like to talk about reducing spending on consumables. That's really what Deborah will focus in on. And I want to quote from Robert Kiyosaki in a book that I read about 25 years ago called Rich Dad Poor Dad.

I highly recommend you read it, particularly if you're a young person. He has some remarkable things. Now you know when someone comes and shares some of their financial problems, normally my counsel to them is get your top line up, get your income up. You need to focus on that. At the same time, I think this is true.

It's not how much money you make, it's how much money you keep. And there are various ways that you keep it. I'll just itemize some of the ways that we keep our money through the accumulation of assets. Here's Kiyosaki, rule number one. You must know the difference between an asset and a liability by assets.

Here's how he explains it. An asset puts money in my pocket, a liability takes money out of my pocket. It's helpful to understand what you're buying and what it's doing to you. And Deborah's gonna talk about that in more detail. Here's what Kiyosaki says.

The rich don't work for money. Rather, they make their money work for them. And it's helpful to understand that your money can work for you. And my advice to young people is get yourself in a place where you can invest in assets that work for you, that actually return income to you. And it can take Quite a bit of time to do that, but one should take time to do that and focus their resources on the things that actually make money, rather than take money out of your pocket.

Here's what he says, the poor and the middle class work for money, the rich have money work for them. It's an important principle to consider. There are a few foundations of financial intelligence that have been alluded to, but I'll list them. You need to understand the importance of your income, secondly of your expenses, third of your assets, fourth of your liabilities, and then finally your net worth. And of course, in order for a person to be fruitful and multiply and continue to have more to give, he should increase his income, reduce his expenses, increase his assets, reduce his liabilities, and grow his net worth.

Now, I don't know if you keep personal financial statements. I really encourage you to keep a personal financial statement. Even if you're 15 or 18, if you're young, learn how to create a personal financial statement that declares what your net worth is. And you figure your net worth by doing your calculations, particularly of your assets and your liabilities. And when you're able to do that, it means that you're focusing on increasing your assets.

So all of this really has to do with this matter of minimizing expenses for the maximizing of asset spending in the home. So Debra is going to come up now and talk about that. All right, so I'm going to, I don't want to, I want to start out by saying that I am not here to tell you how to live, or what to buy or not buy. I know there are times to spend money, and there are times not to spend money. I'm also not here to tell you how to spend your time.

All of us are in different seasons and we have different pressures. I'm just here to tell you how to live as cheaply as you want to or need to. Okay? So first I want to talk about priorities. You need to know where you want to spend your money and where you want to spend your time.

You gotta sell that first. Some people want to spend their money on vacations. Some want to spend their money on food. And others want to cut that category first. So just understand what you would like to spend your money on and your time.

So the category of food. My mom wanted to be a stay-at-home mom and so that required certain choices. There were six of us children usually about three or four foster kids and I never had a whole piece of meat. Never. Okay.

My mom would stretch a pound of hamburger to fit us all. We had spaghetti, hamburger stroganoff, shepherd's pie, lasagna, you know, et cetera, all those things. My mom was also a health nut, So we never had pre-prepared foods. We almost never went out to eat. I think the only time I ever remember going out to eat was to a breakfast place that would feed your kids all the pancakes they wanted for a buck.

My mom's priority though was to stay home with her kids. So that drove the food budget. And casseroles are cheaper than everybody having their own piece of meat. Now speaking of casseroles, I know there are people who don't like casseroles. Okay, I have a daughter that will have a chicken breast for her husband, but she buys chicken thighs for herself and the kids so that she can stay on her budget.

So just She plans for that. Plan all of your meals. At our house, everybody eats the same thing for meals. I don't make something special for each one. I would make a quiche or a baked oatmeal, and we would all eat it.

We do the same for lunch and dinner. I make a menu for a month and then I stick to it. And by doing that, I could buy all of my meat at a better price in bulk buying. Cuz yes, you can get a lot more chicken or pork or anything buying at Sam's by the case. And then I would just shop for all the fresh things I needed each week.

But speaking of buying in bulk, bulk is not necessarily the cheapest way to go. I remember trying to be a part of a farmers market co-op. I would end up with like 17 heads of lettuce and 20 pounds of zucchini, okay? I mean, even giving it to my chickens. It was definitely not the cheapest way to go.

So just be careful when you buy in bulk. Also, online grocery shopping helps you keep from buying what you don't need. I know a woman who saves over $100 a week because she is not in the store buying what she doesn't need. It also curbs her impulse buying, which is almost never your friend. Moving to the clothing category.

This is the topic of clothing, furniture, and appliances. And I want you to understand that there is always an upfront cost, a number one consumer cost, the one who pays the full price. I try to never be that one. I want to be the one who gets the best quality at a used price. I mean, I want to get a quality pair of $150 shoes for five bucks.

But speaking of good quality, you can buy low quality and replace it every year, Or you can wait and buy good quality used. So you need to get to know your brands. Know what quality is and if it will last. But be careful because You could also pay a lot of money for substandard quality. There are times when buying the cheapest doesn't make any sense.

For women's clothing, there are so many places you can buy them used. EBay is cheaper than making it yourself. So utilize those places. For children's clothing, it's a little bit harder. When you don't have too many children it's easy to shop for them used and if you can get it together and go to one of those big used children's sales I highly highly recommend those.

There's a lots of sizes in one place But if you have a lot of children, you're homeschooling them, which of course is your priority. It's hard to shop in all the used places. It can be a lot of running around. My daughter, however, uses Target because they will guarantee their brand of clothing for a year. If they wear it out, she takes it back and gets brand new jeans.

That's their Target brand. And I know that Sears used to do the same thing There may be other stores that have that deal. I would find them One of my daughters has decided that for summer things She's just gonna go and buy the cheapest she can use and just replace it So you have options you just have to plan for them. But just remember this too, for children's clothing, more is not better. Too much clothing is just expensive and a lot of work to manage.

For the big ticket items like furniture and appliances, again, do your research and buy them used. You can always find them if you just wait and look. People are always moving in and out of our area. But you have to know your brands. So call the refrigerator repair man or the washer and dryer repair guy.

Ask him what brands he never fixes. Curriculum. When I first started, there was no choices. There are so many choices I feel so sorry for you guys. Carefully, carefully choose your curriculum then stick with it.

If it's an expensive item, buy it used until you know if you like it. When I was just starting out with Kelly, there was a woman who was a few years ahead of me who recommended this math program she thought would be really great for Kelly's personality. I paid $275 for it. And I hated it. And I should have known there was a problem.

They told me I'd have to attend an all day seminar to learn how to use it. And I like math. Yeah. Two days, I did it twice. Okay, we won't go there anymore.

Be careful of your choices of homeschooling curriculum. If you don't know about it, find someone who's using it and ask if you can look at it. A great way is to go to these used curriculum sales. Virginia, Virginia homeschool, heave, is that what it is, homeschooling education? If Virginia has the best used curriculum, it's like a Walmart size, and they do a really good job at putting it all together.

However, if you find a program there's a ton of that looks brand new, stay away from it. All right, single girls and moms. Hope chests. I'm gonna tell you what the history of the hope chest is. It comes from a time when a girl had to make everything she would need when she got married.

Sheets, towels, napkins, everything. Well that's not true anymore and the reality is what a 12 year old girl likes, a 22 year old girl does not. I hear some chuckles. I have two daughters who collected and saved things for their homes, who when it came time to use it, didn't like it. This is my advice.

Don't waste your time and your money on hope chests. Instead spend your time and your money, because it's your time and your money, not Kelly's money and Blair's money. Train them. Pay someone to teach them to cut hair, to take to learn kind of the basics of accounting. Kelly and Blair still feel bad about all the money I spent collecting things for their hope chests and then they used almost none of it.

Now the caveat to that is because Claudia was the baby everything got passed down to her. She used some of it. Anyway, while we're on that topic, okay, girls and parents, have a reasonable wedding dream. Once you remember that a wedding is not an investment, you will see zero return on it. Set a budget and stick to it.

So for time and money, on the front end of your marriage, you generally have more time and less money. But years into your marriage, if you plan wisely, you will generally have more money but less time. So plan for that. For instance, you know, Claudia's been married for five months. She had time to research what kind of stroller she wanted, find it on Facebook, drive to go look at it, and then buy it for a fraction of the cost new.

Monica, however, married 10 years, seven kids to school, does not have the same time as Claudia. However, she has been wise with her money. She now has the money to have things shipped to her home instead of running around searching for the best deal. So for those of you that are just beginning, you have time to shop for things that you won't have time for later when you have a bunch of kids. So take that time now.

If you don't have the money, do not go shopping. Is that clear? If you don't have the money, Do not go shopping. What will happen if you go to TJ Maxx and you don't need anything? Anybody want to guess?

You will buy something. Impulse buying is not your friend. The Bible says not to be a glutton, and I don't think this is only true for food. Learn to control yourself in these categories and be content. And a big beware of Facebook and instant, instantgram?

Beware of pop-up ads and influencers. Like for me, for my day, it was catalogs. If I ever took what precious little time I had and looked at a catalog, I was sure to find something that I had no idea that I needed until that moment. Also, be careful about getting your inspiration from those older than you who have what you want. You have to realize that older people have more because they are 20 years ahead of you.

It's always, always good to practice self-restraint or delayed gratification. If you want more ideas, just Google it. There are ideas everywhere. Just be careful to slow down and make wise decisions about the necessity of whatever it is you want. Amen.