Thursday, August 4, 2011

Thrifty Thursday: Making Ends Meet

Herbert Hoover is credited as saying something along these lines:  “About the time we can make ends meet, somebody moves the ends”  That was a quote that was on the wall of my home while growing up.  I remember it as this though:  “Just about the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves the ends,” but that could simply be the fault of my memory.

How often do we feel that way?  
Whether it is finances or other aspects of our lives, we do have things that change.  Change is a part of life.  Being self-reliant helps us prepare for not only immediate needs but future ones as well.  Being spiritually & temporally prepared does not mean we will escape disaster or change, but rather will hopefully help us be able to endure it better and minimize the impact of any changes.
One thing we can do to help make ends meet, despite possible changes, is to always pay an honest and full tithe.  Many a person, who has experienced the blessings of tithing, could tell you that without the payment of tithes, their ends didn’t meet, but with the payment of tithes, somehow (through blessings of the Lord) the ends met, at least enough to help them continue.
We also help our ends meet, by following the counsel to get out of debt and stay out of it.  Here are 3 great resources on debts and interest:  Ensign Sept 1997, Understanding Interest on debt.,  Ensign Nov 1998, To the Boys and to the Men, and on both spiritual and temporal debts:  April 2004 General Conference, Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin “Earthly Debts, Heavenly Debts” 
Quotes from leaders about debt and financial responsibility:
President J. Reuben Clark Jr.: “Interest never sleeps nor sickens nor dies; it never goes to the hospital; it works on Sundays and holidays; it never takes a vacation. … Once in debt, interest is your companion every minute of the day and night; you cannot shun it or slip away from it; you cannot dismiss it; it yields neither to entreaties, demands, or orders; and whenever you get in its way or cross its course or fail to meet its demands, it crushes you.” (In Conference Report, Apr. 1938, 103.)
President Gordon B. Hinckley:  “I am suggesting that the time has come to get our houses in order.  So many of our people are living on the very edge of their incomes. In fact, some are living on borrowings...President Heber J. Grant spoke repeatedly on this matter from this pulpit. He said: “If there is any one thing that will bring peace and contentment into the human heart, and into the family, it is to live within our means. And if there is any one thing that is grinding and discouraging and disheartening, it is to have debts and obligations that one cannot meet” (Gospel Standards, comp. G. Homer Durham [1941], 111)...We are carrying a message of self-reliance throughout the Church. Self-reliance cannot obtain when there is serious debt hanging over a household. One has neither independence nor freedom from bondage when he is obligated to others...I urge you, brethren, to look to the condition of your finances. I urge you to be modest in your expenditures; discipline yourselves in your purchases to avoid debt to the extent possible. Pay off debt as quickly as you can, and free yourselves from bondage.  This is a part of the temporal gospel in which we believe.”  (“To the Boys and the Men,” Ensign, November 1998)
There us much advice as to how to help make ends meet.  One could get another job, one could eat only ramen noodles, one could really go on the cheap on many things; but, none of these will be as effective in bringing happiness and the ability to truly be self-reliant as paying tithing and getting and staying out of debt.

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