A Christian Perspective on Money Management - Week 2

Nov
9th
2008

Filed Under Christian, Credit Cards, Saving
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The sermon series at Hope Pres about money management and financial peace continued this week.  Last week was a summary of sorts, and this week Craig started to delve into specific things you can/need to do in order to achieve “financial peace”.

While most of the suggestions are old news for me and my family, they do prompt some new ideas on ways to save, be more frugal, and manage money as a family.  Perhaps the most important thing that keeps coming up is the necessity of good communication within the family unit.  That’s something I probably don’t do as well as I should, but we’re working on it.

A nifty little tool developed by Dave Ramsey called The Gazelle Budget was showcased.  For those of you who do not have a budget, this is an easy way to get started.

The Cliff Notes from the sermon are as follows:

One man pretends to be rich, yet has nothing… - Proverbs 13:7 (NIV)

From a Quicken perspective, this sermon seemed to be related to the Debt Reduction Planner and Budgeting tools provided in the software.  I plan to do a short post in the next couple of days about these two powerful tools.

DK


“Chase What Matters” Advertising Campaign

Feb
16th
2008

Filed Under Credit Cards
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Quicken, like most financial software packages, does a good job of tracking credit card spending. It records individual transactions, compares your available credit to your credit limit, and will even tell you how long it will take you to pay off the balance. Nothing fancy here.

But, there’s a new competitor on the market. I saw a commercial recently for Chase Bank that advertised the ability to quickly (they claim in “real-time”) check your credit card balance via a cell phone text message. This service will enable you “to decide what to spend” on the spot. The poor chump in the commercial is seen in the electronics store kicked back in a recliner trying to figure out which big screen television to purchase. He has to text the bank to decide if he can get a 15″ or a 53″ TV.

I’d bet a dollar on the following statements about the individuals this service is targeted at:

  1. They are probably not using Quicken (or any other management software) to track their spending.
  2. They are probably only making minimum monthly payments on that credit card.
  3. That “TV” or other large purchase will cost them quite a bit more in the long run than what the price tag says.

It would seem to me that there is something innately wrong with this type of service. It is encouraging people to base their spending on how much available credit they on their credit card.

A smart Quicken user would know how much they can afford before they leave the house. He/she would also NOT use a credit card because a savings plan had been started and followed long before the item was necessary.

DK