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Part 3: My Parent’s 40th Anniversary

August 3, 2011 by Mark Asbell Leave a Comment

For my parents 40th wedding anniversary I did a little interview and I’m sharing their wisdom. If you missed it you can click here to read Part 1 or click here to read Part 2.

What have you done for fun through the years?

We’ve always been heavily involved in church activities (understatement of the century). We didn’t really call it date night like y’all do now days, but when we were younger we would go out to eat and go to drag racing or rodeo or ball games or Gospel singing events – that was way back when the Gaithers were just a trio. Now days for date night we tend to just go out to eat and take a drive and just enjoy being together. (I will add that my parents take some pretty nice trips as rewards through my dad’s job as an insurance agent).

What have been your hopes and dreams?

We’ve always wanted to do the best we could for you kids and we’ve always wanted to serve other people – living our lives to serve others rather than ourselves.

Dad: When we were pastors we thought success was when I got to pastor without having a 2nd job to support the family.

Mom: As we got older we reached for dreams like having a bigger property with a garden and getting to travel. We were only able to afford that stuff after dad started working in business world.

Now you know how old my parents are – I mean anyone who knew when the Gaithers were just a trio… If you don’t even know who the Gaithers are just look it up on Google – search images, that’s all you need to know. My parents are very country too in case you couldn’t tell from the drag racing and rodeo. That does remind me of our years in a small town called Forest Hill, LA where we went to the dirt track races every Friday night…

I’m glad to know my parents have fun together and have hopes and dreams. It is ashamed that church people treat pastors in such a way that they leave the ministry all the time. My parents still serve in their local church, just not as pastor. Every time I think of my parents deciding to no longer pastor churches I think of how tough a decision that must have been for them because of their heart for ministry. But at the same time I think of how thankful I am that they made such a tough decision because for all we know that is what kept them together and kept our family together.

My dad plants his garden every year and they get to travel to places Shawna and I hope to go to someday. I’d say they’ve set a pretty good example for putting their marriage, hopes, and dreams in proper priority.

Filed Under: Faith, Family, Money, Personal Growth, Relationships, Stories

Part 2: My Parent’s 40th Anniversary

August 2, 2011 by Mark Asbell Leave a Comment

For my parents 40th wedding anniversary I did a little interview and I’m sharing their wisdom. If you missed it you can click here to read Part 1.

How did you make it 40 years? What advice do you have for us youngsters?

It’s important to always think back on what brought us together to start with and having a determination to never give up on that. Commitment is taken too lightly now days. People think oh well we can just get a divorce if this doesn’t work out. Divorce was never an option for us. Our parents were married 61 & 57 years so we had a good example of commitment. Our faith strengthened our commitment. It has taken a lot of work – seminars at church, better communication, understanding and appreciating each other.

Did you ever get counseling?

No we never did but there were times we should have.

I am so blessed to have such great examples of commitment in my parents and grandparents. Both sets of my grandparents were together until death did them part. I pray that for my marriage too.

It REALLY frustrates me to hear some of the reasons people get divorced. I can’t claim to understand every situation but I can say I don’t agree with the outcome most of the time. Recently I was beating my head against the wall trying to understand why people get divorced and how to help them stay together instead. I know it sounds cliche but a pastor friend of mine reminded me that divorce is a result of Jesus not being the center and focus of relationships. Simplifying it all – that is true. But it doesn’t give me peace about it at all.

I’m committed to my marriage. I fight for my marriage. We have tough conversations. We read books and go through curriculum in small groups or seminars. We ask for advice or counseling when we need it. And we’ll do all that stuff again and again because staying committed in marriage takes work.

The next post is about fun, hopes, and dreams. Be sure to check back.

Filed Under: Faith, Family, Money, Personal Growth, Relationships, Stories

Part 1: My Parent’s 40th Anniversary

August 1, 2011 by Mark Asbell 3 Comments

This year my parents celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary and I’ve been wanting to write about them for several months. There is a lot we can all learn by talking to our parents and using the wisdom they’ve gained through years of experience, or the wisdom they haven’t gained 🙂 It’s important to have discernment of what advice to take or leave when talking to anyone. My hope for everyone is you have someone like my parents to gain some encouraging wisdom from.

So I basically did a little interview with my parents, something I’ve never really done quite like this, to pick their brain a little at their 40 year mark. In this series of posts I want to share some of the questions I asked and some of the takeaways and insight from the conversation.

What does it feel like to be married 40 years?

Mom: It doesn’t really seem possible that it’s been that long. It feels good just to have survived this long. (She didn’t mean as in they haven’t killed each other, she meant it’s good to be alive at their age – which isn’t as old as they act sometimes 🙂 ).

Dad: Well, dad was actually still asleep in his chair when I asked the first question (being an old fart) so mom answered for him by saying, “Best years of his life!” (There’s a bit of the humor in this relationship coming out.)

Has it always been a fairytale?

(I asked this because so many young couples are shocked and confused when the ‘fairytale’ wears off)

Mom: It was like any newlyweds – a dream come true. But there weren’t any Disney princess movies back then. We’ve always had reasons to stay grounded. We had to work hard. We never had anything given to us. Our first house was a very old owner financed single wide trailer. 100% financing through banks wasn’t very likely back then if it even existed and getting family to co-sign wasn’t an option for us.

Dad: Back then not so many people lived together before getting married. Times were different. Gas was .19 per gallon and beef was .49 per pound.

That’s a good point about living together and times were different but I’m not sure what that had to do with the question. Oh, he just woke up! Must have been having nightmares about current inflated pricing…

I love the comment my mom made about there not being any Disney princess movies back then. Now days so many young couples are growing up with the crazy notion that they’re going to be swept off their feet and live happily ever after. Then when reality hits and their spouse shows imperfection they’re shocked and don’t know what to do. Why do we spend so much time dreaming the impossible and never spending time considering a more likely reality?

Stay tuned for more from my parents…

Filed Under: Faith, Family, Personal Growth, Relationships, Stories

What If Your Employer Burned Down?

July 29, 2011 by Mark Asbell Leave a Comment

Wednesday morning at 6:45 AM I received a text informing me that my employer’s facility was on fire. I immediately began praying, “God help us. Is everyone ok? How is this going to affect all our jobs? What are we going to do about all our customers deliveries? etc etc.” I was scared. So I called one of our managers who had been up since 3:00 AM to find out more details. Much to our relief it wasn’t the main facility. It was a warehouse that is very unfortunate to lose but thankfully doesn’t devastate the whole operation. Here is the report by a local news channel.

This got me thinking… What would I have done if it had been the main facility and, worst case scenario, our income ceased immediately? I’m very thankful and blessed to be in a position to have some margin that would allow me to provide for our family for a few months in order to find new income. That would be very difficult but it would be better than not having any margin at all.

So many people are living paycheck to paycheck with no savings whatsoever. So many people are so confident in job security or company stability and never consider the possibility of being laid off or terminated. But what if your employer burned down? It wouldn’t matter how important your job is or how good you are at it if the employer is no longer able to employ you. Yeah – there’s unemployment and other things that would help, but as far as I know it doesn’t cover full compensation and it doesn’t last forever. What would someone do if it was difficult to find another job, unemployment wasn’t enough, and they had no savings to help during the difficult time?

What are you doing to make sure you have some margin in your finances?

Filed Under: Business, Money

Playing Racquetball And Managing Money

July 27, 2011 by Mark Asbell Leave a Comment

Racquetball is not one of my favorite sports and I’m really not good at it. However, because I enjoy athletic activity and I am a bit competitive I do enjoy playing with friends. In fact, Shawna and I have enjoyed playing racquetball some through the years, but she gets mad at me because I can’t let her win every time, or much of the time, or ever… Ok, so I can beat her playing left-handed (I’m right-handed). Is there something else I should do to give her an advantage? One legged, blind folded?? 🙂 I love you baby.

Anyway…I got to thinking randomly about how some fundamentals of playing racquetball can parallel with some fundamentals of managing money.

Rules in racquetball are just like money management principles and discipline.

Just like standing between the lines, you have to stay within a budget of income-outgo=exactly zero. That’s just how it is.
Just like keeping the ball from hitting the back wall before it hits the floor on a serve, you have to keep spending within the budget. If we’re constantly hitting it off the back wall we’ll never score/win.

Serving in racquetball is like having a plan with money.

Hopefully when you serve the ball you know where you’re aiming it to go. The same is true with money – without a plan for where it goes there is little chance of winning.
The only way to score points and win in racquetball is to be the one serving the ball. The only way to win with money is to be the one telling the money what to do. We never know what might happen tomorrow to change our situation, just like we don’t know how our racquetball opponent is going to return the ball. All we can do is put a plan in place, or a serve in play, and hope that our plan works out.
Sometimes the plan works and we score. Sometimes the plan doesn’t work and we have to shake it off and try again.

Returning the ball is like coming from behind with money.

You can’t score from the returners position – you have to get in the serving position. To me that’s like being in debt. You have to get out of debt and get in the serving position, and if you’re losing by a lot you have to stay in the serving position long enough to get ahead.
When you’re in the returners position you don’t want to be there long because that would mean the opponent is winning. When you’re coming from behind with money you’ve gotta get back in control of the game and try to run up some points in your favor.

The game is even more interesting when playing couples – both racquetball and money. Hopefully both partners know each others strengths and weaknesses and play them accordingly for their advantage. Hopefully both partners are communicating and paying attention to where they’re at so they aren’t bumping into each other. And for goodness sake hopefully neither of you hits the ball into your partners back – intentionally or not. 🙂

Please wear eye protection when playing racquetball and please have fun managing money together.

Filed Under: Money, Relationships

Take Initiative

July 25, 2011 by Mark Asbell Leave a Comment

Here are just some quick thoughts I’ve had recently about taking the initiative to have meaningful relationships – marriage, parenting, sibling, friendships, even professional, etc.

If everyone waits for the another person to initiate nothing will ever happen.

If you’re never willing to initiate no one will ever feel compelled to reciprocate.

If you’re never willing to reciprocate everyone will learn to not initiate with you.

It’s not about keeping score or being fair or equal. It’s about sharing life, good and bad, having love and companionship that goes both ways.

Who should you initiate communication with today?

Filed Under: Family, Personal Growth, Relationships

Mark & Shawna Asbell Are Officially Debt Free!

July 22, 2011 by Mark Asbell 10 Comments

As of today Shawna and I are officially debt free except for our house. We have a really hard time putting into words how we feel about it. For the past few years I’ve practiced my “woohoo” yell for when I got debt free. I’ve even practiced it in front of thousands of people that I’ve spoken to for I Was Broke. Now I’m Not.

Maybe because I know there is still work to do (kill the house payment, continue to be wise with savings/investing) I haven’t really felt the ‘woohoo’ moment yet. Maybe I practiced my yell so much it lost it’s appeal to me. Maybe the reality of being debt free hasn’t really hit me yet… I don’t know what it is, but for some reason all I keep doing is taking a deep breath and going “ahhhhhh”.

Getting debt free is not something we could have done alone. We thank God every day for blessing us. I thank my friend Joe Sangl all the time. We’re thankful to NewSpring church and Perry Noble for offering personal finance teaching and discipleship – that’s how our journey out of financial trouble started. Here is a video NewSpring did earlier this year about mine and Shawna’s story: A Debt of Gratitude . Maybe my ‘woohoo’ will come out at the party…

The list could go on and on of friends and family who have encouraged us along the way, but there are two couples in particular that I tear-up just thinking about. The couple who was there for us when we didn’t know what to do, and the couple who helped us bridge the financial gap when we were about to lose our house. They know who they are and we’re forever grateful.

I’m going to write a lot more about the journey on here and share tips we’ve learned along the way. Thank you for reading and sharing our moment of excitement. If you hear loud screaming in the distance it might be the ‘woohoo’ finally blasting out of me.

Filed Under: Faith, Money, Relationships Tagged With: shawna

Poor Doo-Doo Bird

July 22, 2011 by Mark Asbell Leave a Comment

This is a previously posted story worth sharing again. One major change from that time until now is I have an office building behind my house, so my work environment is safer…..

Previously posted 10/10/2007:

That’s right – the title is Doo-Doo bird. Not Doe-Doe bird. I’ll explain.

I work from home most of the time. I have a desk in my garage so when the weather isn’t too hot I can retreat to the garage for extra quietness and a change of scenery. Yesterday was a not so hot day so I was out there. Sometimes I like to turn on my fan, open the back door to the garage, and raise the motorized garage door high enough to create a breeze from the back door to the garage door (I like fresh air). Yesterday I had those doors open and for the second time I got a visit from a bird.

The first time this bird came I didn’t know it had come under the door, so when I unknowingly walked close the bird started flying around – freaked me out cause there was a freaking bird in my garage. It was flying around my head and freaking out too so that made both of us freaked out.

This time I noticed the bird perched on the other side of the garage on my toolbox. So I calmly got up from my desk and proceeded to the garage door opener to raise the door all the way and encourage the bird out the door. It didn’t work. The bird started flying around in circles freaking out as soon as the garage door started making noise.

To keep from getting the flapping bird all over me, like it did during the first encounter, I decided to just go inside until the bird found its way out. I waited until the bird circled past and tried to make a break through the door. The stupid bird managed to make it in the house with me in the half second I had the door open. I couldn’t believe it.

With a lot more room to fly around in the vaulted ceilings of our living and dining area I thought the bird would calm down and find its way out. No such luck. I opened all the doors leading out. The bird just kept making laps at ceiling level. Before I knew it the bird had b-lined it down the hallway and ended up in Devin’s room.

At this point I was mumbling cuss words to myself (I’m not perfect). As I made my way down the hall I grabbed a blanket and a pillow and closed all the other bedroom and bathroom doors. I was going to try and gently swat at the bird with the pillow and/or capture it with the blanket so that I could get it back outside.

When I got to Devin’s room the bird was making laps at ceiling level and stopping to take a rest on top of a shelf every few laps. I swatted and whistled trying to scare the bird out of the room (I was no longer afraid of the bird flapping all over me – I was ready to do whatever it took to get it out). About that time I noticed some dark splatter spots on the wall and realized the bird was dropping bombs on every few laps. Now I was pissed – no other word for it.

Any understanding and compassion I had for the bird up until this point flew out the window (the window the bird should have flown out of). Immediately I remembered that Devin and I now own a machine gun similar to this picture. My brother gave it to us because Devin loves to shoot it (under close supervision of course).

I ran back to the garage, grabbed the gun, ran back to Devin’s room, and proceeded to unload on this stupid doo-doo bird. It was hard to hit while it was flying but each hit stunned it so it was having to stop more often. I would wait until it stopped on the shelf and get a good solid direct hit or three on it (rapid fire machine gun) before it took off again. Finally the bird fell over I guess in shock from all the little BB’s. I scooped it up with a garbage can, took it outside, and threw it as far as I could. It spread its wings but didn’t fly. I don’t know if it ever got up – I was too busy cleaning up its crap.

Call me cruel or whatever – I don’t care. What would you do if a bird was flying around and CRAPPING IN YOUR HOUSE?

Filed Under: Misc, Stories

Don’t Let Stuff Jack Up Your Stewardship

July 20, 2011 by Mark Asbell Leave a Comment

I hear people say they “ain’t shopping at no goodwill” or other similarly brilliant statements that reveal the truth about their problem with materialism. Something about the way they say it doesn’t communicate to me that they don’t think they’re better than everybody else. Something about the way they say communicates to me that they just think people in general “deserve” better than having to shop goodwill or yard sale as though it is some sort of human right to shop at name-brand retail stores. They’re not only defining themselves by materialistic standards – they’re defining EVERYONE by materialistic standards.

They don’t look down on people who shop goodwill or yard sale. They FEEL SORRY for them as though they’re cursed. They think if they shop goodwill or yard sale that they’re denying that God has blessed them. Some even think that accepting less than the absolute best would be poorly representing their blessing from God, as though they’re not blessed unless they’re showing it or they’re somehow higher in God’s favor. That is probably the extreme rather than the norm, but even the norm is to somehow correlate our worth to our stuff.

The problem is the word STEWARD is being totally forgotten. So many people are BARELY GIVING if they’re giving at all, they have NO SAVINGS, and they have MAXED OUT CREDIT. But they have nice clothes, and don’t get me started on their cars. Something tells me that is not the way God intended for us to manage what he’s blessed us with.

Am I saying it is wrong to have nice stuff? No. But it IS wrong to let stuff jack up our stewardship.

Filed Under: Money

Boomerangers Part 2 – The Way They Should GO

July 19, 2011 by Mark Asbell Leave a Comment

When the subject of boomerangers and/or grown children who constantly need financial help from the parents comes up there are several concerns the parents have that make them fearful of showing tough love. The two most common I hear are:

What if they keep my grandkids away from me?
What if they hate me the rest of my life?

I don’t think there is a time limit on “raise up our children in the way they should GO” (Proverbs 22:6). No matter their age or circumstances we’ve gotta do what we can to equip them to GO tackle the real world on their own two feet.

Being afraid of the grandkids being kept from us is selfish. It is OUR responsibility to help our kids GO tackle the real world on their own two feet. If they try to punish us with more immature behavior that is on them. We have to be willing to make the sacrifices necessary to teach our kids to GO. Do we want this to be a generational problem that is passed on to the grandkids so that they end up being boomerangers too because we weren’t willing to do the right thing and teach their parents wisdom that they can pass down to them? If we let fear of not seeing our grandchildren prevent us from doing the right thing we aren’t doing the grandchildren any favors.

The chance of our kids hating us for the rest of our life if we show them tough love is a risk we’re already taking. Are we afraid of hurting their feelings when we yell at them or yank their arm out of socket to keep them from walking in front of a car? Will we be worried about their feelings if they’re trying to kill one of their siblings? Why should we be worried about their feelings as they kill their financial future and that of their children? Remember this post about inheriting poverty? This is your opportunity to end or prevent the curse.

The chances are at some point in everyone’s life this stuff is going to be learned one way or the other. Our kids are either going to learn how to manage their own resources and love us for teaching them how, or they’re going to dwindle our resources until there are none (whether we’re alive or dead) and wonder why we never taught them. They’re either going to learn it from us through a tough but loving relationship, or they’re going to learn it from someone tougher and meaner than us with no love for them at all. Either way there is a chance that when it comes to their finances they might love or hate us for how we do or don’t teach them. I’d rather take my chances on teaching them.

Think about this – if a boomerang child is unwilling to accept the tough truth about being a self sufficient adult then they are probably loving us for the wrong reason in the first place. Is that the kind of love we want to have with our children when they’re grown?

Filed Under: Family, Money, Relationships