Mary Hunt
By Mimi Elliott, The 700 Club
CBN.com –ALL ABOUT MARY
Mary's family background is Christian. She had head knowledge about God but never surrendered her life to Him. In college Mary figured out how to abuse a checking account by spending money before she actually had it. She made it through college without excessive overdrafts, and escaped being arrested for kiting (writing a bad check on one account to cover an overdraft of another). In 1970 after graduation, Mary married Harold. She accumulated over $100,000 in unsecured debt in the first 12 years of her marriage.. They spent the next 13 years working hard and learning everything they could about how to cut expenses and live without incurring new debt. "It had to get so bad before I was willing to surrender our financial situation to God," says Mary. "Then I made that u-turn." Once she confessed her poor financial stewardship, Mary says she was instantly forgiven, but not without the consequences of her behavior. She was willing to change and God made those changes possible. At the time of this "awakening" her children were still young and she had "this terrifying thought: What if our kids turn out like me? Were they learning from my behavior that they too were entitled to have what they wanted even when they didn't have the money to pay for it?" Having desires to see their boys be "debt-proof", Mary and her husband began to train their children the value of self-discipline in the world of finance and purchases.
FINANCES AND CHILDREN
Mary writes that 90 percent of all divorces are connected in one way or another to financial difficulties. She says that in 2010 there were 1.6 million new bankruptcy filed by individuals. In this setting young adults are targeted and most often they have had no "hands on money training." If we will train and counsel our children on a spiritual level, send them to great camps, private education, make sure they are well-rounded with all kinds of activities-why would we not train them in such a fundamentally important aspect of their lives? Mary presents ways to speak with and educate our children through every age of their lives, including as young as preschool. Her hope is to see a generation raised that are able to make wise monetary choices that will lead to them being able to save, not incur debts and still be able to give some to others.
Since we know the problem, overspending and creating huge debt, we need a way out, an antidote. In chapter one Mary writes that since money is a necessity, we do will to "teach and train" what money is and how it can affect their lives in the good and bad ways. Secondly and equally important is to teach your children sound values, what are the really important things in life, not being based on money and things but being people of character and wisdom and operating in self-control. The world teaches us to buy it now, buy a lot of it and buy it thinking it will be paid later. There comes with that mentality a sense of "entitlement" and if you don't help your children be rid of that attitude, then the world will continue to enforce it.
EDUCATE
The central theme of Mary's book is knowledge, wisdom and education. Teach a pre-school child by limiting their exposure to commercialism, don't use money to bribe them, keep your money worries to yourself but do let them see you give money to help others, let them see you use it wisely and paying with cash and never use money in the place of love and affection.
A child who is their pre-teen years can be very enthusiastic to learn from you and win your praises. This age is able to receive an allowance. She refers to one family where jars were used all marked with different allocations. One jar is for the 10% tithe, another long-term savings, another short-term savings, and the spend now jar. Another concept for this age group but not limited to, is the idea of their money being taxed. Mary believes it is best to teach them early "how the real world operates." Starting at this age should be the rule that there will never be any debt accrued. If they want something then the "hard and fast rule" should be to save for it, and getting approval for the item itself as well.
From the age of ten through their teenage years you can begin to allow the reigns to loosen as you want to see you children take responsibility for their own actions. When children learn through their own efforts and abilities there develops a sense of accomplishment and self-confidence. Mary is an advocate of the documented plan, written down. She says the benefits of that are:
* It becomes visually symbolic.
* It creates authority.
* It organizes your ideas and values.
* It will give you kids something to give their kids.
Creating a Mission Statement that gives purpose and a list of items that you decide they must now buy will help develop their sense of purpose in family. Keep in mind that the list of a pre-teen and that of a seventeen year old should be very different. Mary lists many more suggestions such as paying your child a salary, keeping records, recording keeping etc. with the final goal being as they become of age, parents have let go along the way and as the child "takes flight", they are well equipped to make sound decisions in life.