Misplaced – Chloe J Sayers

Misplaced Funds

If you know me, you know I’m in love with budgeting. In 5th grade, I started my first account ledger not knowing what it was and I’ll continue making them forever just because this is the budget that never ends. But I’ll spare you the subsequent 4,582 verses.

When I was 10, I was budgeting off of my $2.50/hour babysitting income. You don’t have to hit a magical amount of income to stop misplacing your funds and start benefiting from tracking your money. Even if you think you only have enough money to buy the essentials of life, start tracking that money. When I didn’t know how much is coming in and out of my checking account, I tended to fall into one of two dangerous extremes.

Never spending money because you’re worried you don’t have enough. This was me for most of college.
Spending too much money on things you don’t really need or want 5 minutes after you buy them and then not having money for the things that add value to your life. Hello, impulse buys.

The solution? You guessed it–start budgeting. I found an incredible amount of freedom and peace from knowing where my money is going. It may mean limiting how many times you go out or saying no to the dress today but it means getting to buy a nicer dress in three months or being able to take care of the ones you love (and yourself) in retirement.

Working in a foreign currency with a Russian teacher’s salary has given us an added budgeting challenge. My QuickBooks ledgers aren’t as effective here as we balance special international checking accounts with our rubles and kopecks.

We needed to start fresh with a new budget. If you’re just getting started budgeting, here’s what worked for us:

Find your net monthly income. Take out the taxes and anything else taken out of your salary (social security, insurance, 401(K), alimony, etc..) The easiest way to find this would be to look at your last two pay-stubs for the “Net” number and add those two numbers together.
Multiply the number from #1 by 10%. If you want to tithe and/or save 10% of your salary each month for retirement, write down this number. Subtract these numbers from #1.
List known recurring expenses and saving goals. These are bills that are the same every month, like rent, mobile phone, internet, etc… Also include savings goals, like car maintenance/replacement, large vacations, or a down payment.
Subtract the sum of #3 from #2. This is your monthly disposable income.
Divide your monthly disposable income across the categories that make the most sense for you. For us, these categories are:
1. Groceries
2. Transportation
3. Fun Money (Together & Individual)
4. Clothing
5. Vacation
6. Shoes
7. Household goods
8. Gifts
At the end of each month, tally up your expenses in each category and compare it to your estimates from #5. Make a new budget for the next month.
1. If you’re under budget in some categories, reduce your estimate for that category and move the money to a different spending or savings category.
2. If you’re over budget in some categories, see if you can move money from an under budget category. If you’re over budget in most categories, reduce your spending and tally up expenses each week for the next month to stay on top of your spending.

You may not spend all or anything from some categories (like Clothing or Vacation). We choose to “roll-over” those categories so that they accumulate over time. Think of them as mini-savings account and add what’s left over for next month’s budget!

To track our expenses here in Russia, Luke and I made an old fashioned expense sheet on lined paper with vertical columns separating the categories and a row for each day in the month. If apps and Excel sheets aren’t your thing, this is a great way to start tracking your cash flow. For my smartphone savvy friends, I’d recommend YNAB (You Need a Budget) and for those with more intense budgeting and home business needs, Quicken is fantastic.

After a few months of adjusting and reworking your budget, you’ll be able to maintain the same budget and stick to your spending and saving estimates! It may take a while to see the positive results, but keep at it. Consistently saving, even in small amounts, really does add up!

This was the last in a series of 5 “Misplaced” blog posts. If you missed any, you can find them all under the “Misplaced” category. Thanks for joining me as I try to put my kindness, attention, stuff, imagination, and money in their proper places.

Creativity, Misplaced, Pain

In A World of Pure Imagination

Faith, hope, & love. These three easily recognizable Christian virtues from 1 Corinthians 13:13 are also widely valued as human characteristics that benefit ourselves and our society. All 3 require an element of imaginative thinking. To have faith, we must believe in a God bigger than ourselves and our own limited conceptions. We hope in a future and eternity that we do not physically see, but must imagine. We love others best when we imagine them as God sees them–immeasurably valued and worthy of glorification through Christ.

Imagination enriches our lives in many other ways too. Getting lost in a book, dreaming up new businesses, playing make believe with a child. But when imagination gets misplaced into the hands of an idealist, things get messy.

Idealism sounds nice but has some fairly nasty side effects. At it’s essence, idealism is the practice of forming expectations about the way the world should operate, especially unrealistically (the dictionary’s words, not mine). When we start projecting our idealism on a very real world, we set ourselves up for disappointment at best and destruction at worst.

My imaginative ideas about what makes the world better might not actually be good or wise. Or even if I do happen to strike on a good vision of what the world ought to look like, the way I go about forcing my will on reality will probably hurt others in the process.

But what happened to our hope, our faith, and our love? Don’t those require some idealism?

Not necessarily. We need our imaginations to develop our virtues and we need optimism to live out those virtues in this often confusing and hard life. But idealism and optimism are not the same thing.

The optimist is full of hope for the future whereas the idealist insists that the future fit their vision. The optimist seeks ways to make the world a kinder place while the idealist works to make the world their kind of place.

Well-intentioned optimists can easily become dangerous idealists when imagination is misplaced. Living in a country where I don’t speak the language has taught me that the hard way. Things never go as planned and insisting on forcing my vision inevitably leads to frustration. I’m slowly learning to redirect my imagination and view this world with optimism instead of idealism. It’s a process for us perfectionists but I believe it’s worth it.

The last installment of my Misplaced series will hit the blog next week! It’s about one of my favorite topics–budgeting and personal finance. Thanks for following along so far!

Capsule Closet, God, Minimalism, Misplaced, Organization

The Freedom of Stuff-Forgetfulness

My husband and I are accidental minimalists. We ditched half of our belongings before moving to California and then cut our stuff in half again before trekking cross-country again. We recently packed everything we need for a year of living abroad into two suitcases, 2 carry-ons, and a backpack.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t that hard. We’ve learned a lot over the last two and a half years about what we don’t need to still live well. Also, I watched a documentary on minimalism once, so that makes me an expert, right?

A quick Google search will uncover a plethora of articles on the benefits of “less is more” and a rising tide of counter-articles based on the idea that minimalism can lead to idolatry of nicer things instead of just lots of things.

Based on my clearly established expertise on the matter, here’s my two cents.

Less stuff makes life easier.

It means less to pack when you’re moving, less options in the closet to paralyze you, and less risk of buying things you don’t really need and letting them clutter your home.

The freedom of stuff-forgetfulness is better than minimalism or maximalism

Tim Keller wrote a short read on “The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness.” It’s a great exposition of what true humility really means and the joy that comes when you stop connecting every experience to yourself.

Likewise, there is a great freedom in just thinking about our stuff less. Personally, I’ve found that one way to do this is by simply having less stuff. In order to have less stuff, I’m more thoughtful about my buying decisions so that I don’t buy useless stuff, but that doesn’t mean I have to obsess over every item in my home (or currently, suitcase).

The Parable of the Rich Fool in Luke 12 provides apt warnings against both forms of idolizing stuff–both the quantity and the quality of it. After reminding the crowd that “one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions,” Jesus goes on to tell the parable of a rich man with many quality goods and grains to whom God says:

“Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12: 20 – 21)

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that in the very next verse Jesus exhorts his disciples:

“Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.” (Luke 12: 22 – 23)

There’s not a perfect number of items in your closet or kitchen utensils in your drawers, but when your decorations take up more mental space than the incredible glory and majesty of our Creator, that’s when it’s time to reevaluate. For me, it meant shipping off a few boxes to the Salvation Army. For others, it might mean taking those thoughts hostage and redirecting them towards the things we are called by God to think about.

Either way, it’s not the stuff that matters as much as the place we give it in our lives.

This post is the third in my “Misplaced” series–click on the words to find my thoughts on misplaced kindness and misplaced attention. I’ve got a few more up my sleeve, enter your e-mail below if you’d like to follow along.

Church Life, God, Media Ecology, Misplaced, Social Media

Rituals of Reticence

“Quiet time” might be one of the most confusing words in the Christanese English Dictionary. It’s revered, insisted upon, and I’ve always felt vaguely guilty for not doing enough of it, but it’s hard to know what it actually is. Quiet time involves Bible reading, of course, and definitely some praying. I hear whispers about worship songs and something about a special chair in a corner with a quilt. Not to mention #CoffeeAndJesus. Or should that be #JesusAndCoffee?

I’m an ex-seminary wife, but I’m no theologian so I won’t attempt a dissertation on the means of grace. However, I think it’s fairly clear from the Bible reading I’ve done that we are called to read God’s Word regularly and come to Him with our prayers, thanksgivings, and worship.

When I think about those activities, they have a common theme of requiring a great deal of attention. It may or may not be audibly quiet but to be still before God requires, well, being still. And reading the Bible well requires time, an attention span, and the mental space to reflect.

I still feel like my 5 year-old self who was constantly getting scolded in Sunday School for playing with the Velcro on my shiny patent leather shoes during prayer time. I continually find it a struggle to sit still for long enough to read Scripture well or to place my attention on God instead of myself for more than 10 seconds at a time.

But why should I expect myself to be able to be quiet before God if I’m not quiet any other time of the day? If I can’t carve out times to think or reflect about anything without obsessively scrolling through my Instagram feed, why would my time with God be any different?

Our attention is so often misplaced, refracted by the prism of technology into infinite beams of distraction–red inboxes, blue newsfeeds, yellow snaps, and rainbows of images–all stealing my ability to focus on just. one. thing.

The habits we allow to rule the majority of our lives will naturally spill over into the times we set aside to intentionally grow in our faith and relationship with God. If I lose my literacy by skimming online articles and headlines, my ability to read the Bible suffers as well.

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

Luke and I often remind each other of this quote from Blaise Pascal. The bad news is that it’s harder than ever nowadays to be quiet and alone. The good news is that replacing the rituals of distraction with intentional attention will not only make being quiet before God more natural, it will smooth out some other wrinkles in the rhythm of life.

And sure enough, when we begin to prioritize thinking over texting and listening over “liking”, we find our problems smaller, our hearts calmer, and our minds clearer.

Living in Russia without a traditional 9-5 grind has provided me with the opportunity for more mental space. This fall, I’m going to focus on growing my attention span and creating rituals of reticence throughout my day.

I’ll be sharing my thoughts on misplaced stuff (not the lost luggage variety) next week! Same place, same time. You can sign-up for an e-mail notification in the box below.

God, Maturity, Misplaced, People

Do Not Feed the Wildlife

“Please do not misplace your kindness,” read the sign at the state park asking it’s visitors to not feed the wildlife. How many times in life do we have to hear that? Do not tap on the glass. Do not feed the wild animals. What you think is kind is actually self-serving at best or destructive at worst.

I’ve misplaced my kindness almost as many times as I’ve misplaced my keys–which is at least once a day. I’ve left bits of poisoned good will on short term mission trips. Scattered pieces of benevolence on grieving friends when I should have responded with shared sadness. I enable my own sin by showing much too much kindness to myself and not enough to others.

When I misplace my kindness, I trick myself into thinking that I am acting out of goodwill when there might be some ulterior motives in play. It’s one of the first steps to getting lost in the Bermuda triangle of unhealthy relationships–also known as the Karpman Triangle.

There’s a lot of interesting thoughts on this theory and I’ll list some additional resources at the bottom if you want to learn more. What I’ve found most valuable about this diagram is that it demonstrates how easy it is to slide from role to role, usually as a result of misplaced kindness.

The Rescuer sees a Persecutor hurting the Victim. In an effort to help the Victim, the Rescuer misplaces their kindness and starts attacking the Persecutor, thus becoming a Persecutor themselves. Now the original Persecutor is the Victim. That is just one scenario of thousands but the basic gist is that once you are in the triangle it’s very easy to just change dysfunctional roles instead of breaking out and working towards healthy relationships. In healthy relationships, no one is a Victim, Rescuer, or Persecutor.

We respond to triggers from others and end up taking the bait, even though it’s poisonous. Just like the wildlife at the park, we grow dependent on emotional food that is completely devoid of nutrition and even go out of our way to access this psychological Wonder Bread.

I’m committed to breaking out of the cycle in my head and in my relationships by placing my kindness in such a way that is truly loving to others and honoring to God. This takes a lot of wisdom, which I don’t always have, but fortunately I serve a God who delights in giving us His wisdom (James 1:5). So much so that He dedicated several books in His Word to finding and attaining wisdom! Not a bad place to start.

This post is the first in the Misplaced series–a series inspired by a summer of leaving a life behind in California and starting a new one in Russia. I’ll be talking about the infamous Quiet Time and much-debated Minimalism next! Follow along by entering your email address for blog updates.