The Best Way to Save Money

Editorial | Advent Messenger

The old, ancient, Biblical story of Joseph may have a lot more to say about saving money than it does about learning how to forgive our hard-headed siblings? Remember, it was Joseph who told the King of Egypt to save 1/5 (20%) of all the grain during the times of prosperity so that Egypt could have means saved during the times of adversity.

Is this model of saving truly a time-tested formula that really works? Or is this just an old, archaic, children’s bedtime story? Can people really learn to live within their means? Or as in the Joseph story, can we actually live below what we actually make?

By saving 20% and putting it away means that we must learn to live on 80% of what we make. This means that we cannot as individuals or as a nation live off of 100% of our income. Somehow we all seemed to have missed out on this important lesson written around 1400 B.C.

It seems that most people live off of more than 100% of what they make. Others pay their bills on credit cards. How do we ever expect to save anything when we spend more than we actually make? Some people have so much debt that they could run for the US Congress, because the popular attitude in Washington, D.C. is that we must “spend our way out of debt.”

Can we really run a business this way, let alone our personal finances? Where is the voice of reason that can dispel all of these voices that tell us to spend? Bill Earle is credited for saying the following words: “If your outgo exceeds your income your upkeep will be your downfall.”

This is a dose of fresh air and good common sense. This simply means that if you spend more than you make then you will be in trouble – sooner rather than later. But if we live on less than we make (80%) and if we have a systematic plan of saving (20%), then as Joseph said to Pharaoh, “Egypt will be saved.”

So will you.