Abrahams Wallet

Have you ever heard of a worship album that requires an explicit tag? We think you're in for a treat today with this conversation between Craig Dockery and Steven Manuel on what it looks like to move outside of the normal Christian music safety zone and into new, grittier, and perhaps more masculine spaces. This one is a bit outside of our usual programming, but we think you'll dig it! Show notes: Find Hymns for Trucks at www.craigdockery.com, or head straight to iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your music. Check out Bloodbrother right 'chere at this link! Enjoy the mentioned bad sax solo at your leisure here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=He-sYfNGsv8

No lie: shame is the number one word that men (and women) are using when they talk honestly with us about their money scene. Some of those people have made huge messes of their financial life, but others, by any outside evaluation, are doing great. Shame is an indiscriminate predator.

This week, Steven brings you his thesis on why your home exists. Think about it: your God-oriented home is, like Abraham himself, looking forward to a city “not made by human hands, whose Designer and Builder is God“. You are surrounded by people who don’t see it that way. And your outpost will have to represent a Culture that doesn’t much exist in your town. You’re an ambassador for a coming King. Your job is to produce a few people who understand this Kingdom’s foreign culture as their own… and then export it to as many people as are willing to receive it.

Could there be a lurking trap in the oft-glamorized world of debt freedom? This week I sat down with Scott Dotson and heard something I’ve never heard before in the personal finance media – that there was a hidden, dangerous side to the path he and his wife walked as they aggressively eliminated almost $200k in debt over 3 years. Tune in for some wise words to anyone thinking about how to approach tackling their debt (and don’t worry, we’ll still be rooting for you as you pay that stuff down).

Sukkot is one of the big Jewish holidays that we at Abraham’s Wallet have come to love and value for its impact on our families. It tosses us fathers a veritable softball to smash out of the park: the teaching opportunities are easy, highly physical (easy for little brains to grasp, since they’re so sensory)… and lots of fun. That makes Sukkot a great holiday for the budding family leader seeking to get his feet wet. (“I don’t know how to get into this crazy world of Jewish stuff! The bar for entry is too high!” “No, not really. Just try. Everybody will love you for it. The Wallet will show you how, monsieur.”)

In this episode Mark and Steven come at you live from St. Louis and discuss the importance of having a bias for action. A relevant follow up to last week’s talk about the need to move from ignorance to readiness, this week we talk about what it’s like to move forward in faith even when that requires a bit of risk. Have we been acclimatized to so much safety that we find it difficult to take a risky step forward into the sometimes unknown (even when all signs point to that being the right way)? Here’s our thoughts on moving through that hesitation.

Many of us are like the fool from the parable of the talents in Matthew 25 – we prefer to bury our financial problems and ignore them instead of confronting reality and creating a plan. In this episode, Mark and Steven got together to talk about what it looks like to move from ignorance, to order, to readiness – in your financial life and elsewhere.

In the final episode of our inheritance series, we bring you 25 actionable tips on how to make your family a place where inheritance can be a positive, and not destructive force.

This week is part 2 of 3 on the topic of inheritance. You’ll want to grab some snacks and settle in for scary stories of inheritance gone afoul. After we spin these tales, we’ll wrap everything up next week with 25 tips on how you can set up a household to produce healthy, Biblical inheritance, whether you end up with much or little in terms of material wealth to pass along.

The Bible says we are supposed to leave an inheritance… but does this mean what we think of when we say that word? (hint: no). In this episode, we explore what the Bible means when it says the word inheritance all over the old and new testament, and we think about the implications for a family builder in the various stages of life.

Whether or not you even had any kids, you should listen up as we discuss the benefits of the 529 savings plan as a vehicle for creating multigenerational inheritance – even for yet-to-be-born people! In this episode we give you a quick overview of why 529 plans are powerful and discuss how very few people use them to their fullest advantage.

A little change of pace this week – we bring you an episode that we actually published over a year ago on the blog when we were wondering if we could ever make podcasts. Well, now that you’re here at the OFFICIAL Abraham’s Wallet podcast, we thought you’d like to sit in on this chat between Mark Parrett and Steven Manuel, in whence they cover the following: Why you shouldn’t be a spiritual generalistHow to figure out what your speciality will beWhy small groups of men are important in this pursuitWhen (and when not) to imitate men who are ahead of you

Mastering the art and skill of budgeting will result in you ending up with more money than you need to run your household. Did you hear that son? Tis true my hombres – you don’t need a raise or a side hustle—necessarily (though we love them)—to end up with more than you need. You just need to get good at this one thing, and, barring irregular circumstances, you’ll have extra money at the end of the month (which we call slush). Amazingly simple. The converse is also true: if you don’t get good at budgeting, you’ll never end up with extra cash and you’ll usually fall short in some areas, no matter how much money you make. In this episode we explore some advanced tips on how to budget for the times when you end up with more income than you planned for. This episode’s sponsor: https://www.outpostadvisors.net

Culture creation in the home is your job, and I’m here to tell you bros that NOTHING–not a daily prayer time, not memorizing Bible verses before bed, not even (fire up the grill for this sacred cow) GOING TO CHURCH–will do for your family, from a culture-creation standpoint, what this one move will do: Honor the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Listen up as Steven Manuel shares tips on HOW to do Sabbath well and enjoy every minute of it. See the original blog post here! This episode was sponsored by Outpost Advisors.

What qualifies as luxury spending? Is luxury spending in moderation OK for the Abrahamicly-minded family leader? Is the amount of luxury that is permissible for me relative to my overall income or savings? These questions are great! And super hard to answer! AND, one more thing: if you don’t answer them, our luxury addled culture will answer them for you.  This may be one of my all-time favorites from the Abraham’s Wallet vault. Click here to read the original.

In this episode we share 4 tactics that helped us to pay down $180k in student loans in less than four years. And, they’re not just for student debt! Apply these to any kind of debt and see huge gains! Check out the original blog post here!

In this episode, we break from our usual format to bring you a longer form interview with Mr. Michael Foster, one of the founders of the website It’s Good to be a Man. Michael is a serial-entrepreneur who has been in bi-vocational ministry the better part of his adult life. God has blessed him with a beautiful wife and seven children, and they all just relocated to the Cincinnati area this week. Michael can also be found on Twitter @thisisfoster and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/itsgoodtobeaman/.

In our culture, when the whole family gets together from grandpa all the way to the newborn cousins, you’ll typically see the youngest people in the crew occupying the seat of honor and attention. At Abraham’s Wallet, we think that might be backwards. In fact, we try to make a habit of soliciting the stories from our older generations – over and over and over – until we can all recite them by heart. In this episode, you’ll get to sit in on storytime, as Steven Manuel’s father Roger tells a few of the stories that shaped him into the family-builder that he has become.

Ever heard of a “side hustle”?  Sure you have: it’s when you find smart ways to bring in extra income (on the SIDE of your primary source of income) through work and hustle.  The side hustle has become a cornerstone for the modern idea of working (because “putting in 40 hours for the same company for 50 years” is as out of fashion as the leisure suit), as scads of people put multiple streams of income together to form their self-selected salary.  Well, Lots of blogs will tell you that you need a side hustle, but wouldn’t you rather get paid to recreate? See the original post here!

In this special guest episode of the Abraham’s Wallet podcast, hear Alexis Tunnell give you some quick hits on how she manages to feed a family of five humans on a mere $360 per month grocery budget. Then, stick around to hear an interview with the updated tips she has 18 months later, since her original article was published waaaaaay back in 2017. Original blog post can be found right here.