The most valuable email you’ll read for yourself and your kids in a few MOMENTS per week.
Please check out my latest YouTube Shorts and subscribe. This week I talked about tithing, saving money at restaurants, and much more.
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MONEY TIP
Quit the junk food – Not only is it terrible for you, but it’s expensive. And some states are starting to apply a specific tax to junk food, making it even more expensive. We only buy things like sodas and snack cakes when we go on vacations. The kids each get to pick their own, and they look forward to it. They wouldn’t enjoy it so much if they had access to junk every day. It’s nice when it’s a rare treat. It’s an addiction when it’s daily.
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OPPORTUNITY
Mind Window is an app that gives you insight into your thought patterns. It’s great for generating new thoughts and reflecting on current thoughts/moods. It’s a cool tool you can use to help organize some of your thoughts.
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MINIMALISM TIP
Everyone is busy. You’ve heard that before, right? Part of the problem with this is that we glorify busyness. I’m not sure exactly why this started, but we’ll all have a much more fulfilling life if we stop glorifying it and start focusing on having more quiet time and peace in our lives. There’s nothing amazing about busyness, but there is something amazing about being able to spend some time in peace and quiet. It’s actually harder than being busy – at least for me. Find some quiet time this week.
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ESSENTIAL READING
This week the book I have for you is a super quick read you can knock out in an hour or two. The book is called The Family Board Meeting, but the concept is the important part. If you’ve ever taken your kids on one-on-one dates, you know how much it can help grow your relationship with them. This book lays out a quick framework for how to do these dates in the most effective way and how to get the most out of them. The most interesting part for me is the importance of doing them quarterly. Not weekly or monthly, but quarterly. The reasoning makes sense and it’s quite interesting.
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NOTION
Since I did some videos on giving and tithing this week, it’s a good reminder to talk to your kids about giving and generosity. Instead of getting caught up on the specific word “tithe” and guilting your kids into giving because “the Bible tells them to,” why not teach them to love giving? Have them give some of their own money to a cause they can see and show them what their money accomplished.
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TRAVEL TIP
Visit your destination before you visit your destination. There are plenty of videos on wherever you’re traveling to. I promise. You have to know what you’re getting into before you get there. A big factor to this is how you’ll move around once you get there. We’ve already talked about public transportation, but now I’m speaking more to foot traffic. Here’s a good example of what you could learn about your location. Some places, like Venice, Italy for example, aren’t great for strollers. There are a lot of stairs, it’s crowded with people, and you’re going to want to take a gondola ride while you’re there, so it would pay to invest in a good kid’s carrying pack if you have stroller-age kids. We use an Osprey hiking pack that also works as a place to store the stuff we need to take with us and things we may purchase.
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SCRIPTURE
“Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”
Psalm 37:4
Closing Question
Is there a habit or a task you’ve been performing regularly that no longer gives you value? Is this something that needs to go? Sometimes things can be valuable for a season and not for the next season.
