It all started with a gleeful, almost giddy grin. I came home from grocery shopping to find Jeff slack-jawed over the neighbor’s high-powered backpack leaf blower. “This is awesome,” he said, looking at the machinery like it was the Mona Lisa. If you’ve ever heard Jeff at one of our marriage weekends, you can “hear”…
Carissa is a sweet and social high school student who volunteers in the church nursery, gets good grades, and is respectful to adults. She occasionally gets stressed by homework or disagreeing with mom and dad about house rules, but she usually goes for a drive and comes back chatty and carefree. At first, Carissa’s parents…
Sam and Rachel, a couple we interviewed in our research, were navigating an income pattern that is increasingly common today: she earned far more than he did. When the kids came along, it made much more financial sense for her to remain the primary breadwinner and for him to work part-time and spend more time…
Imagine the human mind as a computer screen, with each thought, feeling, or worry as one open window. Now imagine you have a dozen windows open – many thoughts or concerns bouncing around in your mind. You probably want to close a few! But how? In our book, Thriving in Love and Money, Jeff and…
This is the second part of a two-part series on money and expectations. See Part 1 for important tips on how to communicate in a fundamentally better way about expectations and values around money. Money. Conflict. Those two words are paired a lot more often than most of us would like, right? Well, it doesn’t…
Has money been causing heartaches or coming between you and your spouse lately? Yeah? I’m so glad we are not alone! The economy, inflation, and the effects of the pandemic have caused a lot of financial stress for many of us. Our own ministry income and events were so greatly affected by COVID, we honestly…
