Making It
Financial Dreams Come True
A Vienna couple finds God makes a great financial planner
Catherine and Carl Siever say it's a miracle how their financial situation has turned around.
  Selected image of Carl and Catherine Siever - Washington Post's Making It (Copyright Keith Barraclough - Keith Barraclough Photography) |
The Sievers dramatically altered their lifestyle and spending habits after taking a personal finance course at McLean Bible Church, an evangelical nondenominational megachurch. The course was offered by Crown Financial Ministries, an organization that teaches what it calls "God's financial principles" found in the Bible.
The idea that their faith might have a bearing on their finances had never occurred to the Sievers, but friends persuaded them to sign up.
"We thought we knew everything about finances," Carl says. "At least for me, I was thinking, 'Well, this is just to resolidify what I believe.' This really changed our lives."
Crown promotes the belief that God owns all things and that people are only "stewards of those possessions" while on Earth. The goal, the group says on its Web site, is to eliminate material burdens so that followers can be closer to Christ and help fund evangelical Christian activities.
The 12-week program begins with intensive record-keeping of every penny spent. Crown recommends ideal spending levels, such as 32 percent of income for housing, 12 percent for food, 5 percent for clothing and so on. It overtly discourages debt. The Sievers came to the course with $9,000 in consumer debt and no savings. They struggled to pay monthly bills and stressed over the unexpected: new tires, Carl's dental work. They were frustrated but chalked it up to modern life.
The program gave them a new perspective.
"You can be bound by materialism," Catherine explains. "Are you worshiping this gigantic house or . . . brand-new car? What is God to you in this life?"
The Sievers, both in their forties, reordered their priorities, vowing to pay off all their debt within a year and give to the poor. Carl sold his Toyota Camry for $5,000, and the couple used the money to pay off the loan on Catherine's car. Carl bought a Ford Ranger pickup with 200,000 miles on it for $500, and he drives it to his job at IBM downtown. They got a smaller apartment, lopping $300 off their rent. Catherine, a legal secretary, gave up $200 a month in new clothes. Instead of buying the $4,000 in furniture they had wanted, the couple bought things off Craigslist, including a one-year-old high-end Sony TV for $200. If they can't afford something, they wait until they can.
"We're saving $1,000 a month. We think we can do $1,300. We're shocked," Catherine says. They now tithe 10 percent of their income to the church and also give to people in need whenever possible.
Catherine often recites Biblical passages from the Crown course. Her favorite is Proverbs 21:5 -- Steady plodding brings prosperity; hasty speculation brings poverty.
"We feel like God has entrusted us with this money, and we're just using it in the right way," she says.
Margaret Webb Pressler wants to hear how you're fulfilling your financial ambitions. Her e-mail address is presslerm@washpost.com.
