The 21-Day Financial Fast

Your Path to Financial Peace and Freedom

Michelle Singletary

• Publisher: Zondervan
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780310338468
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Personal Finance

Whether you're living paycheck to paycheck or just trying to make smarter financial choices, let award-winning writer and Washington Post columnist Michelle Singletary show you the practical steps you need to take for the financial peace you long for.

In The 21-Day Financial Fast, Michelle proposes a field-tested financial challenge: for twenty-one days, put away your credit cards and buy only the barest essentials. What happens next will forever change the way you think about wealth.

With Michelle's guidance, you'll discover how to:

• Break bad spending habits
• Plot a course to become debt-free with the Debt Dash Plan
• Avoid the temptation of overspending for college
• Learn how to prepare elderly relatives and yourself for future long-term care expenses
• Be prepared for any contingency with a Life Happens Fund
• Stop worrying about money and find the priceless power of financial peace

Join the thousands of others who have already discovered practical ways to achieve financial freedom and experience what it truly means to live a life of financial peace and prosperity.

Part One

WHY A FINANCIAL FAST?

Together, the first four chapters of this book focus on helping you understand what the financial fast is all about. Over the next four days, we’ll consider the responsibilities that come with being rich, God’s promise of prosperity, and the importance of things like generosity and tithing.

The chapters that follow build on the fasting theme and how depriving yourself will actually enrich your life. I want you to start thinking about your money and how often leaning on your own understanding can ultimately lead to making decisions about your money that aren’t wise.

If you truly want to change the way you handle your money or view your finances, the Scripture references in this book can be your Lally column. In home construction, Lally columns are steel posts that provide important structural support to the house. The columns are typically found in a basement to support large, heavy overhead beams. So, too, does God’s Word provide the structural support to achieve prosperity. Without that support, you might still achieve wealth, but you won’t have the foundation you’ll need in order to prosper with a purpose.

Day
1

Twenty-One Days to Financial Freedom

21 Days to Go: Breaking Bonds

Main Point: We need to be set free from the bondage spending holds on our lives.

My Pledge: For the next twenty-one days, I will be on a spending diet. I will not shop for anything except necessities. I will not use my credit card. I will limit or eliminate the use of my debit card. I will use cash for purchases I make during the fast. In this way, I will strive to break the chains that keep me from achieving financial freedom.

“I hated the fast!”

That’s what Terri, a federal government worker, said after she finished her first financial fast.

How’s that for an opening line?

What you probably expected was a glowing testimony of someone who has gotten out of debt, or saved some amount of money for the first time in his or her life. I do have lots of those stories. In fact, one woman got rid of more than $100,000 in debt. You’ll read more about her story later. But for now, I don’t want to sugarcoat this process.

You need to know that this isn’t going to be an easy journey. The 21-day financial fast is not a quick-fix, microwavable promise of instant prosperity. You will have to work for your financial freedom.

At times, you may want to quit. You may want to scream. You may even break the fast at some point during the twenty-one days. But no matter how many times you falter, make the commitment to get right back on track. Terri did. Here’s more of her testimony:

Trying to figure out what I could and could not spend money on was a nuisance. Every day I had conversations with myself that went something like this:

Me: I’m hungry. What can I eat for dinner?

Other me: Umm . . . Chinese food sounds good. Call that place that does takeout.

Me: Oh shucks, I can’t. I’m on that crazy financial fast. So what’s in the house?

Other me: But I’m too tired to cook.

Me: Well, you promised you would stick to the fast. (All along, I’m hearing Michelle’s voice in my head asking, “Is this a want or a need?”)

Other me: It’s a need to eat. Ya think?

Me: Yeah, but you don’t need to buy food if you already have food at home.

Other me: Oh, right.

Me: Why did I agree to this?

I’d search the fridge and cabinets for something to cook despite the fact that I was tired after a long commute from work. Every day for twenty-one days, I thought, “How am I gonna survive this?” On top of making dinner, I had to pack a lunch for the next day. Who feels like making lunch after cooking dinner?

Trying to keep my family on track was another challenge, especially my husband, Larry, who is obsessed with going to the market. Prior to the financial fast, he never took a list to the store or stuck to a budget. He believed that because food is a necessity, it’s okay to spend whatever you want at the market.

But all that work did pay off — literally. I saved $140 that month on lunch money alone.

The fast really made me think about how I spend.

Consider her words. The fast made her think about how she spends.

When was the last time you really, truly thought about how you spend? When was the last time you looked at your budget, or even attempted to put one down on paper? When was the last time you looked at how much you give to your church or to charity?

This fast will make you reexamine your spending habits — and you may not like what you see. But you can’t change that which you have not acknowledged. It’s funny how I can sit down with someone, look at their budget, and immediately see what’s been holding them back financially or why they are in so much debt. But they can’t see it because they’re too busy shopping or spending.

For example, Terri said her husband constantly exceeded their food budget. Through one-on-one counseling sessions and the fast, Larry realized why he overspent at the grocery store. As a child, he couldn’t have certain foods because they were too expensive. The fast made Larry examine why he felt entitled to buy whatever he wanted when he went grocery shopping. Now that he’s aware of what drives him to overspend at the market, he can rein in his spending and stay within their family’s grocery budget.

You’ve probably heard that one definition of the word crazy is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Yet that’s how many people handle their money, or should I say, mishandle their money. They never take the time to examine why they are spending the way they do. As a result, they can’t rob Peter to pay Paul anymore because Peter is so broke, there isn’t any money left to steal. Their finances are “tore up from the floor up” — meaning their finances are a wreck — but they persist in the same destructive habits. The problem for too many people is that they don’t know their finances are jacked-up crazy.

WHAT IS A FINANCIAL FAST?

This isn’t some gimmick. It is a God-inspired way for you to find financial freedom. The 21-day financial fast has been field-tested for several years in my home church, First Baptist Church of Glenarden in Prince George’s County, Maryland.

I first introduced the fast as part of a volunteer program called Prosperity Partners Ministry. In this ministry, men and women who are good stewards over their personal finances (Senior Partners) become accountability partners for members who are having financial challenges (Junior Partners). As part of the ministry, all members — even those serving as Senior Partners — are asked to participate in the fast.

The concept of the fast is similar to the one the prophet Daniel took, in which he “ate no choice food; no meat or wine” and “used no lotions at all until the three weeks were over” (Dan. 10:3). Daniel fasted as a way to draw closer to God. Similarly, the principle of this financial fast is to deny your flesh so that you can become closer to God. Instead of relying on an emotional rush from shopping or pursuing the latest sale or discount, this fast will connect you to God. The rush you get from this fast is far better than snagging a pair of designer shoes on sale or upgrading to the latest electronic gadget. Fasting is an act of separating yourself from worldly pleasures. During this separation, and away from worldly temptation, you can begin to break the bonds that keep you broke.

During this fast you will not shop or use your credit cards for twenty-one days. For three weeks you must refrain from buying anything that is not a necessity. And by necessity, I mean the bare essentials, such as food and medicine.

During this fast you will refrain from going to the mall or retail stores to shop for clothes, shoes, jewelry, nonessential household items, or other stuff that creates a drag on your financial life (and clutters your home).

Even window-shopping is off limits. Browsing leads to temptation, which in turn can lead to buying something you don’t really need.

No restaurant meals — fast food or otherwise. This includes buying breakfast or lunch at work. You can’t stop for coffee. Make it at home instead. During the fast, forget going out to the movies.

You are not permitted to buy gifts or gift cards. I often get a lot of objections on this last rule. People are hesitant to show up empty-handed at a birthday party or wedding or any event where a gift is expected. So they ask if they can tell the birthday person or bride and groom that they’ll get a gift for them at a later time. No.

You can’t tell them you will buy a gift later. Don’t promise to purchase a gift after the fast is over. Instead, use this opportunity to share with the honored person why you are fasting. Then find a way to bless them without purchasing something. This may be particularly hard if you have children. As any parent knows, birthday parties have become grand coronations with children expecting a table full of presents. We parents could help each other out by asking party guests on occasion not to bring gifts. At one party, in lieu of gifts for her child, the mother asked partygoers to bring books to exchange. I loved that idea. It took the focus off of receiving and put it on giving. “I really wanted him to know what fun is without expecting toys,” the mother said.

Children’s birthday parties have created a small but not insignificant dent in many household budgets. Besides, year after year of overindulgence at these parties can make it harder to teach your children about moderation later. Already we have an epidemic of overspending among adults. Perhaps this is how it starts.

One woman wrote to me that her five-year-old son was invited to two birthday parties during the fast, but she didn’t allow him to go to the parties. However, that wasn’t really necessary. While I loved that this mother was trying to stick to the fast, her son could have gone to the parties, only without a gift. “Just goes to show you how conditioned my mind was to spending money,” Trina said. “I would have never thought about making a gift; I always purchase something instead.”

It’s okay to have fun on the fast; you just can’t buy anything that isn’t a necessity. If your child or teen is invited to a party during the fast, call the birthday child’s parent or guardian and explain that your child would like to attend but the family is on a financial fast. Your child can make a gift from supplies you have at home or make a wonderful handmade birthday card.

I want you to internalize that you can celebrate life’s greatest occasions without having to bring or receive a gift. I know this will be tough, but what in the world do most of us need anyway? What’s most precious is the very thing money can’t buy — time. So be creative. Find a way to give of yourself without spending. The purpose of the fast is to eliminate spending on absolutely everything that is not essential.

THE PERILS OF PLASTIC

Curtailing your consumption is just one part of the fast. The second part is eliminating the use of plastic, both credit and debit. There’s a real dang...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Prosperity On Purpose
• Part One: Why a Financial Fast?
• Part Two: Fasting for a Better Financial Life
• Part Three: Fasting to Avoid Financial Drama
• Part Four: Fasting for Financial Peace
• Appendixes
• Index