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So what we're talking about here is the truth. Not complicated, not easy to do, but am I going to have the courage to do it? And then when inflation happens, when I've got to really start whittling away at those student loans because the government didn't pay them off for me, I'm doing the right thing. I'm taking the right step. And then to see what God does.
Welcome to a best of 2025 edition of Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller and today we hope to give you the tools you need to manage your finances with God in mind. Thanks for joining us. You know, John, budgeting is tough. Coming off the Christmas season, Jean and I are always spending a little bit more money on gifts and meals with family.
And there are so many opportunities to spend around the holidays to bless others, which is a good spirit. But sometimes it could be a little steep, right? But let's face it, nowadays there are opportunities to spend all year long, and it can get exhausting to try to stick to a budget. Here's some trivia: 25% of couples, that's one in four, confess that managing finances is their most significant relationship challenge. That's a big number.
Money and all the baggage that comes with it can be hard on your family. And that's exactly why this program really resonated with listeners and is one of our best of 2025 programs. We had a great conversation with Russ Crossan about navigating budgets, financial conversations, and perspective for legacy. And Russ Crossan is. A Christian financial expert.
He's helped families and couples steward their resources for 45 years. And he's got a terrific book, Your Money Made Simple: The Key to Financial Freedom. That serves as the foundation for our conversation today. And you can find out more about Russ and that book in the show notes. Yeah.
And with that, please enjoy this best of 2025 episode of Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Russ, welcome back to Focus on the Family. It's been a few years. It has, Jim. Thanks for having me back.
But it's good. You know, one thing I've noticed about financial experts. Is they usually come from brokenness. I mean, that finding they experienced it. They had to dig themselves out of a hole.
And I think you and your wife Julie were kind of like that, right? You had early difficulty in managing money. Is that accurate? Yeah, I mean, you said earlier this is an issue that couples deal with. We have different backgrounds, we have different personalities, we're different as male and female, right?
Bring those things together. And so, yeah, when I met Julie, she. I looked at her checkbook ledger and she didn't have anything subtracted. And I said, well, what's going on here? She goes, well, I know there's enough in there.
So that was one issue that was an issue to start with: hey, was she going to keep track of things? And then we began to realize that we had to figure out how we were going to work together on this financial issue and how we were going to make it a non-issue. And that's really the goal, Jim, is to make money a non-issue in your marriage.
So it took us several months to figure out how we were going to use our money and agree together on how it was going to be spent and deployed. And it took a little while, but for 45 years now, we've been on the same page on that.
So I'm grateful for that. You know, it's interesting that. Setup we just talked about when two people come together, they get married, you know, typically in your 20s, your 30s, hopefully sooner rather than later. From our perspective, it focuses on the family. But it's a natural tendency to struggle in this area because you're coming from, you know, probably student jobs.
You know, you're making maybe 15, 17 an hour nowadays. I don't know. And things are pretty good. You know, you're making maybe. Two grand a month, and you're going, wow, I could live off this easily.
Then you get married, and you know, expenses mount up. And in that regard, how would you speak to a young couple? to say kind of the warning sign. I'm thinking of a highway sign that says, beware, low bridge ahead. You know, beware, tight fiscal budget ahead.
Yeah, Jim, if I could say anything to a young couple is Try to the best of your ability to live on one income and save that second income. Usually, you get married, you're both employed. If you can live on the one income and save the other, it'll just get you off on a good path. This is all about path and direction. You know, direction determines destination.
And so, if I can start off and live on one income and save that other income, now I get ahead of the curve. I don't have to use credit cards. I can begin to save for a down payment on a house, and that means you have to do without. I mean, Julie and I couldn't afford a Christmas tree early on, so we just cut a limb out of a tree. And my brother came over and said, What is this, Charlie Brown, Christmas, right?
But we just, and we didn't have a dining room table for three years. We called this sofa table.
So, you just, if you make it hard on yourself early, it'll get easier later. But if you start off just spending just two incomes, like you said, you're both making 30 grand, that's 60 grand, and you're having a great time.
Well, then kids come along and some other things. It's like, okay, now what? And so start with one income and live on one income and save the rest. You won't regret that. You know what's so interesting about budgeting is, I think in the book you may call it the B-word, budgeting, just the symptoms that are created.
from that, meaning anxiety, frustration, maybe even some anger. that can come out of that as a couple you start fighting. Over Financial decisions.
So, again, how do you look at the symptoms and say, okay, if we do this correctly, it'll take away those things.
Well, the interesting thing about a budget, Jim, is just kind of like with our kids, they do better with discipline and knowing where the boundaries are. And so really there's freedom in control.
Now, my wife didn't like the B word, okay, so we called it planned spending. You call whatever you want, but you have to figure out how to deal with your money and how you're going to spend it. Let's define budget for a minute, Jim, if we could. Most people think of budget as everything. I would propose to you that your giving, your taxes, and your minimum debt payments are not budgetable items because they're already determined for you.
They're non-discretionary.
Okay, because your taxes are going to be a function of your income. You and your wife, if you're married, are going to decide what your giving level is. And if you have minimum debt payments on credit cards and cars and things like that, that's already set for you.
So, all you really have to quote: budget. or plan around. Is your what we call living expenses.
So I would encourage people to start changing in their thinking that I'm dealing with my living expenses. And by the way, living expenses drive everything. In the book, I have a formula, and the Living Smithson is the numerator of the formula, and it tells you how much you have to make, and the higher that number is. the more I have to make.
So I haven't given, pay my taxes. And so I would just say that the reason you're budgeting is to keep this lifestyle in some form of control so that you can begin to have some financial freedom. You notice the subtitle of the book is The Key to Financial Freedom, Not the Key to Financial Success or Financial Independence. I can't tell you how to be successful and independent. but I can tell you how to be free.
You can be financially free if you spend less than you make and you do it for a long time. You say, well, Russ, that's easy for you to say.
Now, I've been doing this 45 years, and there's nothing new under the sun, right? That will give you freedom. Yeah. You know, in that context, when you look at the spiritual connotation of all this, I had a business mentor years ago, and one of the things he said to me is: you know, the early church had a lot of independent business people. Priscilla businesswomen, too, who were freed from the shackle, I guess, of having to make money.
So they had vineyards, et cetera. And he said, and they were some of the most powerful evangelists of the early church because they were freed from. Kind of the day-to-day labor to go out and proclaim the gospel while their vineyards were taken care of and gardens and all those things, whatever they were in the agricultural sphere. But think about that. That I love to where you can manage money in such a way that you're not bound to something so you can do more of the work of the gospel.
Isn't that a great goal? And see, I would say what I'm sharing is simple, but it's not easy to do. That's why this is not easy. But you have to have the courage to say, okay, if this is true, if spending less than I make is the key to financial freedom. long term.
If that's the key to financial freedom long term, then I'm going to have the courage to do that. And I'm going to do without early on. I'm going to live on one income and I'm going to get off on a good footing. And you won't regret that. And I think that's people say, you know, with the economy, you know, what about the economy and the market and all that?
You know, if you fundamentally do these principles, spend less than you make, begin to get out of debt. Be generous and diversify your investments, you can handle any economic environment. Economies come and go. You know, I do want to get to a quote you have in the book because I think it. kind of puts the bow on everything we've talked about so far.
It says, you said, the reason you have to deal with your money is not so you can have more money. That would be a worldly perspective, but it's so that you can have more life. And again, that really is it. Money is just a tool. It's not anything more than that.
Yeah, Jim, I wrote a book 31 years ago called Your Life Will Spin, and really what it shows is that we're trying to balance life. And not to get in you know, get to the end of our life and have any regrets. And so, money sits right in the middle of this diagram, what I call the life overview diagram. You manage your money to try to have balance in life. And not get to the end of your life and have regrets and invest in spiritual and social capital.
So, yeah, Julie and I have never budgeted, quote, or had a spending plan. for our lifestyle to have more money. We've done it so we had more freedom To live life and try to have balance. And balance is an elusive thing, but you can have it if you manage your money. Let's get into some specifics because I'm sure some couples are saying, Yeah, but you're not trying to live on our income, which isn't enough.
And that kind of comes down to the thing: it's not enough. And I think you had a story about a couple in crisis. It was seeping into their marriage. They were arguing over their money, creating financial strain, all of those things. You advised them to make some cuts.
And what would that look like for the other million people listening that might be in that space right now?
Well, Jim, everybody thinks they don't have enough. A little bit more would be just what I need. It's the common. And then I would be content. It's the common comment.
So I learned this early on in my career, 40-some years ago. I was making $15,000, and I went to see a doctor in California who's making 40 times what I was making.
So if you can do the math, that's 600,000. But he was spending $700. And I know if you're listening to this, you're thinking, that's crazy. If I was making $600, I'd never spend $700. But I came home, walked in the apartment, told my wife, I said, I learned a very important lesson on this trip, honey.
Financial contentment has nothing to do with how much you make. It has everything to do with spending less than you make. And guess what, Jim, in 45 years, Philippians 4.19 is true, my God shall supply all your needs according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus. I've never seen anybody not have enough to meet their needs.
So God will have you have enough. Your income will be enough. Maybe not all your wants. But you will have your needs met. And so, do you have the courage to live within that number that God's provided through your vocation?
And so, I think the first thing people have to realize is: you know, I'm working hard at what God's called and equipped me to do that generates X amount of income.
Now, it's up to me to figure out how I'm going to live within that income. Give me some specifics, again, to help the listeners, the viewers on YouTube, just to understand, like with that young couple, you see, you get the spreadsheets. You know, this is like a. an investigative CPA.
So you get you follow the money. You're looking at their spending habits. You can see it right there. What are some of those typical things that couples can trim and still live okay?
Well, you know, this is where everybody, you know, has to wrestle. We're all going to stand before God and make an account of what we've done, what He has given to us, and we all have different priorities, right?
So for Julie and I, priorities were paying off debt and maybe not doing as much on the vacation front.
So the ones that are most optional are like vacation, gifts. Julie and I, those are the ones we really had to watch because we'd get out of control on gifts and things like that. Those are the things I was with a person the other day and he had a huge number there for his pets. You know, like four in a month for pets.
Now, I could judge that and say that's a little bit too much for your pets. And he had a pet walker and things like this. And so I think, Jim, the most important thing is that folks get all the numbers down. I would say two things about budgeting: make sure you're realistic. And in the book, on page 63, there's a page you just need to fill out.
Be realistic about the numbers and don't leave anything out.
Some people fool themselves. They leave out car repair. They leave out auto repair.
So the most important thing is to get all the right numbers down. And here's where, if you're married, you need to work together to come up with realistic amounts. I think one of the things I've learned over the years, Jim, is that the reason people don't budget is they don't distinguish between monthly items and non-monthly.
So, what they do is they budget everything monthly and then they give up on their budgets in February because they budget $100 a month for a vacation, $100 a month for kids' clothes, and then the kids get sick, they want to take their wife away for Valentine's, and it just doesn't work because they've thinking $100 a month when they should be thinking $1,200 for the year for these categories.
So, I would just say that to make a budget work, You have to distinguish, and Julie and I have learned this as couples we've met with them. They said, Oh, now I can make a budget work because I've taken out those seven or eight categories that are non-monthly: auto repair, home repair, vacation gifts. And so I would just encourage listeners to make a budget work. And we talk about that in the book. You have to distinguish between monthly and non-monthly.
Yeah, but in that regard, do you need to go a year? Before you can save up for that vacation and take it? No, no, no. But what it does mean is you have to have no budget works without any cash in the bank.
So I have to have a little bit of cash to start with because then if I budgeted $1,200 for close for the year and I find a great sale and I want to spend $300 in January, I'm still on my budget right. I'll still have $900 left, but I have to be able to spend the $300. I can't be waiting until the $100 comes in. If you start off and say, okay, I'm going to have a budget, not just to feel restricted, but I'm going to have a budget to make sure I'm spending less than I make. Let me say one of the mistakes people make is they start with their take-home income, Jim, rather than their gross, and that starts off a problem.
Because all that stuff being withheld is your money. And so one of the places people and I want to get into this because this is a real critical thing about this, is retirement.
Well, I was going to ask you about that because you said sometimes you oversay for retirement. I'm going, what?
Well think about it. We're starting our family, you're starting your career, and you're in a hurry to quit.
So, you're a young couple, think about that for a minute. And retirements didn't even start until 1933, the Social Security Act. And now, what we've done is we've told people: hey, you need to get busy, start in your career, you need to start your family, then you need to start saving for retirement so you can quit. Jim, it's crazy. We need to extend our time horizon and get this retirement thing out of our thinking, especially as we're starting off, because that's a big stressor.
Sometimes you can't afford to fund retirement. You say, Well, you're a financial guy, Russ. Yeah, I am. But the point is, one of the biggest places people can cut, one of the first things we tell people is cut your funding back to maybe just the amount they're matching. And sometimes you can't even do the amount they're matching because you need it to buy kids braces.
See, this is the other thing, husband and wife. Men are like, I got the retirement, honey. She's like, I need cash, right? I need cash for the kids' activities.
So that's where you get some real friction. Julie and I've met with so many couples, they'll come in, they'll have all this money in retirement, and they have no money. And that's a huge problem. And so I would encourage people. I hope you can fund retirement.
And I hope you can fund it. at least to the level if your company's matching you. But guess what? If you don't make sure you're spending less than you make, and some people don't know that, and so they're borrowing to fund retirement, Jim, they don't know it, they're borrowing to fund retirement. Wow.
And so retirement is a huge stressor. For couples because and they bought the lie of the world that that's the goal of working is to retire. But work is good. It's a gift from God. We're commanded to work.
And so just extend your time horizon a little bit. And I think that would help free up a lot of people. And you say, well, you're a financial guy. Don't you just talk about retirement? I want you to have life.
Russ, you mentioned in the book you believe not all investments are financial. That, of course, piqued my interest. But you said that you need to invest in your marriage and family over the years. I'm not sure that everybody would connect those dots.
So what does it mean to invest in your marriage and family? I mean, we've got ideas here at Focus on the Family. What do you mean by it?
Well, I put this under the category posterity investing and posterity of the generations come after you.
So for example, when the kids were young, I invested in house help to help take off some of the stress of Julie around the holidays. I found out that was a real good investment. And you can say, well, that's an expense. I think, Jim, if people could just add to their Financial plan, a line called posterity investing, it'll change their whole paradigm. Even though you think it's an expense, maybe you pay for your kids to go to a marriage retreat or whatever it is.
I paid my kids to do scripture memory or do book reports. Yeah, and so that was an investment in their spiritual growth. And so I just think. The idea of posterity investing needs to be in our radar screen. Like we talked a little bit earlier, there's five things that you can do with your savings once you make sure you're spending less than you make.
Retirement. Personal investing. You can give more. you can pay off debt and then you can do what's called posterity investing. I would just encourage listeners to not just default to retirement.
not just default to putting more money in the bank. But when you have savings, when you have surplus, maybe some of it should be invested in your family, something, maybe a unique vacation. Yeah. Come out and see Adventures and Odyssey, meet Whit out here. Hey, that's a great idea.
Well, my boys grew up on that, okay?
So we'd make long trips back to Kansas where I grew up, and we'd get in the car and listen to Adventures and Odyssey. In fact, my youngest son said, Dad, that's how I learned the Bible. I didn't learn it in my Christian school. I learned it from Whit. Oh, man.
That's great. You'd be surprised how many people write that to us. I mean, that is great. It's a wonderful series. Yeah.
Russ, there's another concept in here I was really struck by because in our culture, we're so image conscious. And you talked about limited spheres or something to that akin. Share what you were talking about there. Yeah, you know, John, it's interesting. We live in a culture where it's all about what we drive and where we live.
And so back to those trips I was just talking about, we'd get in the car and leave Atlanta and head back to Kansas to see the grandparents. And we had a tradition where we'd get off and drive on two-lane roads. I wanted the boys to see Americana.
So, you know, be driving down these two-lane roads, and we'd eat at the local cafes where, you know, they'd say, you aren't from around here when you walked in, right? And the menu was on a grease board. The boys said, we want to eat at McDonald's. We want to eat at Pizza Hut. You knew that when you have your kids, we're eating here.
Just listen to Vincent and Odyssey while we're driving, and we'll be good. But what happened, John, was I began to notice, you come up to the outside of these small towns, there'd be a big house up on the hill. This is a guy that has financial capital. You know, white fence, 40 acres, Hereford cattle out front. He's the doctor.
He's the dentist. He's the business owner in town. Houses are still nice. They get smaller as you go through town. Then you go across the railroad tracks and a bunch of double-wide trailers.
50 miles down the road, the same scenario would play out. Big house, a guy that has financial capital, probably pretty impressed with himself. And then it dawned on me, the guy in the one town doesn't know the guy in the next town.
So if you make it your goal to amass money, And you will always and only impress a limited sphere of people. I mean, how many people know where you live and what you drive? I hate to tell you, not very many, but this helps me keep perspective. This idea of I'm not going to make it my goal just to have more and bigger to impress people. I'm going to try to use my money to invest in posterity, invest in what God's doing around the world, and impact an unlimited sphere of people.
Russ, let me ask you, because it's, you know, I have extended family members who struggle financially, and it's a reality. One in particular is a single-parent mom with four kids. And she's a waitress. And this is the reality for millions of people. They're not making a great deal of money.
And even that idea to. Put aside money for a car is out of reach.
So, when you look at the single parent, for example, whether that's a mom or a dad, there's more dads now today that are single parents. How do they manage some of those difficulties on a single income? It may not be enough. Like I said, a waitress. They feel so underwater that they that there's no oxygen.
Well, you know, we start where we are and we have the courage to start Climbing out where I am. And that's where, you know, hopefully people around them are noticing these things. Hopefully, the church can. Yeah, that's what I would say. But your job is to the best of your ability, because, like I said, Philippians 4:19 is true.
My gosh, I'll supply all your needs. And so it might be an unexpected check or whatever. But your job, first of all, is to, all right, I'm going to quit doing the Starbucks coffee, or I'm going to do whatever to do the best of my ability to live within my income, whatever that income is. And then trust God to meet my needs because He will, Jim. I mean, you've seen it, I've seen it.
And that's what I would say. And I would just say to listeners: start where you are. And have the courage to do it the opposite of most of the people around you, because most people are just like, hey, you know, this will all work itself out. No, spend less than you make. Do it for a long time.
And also, do get engaged with the church. I mean, this is what the body of Christ should be about. I'm thinking particularly for that single-parent mom who needs help. She just needs help. Julie and I were fortunate to come across a couple who had like seven kids and they really needed reliable transportation.
And so God put on our heart to step in and help with that. And so there's people like that as long as you're in a body and as long as you're doing your part. Yeah. Yeah, and that kind of leads Russ to something that you and Julie have learned. I mean, you mentioned being generous and how it hasn't been where you've had a lot of resources.
So for those who are maybe at a point of being Okay, and it's not a struggle. How can we look around and meet needs in a way that honors God?
Well, um Julie and I implement a program called a God pocket. This is money that we've given away. We're just waiting for the Holy Spirit to tell us who and where to give it. I like that God Pocket. But, Jim, I've got some of my pocket here, but he's not telling me to give it to you today, okay?
So it's okay. That's all right. But I think once you have surplus, remember I said there's five things you can do with it. You can put it in retirement, put it in personal investing, pay off debt, invest in your family, and giving is the fifth thing.
So you could increase your giving. And I would just encourage people. What I've observed is that most people have never stopped to say, why am I not being more generous when it's within my ability to do so? And so just here again, don't just default to building a bigger pile. And in addition to financial capital, we have other kinds of capital as well, right?
I think you touched on that. Yes, you have your time and your talent, your treasure, you're dispensing truth. That's another one of the capitals that we're responsible to steward well. And so I just think that it's important Uh what I've seen is people just They haven't stopped to think, why am I still accumulating? And when you get to a certain level, you probably don't need to keep accumulating.
The pile's big enough. And we go to Psalm 78, 5-7. He commanded our fathers to teach them to their children. That the generations to come might know that they would teach those yet to be born to put their confidence in God, not forget the works that God may keep his commands. What happens is when we get blessed, we put our confidence in the pile.
And we don't put it in God. And our kids and grandkids need to see us continue to walk in faith. And so one of the ways we show that faith is we maximize our generosity. Yeah. Right at the end here, you know, I'm thinking, I am not a grandparent.
Are you a grandparent? Not yet. Not yet. Not that I know. You are a grandparent.
I am.
So when you're looking at being a grandparent, I mean, I think there's two types of grandparents in the Christian sphere. You know, very generous. These are things we could do, help with braces, help with college, with our grandkids, those kinds of things. Then there's the other grandparent, which is, I raised myself from my bootstraps, and that's how I learned to be the man or woman I am today. And my grandkids need to do it the same way.
And that may be true, maybe valid. How do you balance between those two, not extremes, but those two perspectives? Jim, you just used the right word, and that's balance. Because I've heard both of those. I bet you have.
And I can just tell you from personal experience, it's fun to be able to bless your kids if you can and your grandkids. But the principle is you don't ever let them depend on it. Don't overdo it. Don't overdo it. And the tax laws kind of go against you there because they can tell you you can do certain things.
I would say, no, when it comes to blessing your family, just mix it up. They never know when it's coming. They never know what the amount's going to be.
So they can't depend on it because they have to go work then and build their lifestyle around what they're doing and not think they're going to get something from you. Yeah. An example of that, Gene's mom and dad, as parents, you know, helped us with the down payment. And that was really a great foothold for us to get our first house and get moving in that direction. And it was all governed by the tax code, what they could give tax-free.
But what a great benefit for us. And we're grateful to them for that. Russ, this has been so good. And what a great quick read. And again, the flip chart that we talked about off-air, I mean, this book is really a flip chart of how to get involved, how to very practical diagram.
On how to get going and how to lay your expenses out, and again, no matter what your income is, how to manage what God has given you and then plan for the future. I see why Russ's message resonated with our listeners. You can tell he really lives his message of financial stewardship. Great practical biblical advice. And we hope you've been encouraged with some tools for managing your finances.
If you want to equip your family, church family, or someone you know with Russ's great insights, we're offering his book, Your Money Made Simple: The Key to Financial Freedom. And we want to make this book available to you. When you give a gift of any amount to focus on the family, we'll send you Russ's book as our way of saying thank you for investing in the ministry. And by doing so, I mean you're not buying it from another online store, right? And all those proceeds go right back into helping other people.
Your support means so much as we seek to help more families in this brand new year. I think money given to focus on the family is the best investment in ministry. That's right. Your generous donations reach families with the hope of Christ every day. And you can donate and get your copy of Russ's book, Your Money Made Simple, when you call 800, the letter A and the word family.
800-232-6459. Or check the link in the show notes. And if you enjoyed this program, we have an entire audio collection featuring 20 of our best of 2025 shows. This free collection features encouragement for overcoming trauma, refreshing your marriage, improving your parenting, and growing your faith. You'll hear from our most popular guests like Russ Crosson, the late Gregory Jance, British evangelist Jay John, Lee Strobel, Gary Chapman, Sheila Walsh, and many more.
You'll find that Best of 2025 collection in the show notes. Thanks for listening to this Best of 2025 episode of Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller inviting you back next time as we once more help you and your family thrive in Christ. Sprinkle some love into your marriage this month with the Loving Well podcast from Focus on the Family. I'm Aaron Smalley, and I host the podcast with my husband, Dr.
Greg Smalley, and our good friend, John Fuller. We chat about how to put Christ at the center of your relationship, deepen your love, and have a marriage that truly thrives. Listen today at focusonthefamily.com/slash lovingwell or wherever you get your podcasts.
