The Better Budgeting Podcast
The Better Budgeting Podcast is your go-to resource for mastering your finances without the stress. Hosted by Danielle Reese, this podcast breaks down budgeting, saving, and smart spending into simple, actionable steps. Whether you’re tackling debt, building wealth, or just looking to make your money work smarter, we’ve got expert insights, real-life success stories, and practical tips to help you take control of your financial future. Tune in and start making your budget work for you—without sacrificing the things you love!
The Better Budgeting Podcast
Let's Talk Generosity with Special Guest Bobby Clark from Clark on Money
Financial stress is a common struggle, even for high earners like medical professionals and engineers. Join me, Danielle Reese, and our insightful guest, Bobby Clark, founder of Clark on Money Financial Coaching Services, as we share our personal stories of financial literacy from childhood and how those experiences shaped our careers and parenting. Bobbi reveals the stress faced by professionals despite their substantial incomes and offers guidance on overcoming these challenges. As Thanksgiving approaches, we take the opportunity to reflect on the role of generosity in our financial decisions, exploring how an attitude of gratitude can transform our financial health and foster a sense of community.
The journey toward financial well-being isn't just about managing money; it's about aligning our financial choices with our values. We explore the art of strategic generosity and the impact of intentional time management. Through relatable anecdotes, like a child's vending machine impulse, we see how personal growth can lead us from impulsive spending to thoughtful giving. By planning both spontaneous and organized acts of generosity, we ensure our resources truly reflect our priorities, highlighting the significance of incorporating our values into every financial decision.
Balancing generosity with self-care is crucial for a fulfilling life. We address the challenge of maintaining balance, setting priorities, and managing commitments effectively to avoid burnout. Through stories of unexpected generosity and the abundance mindset, we emphasize that giving doesn't always require money—it can start with simple acts of kindness. Visit ClarkOnMoney.com for more resources to enhance your financial life, and don't miss out on connecting with us for further insights. Special thanks to Bobby for sharing his expertise and inspiring us to embrace generosity as a path to personal growth and community goodwill.
Bobby Clark
Website: www.clarkonmoney.com
Danielle is a money coach helping women and couples who have been trying to figure out their finances FINALLY create a clear plan so they don’t have to worry about waiting to refill their bank account the next payday.
She is the founder of The Financial Freedom Society on Facebook and her signature money coaching program, The Better Budgeting Playbook. You can sign up for her newsletter by clicking here.
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Hello and welcome to the Better Budgeting Podcast. I'm your host, danielle Reese. I'm a money coach and the founder of the Better Budgeting Playbook, and this is my one-on-one coaching program for women and couples who have been trying to figure out their finances, finally create a clear plan so they don't have to worry about waiting on payday anymore. I became a money coach in 2020 after paying off over $60,000 in debt, rekindling my marriage, becoming financially free and wanting others to experience the same. If you'd like to work with me, you can check out the link in the show notes there. Also, we have the Financial Freedom Society on Facebook. It's a free Facebook community focusing on debt payoff, saving strategies, budgeting and money mindset. You can find the link to that community in the show notes as well.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much for being on the podcast. Bobbi Clark, I'm really excited to have you here because I met you a couple weeks ago at IFCC and I've actually been around. We've been in around the same rooms, for I've been in Coach Connections for over two years now almost two years and we've been in the same rooms. But I really loved when I got to meet you in person. Your energy just lights up a room and I said I have to have Bobby Clark on my podcast. So, bobby, please tell us where you're from, what you do and give yourself a little introduction.
Speaker 3:Hey, danielle, thank you for inviting me on your podcast. I really do appreciate it, and also it was great meeting you for the first time in person in 3D, you know, a coaching conference, and we had so much, such a great time there. So I'm happy to be here with you and talk about some important things that we're going to cover today. But I am Bobby Clark. I'm the owner and founder of Clark on Money, financial Coaching Services, and what I do is the unprofessional, which is mainly medical professional engineers, it people who are overcome by money stress to a happier life.
Speaker 3:My clients tend to say things like I make a lot of money but I don't have any idea where it's going. I'm worried about having enough for emergencies. Will I ever be able to retire? So those people who I serve, and when those people are happy, then we are happy because they take care of us, and especially in the medical profession. So we want them to be happy when we go to see them because we are sick, so we want them to be happy.
Speaker 3:I became a coach in 2019 as I retired as a laboratory technologist, and personal finance had been in my life since young age, because I grew up in a family that wasn't afraid to talk about money. We talked about money at an early age. I can remember my grandfather started me with an allowance at about age 13. And my dad had a small business, so he would bring his daily receipts home each evening and he would sit at a table and count out the money, set aside the profits and get ready for the next day. And my mom was a schoolte teacher so she wanted to be sure I knew how to count and got good grades and wouldn't embarrass her in school. So with that background and just family talking about money, being in business and things like that, it just was instilled in me at an early age and as I got older it was still there in financial literacy but just always interested me in some fashion or form or whatever that's where I got started like that with the family background.
Speaker 2:And I think you are kind of an outlier almost, because a lot of people I talk to their parents never talk about money. Money is hush hush. We don't. It's taboo. You don't show people what you have and things like that. And you mentioned about allowance and it's funny.
Speaker 2:Today I was working through some finances for our own household and my daughter Kendall she's six she was sitting beside me and she saw that I was working through the finances. She said mom, can you show me how much is in my allowance bank? Because they have a bank of mom for their allowance. We don't give them cash so that they can just go and randomly spend things. And I was like sure, and I show her what's in there. She says, well, I really want to buy this Barbie. And I'm like, oh, okay, and it triggers to me that she understands that you need money to buy things. And then we talk about the value of all right, what is this Barbie and is it important to you? You do have 30,000 other Barbies, by the way, and so I really resonate with that that I'm passing that on to my next generation and you started with your parents and now you, and then, I'm sure, with your kids and grandkids and you're from Georgia, Is that right?
Speaker 3:Well, I was really born actually born in Florida, panama City, florida, which is a panhandle of Florida, there on the west side of Florida, on the Gulf. So now I live in Savannah, which is on the Atlantic, so I've been living around the water all of my life. But it's been a fun experience. Both places have been really, really a great place to live and I have enjoyed living in both of these areas.
Speaker 2:So let's get into today's topic, and I thought that this was so strategically placed, because this episode, when it airs, it's going to be the Friday before Thanksgiving, and Thanksgiving is all about giving thanks place. Because this episode, when it airs, it's going to be the Friday before Thanksgiving, and Thanksgiving is all about giving thanks, and it is sometimes not even you know around that it's about community and connection and we kind of forget, like it's actually about being thankful for what we have. And we're going to talk today about generosity. Bobby, I really think that you have such a unique standpoint of generosity, so we're going to go through here and we're going to just have a good conversation about you know, what are some things that are important about generosity? Why is it important? And then, given these listeners a practical tips and tricks along the way to help them be more generous, sound good.
Speaker 3:Sounds great.
Speaker 2:Awesome. So let's define generosity In your words. Bobby, what would you say is generosity?
Speaker 3:When I think about generosity, danielle, I'm thinking about one of our core values. Our values is how our character, how we behave. And then you talk about the generosity which is one of those values is how much we have, how much we can give to other people. See, we are unique beings. We receive things that are designed just for us, yes, and we give things to others that only we can give because we are unique. Generosity, to me, is giving as well as receiving. That's how I look at generosity.
Speaker 2:I agree. I agree. I think generosity is encompassing on both ends. It's giving and receiving, because you have people that will never receive. They're willing to give but they're not willing to receive and I think that is hindering, kind of, your experience in the cycle of generosity.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. Well, I grew up in a household where my parents taught me, especially my mother. She would say don't block your blessings. In other words, what she was saying is that when someone wants to give you something or wants to be generous toward you, accept it. At that time you may not feel like you need that, or you can use that, or it has any value. But you never know, when you reject it, they may not come back again with something that you really need or really could use. So she taught us to always accept If you can. Maybe you can pass it on to someone else. Maybe you don't need it right now, Maybe you got a closet full of them. There's someone who need that and you never know when they may come your way.
Speaker 2:So- yeah, and it's not even physical items too, you know. Think about people that are willing to help you carry your groceries out to the car, you know. Just say thank you and let them that's filling their heart right of generosity. Yeah, let's talk about the wholeness of generosity. We We've got spiritual well-being, financial health, physical health, all of it. Generosity is actually a section in that big giant wheel of all things that encompass making us us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so when we talk about that, I'm kind of a linear guy, I'm kind of a technical brain guy I get it from a linear standpoint, where, for me, generosity comes first, believe it or not.
Speaker 3:The way I look at it is it's part of your values and that's who we are. We start with us. It's our behavior, how we behave in a generous way. So if we're behaving in a generous way, the next step in that line of progression is financial health, is well-being. You're generous now you're financial healthy, and those two together will lead to a well-being person, person that's successful, person that's comfortable, person who feels safe and protected because of their generosity and their financial health. So I look at it in that order generosity, financial health and then the wellbeing.
Speaker 2:It's the cups right you fill one cup overflows into the next cup and then the next cup and the next. When you start working on one, then it's so easy to start working on the other and the other. But I think generosity, especially in our culture, it's very hard to put that in the forefront. There's a lot of misconception around. If you give away money, that is financially irresponsible and it's actually very opposite, in my opinion. What would you say?
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, it can be that way People may think about money, but it's not only the money and you hit on that about the groceries, holding the door for someone, a smile we all got smiles to go. You can smile all day long and sometimes people they need a smile. They may need a hello or thank you or hi, and those things to me also falls in the category of being generous.
Speaker 2:I agree, some people might believe that giving away money could damage your wealth.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I just I've never experienced. In that light, I'm sure that there have been other people that maybe they're not managing their finances in the correct fashion, where, if they're giving away their mortgage payment and then they don't have a mortgage money to go pay the mortgage, yeah, we're probably hurting ourselves. But in general I would say giving in a monetary value hasn't really impacted in a way that is going to hurt you, unless you have not planned for it and you overextend your capabilities.
Speaker 3:Yeah, when it comes to money, that's a different animal, I think, because people look at money totally different than anything else any kind of material thing or whatever.
Speaker 3:And handing that over or sharing that with someone a lot of times people equate that to well, if I give this, what am I going to get back from it? And and that's not what generosity, that's not the foundation of generosity. It's not that you supposed to get anything back. You are just being generous, being generous, and it's hard for a lot of people to accept that because they may feel like, well, this is all I have, or I may not be able to do other things that I want also that mean a lot to me. So that's why I think that money is a little bit different on the generosity scale. But people who are generous, they understand the fact that they're not giving all that they have. They're just sharing a portion of what they have and they're doing it not so much to get anything back, but they're doing it to help someone, and when they do that, that's their payback. Their payback is hey, I'm helping someone and I feel good about it on the inside, and so that's what they're doing when they're generous.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I think there's an abundance mindset that goes with that too. If you have an abundance mindset, automatically this becomes very easy for you to do when it comes to generosity Maybe not monetary wise, but just in general, all the things that you explained, bobby, you know doing the grocery run, doing you know a smile, holding somebody's door open, all those stuff. It comes easy for people with an abundance mindset, I believe. But what happens when people don't have an abundance mindset? This is really stretching them to ask them to do such things.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it really is and that I guess you can say that's the scarcity mindset. And those people believe it or not. I think that that mindset has been established from some past experience. Typically it's a negative experience that they might have went through in their childhood or early in life where they feel like they just didn't have enough or wasn't enough there and whatever I get, I've got to hold on to it for dear life and so it makes it hard for them to even share any of it, even though now you know you can be raised or have that abundance I mean that scarcity mindset but you may come into an abundance but you won't share it because you're thinking you know I may run out of money or something may happen and I'll need it.
Speaker 3:So it's really a complex mindset when you're talking about these two, abundance and scarcity, but scarcity can really prevent you from, as my mom said, from receiving a blessing.
Speaker 2:I agree, I agree. And let's talk a little bit about impulse spending. Right, because we're talking about mindset right now, and impulse spending comes from a mindset At least that's what I believe. You believe in something, whether you're never going to have enough, or you want to dwindle all you got money and then you want to go ahead and spend it all Right. So when we shift our focus from prioritizing generosity, it seems that we can shift away from the impulse spending.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, because you know impulse spending a lot of impulse spenders they don't have a plan. It's just more or less whatever comes to mind or whatever they see or whatever they think that they want, they will go ahead and make that purchase or spend that money. And it's not so much about well, do I really need this? It's just the fact that I think it comes from an internal feel good they having to have, they need that feel good for the moment and, as you know, that doesn't last very long and you're on a cycle where you get that feel good, you get that high, but when you come down you got to go ahead and do it again. Yeah, and just repetitive spending like that you never get anywhere. So for those folks, it's about being aware that there is a challenge there with spending money to feel good, because that's very difficult to sustain over a long period of time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I have just a little, just a little story here. Last night, actually, at swim practice, my daughter was doing swim practice, my son's with me and they have a vending machine there and my son took like $5 and quarters for this vending machine, for all the snacks and drinks and things. And we get there and he's like mom, I want to get something from the vending machine, I want to get a water. And I'm like I got water, I've got, I brought a bottle of water, you don't need to buy a water. And it was funny because he would keep coming back with reasons on like why I want to spend my money. I want to spend my money. And I really looked at him and I said why do you just want to spend money? What is the value hungry? No, I'm not hungry, I just want candy. Okay, well, you're not hungry. Um, you're not that thirsty, because I offered you the water that I gave you.
Speaker 2:He really just wanted to get rid of the dollars and the coins that he had and get something in return. So we had to have a conversation about that and I actually let him buy a newspaper. Um, which is so funny, because he was wanting skittles. I had him buy a newspaper, which is so funny because he was wanting Skittles. I had him buy a newspaper and then we started reading the newspaper together. So it was helping him teach him that if we're going to spend money and it's going to be an impulse we have to value what it is. Is it going to be something that's quick or is something that satisfies? In thought process my thought was, if I get him the newspaper and we read a couple of things in the newspaper, he's going to start thinking about other things and then we're going to forget about the vending machine.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was that was satisfied, that impulse, because he just he wanted to really spend, spend some money on something and and where he is in life, you know Skittles or candy is the appropriate thing to spend money on.
Speaker 2:Right right.
Speaker 3:So if you elevate that to an adult who have a hobby and they walk into a hobby store, surely they're going to buy some things just based on impulse. So that's how that works. That's a great example. But you know, I would say the the merchants understand impulse spending better than the consumer does Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Because when you go into a store, there's always something there in the aisle in your way, right, right, and those are impulse products. Because they know that you know we buy a lot, spend a lot of money on impulse and they put things there on sale and attractive bargains and that's all that is impulse spending. A lot of times you go into a store and you buy. You come out with a whole lot more than you've been there for.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, that's the truth. Yeah, that's why I love online ordering these days.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you notice that the more that I work on myself holistically, spiritually, you know, my physical well-being, my mental, all of it the more that I work on myself, the less I want to impulse, spend and the more I want to give my resources and talents, because I've seen it come back tenfold over the last four years that I've been in business. But I think it's really important that we need to have a plan for our generosity, and I categorize it in two different ways planning by dollar amount and planning by spontaneous. So I like to have the spontaneous giving. I want to have a dollar amount set aside, so when something comes up that I feel inclined to give, either financially or with my time, I'm available for it. And then some people are like nope, these are. You know, we do the Army Salvation, we do Operation Christmas Child, we do all these other foundations. These are the things that we love to give to or spend our time on, and that's okay too. But I think it's really, really important to have a plan for this stuff.
Speaker 3:Well planning is the key. That's the only way that you're going to be successful and be consistent and feel like that you're making progress in the direction that you want to go. When it comes to your dollars, of course, you know you have to have a spending plan If you're going to contribute your dollars. There's no better way to do that than to ensure that you have dollars or you plan to set aside dollars in your spending plan for your generosity. If you're going to give to organizations and things like that, so that needs to be within your budget and in terms of productivity schedule, yeah. Or time schedule Volunteering or whatever you're going to do yeah, or time schedule volunteering or whatever you're going to do, that needs to be in that, in that format as well, so that you can schedule time to do those things that you want to do and have the time to do those.
Speaker 2:And now, with that, you are more intentional about what you're doing in your life and you can see the progress and you can see the reward that come with that because you've planned it out so well. Yeah, I agree. I think that if we are not careful with our time, it can just slide right on by, day after day, every single time, and we'll look up, you know, a year later, five years later, 10 years later, where'd it go? Where'd it all go? I think that if we really want to spend time as a resource, want to spend time as a resource, as a resource for generosity, we have to be really strategic with it.
Speaker 2:I've talked to so many mothers, so many and I'm sure you have too, Bobby of I just feel like I'm overwhelmed all the time and I can't do the things that I actually want to do. So we have to go back to the source and really look at well, what are you already committing to and does that align with your values and that's something that you mentioned, Bobby is your values? Does it align with your values? If generosity and giving resources is something that's super duper important to you, that should fall at the very top of your list or very close to the top of the list.
Speaker 2:And then the other odd and things. You know, maybe it's PTO meetings or something of the sort. If they're not as important to you, then let them go. And I also think this is really important to shout out Sometimes, as parents, we overextend ourselves for our kids and that's not really teaching generosity with our resources. Yeah, Because we're trying to live a holistic life and balancing as much as possible all these other aspects, and if we are running here, running there, running on E, basically every single day, all week of the year, year after year, we're going to burn out very quickly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're so right, danielle. You know we live in a culture where it's encouraged to be busy, yeah, and if you're not, you feel like that you're not conforming or you're not doing enough. So what we do is we overpack our schedule to things that we no way we can get it all done in one day. Even if the lethal thing is out of order which most time it will be Something's going to happen and it's going to throw your whole day off and you just run ragged by the end of the day. So when it comes to that and we're on a hamster wheel, we're just going, going, going, going and so many things that we want to do we're trying to go on a vacation, trying to take care of the kids, trying to work, trying to do the house, take care of parents, or whatever we are that we're doing in the run of the day, and it always takes more time than we think it takes.
Speaker 3:Yeah it really does. So what we have to do, I think, is be practical with that and have a priority list. You know, and I've learned, that it's OK to have some breaks within your day. Be generous to yourself yeah, take time to take care of you so that you can take care of others or be generous to others, because if you run ragged, you're tired, you're in a bad mood, you're irritable, you're not going to be any good to yourself or to anyone else. So take time, reduce the things to do on your list. I normally have about no more than four things to do on my list, my day-to-day list. That's all I want about four things to do, and within that there's always time to step back and take a break.
Speaker 3:Or if things take longer than I expected, there may be time to get it done. But at the end of the day I don't have, I'm not exhausted and my list is just half full. It may be one item left on the list. So I mean I've done three of the four. I may get them all done, but I'm not at the end of the day. Looking at man.
Speaker 3:I got seven or eight things left on my list. I didn't get to. Yeah, so you just you never, you know you don't get a break and then the next day you got the past day's list. Now you're putting that onto the next day's list and there's no way you can get all that stuff done.
Speaker 2:Now we've got 20 things to do. Right, I will say that I've done time blocking in the past and I kind of fell out of that routine and I was really encouraged to get back to it. So last week I started time blocking out some to do things for my calendar and I started putting everything on there and I said, oh my goodness, there's no white space, there's no blank space in there for me. And I hadn't even added in, you know, all the additional family stuff. Yet it was just work and running the kids here and there and schooling, because we homeschool, so it was just all that stuff.
Speaker 2:So it really opened my eyes this past week that, wow, I've really overcommitted to a lot of things. Out of my generosity, I'm overcommitted and I'm just spinning wheels right this second. So I really had to come back and say, all right, if I want to live a balanced life, I do give a ton, but I do need to scale back a bit in order for me to operate this household. And for some people that might not be the answer. I could have easily just been like all right, well, we'll just hire a cleaner and she'll come clean the house and that, you know, opens up two hours a week and does my laundry. Maybe that's three hours a week, but you know some people don't look at their situation through the alternative lens of generosity and that maybe you're overextending yourself in generosity and we need to scale it back.
Speaker 3:I agree. And while he was talking and he said that about just being over busy and trying to do all these things a thought came to me how does saying no impact? Generosity?
Speaker 2:Oh, that's, a good point yeah.
Speaker 3:How does this saying no make a person feel if they're generous?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a tough one. Yeah, that's a very tough one. I will say that I just went over this with a client yesterday, because they are overextending themselves with generosity through their time, their finances, all of it, and it is small baby steps that we have to do and coach our clients through. You just got to start small and I think for some people it's the worst case scenario that's in the back of their head If I say no, they're going to be angry at me, they're going to not appreciate what I've already done, I'll feel less valuable to them.
Speaker 3:I think that that's such a good point that you brought up Bobby. Yeah, yeah, and it's tough. Some people just can't say no because of the reason that you just outlined. They may not like me, or if I say no I may not feel needed. You know those kind of negative thoughts come into your head. But I think you have to manage that to the point where you can have a list of things to do that's not overwhelming yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:We were not put on this earth to live, breathe, work, pay bills, die no, no no, that's no that's not.
Speaker 3:that's not the goal, it's not the intention.
Speaker 2:Right, right. We were here to extend his kingdom and give light to the world.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that's it so yes, Tell me.
Speaker 2:Tell me, Bobby. Have you ever experienced generosity, whether you've received or give? Do you have any stories to share?
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, I can share stories. Just generosity, whether you've received or give. Do you have any stories to share? Well, yeah, I can share stories, just right here in my neighborhood, me extending generosity In my neighborhood. It's a small subdivision, it's about 54 houses here that we have here, and as we enter the subdivision there's a house that sits on the left side of the road and there lives a lady that's 90 years old and she is the mother of the community. Everyone knows, but she is, you know, at her stage in life. She's frail, her mind is still very, very swift, smart lady, but she can't do the physical things that she used to do.
Speaker 3:So a few years ago, before her husband passed, I started just going down and just taking their trash cans out to the front of the road so that the collection company can come and pick them up. So I started that, you know, because I just felt like, hey, you know they're not in position to do that they, you know they don't need to be handling that kind of stuff. So, and and that was. That was maybe 10 years ago, Danielle, if not longer. So I'm still doing that.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:Every Tuesday evening I go down and take it out to the road so that it can be picked up. But, building on that, now not only that, but I have become friends with her kids. They live they live farther away, so it's easy for me to get to her than for them to come. So I do a little things around the house that can be done in five or 10 minutes, something like that, so that her kids don't have to drive 30 minutes across town to do a five-minute project. So that's an example of what I do in terms of just generosity.
Speaker 1:I have.
Speaker 3:We enjoy gardening, my wife and I. She loves flowers. I like growing vegetables in the backyard there, so we have. Right now I have a citrus tree, a tangerine tree in my backyard. That's amazing. It has over 100 tangerines on it. There's no way that we can eat hundred tangerines on it.
Speaker 2:There's no way that we can eat a hundred tangerines or more. You can't even preserve that many before they go bad.
Speaker 3:So what we do? We just bag them up in small quantities and give them to the neighbors.
Speaker 2:I love that You're taking your time and you're taking your resources that aren't even financial and giving the gift of generosity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for me, I have done both received and was giving generosity through a monetary value.
Speaker 2:And, interestingly, when I started my financial journey six I don't know eight years ago, eight years ago now, the path for financial freedom my husband and I we were living paycheck to paycheck and my mom came over. I had a new baby, who is now eight and he you know he's he's a lot whenever you are a new mom and I'm sure you remember those days of transition between being a person to being a mother and being a father right, a parent. So my mom came over and she slid me a hundred dollar bill and my mom didn't know it, but we were really struggling financially and I took the a hundred dollar bill and I went and bought formula and I went and bought groceries because we needed it real bad, and so that was me receiving the generosity. But years later, back in 2020, when my husband and I wanted to buy a house I'm a Christian woman, bobby, and I know that you follow your faith and I audibly heard God say give away $1,000. A lot of money to put a down payment on a house.
Speaker 2:So giving away a thousand was not on my radar at all, because you're trying to buy your first home and you're trying to save up, so I ended up getting a thousand dollars and fifties out at the bank, which they probably thought was a really weird but and I went to the grocery store and this is during COVID, right, it's, it's, I think, April, late April, May of 2020. So we're in the thick of it and I just start handing $50 bills to grocery workers.
Speaker 2:Like and this is what I said, bobby, because I was very new in my faith at that point and I said I know this is really really weird, but God told me that I need to give away money and, and you know, could you use this? 50 bucks. And they would be like thank you, thank you so much. That's really kind of you and I'm shaking in my boots while I'm doing this because I know I look weird just walking around the grocery store. So I ended up getting really nervous because I felt like people were looking at me for handing out money and I started stuffing $50 bills in egg cartons and on the shelf and like underneath bananas and stuff to try as much as I possibly could, because God told me a thousand.
Speaker 2:Well, I ended up giving away $550. And that's where my uncomfortableness came in and I was not willing to give any more at that point. Well, interestingly, we go and we buy a home and we go to the closing table and when we bought this home there were offers already gone through and that fell through and each offer came through a little bit more of that process was taken care of. So inspections such as you know, just regular home inspection and pest inspection, stuff like that that we would have paid out of pocket for. And whenever I looked at those closing documents and I looked at that line item of credit available, it was $550.
Speaker 3:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow. So talk about God's grace, right, and God's love.
Speaker 2:But it also shows, when we talked earlier about the abundance mindset, even though I was really scared and giving it away, I was giving it away. That was for me. My faith told me that I need to be giving it away and I think that one it made me realize, one, to trust in God, but two, that money comes back. If we are good stewards of our finances and give to other people, whether it is our finances, our time, resources, of any capacity, it'll come back. I'm sure that some of your neighbors who have received tangerines. They brought you a loaf of bread, maybe some juice.
Speaker 3:We're all the time receiving things from our neighbors. We really are just. You know good deeds and all kind of stuff from our neighbors, so it's a win-win for everybody involved and it's great. We have a great time doing it we enjoy doing it really, we really do, we enjoy, doing it.
Speaker 2:And I think that's something to say is that if you are giving from an open heart and you start this generosity journey, you are going to see yourself transform Absolutely. I 100 percent believe it.
Speaker 3:You will see yourself transform. You will, you will, you will. It's a different mindset. It's a different mindset giving versus trying to get a grabbing and taking. Giving versus trying to get a grabbing and taking, it's a totally different mindset. And the generosity is a positive mindset. It's part of your core values and you just enjoy life better, you feel better, you feel good about what you're doing and people will appreciate what you're doing.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and people don't realize how easy it is to start and it can be something, yeah, yeah. You can trash out for your neighbor and I think having an idea of you don't need to go and make a thousand dollar donation to anything if you can't afford those things. You start as simple as you know, when people drop things, picking it up for them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't need a skill set to be generous you don't, really don't just be you. We all have talents that we can use. So, like I said earlier, we're all unique, so there's something within you that you can be generous with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, you can have a hobby, a talent of some sort. You know my sister, she crochets, she loves it and she donates a lot of the stuff that she does. She enjoys doing it, it fills her heart to donate the products that she does make. And I think people are thinking that generosity can only come from money. It doesn't. It doesn't Right? Yeah, wonderful. Well, bobby is there anything else that you would like to add?
Speaker 3:Just want to say thank you for that this great talk on this great subject generosity. I'm really confident that we have helped some people here. We've helped people to look at their lives a little differently, helped them to reevaluate how they spend their time, how they spend their money as they go forward in life. And you can contact me at ClarkOnMoneycom is my website. I'm also on LinkedIn as well, so I have a newsletter. You can sign up for my newsletter and get two editions per month and you can read about things like generosity and also just your overall financial life is what I call it. The newsletter is the financial life, so we cover all aspects of your financial life in the newsletter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you have some really great articles that I was reading. So thank you so much, bobby, for being here. I really appreciate your time and your generosity and fill in a podcast for me and it was a great topic and I hope you take care.
Speaker 3:Thank you very much, Daniel.