October 20, 2025 • 23 mins
Ever feel boxed in by your finances or life decisions? In There’s Always Another Option, Paul shows how our habits and hurry can blind us to better paths—and how a little patience and prayer open doors we didn’t see before. Discover how slowing down, asking better questions, and trusting God’s guidance can reveal smarter, more peaceful choices.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Paul, Welcome to Catholic moneytalk, where we talk about all
things money and finance, and wetry to do it through a lens of
being Catholic, where ourultimate goal is to one day be
in Heaven with the Lord. I amyour host. Paul Scarfone, thank
you for being here today.
(00:21):
Welcome back to Catholic moneytalk. Today, I want to talk
about that. There's alwaysanother option. But first, let's
say a prayer in the name of theFather and of the Son of the
Holy Spirit. Amen, HeavenlyFather. We thank you for this
day. We thank you for all theways you love and bless us,
Lord. We know that you have anawesome plan for us and that you
(00:42):
love us so much. Just fill uswith great hope, fill us with
diligence and perseverance,Lord, so that we may run towards
where you are calling us, drawus to you, Lord, God Come Holy
Spirit. We ask this all in Jesusname, amen, in the name of the
Father and of the Son and of theHoly Spirit, Amen. So there's
(01:05):
always another option. And whyam I saying that? Well,
regularly, and this justhappened the other day,
regularly, when we are lookingat our situation, because it's
our situation and the pathforward requires us to do some
(01:27):
work or to make a decision.
Sometimes we can settle on thething that's in front of us,
right? So what do I mean bythat? The other day, I was at a
event at our kids school was acareer fair, and I was there as
a financial coach to talk tosome of the kids. And many of
(01:47):
the high schoolers know me, andmany of the students know me
because I've got so many kids inthe school. But one of the
parents came up to me and waschatting with me a little bit,
and I told her that one of thethings we're talking to the kids
about, and she has a child inhigh school that's taking my
class. I says, not to borrowmoney for a car.
(02:13):
And she said to me, well, thenhow they gonna get a car?
And I asked her, Well, how muchdoes a car cost? And she
responded, Well, at least 30,000and I said, Why? Why does your
child need a $30,000 car? Andshe said, Well, I want them to
be driving a safe vehicle,right? And so, so that was, that
(02:38):
was the one option that she kindof saw to get a loan to buy a
$30,000 vehicle for her child.
But then, those of youlistening, it might be easy for
us to come up with some othersolutions, because we're not the
one having to figure out theproblem, right? We're not the
one that has to tell the childlike, this is the car you're
(02:59):
getting and sometimes, whenwe've done things a certain way
for so long, we think that's theonly way to do it. But there's
always another option. Hence thetitle of the talk, the title of
this episode, and one of thequestions I like to ask my
clients when I look to my rightin my office here, this isn't a
video, so you can't see melooking to my right, but I
(03:20):
actually have a framed pictureof some bullet point statements,
questions, things for me toprompt my clients with when I'm
talking with them, when I'mtrying to get my my mind
organized, and I'll look and oneof my favorite questions is, and
what else? That's it and whatelse? So if they say the only
(03:43):
option is to get a car, but geta loan for a $30,000 car, my
question be well, and what else?
What are the other options? Giveme another one, because there
are. And once we use ourimagination like think of a
classroom setting. If Ipresented this to my I have 42
kids in the class that I'mteaching at the kids school
(04:05):
right now on Fridays. If I saidto them, each one of you give me
an option, a child needs to buya car. What? What's an option
they would have? We'd probablyget close to 40 different
options, right? Some kids wouldsay, borrow some money. Some
kids would say, Save up. Somekids would say, you don't need a
car. See if your parents willgive you one, whatever it might
(04:27):
be. And then if we ask thedollar amount, it'd be a
variety. So my point is, inlife, when we're in a particular
situation, we might thinkthere's no other option than the
one that's most evident orobvious to us, and
unfortunately, sometimes thoseevident or most obvious things
(04:47):
are just because that's thingswe always do. So we never look
further than that. A greatexample, when Taryn and I were
first married and we didn't havea lot of income, we did. Have a
lot of savings. I had a verysmall student loan that we were
paying, and is when we firstmarried. This was before my big
student loan of my master'sdegree. But we had a credit card
(05:12):
for emergencies. And so thefirst emergency, since we didn't
own a home, that we experiencedwas probably, I don't remember,
but it was probably related to avehicle. Maybe it was brakes.
And all of a sudden, a $300expense to replace brakes on a
car becomes an emergency, so weput it on the credit card. Well,
(05:33):
as life goes on, certainemergencies get bigger, and I
remember might have been childnumber two or three, where we
were going to midwives thatneeded to, they collected their
payment at, think 30 weeks. Theydidn't accept insurance. They it
(05:54):
was only like self pay, and youhad to pay them upfront at 30
weeks, and I think it was like$5,000 something like that. And
we knew that, but we weren'torganized with our finances, and
so when the time came to makethat payment, we put it on a
credit card because it was anemergency. That was the only
(06:16):
option we saw. Why? Becausethat's what we always did
and then,unfortunately, it probably sat
there for a while as we slowlypaid it off, we eventually were
able to, once the baby was born,submit that expense the
insurance company, and then theyprobably reimbursed us, you
(06:36):
know, out of network, whateverthe our you know, our
responsibility was, they tookand then they gave us the
balance of it.
But we learned. We taughtourselves to use a credit card
in case of emergencies, so thatwhen emergencies came, and this
went on for probably the first10 years of our marriage, yet
(06:58):
for the first 10 years of ourmarriage, we went to debt, we
went to our credit card, apersonal loan, and eventually a
home equity line of credit if wehad an emergency, that's what we
taught ourselves. We didn'tthink that we should stop and
save up money to create aemergency fund to help tackle
(07:21):
emergencies, we taught ourselvesto use credit. And so when
emergencies came and we lookedat our options, we only saw one
option to use a credit card. Andso I wish I was better at
listening to people back then,and I wish I had more voices
surrounding me that said,there's always another option,
(07:45):
right but, but many times whenwe're in the midst of it, we're
just trying to think straight.
We don't want to take time tosort through options and to find
a better way. We just want thepain to end right now, and so we
grab the first thing or theclosest thing we see. And so as
(08:07):
I was talking to that parent theother day, and we're talking
about purchasing a vehicle forher child, we went on in the
conversation, I and I asked her,I said, Do you think there's
other vehicle options besides a$30,000 vehicle that might be
(08:29):
suitable for your child? Whatare some of the things you're
looking for? And she startedmentioning different features.
Well, I want it to be safe, Iwant it to be comfortable. I
don't want it to break down. AndI said, well, of all these
features, what is the mostimportant what are the most
important features? And shesaid, Well, I want it not to
(08:51):
break down. I want it to besafe. And so we quickly agree
that like comfort and the looksof the vehicle and things like
that, the name brand or whateverit might be, were very much less
important. And then I asked her,I said, Do you know different
situations? Can you tell me ofsituations of other parents that
bought vehicles or helped theirchild buy vehicles? And she
(09:14):
said, Honestly, I don't. I justassume everyone just goes and
takes their kid to thedealership and buys them a car.
And I said, Oh no. I said, soask me, what did we do for our
challenge? She did. She's like,What did you do? I said, our
child saved up money, and aparticular amount, up to $3,000
we matched it, and they went outand bought a vehicle. And my
son, when he bought his car, itwas like, three grand, I think
(09:37):
exactly. So he saved threegrand. We gave him three grand.
He only spent three grand. Heonly spent three grand. He had
three grand emergency fund forhis vehicle starting day one. My
daughter, we're doing the samething. She's already got way
more than three grand saved, butwe've capped them. We will match
up to three grand. And she'salready looking for cars in the
234, $1,000 range. And I've beenwatching, actually, a couple
(09:59):
YouTube videos to. Try tothere's a friend who's a bit of
a mechanic, a bit of a gearheadrecommended this YouTube channel
to walk you through how to golook at a car that's on the side
of the road. What are the keythings to look at to know if
there's if it's worth pursuingfurther right? And so we
constantly have to learn,particularly in those areas that
(10:19):
we don't know a lot about like,for me, it's cars and mechanical
things. Like, I have to learnabout some of that stuff so I
can be better prepared toanalyze and also create and look
at various options to tackle theproblem that's in front of me.
But the beauty of havingoptions and a plan
(10:41):
is just knowing that the optionsexist. I have experienced calms
the nerves a bit, right when weexperience pain and we just want
to get out of it so quickly,whether it be some type of a car
emergency or medical emergency,or something like that, and
there's that money pain that wefeel. I have experienced that
the better organized my financesare, regardless of how much
(11:05):
money I have or saved orwhatever. When we were first
trying to get out of the debt,we still had different
emergencies, but since we had aplan, it was like a backstop to
my emotions, and I didn't losecontrol, because I would just
take a deep breath and we'dfigure it out. We could look at
everything. It wasn't that panicfrantic, you know, drive to try
(11:30):
to ease the pain and solve thisproblem as quickly as possible.
Now we try to solve problems asbest as possible, right? And
that there's a difference.
Sometimes it's quick, andsometimes it's not, depending on
how we're set up for it. Sothere's always another option,
and this is important. You know,there can be a significant cost
(11:51):
if we limit our thinking, right?
Use the example of getting a carloan to buy a car. Well, of
course, the cost is you're goingto pay more for a car that's
still going to depreciate.
You're going to lose value onplus you have the interest that
you're paying, plus you havethat lost opportunity cost of
that monthly payment. And again,think I talked about this not
(12:12):
too long ago. The averagemonthly payment, let's say used,
it's in the five hundreds, sothe cost is that opportunity
cost of now, you can't dosomething else with that 500 you
can't save up for somethingelse. You can't invest it. You
can't use it to pay for, youknow, life's things, right?
Rent, lights, kids, collegeexpenses, whatever it might be.
(12:35):
So there is a true cost if youlimit your thinking. And so the
key is to have that mindset,mindset, right? You might have
to shift it. But instead oflooking down and getting so busy
focusing on the problem, if wecan lift our eyes a little bit,
kind of get a broader picture ofwhat's going on and and start
(12:57):
asking better questions, right?
And so, so here's somequestions, right? We could ask
the one I'm starting with here,right?
Is there another option? Right?
And some of those questionsmight look like this, what else
is possible? Right? Sometimes wecan ask ourselves, we can ask
(13:20):
our spouse, or we can asksomeone else who really cares
about us and we might respecttheir opinion. We might ask, Who
do we know that's maybe solvedthis differently and maybe we
don't know? Maybe we thinksomeone else didn't we reach out
to them. Or we could ask afriend, say, Hey, do you know
anyone else who dealt with asimilar problem to this? Could I
talk to them? Or what did theydo? So who has solved this
(13:42):
differently? And then again,that feeling, that pain, you
just say, Well, what? Wait asecond. What if this pain wasn't
here? Let me take a deep breath.
What would I do if I wasn'tafraid? What would I do if I
wasn't in a panic? And sometimeswe have to see is we almost have
(14:02):
to triage the situation and say,Does timing matter, right? Is
this urgent, or is it justimportant? But it's not urgent.
Maybe it's urgent, but it's notvery important, and we could
almost just skip it for now,right? How do we triage that so
does timing matter? And thenanother one that I love to ask
(14:26):
is, if there's a lot of thingsgoing on, is there any way I
could combine some options onthe things I'm facing, right? Is
there an opportunity to maybehit two birds with one stone?
Could I shift something to helpmake something else work as
well? And that requires usstanding back looking up and
(14:46):
taking a view of the bigpicture. So I talked about, you
know, the example of a car,right? And trying to sifting
through those options. Questionsnot long ago, I think a few
episodes ago, I spoke aboutlooking at college or life after
high school, right? Are we doinga four year college, community
(15:08):
college, trade school? Wejumping right into the
workforce? Is there militaryscholarships, employee, employer
reimbursement, some type ofplan, or maybe we're just taking
a gap year and go make somemoney, or just take some time to
discern what the Lord might becalling us, right? So those are
different options for life aftercollege in housing. I have some
(15:29):
friends that are moving. Youknow, selling a house, buying a
house, buying a first house.
Maybe they just moved. I wastalking to a friend yesterday
who they were renting, and nowthey're having a baby. They had
to find a two bedroom, and theywere able to find a two bedroom
that was cheaper than the onebedroom there. It's not as
updated and as nice as the oldplace, but it's saving money and
(15:55):
is bigger. And they love thespace, right? They love the the
area that they just moved to. Solike, housing? Should we buy?
Should we rent? Can we do amultifamily? Could we? Could we
I know a couple, they're justthey moved in with a family,
just for a season, just for sometime. And I remember talking
about that. I said, just put alimit on the time. Like, don't
(16:17):
go in there, open ended. But saywe're going for six months.
We're going for nine monthsuntil we we've paid off this,
until we've saved up this,right? That's a that's an
option, as opposed to justjumping in to buying a house
that they're not ready to payfor, or just signing up a lease
on something that's veryexpensive that they know they
don't want to be there longterm, right? You How do you find
(16:37):
these different options? Anotherone might be and I deal with
this sometimes with marriedcouples, especially when they're
having a baby, or maybe theirfirst baby is childcare. Is
there work part time? Can we geta remote job? Is working going
to balance the loss of time withthe child and the expense of
(16:59):
daycare, right? Is there a wayfor one of the parents to stay
home to care for the baby andmaybe have some side hustle,
some remote work, some part timestuff going on that they can
close the gap on the finances?
Right? Flex flexible work. Maybeswap care. Maybe you change with
another family who you know,they're working three days a
week. We're working two days aweek, and we alternate with
(17:21):
watching the kids, or maybethere's some family help that's
available. You know, one of theother things, and this wasn't
part of my plan to talk abouttoday, but I do want to mention
it. You know, for many of us,when we find ourselves in
different and difficultsituations, maybe there's,
there's some pride that creepsin, and we don't want to ask for
(17:41):
help. We don't want to ask otherpeople. We don't want to go to
them and say, I'm not sure whatto do. Can you help me figure
this out? Most of us, I think welike to give, truly. We like to
give, right? We're made in theimage and likeness of God. He is
the biggest giver. He gave ushis only son. So there's the
most real part of us loves togive, and sometimes the evil
(18:03):
one, he distorts things, butthat desire to give sometimes
stops us from allowing toreceive right and accepting
other people's help or input andand here's the the beauty of
God's economy. We love to give,right? We love to give, and
(18:29):
everyone loves to give. What?
But? But sometimes we don't knowthose areas, or we don't see the
opportunities to give becausepeople aren't asking. There is
such grace in asking for help orsupport when we find ourselves
(18:50):
in a bit of a pickle, in a toughsituation, there is so much
grace to say, You know what?
Could you help me? You knowwhat? I'm looking for options,
and I could use someone to helpme figure out some options, or I
just feel very challenged andI'm not sure what to do. Can you
help me? Or maybe it's very Canyou watch my kid for for two
hours so I can go to a jobinterview? Right? Maybe it's a
(19:11):
very practical ask for help. ButI hear too many times people not
asking for help because theydon't want to be the one asking
for help. They want to be theone giving. Well, I hear some
pride in there, and I also knowthat there's so many people
around you that would love tohelp and to give and to support,
(19:31):
but we need to speak up. We needto raise our hand and say,
Please help me. Over my life,I've learned to do that more and
more, and I've also, as I'vedone that I've I've learned to
also see the cues in otherpeople when they might be
stifling that cry for help. AndI try to give them permission to
ask and to speak up. And I do itvery simply by just looking at
(19:55):
them and in all honesty and.
Right, and just 100% care andhonest humility. I'll ask them,
How are you doing? Is thereanything I could help you with?
What's the biggest challenge infront of you right now?
Could I help you with that?
(20:18):
And you'll see how people openup.
So we need to do that.
We need to support each other.
We need to love each other. Weneed to give to those around us
that need help. We need toaccept help and ask for help
when we need it. Because when wedon't, we limit ourselves. We
limit the options. There'salways another option. There's
(20:42):
always another option, no matterwhat situation you're facing
right now, if I gave it to aclassroom of 42 kids and I said,
let's come up with as a group,let's come up with 20 different
options, they would do it. Andthen you could pick one, right?
And you might not like any ofthem, and you could come up with
your own. But most of the timeis because we haven't planned
well. We're not allowingourselves time to stop, take a
(21:03):
deep breath, say a prayer, lookup, look around and see what
other options might exist,right? So when we face ourselves
in a tough situation, we thinkthere's only one option.
Forward. What are we going todo? We're going to pause, gonna
say prayer. We're not going torush. We can brain dump. I do
that. Sometimes I'll just braindump a million different ideas.
(21:27):
No idea is a bad idea. Let'sjust get it on paper and then
ask others seek counsel. Ifyou're married, you're doing
this with your spouse, pray youinvite the Holy Spirit into it.
I say this in my prayers a lot.
God has an awesome plan for you.
He does. It's great. It'sfantastic. But we've got to stop
(21:47):
and be quiet and listen andseek, seek His truth about it.
So that's what I that's what Ihave today. I'm hopefully. I'm
encouraging you, you know you'renot stuck. Options exist, other
options exist, even if you don'tsee them yet.
(22:11):
So let's do this as a takeaway.
Let's take one decision youmight be facing right now. Right
if you think there's maybe verylimited options, just take one
situation you're facing rightnow. Say a prayer. Say Lord,
reveal the truth of thissituation to me. Show me what
other options might exist, andwrite down at least five other
options. And if you need help,I'm here in the podcast episode
(22:36):
description, there is a link.
Get in touch with Paul. I wouldbe happy to serve you. Hopefully
this has been helpful today.
Thank you for joining me. Godbless.
Thank you for listening toCatholic money talk. I hope you
(22:58):
join us again next time, pleaseclick Subscribe on your podcast
app to get notified of newepisodes. God bless you and have
a great day. Foreign.
Paul, Welcome to Catholic moneytalk, where we talk about all
things money and finance, and wetry to do it through a lens of
being Catholic, where ourultimate goal is to one day be
in Heaven with the Lord. I amyour host. Paul Scarfone, thank
you for being here today.
(00:21):
Welcome back to Catholic moneytalk. Today, I want to talk
about that. There's alwaysanother option. But first, let's
say a prayer in the name of theFather and of the Son of the
Holy Spirit. Amen, HeavenlyFather. We thank you for this
day. We thank you for all theways you love and bless us,
Lord. We know that you have anawesome plan for us and that you
(00:42):
love us so much. Just fill uswith great hope, fill us with
diligence and perseverance,Lord, so that we may run towards
where you are calling us, drawus to you, Lord, God Come Holy
Spirit. We ask this all in Jesusname, amen, in the name of the
Father and of the Son and of theHoly Spirit, Amen. So there's
(01:05):
always another option. And whyam I saying that? Well,
regularly, and this justhappened the other day,
regularly, when we are lookingat our situation, because it's
our situation and the pathforward requires us to do some
(01:27):
work or to make a decision.
Sometimes we can settle on thething that's in front of us,
right? So what do I mean bythat? The other day, I was at a
event at our kids school was acareer fair, and I was there as
a financial coach to talk tosome of the kids. And many of
(01:47):
the high schoolers know me, andmany of the students know me
because I've got so many kids inthe school. But one of the
parents came up to me and waschatting with me a little bit,
and I told her that one of thethings we're talking to the kids
about, and she has a child inhigh school that's taking my
class. I says, not to borrowmoney for a car.
(02:13):
And she said to me, well, thenhow they gonna get a car?
And I asked her, Well, how muchdoes a car cost? And she
responded, Well, at least 30,000and I said, Why? Why does your
child need a $30,000 car? Andshe said, Well, I want them to
be driving a safe vehicle,right? And so, so that was, that
(02:38):
was the one option that she kindof saw to get a loan to buy a
$30,000 vehicle for her child.
But then, those of youlistening, it might be easy for
us to come up with some othersolutions, because we're not the
one having to figure out theproblem, right? We're not the
one that has to tell the childlike, this is the car you're
(02:59):
getting and sometimes, whenwe've done things a certain way
for so long, we think that's theonly way to do it. But there's
always another option. Hence thetitle of the talk, the title of
this episode, and one of thequestions I like to ask my
clients when I look to my rightin my office here, this isn't a
video, so you can't see melooking to my right, but I
(03:20):
actually have a framed pictureof some bullet point statements,
questions, things for me toprompt my clients with when I'm
talking with them, when I'mtrying to get my my mind
organized, and I'll look and oneof my favorite questions is, and
what else? That's it and whatelse? So if they say the only
(03:43):
option is to get a car, but geta loan for a $30,000 car, my
question be well, and what else?
What are the other options? Giveme another one, because there
are. And once we use ourimagination like think of a
classroom setting. If Ipresented this to my I have 42
kids in the class that I'mteaching at the kids school
(04:05):
right now on Fridays. If I saidto them, each one of you give me
an option, a child needs to buya car. What? What's an option
they would have? We'd probablyget close to 40 different
options, right? Some kids wouldsay, borrow some money. Some
kids would say, Save up. Somekids would say, you don't need a
car. See if your parents willgive you one, whatever it might
(04:27):
be. And then if we ask thedollar amount, it'd be a
variety. So my point is, inlife, when we're in a particular
situation, we might thinkthere's no other option than the
one that's most evident orobvious to us, and
unfortunately, sometimes thoseevident or most obvious things
(04:47):
are just because that's thingswe always do. So we never look
further than that. A greatexample, when Taryn and I were
first married and we didn't havea lot of income, we did. Have a
lot of savings. I had a verysmall student loan that we were
paying, and is when we firstmarried. This was before my big
student loan of my master'sdegree. But we had a credit card
(05:12):
for emergencies. And so thefirst emergency, since we didn't
own a home, that we experiencedwas probably, I don't remember,
but it was probably related to avehicle. Maybe it was brakes.
And all of a sudden, a $300expense to replace brakes on a
car becomes an emergency, so weput it on the credit card. Well,
(05:33):
as life goes on, certainemergencies get bigger, and I
remember might have been childnumber two or three, where we
were going to midwives thatneeded to, they collected their
payment at, think 30 weeks. Theydidn't accept insurance. They it
(05:54):
was only like self pay, and youhad to pay them upfront at 30
weeks, and I think it was like$5,000 something like that. And
we knew that, but we weren'torganized with our finances, and
so when the time came to makethat payment, we put it on a
credit card because it was anemergency. That was the only
(06:16):
option we saw. Why? Becausethat's what we always did
and then,unfortunately, it probably sat
there for a while as we slowlypaid it off, we eventually were
able to, once the baby was born,submit that expense the
insurance company, and then theyprobably reimbursed us, you
(06:36):
know, out of network, whateverthe our you know, our
responsibility was, they tookand then they gave us the
balance of it.
But we learned. We taughtourselves to use a credit card
in case of emergencies, so thatwhen emergencies came, and this
went on for probably the first10 years of our marriage, yet
(06:58):
for the first 10 years of ourmarriage, we went to debt, we
went to our credit card, apersonal loan, and eventually a
home equity line of credit if wehad an emergency, that's what we
taught ourselves. We didn'tthink that we should stop and
save up money to create aemergency fund to help tackle
(07:21):
emergencies, we taught ourselvesto use credit. And so when
emergencies came and we lookedat our options, we only saw one
option to use a credit card. Andso I wish I was better at
listening to people back then,and I wish I had more voices
surrounding me that said,there's always another option,
(07:45):
right but, but many times whenwe're in the midst of it, we're
just trying to think straight.
We don't want to take time tosort through options and to find
a better way. We just want thepain to end right now, and so we
grab the first thing or theclosest thing we see. And so as
(08:07):
I was talking to that parent theother day, and we're talking
about purchasing a vehicle forher child, we went on in the
conversation, I and I asked her,I said, Do you think there's
other vehicle options besides a$30,000 vehicle that might be
(08:29):
suitable for your child? Whatare some of the things you're
looking for? And she startedmentioning different features.
Well, I want it to be safe, Iwant it to be comfortable. I
don't want it to break down. AndI said, well, of all these
features, what is the mostimportant what are the most
important features? And shesaid, Well, I want it not to
(08:51):
break down. I want it to besafe. And so we quickly agree
that like comfort and the looksof the vehicle and things like
that, the name brand or whateverit might be, were very much less
important. And then I asked her,I said, Do you know different
situations? Can you tell me ofsituations of other parents that
bought vehicles or helped theirchild buy vehicles? And she
(09:14):
said, Honestly, I don't. I justassume everyone just goes and
takes their kid to thedealership and buys them a car.
And I said, Oh no. I said, soask me, what did we do for our
challenge? She did. She's like,What did you do? I said, our
child saved up money, and aparticular amount, up to $3,000
we matched it, and they went outand bought a vehicle. And my
son, when he bought his car, itwas like, three grand, I think
(09:37):
exactly. So he saved threegrand. We gave him three grand.
He only spent three grand. Heonly spent three grand. He had
three grand emergency fund forhis vehicle starting day one. My
daughter, we're doing the samething. She's already got way
more than three grand saved, butwe've capped them. We will match
up to three grand. And she'salready looking for cars in the
234, $1,000 range. And I've beenwatching, actually, a couple
(09:59):
YouTube videos to. Try tothere's a friend who's a bit of
a mechanic, a bit of a gearheadrecommended this YouTube channel
to walk you through how to golook at a car that's on the side
of the road. What are the keythings to look at to know if
there's if it's worth pursuingfurther right? And so we
constantly have to learn,particularly in those areas that
(10:19):
we don't know a lot about like,for me, it's cars and mechanical
things. Like, I have to learnabout some of that stuff so I
can be better prepared toanalyze and also create and look
at various options to tackle theproblem that's in front of me.
But the beauty of havingoptions and a plan
(10:41):
is just knowing that the optionsexist. I have experienced calms
the nerves a bit, right when weexperience pain and we just want
to get out of it so quickly,whether it be some type of a car
emergency or medical emergency,or something like that, and
there's that money pain that wefeel. I have experienced that
the better organized my financesare, regardless of how much
(11:05):
money I have or saved orwhatever. When we were first
trying to get out of the debt,we still had different
emergencies, but since we had aplan, it was like a backstop to
my emotions, and I didn't losecontrol, because I would just
take a deep breath and we'dfigure it out. We could look at
everything. It wasn't that panicfrantic, you know, drive to try
(11:30):
to ease the pain and solve thisproblem as quickly as possible.
Now we try to solve problems asbest as possible, right? And
that there's a difference.
Sometimes it's quick, andsometimes it's not, depending on
how we're set up for it. Sothere's always another option,
and this is important. You know,there can be a significant cost
(11:51):
if we limit our thinking, right?
Use the example of getting a carloan to buy a car. Well, of
course, the cost is you're goingto pay more for a car that's
still going to depreciate.
You're going to lose value onplus you have the interest that
you're paying, plus you havethat lost opportunity cost of
that monthly payment. And again,think I talked about this not
(12:12):
too long ago. The averagemonthly payment, let's say used,
it's in the five hundreds, sothe cost is that opportunity
cost of now, you can't dosomething else with that 500 you
can't save up for somethingelse. You can't invest it. You
can't use it to pay for, youknow, life's things, right?
Rent, lights, kids, collegeexpenses, whatever it might be.
(12:35):
So there is a true cost if youlimit your thinking. And so the
key is to have that mindset,mindset, right? You might have
to shift it. But instead oflooking down and getting so busy
focusing on the problem, if wecan lift our eyes a little bit,
kind of get a broader picture ofwhat's going on and and start
(12:57):
asking better questions, right?
And so, so here's somequestions, right? We could ask
the one I'm starting with here,right?
Is there another option? Right?
And some of those questionsmight look like this, what else
is possible? Right? Sometimes wecan ask ourselves, we can ask
(13:20):
our spouse, or we can asksomeone else who really cares
about us and we might respecttheir opinion. We might ask, Who
do we know that's maybe solvedthis differently and maybe we
don't know? Maybe we thinksomeone else didn't we reach out
to them. Or we could ask afriend, say, Hey, do you know
anyone else who dealt with asimilar problem to this? Could I
talk to them? Or what did theydo? So who has solved this
(13:42):
differently? And then again,that feeling, that pain, you
just say, Well, what? Wait asecond. What if this pain wasn't
here? Let me take a deep breath.
What would I do if I wasn'tafraid? What would I do if I
wasn't in a panic? And sometimeswe have to see is we almost have
(14:02):
to triage the situation and say,Does timing matter, right? Is
this urgent, or is it justimportant? But it's not urgent.
Maybe it's urgent, but it's notvery important, and we could
almost just skip it for now,right? How do we triage that so
does timing matter? And thenanother one that I love to ask
(14:26):
is, if there's a lot of thingsgoing on, is there any way I
could combine some options onthe things I'm facing, right? Is
there an opportunity to maybehit two birds with one stone?
Could I shift something to helpmake something else work as
well? And that requires usstanding back looking up and
(14:46):
taking a view of the bigpicture. So I talked about, you
know, the example of a car,right? And trying to sifting
through those options. Questionsnot long ago, I think a few
episodes ago, I spoke aboutlooking at college or life after
high school, right? Are we doinga four year college, community
(15:08):
college, trade school? Wejumping right into the
workforce? Is there militaryscholarships, employee, employer
reimbursement, some type ofplan, or maybe we're just taking
a gap year and go make somemoney, or just take some time to
discern what the Lord might becalling us, right? So those are
different options for life aftercollege in housing. I have some
(15:29):
friends that are moving. Youknow, selling a house, buying a
house, buying a first house.
Maybe they just moved. I wastalking to a friend yesterday
who they were renting, and nowthey're having a baby. They had
to find a two bedroom, and theywere able to find a two bedroom
that was cheaper than the onebedroom there. It's not as
updated and as nice as the oldplace, but it's saving money and
(15:55):
is bigger. And they love thespace, right? They love the the
area that they just moved to. Solike, housing? Should we buy?
Should we rent? Can we do amultifamily? Could we? Could we
I know a couple, they're justthey moved in with a family,
just for a season, just for sometime. And I remember talking
about that. I said, just put alimit on the time. Like, don't
(16:17):
go in there, open ended. But saywe're going for six months.
We're going for nine monthsuntil we we've paid off this,
until we've saved up this,right? That's a that's an
option, as opposed to justjumping in to buying a house
that they're not ready to payfor, or just signing up a lease
on something that's veryexpensive that they know they
don't want to be there longterm, right? You How do you find
(16:37):
these different options? Anotherone might be and I deal with
this sometimes with marriedcouples, especially when they're
having a baby, or maybe theirfirst baby is childcare. Is
there work part time? Can we geta remote job? Is working going
to balance the loss of time withthe child and the expense of
(16:59):
daycare, right? Is there a wayfor one of the parents to stay
home to care for the baby andmaybe have some side hustle,
some remote work, some part timestuff going on that they can
close the gap on the finances?
Right? Flex flexible work. Maybeswap care. Maybe you change with
another family who you know,they're working three days a
week. We're working two days aweek, and we alternate with
(17:21):
watching the kids, or maybethere's some family help that's
available. You know, one of theother things, and this wasn't
part of my plan to talk abouttoday, but I do want to mention
it. You know, for many of us,when we find ourselves in
different and difficultsituations, maybe there's,
there's some pride that creepsin, and we don't want to ask for
(17:41):
help. We don't want to ask otherpeople. We don't want to go to
them and say, I'm not sure whatto do. Can you help me figure
this out? Most of us, I think welike to give, truly. We like to
give, right? We're made in theimage and likeness of God. He is
the biggest giver. He gave ushis only son. So there's the
most real part of us loves togive, and sometimes the evil
(18:03):
one, he distorts things, butthat desire to give sometimes
stops us from allowing toreceive right and accepting
other people's help or input andand here's the the beauty of
God's economy. We love to give,right? We love to give, and
(18:29):
everyone loves to give. What?
But? But sometimes we don't knowthose areas, or we don't see the
opportunities to give becausepeople aren't asking. There is
such grace in asking for help orsupport when we find ourselves
(18:50):
in a bit of a pickle, in a toughsituation, there is so much
grace to say, You know what?
Could you help me? You knowwhat? I'm looking for options,
and I could use someone to helpme figure out some options, or I
just feel very challenged andI'm not sure what to do. Can you
help me? Or maybe it's very Canyou watch my kid for for two
hours so I can go to a jobinterview? Right? Maybe it's a
(19:11):
very practical ask for help. ButI hear too many times people not
asking for help because theydon't want to be the one asking
for help. They want to be theone giving. Well, I hear some
pride in there, and I also knowthat there's so many people
around you that would love tohelp and to give and to support,
(19:31):
but we need to speak up. We needto raise our hand and say,
Please help me. Over my life,I've learned to do that more and
more, and I've also, as I'vedone that I've I've learned to
also see the cues in otherpeople when they might be
stifling that cry for help. AndI try to give them permission to
ask and to speak up. And I do itvery simply by just looking at
(19:55):
them and in all honesty and.
Right, and just 100% care andhonest humility. I'll ask them,
How are you doing? Is thereanything I could help you with?
What's the biggest challenge infront of you right now?
Could I help you with that?
(20:18):
And you'll see how people openup.
So we need to do that.
We need to support each other.
We need to love each other. Weneed to give to those around us
that need help. We need toaccept help and ask for help
when we need it. Because when wedon't, we limit ourselves. We
limit the options. There'salways another option. There's
(20:42):
always another option, no matterwhat situation you're facing
right now, if I gave it to aclassroom of 42 kids and I said,
let's come up with as a group,let's come up with 20 different
options, they would do it. Andthen you could pick one, right?
And you might not like any ofthem, and you could come up with
your own. But most of the timeis because we haven't planned
well. We're not allowingourselves time to stop, take a
(21:03):
deep breath, say a prayer, lookup, look around and see what
other options might exist,right? So when we face ourselves
in a tough situation, we thinkthere's only one option.
Forward. What are we going todo? We're going to pause, gonna
say prayer. We're not going torush. We can brain dump. I do
that. Sometimes I'll just braindump a million different ideas.
(21:27):
No idea is a bad idea. Let'sjust get it on paper and then
ask others seek counsel. Ifyou're married, you're doing
this with your spouse, pray youinvite the Holy Spirit into it.
I say this in my prayers a lot.
God has an awesome plan for you.
He does. It's great. It'sfantastic. But we've got to stop
(21:47):
and be quiet and listen andseek, seek His truth about it.
So that's what I that's what Ihave today. I'm hopefully. I'm
encouraging you, you know you'renot stuck. Options exist, other
options exist, even if you don'tsee them yet.
(22:11):
So let's do this as a takeaway.
Let's take one decision youmight be facing right now. Right
if you think there's maybe verylimited options, just take one
situation you're facing rightnow. Say a prayer. Say Lord,
reveal the truth of thissituation to me. Show me what
other options might exist, andwrite down at least five other
options. And if you need help,I'm here in the podcast episode
(22:36):
description, there is a link.
Get in touch with Paul. I wouldbe happy to serve you. Hopefully
this has been helpful today.
Thank you for joining me. Godbless.
Thank you for listening toCatholic money talk. I hope you
(22:58):
join us again next time, pleaseclick Subscribe on your podcast
app to get notified of newepisodes. God bless you and have
a great day. Foreign.
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