Save today to save tomorrow

Have you ever had a friend reach out to you in need of an immediate favor? Maybe it’s to borrow your lawn mower or to move a suspiciously-sized object wrapped in a rug into the trunk of a Town Car.

If your house were on fire, and you had to run through a burning doorway to carry your child out, you wouldn’t have time to get physically strong enough at that moment. You wouldn’t have time to build your cardiovascular endurance. Imagine that you couldn’t drop everything and come to the aid of someone in need.

You have to prepare, to be strong and ready when called upon.

In 2017, my wife and I hosted Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University (FPU) course for our church small group. We both worked in finance and thought that the course wasn’t for us—we made enough not to worry about credit card debt, and my wife was frugal enough for the both of us.

The best way I’d seen Ramsey’s teaching described: “It’s good for people who are bad with money and bad for people who are good with money.”

To be fair, much of it didn’t apply to us in that season, but one lesson changed our lives forever. It’s a twist on a phrase we often tell our children to buy us more time: “I’m not saying no; I’m saying not right now.”

Simply put: “Say no now, to say yes later.”

In the context of financial peace, the obvious perspective is saying no to instant gratification to save for a rainy day, a family vacation, or a new BBQ grill. And that’s certainly important, especially if you have children with uncertain medical needs.

As we went through the nine-week course with our small group, my wife and I realized that financial peace was more than being debt-free and more than saving for our own inevitable rainy days.

It’s about being diligent with your finances so that you can help immediately when called upon.

As we wrapped up FPU, we learned that some family friends had recently hit dire financial straits. Their apartment had flooded and they spent a month in a hotel. Then, their car got rear-ended. This family meant a lot to us—they were hard-working, salt-of-the-earth people who had already survived a lifetime of struggle and hardship. We wanted to shower them with love and blessings. And because my wife and I had started reigning in our spending while we went through the course with our group, we were in a position to immediately step in.

Last week, Hurricane Helene ripped through the Southeast, leaving homes just two blocks away unlivable. We were lucky to have escaped with a 50-hour power outage. We were lucky that Lexi didn’t need powered medical equipment. And we were blessed with friends and neighbors who stepped in to help us by offering their homes and electricity, even babysitting Lexi for a few hours so that we could clean out our fridge and freezer.

Since then, we’ve been pouring back into our community by coordinating donations of household supplies, loaning out tools, and supporting our church, which is very active in the Tampa Bay area. If you can, I urge you to find ways to help those families impacted by Helene—your local church, blood bank, or nonprofit is almost certainly gathering blessings to pour onto others.

But how does this help us, as fathers of special needs children? One, filling the cups of those in need is often the best way to fill your own. Two, being prepared to help others presupposes you’ve already prepared to support your family and shows the world that you are able to do more. And that is part of our calling: doing more.

Over the coming months, I’ll share how we introduce the above concepts to our eldest able child and how we save, invest, and prepare for her and Lexi’s future. I’d love to learn how you do this, too - from special needs trusts, 529s, or GME options trading. Drop me a line and let me know how you steward your family financially.

Clear eyes, full cups, can’t lose,
Duke

P.S.- Not sure where, who, or how to support groups making impact on the ground right now? Check out this emergency response fundraiser The Giving Block launched. They accept credit cards, stocks, and crypto. (I previously worked for them and am happy to help you set up nonprofits you’re personally connected to due to your child’s disease or condition.)