The Secular Benefits of Tithing

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Just so you don't think I deal exlusively in potty humor, let me share with you my thoughts on the secular benefits of tithing (i.e. giving ten percent of your income to the church). If you feel you have a religious duty to regularly given ten percent of your income, then it forces you to keep a budget so that you know what your income is in any given time period. And that's the first step toward financial discipline.

Once my wife and I got meticulous about tithing (we had been moving etc. and it took a while for us to really buckle down--she took over when I was clearly not up to the challenge and did everything in Excel) we had all sorts of money left over every month, whereas previously we had been eating Ramen at the end of every pay cycle. (Not quite, but almost.) And part of it could be divine rewards, but I don't think our income went up all that much. I think it must just be that we were previously spending all kinds of money on odd things here and there because we didn't formulate an official budget every month.

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