Sooo, after Sarah thought about it for a day she decided to loan him the money. So the next day she transferred THOUSANDS of dollars to him. Shortly after that she felt the Holy Spirit telling her she ended to end that relationship. So she DID end the relationship and NEVER got the money back. He said he would pay her back and never did so this was a HUGE learning lesson for Sarah! She learned that something that they never talked about in a relationship and then never sought guidance about then became a BREAKING POINT in the relationship and an ENDING POINT. 

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When you’re dating someone there are 3 CORE red flags you should look out for when it comes to MONEY! 

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The first one is, that the person has NO money GOALS or PLAN. If someone doesn’t have an aspiration or goal of where they want to be financially, they will NEVER get there, obviously. The average american lives paycheck to paycheck and Sarah believes one of the main reasons for this is that they have no financial goals. Therefore they will live status quo their whole life and accept that as normal. They’ll say, “living paycheck to paycheck is NORMAL,” “having debt is NORMAL.” Well you know what, normal sucks! We sure don’t want to be that kind of normal when it comes to money! Then maybe someone has a goal but they don’t have a PLAN. We can never get where we want to go if we have no PLAN to get there. 

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The second red flag is, if they HIDE their current money situation from YOU. In a beautiful, open, God-fearing relationship there is transparency and vulnerability and that includes MONEY. This is especially important because marriage is a merger, and whatever they’re coming with will then become yours too! 

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The third red flag is, if someone is too PRIDEFUL to seek help or guidance from someone else when it comes to their money! There are very FEW people who can manage ALL of their assets on their own. If they can’t seek help from a money standpoint they probably won’t seek help in other areas of their life. Everyone should have a board of directors in their life and that includes finances. 

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There is no SET time or date when you should have this conversation. So Sarah recommends having a money conversation with someone when you feel like you’re getting to that point where you’re falling in love with them. You should 100% have the conversation BEFORE engagement! A good way to bring up this conversation is to say,
“Hey I know money is such a massive piller in our lives, I think it would be really great if we sat down and shared we were both at financially so we can be transparent and on the same page.” A FINANCE date!!!! Hahaha it’s not an interview though! 

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The good thing about money is that almost anything with money is fixable!! There are TWO things you need though to fix it. First, a PLAN! How are you going to pay off your debt? What’s the timeframe? The second thing is, DISCIPLINE! You will never pay anything off if you don’t have discipline. So if you’re dating someone who has debt you need to ask yourself if they have a plan and if they have discipline? If they have a plan and discipline then they’ll get it paid off and that is fixable! If they have no plan and they have no discipline then that is a RED FLAG because you have no idea when they’ll get it paid off or what they’ll do with money in the future. 

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It’s so important for singles to have the mentatliy of being an ASSET for a future spouse. 

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Sarah says she has TWO things she recommends for singles to get themselves ahead! 

The first thing is, DON’T WAIT until you fall in love/get married to figure out your finances. Women, don’t wait for a man to financially take care of you. Men, don’t wait until you fall in love/get married to get your fiances together. You do have to be able to steward finances well to take care of a family. The second is to start INVESTING NOW! The power of TIME in investing is HUGE! 

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Your money mistakes do not define you! 

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