I will be retiring in a few months. The only reason I can retire now is that I quit paying tithing in time.

Roughly a decade ago, certain doubts that I had repressed for many years were getting too hard to ignore. My problems were not with the LDS church, per se, but I found it increasingly difficult to accept the nature of God as taught in Abrahamic religions. I found the reality of, or need for, a savior to be (in a word) wrong. I slowly reduced my involvement with TSCC, as I felt disingenuous (if not dishonest) about affiliating with any religion. Before long, I stopped paying tithing, but for a while, I paid a generous fast offering. I believed, at the time, that fast offerings actually were used for those in need.

About a year after I stopped giving TSCC any money, I got a huge raise. I decided to put the great majority of my increase into 401(k) and other retirement savings. Now I’m able to retire while I still have good enough health to enjoy thigs for a while. I have a couple of fairly significant health issues and if I had continued to pay tithing, I might have needed to continue to work until I was physically unable to do so.

I testify of the blessings of not paying tithing.

Amen to that! My retirement accounts are MUCH healthier because I stopped giving money to the corporation. I need it a lot more than they ever did.

Been retired for 3 years now.

My spouse adapted quickly to the increase in checking account funds. Vacations are more elaborate, eating out more frequent. In retrospect I should have gotten a secret gym membership and pretended that I was still going to church.
My spouse has a testimony of not paying tithing, I have seen little difference.
I could try to tell her that I am going back, but she would leave me for sure. It is also an effort pretending to be unhappy all the time and I would need a service to call my phone frequently.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/04/2018 08:36PM by chipace.

Congrats. Money for you and your family instead of donuts for fat guys at the church office bldg.

My life has been enriched by not paying tithing. Now I feel more financially secure.

When I finally determined for sure that TSCC is not true, I had to back out of paying tithing slowly. I had been so indoctrinated with the concept that not paying up anymore would cause the "blessings" that were holding my family up to come crashing down. I slowly reduced my tithing payments for almost a year, then stopped paying altogether. Surprise! The blessings came from NOT paying tithing!

I personally believe that donating to help the poor and other worthy causes does bring blessings to the giver. But God expects you to use your head and give what you can reasonably afford. TSCC forgot to tell us that our own family comes first!

I'll give TSCC one bit of credit...

After I left, I decided to "religiously" save 10% of each paycheck. Not to give to the church, but to go into savings/retirement accounts. Doing so served me very well.

Later on, I found out that the "save 10% of every check" idea is pretty much standard financial advice, and that it has nothing to do with religious "tithing" concepts. Great. Only I didn't know that when I started -- my thought was to take the 10% I was giving the cult and make it be useful.

Congratulations on your retirement, btw! :)

After I quit paying tithing several years ago, I consciously took the same 10% and put it in an auto-withdrawal account for retirement.That account has grown to over 6 figures.

I testify that the blessings of tithing are true.

I stopped paying tithing the month I graduated BYU. I was a poor student with no money. Now I make significantly more. It'd hurt me so much to pay 10% of my income. I use that money for better things.

Being able to feed my family when that 10% would have left the pantry empty.