Tithing has been, for most of my mormon life, the second biggest expense in our family budget. I want to kick myself for being so gullible and believing that giving money to the church was the best use of our money. I sometimes want to kick myself for that. I'm not sure why that bothers me the most. The time I gave is not so bad because I actually enjoyed going to church and my callings, but the more I think about the money the more it bothers me. Perhaps it is because the budgets for YW and RS were so tight and we had to always be making miracles with the little we were given. Of course, we could never raise money and we shouldn't ask the girls or their parents to pay for things. I wish I had use the tithing money to directly benefit those young women, seminary students or RS sisters. I'd like to go back and have at the very least better snacks!

If an evangelical, a fundamentalist, a JW or a scientologist came to me and told me his/her church requires 10% of his/her gross income as part of living the commandments of God and for him/her to be able to participate in special closed-door meetings I'm sure I'll tell that person he/she is crazy. I'd probably say he/she is being scammed out of his/her money, but I never could apply that logic to me and the lds church. I sit here staring at my computer screen and shaking my head, I can't believe I believed. I really do want my money back.

D

"I'd probably say he/she is being scammed out of his/her money, but I never could apply that logic to me and the lds church."

This happens more often than we think. If a wealthy and powerful mega church in Dallas spent millions on a commercial real estate project, Mormons would be the first to scoff at it, even though TSCC does it all the time. I guess it's okay to scam people out of their money as long as it's being done by the "true" church.

It's a wonder they can afford to turn the lights on seeing as how they have never gotten one red cent from me...always figured someone else could pay up as my $$'s had better uses for them...

I was reading about a local woman today -- 82 years old, twice widowed, four or five grown kids, and she's still working and paying down a mortgage.

For anyone who is still paying tithing -- you will need that money one day. You will need it. There will come a point where you desperately want to quit working. Save the money that you would otherwise have sent to the real estate corporation posing as a church.

One of the smartest moves I ever made was when we started putting that tithing money in savings. Not only do we finally have enough to pay bills, but also funds for emergencies and charity. For too many years we pinched pennies and went without just so we could be found worthy of our Temple Recommends.

I totally can relate to that JoD. I stopped paying and have not realied on my PLOC to help me out with bills, which I did from time to time when paying tithing. I heard some exmo suggest to put money into savings and I have done that, maybe not the exact 10% but close enough to have emergency and vacation money.

My temple recommend recently expired and I am now not worthy to go to the temple, I keep thinking wow it is about money. I attend, nobody knows of my unbelief, I hold calling and do more than many in my ward but because I do not pay I cannot attend the temple. Interestingly enough it's a relief to have my Saturdays free. =)

D

...between wife and me.
I proposed she pay half and she pulled a Solomon on me and said our money is shared and not split down the middle (you know, like cutting the baby in half), so I backed off.
But it bothers me that we're paying protection money to a racket. I'm not greedy...actually my wife is greedier than me. I've seen her fight with her siblings over possession of furniture, and she gets mad about not having enough for this or that...
...which is what pisses me off.
I make about 100k per year, which as a HS dropout was more than she had any reason to expect. She quit working when our first baby was born and has been a SAHM for over 12 years, which is fine. But she has said things like "You get PAID for YOUR work", which is a slap in the face because I NEVER stashed a dime. She budgets ALL of it and I've lived off an allowance from HER budget, and if anything SHE'S the one that stashes money and spends it as she pleases.
Then she had the gall to say we don't have enough money...it took all my strength to keep from yelling BULL SHIT. 1) 100k is enough. We only have about 50K in student loans, and one car payment. We rent, no mortgage. If she wasn't at the store every fucking day we'd have a huge surplus. She shops, and shops, and shops, and then tells me how grateful I should be that she does the shopping. 2) She says this to me while handing over the equivalent of HALF a mortgage to the CHURCH! So yes, TITHING is our #2 expense! It's more than half our rent, and it's double our car payment, and it's double our student loan payments.

So I resent tithing not because I miss the money for my own use, but because she blames ME for an inadequate income while paying such an exorbitant membership fee to Jesus Christ's front men. And, no doubt they tell her she's strong and exercising great faith while telling her how wrong I am...so I'm paying my own detractors to discredit me in my wife's eyes. Then I extend that to all their propaganda...I'm PAYING for their misinformation and dogma that is against my own secular humanist views. I wish I could donate a FRACTION of what I pay in tithing to a worthy cause!

I'm sorry to hear you're still paying. I stopped paying over a year ago and it has so far been a good decision. I still attend church and I am able to contribute with better 'snacks' for any of our activities, why? because I actually can afford it.

Don't give up, keep bringing the subject up with your wife. And good luck.

D

Wow, this was sad for me to read. Something seems very wrong with her claiming that the money is shared, not split down the middle, but then she is the one who decides how all of it will be spent.

I know there is no easy solution to this dilemma of yours, but I wish you the best in working this out. I do encourage you to find a way to resolve this issue, though. You seem justifiably angry about this and I fear it will only grow as a problem for you.

Money is always a tough issue in a relationship, because it represents power, control, and values -- not just a resource. I think it is admirable that you do not consider the money all yours because you earn it, but I sincerely hope you will be able to find a middle ground.

A paycheck is not a baby. Unlike a baby, money CAN be split in half. People do it every day in divorce court. It sounds like you have a serious marriage problem here, and the key to keeping a marriage intact is compromise. The fairest compromise is to split the tithing money in half. She can do what she wants with her half, you can do what you want with your half.

I'm the main breadwinner with a TBM wife who earns a little bit of side income. The angle I took with my wife is that it is MY name on the paycheck, I earned it so therefore it is MY income, and it is OUR money since we have the legal rights and obligations of being married to each other. I said the church teaches that we pay tithing on income, and income is only what we earn, it isn't every dollar we receive, like inheritances or gifts. I was playing semantics, yes, but it seems to have worked, and I pay zilch on tithing from my paycheck, and she pays on whatever she earns, which I hate, but its a compromise. Plus, we go out every weekend and she gets nice things for birthdays and holidays. I tried very consciously to spend more money on her once I stopped giving money to LD$ Inc. She hasn't said one word about it in the almost 2 years since I stopped paying.

I make close to 100k also, and live in Southern California. Behind Hawaii, Alaska, and the San Francisco Bay Area, its got to be one of the most expensive places to live in the U.S. When I paid tithing, we literally had nothing left for vacations or retirement. We had no surplus at all. Everything we saved during the year went to either the insurance companies or the county tax assessor.
Now I put most of what I paid in tithing into our 401K. I regret all those years I gave money to the Corporation of the President, with no promises of any return on investment.

As a previous poster in another thread stated, the LD$ Church WILL NOT provide for you and your wife in your retirement years. If you make more than enough to get by, whatever is left should be going to your future, not to a greedy real estate investment corporation. Does your wife even know about the Mormon Mall?

Your family budget should just not only be your wife's decision. You need to sit down with each other, negotiate, and compromise. If she doesn't like this, too bad. It's not just her call. Don't let her bully you about this.

She can have 5% to tithe. Your 5% can go toward saving for a home. You are at an age where you should definitely be doing this.

One thing that I didn't realize when I bought my own home was just how much money I would be getting back in my tax refund (due to the mortgage interest deduction.) It was $3,000 more than what I had been used to getting! Also, home prices are still reasonable, and mortgage interest rates are fantastic. You are too young to remember, but there have been times when mortgage interest rates have been above 15%!

My mom loved to shop as well. My dad solved the problem by having her agree to a (generous) monthly budget that was supposed to cover clothing, linens, and other assorted items. See if you can get your wife to agree to this.

Ask your wife if she wants to be working in her 70's or 80's. It's a very real possibility if you don't own your own home or have a *lot* of money in savings. Don't let her laugh this off! The financial security of your family is at stake, and it starts with the decisions that you make *now*.

Comparing money to a baby is quite a stretch. Business partners divide up money all the time. Why can't marriage partners do the same?

Wow, she is ummm. My ex and I are trying to live on 35,000 a year not including major medical expenses, and she complains about 100k? Damn....

You should be able to NOT pay your half. That is fair. It doesn't affect her in any way if she can pay her half, she will still get her recommend.

Tell her she needs to chill out and try living on what we do. And I am GRATEFUL because we do have a roof over our heads, and I know it could be so much worse. Thank God we don't pay that fee any more. I have not missed the temple at all!!

She needs to get a job ,just like everyone else, to help out.

You also need to take a more active role in seeing how the money you make is spent.

She had 12 years as a sahm and you do not even own a home - that is plain crazy.

Obviously, she is not a great manager. Get more involved.

The church doesn't teach that. If you got a divorce, don't think for one minute that they would view her child support as already tithed-on.

Oh, no, they will ask her to cut that baby in half and pay tithing on her half (again).

They always choose the ch-ching--because they don't want the struggling single mother to lose out on blessings.

Shop-til-you-drop is not necessarily materialistic. It may come from a feeling of being overloaded and needing every possible modern aid to help manage. It may come from fear of not having enough food storage, or being thought a bad mother because of the way the kids are dressed, it all depends on the person. It's like a rash--at its core, over-shopping can be a symptom of emptiness and the attempt to fill it.

After all, what if you feel unworthy, old, unattractive, unimportant after all you can do? In Mormonism, you go to the temple. What if that magic doesn't work and now you feel even worse, as if the heavens are closed? Well- Target's open!

Anagrammy

My bishop told me i had to pay tithing on my child support. When i told him that was illegal (it is). He said to do it anyway,just not tell anyone.

amos2 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I proposed she pay half and she pulled a Solomon
> on me and said our money is shared and not split
> down the middle (you know, like cutting the baby
> in half), so I backed off.

> She quit working when our first baby was born and has
> been a SAHM for over 12 years, which is fine. But
> she has said things like "You get PAID for YOUR
> work", which is a slap in the face because I NEVER
> stashed a dime. She budgets ALL of it and I've
> lived off an allowance from HER budget, and if
> anything SHE'S the one that stashes money and
> spends it as she pleases.

> If she wasn't at the store
> every fucking day we'd have a huge surplus. She
> shops, and shops, and shops, and then tells me how
> grateful I should be that she does the shopping.


She sounds like my ex. Controlling, demanding and ungrateful for what she has. An entitlement complex.

Do not let her control you. By giving in on "shared money" you let her have control. I don't mean to promote a power struggle. But she has control issues and boundary issues. That's not good for your marriage.

I wish you well.

amos2, had a very similar conversation with my TBM spouse. What finally convinced him is when I played the "free agency" card -- I told him that he was taking away my free agency by forcing me to pay on all of it. I reminded him that was Satan's plan to take away our agency. Then I suggested that a good compromise would be to split it halfsies and he continue paying on half and that I would use the extra 10% from 'my' half to pay debts and bills. That helped him relax on the issue too. I guess he thought I was gonna spend it all on booze or something, lol.

while it may not be possible to do with out other major expenses, paying out for stuff like food, medical, heat, or transportation.
the expense of paying tithing tribute to LDS Inc can be entirely ELIMINATED without any negative consequence at all, and implementing the change is so easy. just dont do it!

So what was the 1st? Food?

Food? No, I don't eat Texan portions to spend so much on food... well... maybe I do sometimes. =)

My first expense was shelter whether rent or mortgage and I did pay that first, I paid tithing second and everything else came after. When I was short I borrowed from my best friend, my PLOC.

D

Wow. I don't have much of a mortgage so I'm sure my first is food/dining. After that, has to be phones/cable/internet.

Ron

I think most of us, and others in Europe tend to forget taxes as an expense. Property, sales, income taxes. They add up together to be the largest expense.

I did forget about taxes which is a big expense too, Ok tithing was third then, only after shelter and taxes. =)

Housing is expensive where I live, I was very surprised and jelous the first time I visited the middle west and heard of the BIG price difference for a similar home there and over here.

D

Whatever it costs in your list, it is still too much.

With what I paid (six figures), I am sure I could have sent all of my kids to college. Now, with alimony & child support, I can't hardly help a single one in college.

effin church.

don't be jealous of the people who live in the midwest. i lived there for 15 years. There is a reason it is so cheap. It was horribly boring living there. The climate, the scenery, and as far as i'm concerned, the culture sucks!

Just think, you can write off interest on a mortgage, which you are making payments on a investment. With tithes to the cult, you are investing way to much $$$ to get what ??? in return...

npangel Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Just think, you can write off interest on a
> mortgage, which you are making payments on a
> investment. With tithes to the cult, you are
> investing way to much $$$ to get what ??? in
> return...

An opportunity to clean toilets!!! Dammit, NP, don't you listen? ;)

Ron

1. Is it the truth?- No. If the church was honest with what DC 119 states, tithing would be 10% of surplus, not 10% of total income. The church defines what tithing is to suit its own interest. Mormonthink has a very good essay on how the definition of tithing has changed as the church modernized itself into a cash-based corporation in the early 20th century.

2.Is it fair to all concerned? No. For the extremely wealthy, 10% of total income is chump change. For the middle class, 10% represents all of a household's surplus. For the poor and destitute, tithing is tantamount to oppression.

3. Will it build goodwill and better friendships? See Amos2's post for an example of how tithing can undermine relationships.

4. Is it beneficial to all concerned? No. Only the Corporation of the President benefits from tithing. The only tangible item that members receive from tithing is a "Teachings of the Prophet" manual once a year.

Am I alone in the perception that the only mormons that ever retire before 65 are the particularly wealthy? And many seem to work well past 65. My dad claims he's going to work until the day he dies. I believe it, since he wasn't able to start saving for retirement until my youngest sibling went to college (age 55 or 56). And that's with a Master's degree.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/09/2011 05:02PM by kimball.

I wish I could deduct my mortgage interest on my income tax return but I'm in Canada and we don't do that. However, I do put some of that money into my RSPs (or 401K) and I get to deduct that and keep the money for retirement.

You know, as a convert I was always impressed with the stories from Utah, I heard how the members in SLC were so blessed and had everything in abundance because they paid tithing, only by paying tithing were they able to raise 10 kids and sent them on missions, because of tithing their farms produced better fruits than those who didn't pay and so many more stories. I'm grateful for all of you who share your stories from the viewpoint of those raised in the church with TBM full-tithe paying parents and for telling them how it is. I feel for those of you who stopped believing and continue to pay just to keep love, family and peace at home.

D

I still want to kick myself, how did I never see it?!?!?!

Go to bank, open personal account, arrange for your salary to be paid into.it. when she freaks out that you've not been paid, that's you're cue to be a man and tell her about the new system!

A good education cost a lot of money. Look what you learned. You have a PH D in knowing right and wrong, and smelling bull shit across an ocean. I would feel happy that I learned so much about life. YOur life can now be haoppy and aviod the con men of the world from now on.

LOL, yes very pricy indeed but you're right I've learned a valuable lesson, expensive but very valuable. =)