my TBM dad left a copy of the budget laying around by the computer before my TBM parents went to church. The top of my TBM parents monthly budget is Tithing ,followed by fast offerings!!

They are giving the morg $355 a month in tithing, followed by $20-25 a month in fast offerings!!

Meanwhile, in the real world, my TBM dad's truck could use that money that morg gets every month to be fixed, working and drivable once month!!

So when I posted last year that my TBM parents give the morg about 5K-6K a year I wasn't joking!! What's even sadder is that are in the late 60's and cannot see for the tree that morg will dump them since they are expendable in their old age. it makes both sad at them and more angry at the morg sucking up more of my TBM parent's money.

Sorry this so long, I needed to vent!!

before you fix anything pay tithing, before you pay your bills pay tithing, before you help your family pay tithing!

Why? because the invisible man in the sky will help you out and you will see if anything good happens to you it will be from him.

I remember my youngest sister had just gotten married, my wife and I were talking about what to get them for a wedding present, I told her that a few months after getting married (once you exchanged all the gifts, etc that is when you finally settle in and realize that you got no money, so we put a few hundred bucks in an envelope and stuck it in her mail box anonymously a couple months after they got married.

A while later we were at church in my parents ward on F&T day and my sis got up and bore hers about paying tithing instead of bills and then getting a envelope of money that just appeared in the mail the next day.

was I inspired to leave the money? prob not we simply realized that based on our experience my sis might have the same issues and we did something to help, what I used to think were gifts of the spirt really are just thoughtful people and perceptions. Even now I get exactly the same feeling to share my un-testimony when I sense someone else is not 'believing' in the church anymore.

I have to say from a business perspective the way the church capitalizes on the nature of people helping one another and ties those good feelings to proving they were right is pretty smart. 'heartsell' is good for making money of that I testify :/

Great faith promoting story.

Like the plastic bag full of money tacked to the door "because we were faithful and paid tithing even when we couldn't feed out family."

so are they getting blessings in exchange for giving all of that badly needed money ?

not according to a personal letter from the morg, see the topic I just posted

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,760479

That's a shock, I know, considering the financial struggles your family has had. I'm sorry that they are trapped by the cult. Stay strong and hang in there. We're pulling for you.

I knew a family that lived on welfare and paid tithing and fast offerings.
A neighbor called the social welfare office about that issue and all of a sudden the bishop told this family that they don’t have to pay tithing and fast offerings from social welfare.
What a call to the gov. authorities could do that even a Bishop has a revelation.

to south Id inactive

I live in "almost idaho", Ut. how far south are you?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/13/2013 05:02PM by sparkyguru.

sparkyguru Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> to south Id inactive
>
> I live in "almost idaho", Ut. how far south are
> you?


Burely

Hey, I was born in Burley and lived there until i was 14 (moved away in '76). Still have loads of family there and go "home" when I can.

my parents pay twice that. I'm not trying to diminish your thread at all btw, it just makes me sick that they did so well financially when they were younger yet they are now squandering their fortune on TSCC instead of enjoying their golden years on a beach in the Caribbean which they could EASILY afford if it wasn't for this goddamn cult.

That's my parents too. They should have had a very comfortable retirement with how hard they worked and how much money they made. They don't. Far from it. All because of what they gave to the Morg in tithing, budget (huge donations back in the day), paying for missions, their own mission (forcing them to take early retirement and SSI), etc. The rest of their days will be spent living for the big reward on the other side and hoping when they get there they will magically like each other again because its been years since they have acted like its not painful to be in each other's presence.

Seeing them makes me thank the universe that even if I'm homeless and penniless, my retirement will be happier than theirs. I'll be trying to figure out what I can still do with my limited capacity to leave the world better than I found it, not just watching BYU TV to convince myself that there's something grand in store for me if I just endure the miserable Mormon life to the end.

Same with my TBM in laws. Then they claim they can't visit their grandkids or do anything special with them because they have no money. I hate the church and I hate them for putting a stupid cult over family.

#endrant

+1 I know exactly how you feel

It's a terrible doctrine that tears families apart. When I was a kid, the church got my lunch money. I went to school hungry many times, and I wonder how many meals the prophet missed.

This is just terrible. That TSCC should steal money from your folks. Not nice at all.

Do they still have their gold crowns?

Just sayin'...

Breedum Young

That means they are making less then $4,000/mo.

How the hell do they live on that?

T-Bone



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/14/2013 12:07AM by T-Bone.

I live on less than $1500 a month. Fortunately, I own my house outright.

You eat a lot of Ramen noodles and you subsistence hunt for meat...

um, $4,000/mo puts them near the median income for Idaho - they're not exactly at the "How the hell do they live on that?" level of low income - more like in the middle for their state

but we're all glad to hear how you're apparently doing so much better...

grubbygert nli Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> um, $4,000/mo puts them near the median income for
> Idaho - they're not exactly at the "How the hell
> do they live on that?" level of low income - more
> like in the middle for their state
>
> but we're all glad to hear how you're apparently
> doing so much better...
AMEN

When first read, I actually thought this was sarcasm. We live on (total take-home) $2,000 a month, in Los Angeles. We have no money, but we also have no debt.

And we feed ourselves, BEFORE the fatcats in SLC. (Although, the Fat CATS living HERE get fed, even before the fat humans. Honestly, if I ate as well as my cats, I'd have bright eyes, healthy teeth and a shiny coat!)

I WISH we made $3,550 a month! The Church I currently attend recommends that you tithe at least 3% of your total, after tax, income. AND they recommend that you split it in half, give half to the Church and half to another worthy cause. Could you imagine TSCC doing that? Could you even try to see their constipated faces as they contemplate getting only 1.5% of your take home pay?

Hey t-bone, $4000 is huge! I wish I had that, I live on 1/2 that and still am able to have some extras and spoil my grandkids once in a while. My church would love to have members pay a tithe, but expects only what you can afford and you have the option of pledging or not, and if you don't meet your pledge, well, so what, you did what you could and you don't have to report to anyone.

Just think, with four hundred extra dollars a month, your family could buy a bigger house, get a new car, go on a nice vacation every year, or just spend a year pimping out the house with all new furniture.

But I guess Elohim needs that money more, because it is so expensive living on Kolob.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/14/2013 11:57AM by forbiddencokedrinker.

Invisible god needs another couple of billion dollars to build more malls. Fawkers

As I look back on the years my parents were married for more than 55 years and I would really like to know how much that they contributed over those years. My mother could be living any where and have anything that we could dream about having. Last week on Sunday I was over to see her and here is my 90 year old mother trying to see how much she can spare in her check book, it made me mad as hell seeing her sitting there trying to figure how much she has to spare. My mother is living on less than 700.00 a month but she has paid a full tithe in all her years. I have paid many dollars in tithing over 25 years and contributed alot of extra $ for building a new church. I was really suckered into all of this when I was young but I have spent my last Day and given my last cent to the group of cronies in S.L.C.

"So, how's that workin' for ya?"

I'd bet my folks gave a lot more than that during their lives...and it got them the square root of SFA in the end...

Ron Burr

Same story over here, parents pay a few hundred every other week, and although we're well-off there are still many better things that money could go towards. Trips. Mortgage. New car. University. Hobby.

Oh no, but God needs your money. So that he can go build his one true shopping mall.

As a newly-divorced single mother, I was barely hanging on, doing the proverbial robbing Peter-to-pay-Paul act (but also as a faith-filled convert) I was paying my full tithing, by gum!

When the rather upscale mobile home park I lived in decreed that we had to "landscape" our lots (a minimum of covering ground with gravel and adding a few bushes here and there and maybe a young tree) and I knew there was no way in Hades I could afford that, even if I did every bit of the work myself, I went to a debt counselor, who promptly told me to quit paying tithing. WELL! Clearly, she did not understand how important it was to place God first! (She looked at me like I had two heads, and now I understand why.)

So I ended up borrowing the filing fee from my mother and filing for bankruptcy. Having that on your credit record is really not nice. BTW, MY BISHOP KNEW WHAT I WAS GOING THROUGH AND DID NOT OFFER TO HELP AT ALL!!! If I could have gotten at least some groceries for free, or help on some of my bills, or even with that silly landscaping project, maybe I could have made it without filing for bankruptcy.

I continued paying tithing until I saw the RfM light. Bitter? Yeah. You might say that.

I know you've posted about your family and their struggles over the years. If memory serves, you have adult sisters and their children living in the home, right? And you have a disability that requires that you live at home, too, as an adult? Your folks are basically supporting the entire extended family.

At one point, you posted that the financial strain was so great, your parents were about to lose their home. Did that ever happen? Is that still a possibility?

I have no advice whatsoever. It just sickens me that the morg would take that money out of the mouths of babies - literally.

Hang in there dude. We know you are the lone voice of reason in your household, even if nobody else there happens to agree with your point of view.

;o)

I'm in SLC, and only make a little over $2000 a month before taxes. I'm also self-employed so I pay additional for both sides of Social Security. I don't recall where you live, so where you live $4000 a month may not be much, but here it is a lot considering the low cost of expenses for living.

I do own outright, so my expenses last year were 17861 so about the same as John Lyle at 1500 per month. (Includes federal, state, and property taxes which were 5500 total). I don't eat Ramen ever, don't skimp on food, but I also never eat out (I usually feel sick afterwards if I do). Savings after expenses were $7500.