The Anabaptist perception towards a "money mindset"!

[Josh]

I spend some time on another forum dedicated to personal finance where I read lots of people's personal stories and problems. Based on my lurking there I think I can say WITHOUT QUESTION that the biggest source of financial carnage for Americans is divorce. I don't think there is a close second.

Marriage is hugely more efficient as a means of social and household organization because you can share and divide responsibilities and cut many of your costs in half compared to two single people. But likewise, divorce destroys financial stability for both partners. And leaves financial wreckage in its wake on top of all the social wreckage.

So for people who want to live modest fruitful lives and do so beneath their means, the number one way to accomplish that is to get married. And the number one way to sustain it is to avoid divorce.

Now I realize that is easy for me to say since I'm happily married and we have no plans to divorce. And others may have no choice and different life realities. But I think that is the stark truth. It also means chose your spouse CAREFULLY and then expend every effort to make it work.

I think you'd find plain Anabaptists resoundingly agreeing with you on this - and indeed I think that's why (plain) Anabaptists have so much financial stability and prosperity that, frankly, they take for granted.

Of course, since I like to associate with people who aren't from Christian homes, I often befriend and am dealing with people who are dealing with the fallout of divorce or children out of wedlock. Plain Anabaptists can have a very difficult time understanding the difficulties such people face. Like having their entire paycheck garnished for child support and not really possessing the administrative/clerical skills to understand how to get these errors corrected when they lose their job or get their hours cut.

[Josh]

Family’s need to take care of their own. It’s what the Bible says. If they can’t, then it falls to the church to take care of them. In that order. Government isn’t mentioned as having a role to play.

Yet in an era of shrinking family sizes, this system ceases to work. And it also doesn't work when people (particularly women) never get married. (I have found conservative Anabaptist churches are not particularly awesome at taking care of unmarried women as they get older, although it is still much better than in the outside world.)

[steve-in-kville]

Yet in an era of shrinking family sizes, this system ceases to work. And it also doesn't work when people (particularly women) never get married. (I have found conservative Anabaptist churches are not particularly awesome at taking care of unmarried women as they get older, although it is still much better than in the outside world.)

I would agree with this. I know of ladies in such a position, and they are doing fine (have a good job/career, own a home, etc.)

But we all could do better.

[Neto]

I spend some time on another forum dedicated to personal finance where I read lots of people's personal stories and problems. Based on my lurking there I think I can say WITHOUT QUESTION that the biggest source of financial carnage for Americans is divorce. I don't think there is a close second.

Marriage is hugely more efficient as a means of social and household organization because you can share and divide responsibilities and cut many of your costs in half compared to two single people. But likewise, divorce destroys financial stability for both partners. And leaves financial wreckage in its wake on top of all the social wreckage.

So for people who want to live modest fruitful lives and do so beneath their means, the number one way to accomplish that is to get married. And the number one way to sustain it is to avoid divorce.

Now I realize that is easy for me to say since I'm happily married and we have no plans to divorce. And others may have no choice and different life realities. But I think that is the stark truth. It also means chose your spouse CAREFULLY and then expend every effort to make it work.

I think you'd find plain Anabaptists resoundingly agreeing with you on this - and indeed I think that's why (plain) Anabaptists have so much financial stability and prosperity that, frankly, they take for granted.

Of course, since I like to associate with people who aren't from Christian homes, I often befriend and am dealing with people who are dealing with the fallout of divorce or children out of wedlock. Plain Anabaptists can have a very difficult time understanding the difficulties such people face. Like having their entire paycheck garnished for child support and not really possessing the administrative/clerical skills to understand how to get these errors corrected when they lose their job or get their hours cut.

Another big difference is the family network, which usually functions as a safety net in times of heavy unexpected expenses. Out "in the world" many families do not have that, and some end up on the street, because they have no one to whom they can turn for help, to get through the rough spots.

[Josh]

Yet in an era of shrinking family sizes, this system ceases to work. And it also doesn't work when people (particularly women) never get married. (I have found conservative Anabaptist churches are not particularly awesome at taking care of unmarried women as they get older, although it is still much better than in the outside world.)

I would agree with this. I know of ladies in such a position, and they are doing fine (have a good job/career, own a home, etc.)

But we all could do better.

On average most aren’t doing fine, either in Anabaptist circles or in the broader world. I realise there are always exceptions to the rule.

[steve-in-kville]

Yet in an era of shrinking family sizes, this system ceases to work. And it also doesn't work when people (particularly women) never get married. (I have found conservative Anabaptist churches are not particularly awesome at taking care of unmarried women as they get older, although it is still much better than in the outside world.)

I would agree with this. I know of ladies in such a position, and they are doing fine (have a good job/career, own a home, etc.)

But we all could do better.

On average most aren’t doing fine, either in Anabaptist circles or in the broader world. I realise there are always exceptions to the rule.

I also think the way we treat widows could be way better.

[Jeff Altweg]

Nursing homes are often looked at by old folks , as "A place to go to to die", somewhat like hospitals used to be viewed at by older generations...I can still recall that reluctance to go to the hospital, believe it was because the medical field was more a hit or miss thing not so long ago.
In the South ,almost all medicare pd Nursing homes resemble the old time "Poorhouses", not a place to go to ,or to send a loved one to.

That caused a whole tier of private Care homes to spring up, completly private pay, no medicare accepted ,not church run at all ,but run like they want to ,without government help or interference ,They charge between 4-6K per month ,not near as expensive as the places mentioned on the forum earlier... even they are having trouble keeping good help , That's where all the people go that have some assets and a pension, but if it runs out, off they go to the "Poorhouse '....

[Ken]

Nursing homes are often looked at by old folks , as "A place to go to to die", somewhat like hospitals used to be viewed at by older generations...I can still recall that reluctance to go to the hospital, believe it was because the medical field was more a hit or miss thing not so long ago.
In the South ,almost all medicare pd Nursing homes resemble the old time "Poorhouses", not a place to go to ,or to send a loved one to.

That caused a whole tier of private Care homes to spring up, completly private pay, no medicare accepted ,not church run at all ,but run like they want to ,without government help or interference ,They charge between 4-6K per month ,not near as expensive as the places mentioned on the forum earlier... even they are having trouble keeping good help , That's where all the people go that have some assets and a pension, but if it runs out, off they go to the "Poorhouse '....

I think you are confusing Medicare and Medicaid. Medicare, which is the health care plan for the elderly, does not pay for long-term care. It only pays for short-term rehab type care. There are some exceptions, but Medicare does not generally pay for long term nursing home care.

Medicaid, which is the health care plan for the poor, pays for long-term nursing home care if you are poor. But there are strict qualifying criteria for who is poor.

There are strict reimbursement rates for Medicaid which means that an operation needs to be pretty streamlined and low cost in order to operate on Medicaid reimbursements. And they are not allowed to take Medicaid as partial payment which would, by definition, violate the definition of Medicaid. If you have the resources to pay for a Cadillac facility and just need the Medicaid as a supplement then you are by definition not poor enough for Medicaid. And a nursing home that wants to provide a higher quality of service than a typical Medicaid operation cannot by definition take Medicaid.

What is the answer?

1. We could expand Medicaid and Medicare to pay for indefinite nursing home care at high-end facilities but that would break the budgets of every state and necessitate large tax increases. And then we would have to ask if that is the highest priority spending for trillions in new tax dollars. or,

2. We do a better job of planning for the future and taking care of ourselves and our families. Both my parents and my wife and I have long term care insurance policies, for example. Which might no be acceptable to some plain Anabaptists. But for us it made sense for a variety of reasons and some specific tax reasons here in Washington State.

[Josh]

There aren’t enough resources in America for everyone to have long term care “insurance”. Basically, it’s just impossible to everyone to have small families yet expect stellar care for the last 10 years of their life. The entire world would have to be reconstructed into a giant nursing home.

[Ken]

There aren’t enough resources in America for everyone to have long term care “insurance”. Basically, it’s just impossible to everyone to have small families yet expect stellar care for the last 10 years of their life. The entire world would have to be reconstructed into a giant nursing home.

We are a rich enough society to actually do it. But it would come at the expense of a lot of other more pressing needs for the non-elderly portion of society and economy. And would constitute a massive redistribution of wealth from the young to the old.

Part of the problem is that we don't have good ways of aging gracefully in place in much of our society. Once the elderly become too old to safely drive in much of our society they are literally trapped in place, Compared to say much of Europe where you see old people happily sitting around in town squares playing chess or just socializing with their friends and watching the world go by. When they live a block or two away and that is just their daily routine. There was a time long ago when it was more like that here too.

The trend of wealthy departing for massive retirement communities like the Villages in FL and Sun City AZ are part of the problem. People with means depart for retirement in some other warm state and those who get left behind are basically just left behind since with the wealthy old folks skipping town there is less of a market and culture for old folks to be engaged in local society.

I, for one, can't imagine retiring someplace where kids are banned. It is the kids in our neighborhood that actually give the place life.