Mentor Mama: Today we are going to be talking about how managing our money can be made simple. As Christians, God has called us to manage our money well and to be good stewards of that money. Being responsible with the gifts that he has given us and extending that blessing to others is pleasing to God.
So, we are inviting him into our financial planning and goal setting, and that is a key component to our financial success. So many of us, however, struggle in the area of money management and finances. It's not that we necessarily intend to do that, but it can be easy to overspend and get caught up in having the latest stuff, and then before you know it, you're in debt, panicked, and looking for a way out.
Our guests today, Bob and Linda Lotich, authors of the book, Simple Money, Rich Life, are here to help us see that money doesn't have to be complicated or overwhelming. It can actually be made simple. They will show us that we don't have to be financial experts to be successful with our finances.
Bob and Linda Lotich have spent the last 15 years helping millions discover true financial freedom with their award-winning blog seedtime.com and Seed Time Money Podcast. Unlike most financial experts, they lead with grace over judgment and focus on creating hope while washing away the shame that so many carry with money. In their book, Simple Money, Rich Life, they share practical steps to save and earn more money in order to fund your God-given purpose and dreams.
Please welcome Bob and Linda.
Bob Lotich: Ellen, we are so excited to be here. Thank you for having us. It’s such an honor.
Mentor Mama: Thank you so much for joining us today. When I got your book, I was like, I know our audience is going to love this, because who doesn't want to make money management simple? So, I think people are going to be super excited.
Well, as I mentioned, your book is called Simple Money, Rich Life, and most people are not used to money being simple. So how do you make it simple?
Bob Lotich: I happen to have worked in the financial service industry for about 10 years or so before I became a professional digital media person, YouTuber, and podcaster thing that we all do now.
I worked in that industry for long enough to realize, the industry, for whatever reason, wants us all to believe that it needs to be complicated. The industry thrives on us all believing that money is too hard to figure out and that you got to be like this accountant or have a finance degree or something like that.
And the reality is, especially as believers, when we do it God's way it can be simple. It doesn't need to be complicated and part of our mission, what we communicate, and the reason we wrote this book, is we wanted to write one book. I've read nearly a hundred financial books at this point, and I wanted to write one book that anyone could read, especially people who have no interest in reading a money book and that book would set them up for the rest of their life. So, you don't need to read dozens of money books, you don't need to get a finance degree, you just need to get a few things right, and then your whole life can be set from there. And, that's what we're after. That's what we're trying to help people do.
Linda Lotich: And Bob, loves talking about all things financial and spreadsheets and all that stuff, and I am not like that. It confuses me. I just get lost in it and I'd rather go shopping or something. What's been really helpful is that he's been able to boil down things that are easy enough for me to understand and that I could take and run with it.
So, that's kind of been our mission. If this is not your natural talent, how can we make it so that people won’t get lost in it and not hate it the entire time?
Bob Lotich: Because that's the thing, money affects all of us. We all have to deal with it. So, why is it that all of the money books are super complicated and super boring? So, that was our goal.
Mentor Mama: That's awesome. You guys make such a great team. I'm more with you Linda, though. I know how to run a spreadsheet, but just the whole money thing can tend to feel a little bit overwhelming. So, what's the simplest thing that listeners can do to get started changing their financial life even today?
Linda Lotich: I think realizing that most of us don't receive a good financial education. We go through school, and maybe our parents have taught us something, but a lot of our education comes from places where maybe it shouldn't. Such as you have to have a credit card because you want to have some debt on your credit card because that'll give you a good credit score.
We're getting information like that, or our financial education is, well, you have to have things and if you can't afford it, then you can just get a loan and you can get credit, that's our financial education. So, you can have what you want, and look a certain way.
Bob Lotich: Or for some people, like the financial education is coming from Instagrammers that we're watching. So, even though they might not be trying to teach us about money, we're learning things about money from them, how to spend, and how to evaluate purchasing decisions from people who have no business teaching us about money.
Linda Lotich: And I think that being the first, I can get an education about this, that will be easy, not that big of a deal, and make much better decisions really quickly. So, that's the first element of it. But the other thing we talk about is, there is such a huge God component in this, and I think oftentimes people do one or the other.
They'll either just pray about their finances and that's it. They won't try and seek any wisdom about it, which by the way, the Bible is chock-full of, so they'll do that. One piece of it is, just pray and hope everything works out, or they'll read every financial book that they can, but really these two together are where you will see God do so much because your eyes are open to the difficulties that lie ahead of you.
But also, you're believing him and you're watching him work things out on your behalf, where you might not have ever seen that before if you hadn't been paying attention to kind of what was going on. To me, that's the thing, is realizing that these two things working together are so powerful that as believers we have such a leg up on the competition.
Bob Lotich: Because we have the opportunity to do some of the practical stuff. Like, okay, I'm going to try to spend less money than I earn.
But then also to invite God into that equation, so that he can do the supernatural. That's the power, when you pair those two together, the natural, then the spiritual, so that you get the supernatural.
Mentor Mama: Oh, absolutely. You know, I have a dear friend who became a widow when she was like 50, and I saw both of those components at work. She was so diligent about trying to learn about finances, but at the same time praying over and over again. It was amazing to see God's faithfulness during that time. You tell readers that they don't have to be financial experts to be successful with their finances. How do they go about doing that?
Bob Lotich: This kind of ties back into the previous question just this idea of getting started. One of the things that we're always encouraging people to do is to simply pay attention to what's going on with their money because it sounds so simple, but because finances have become so much more complicated than when both you and I, Ellen were kids. It was a very different world. Where pretty much everything was cash and then maybe a check, and it was really easy and clear to see what was going on. But now in an era of PayPal, multiple credit cards, bank accounts, Venmo, and all this stuff, it's like all these pieces are moving everywhere and it's really hard to see what's going on.
And when you don't know what's actually going on, it's hard to spot the problems. It’s hard to spot the trouble spots and so, being able to have a holistic picture and actually know how much you spend each much on groceries or how much you spend ordering food out or going out each week, is incredibly powerful information.
We were coaching this one couple, and this like blew my mind, but they came to us because they were in a really tight spot and they're like, I think we need to sell our house. They were getting ready to move out of their house and find a new place, with cheaper rent because they couldn't afford the current situation that they were in.
And so, we coached them and we said, here, use this app, in which we can get into more of the details on this in just a minute. We said, use this app, go in there and use it and it's going to tell you how much you've spent in the last three months on all these different things, and I want you to go through, do this exercise, it will take you 15 minutes. And so, they went and did it and they came back like a week later, we reached back out and said, hey, did you find anything? And we asked them (before they did the exercise) how much do you think you spend eating out each month.
And they said $200, with a whole lot of confidence. $200 is what we eat out each month. That's how much we spend. So, they do this exercise thing, come back and they said, “you know what? we found out that we actually have been spending $800 per month eating out.” They were floored that they were off by that much. And they're smart people. But that's the point, is that so many of us don't know. And we think we know. And in their case, it wasn't just, oh, don't go out to eat ever, ever again. It's not necessarily that, but it gives them the option of, do we want to continue eating out $800 a month or do we want to stay in our house? Now you have that option. You need to make that decision. And so, that's incredibly powerful just from knowing what's going on.
Mentor Mama: That makes so much sense. Even small things can add up. Like if you get a cup of coffee a day, that can add up over time.
Bob Lotich: It's amazing how quickly it adds up. And again, we're not the ones that tell you not to get coffee, but I want you to be able to make the decision for yourself, like if that's important to you, then okay.
Linda Lotich: It's so powerful when you have that information because what you think it is going to do is restrict you, and I think that's what we've discovered through this is it's actually really empowering to go, oh my gosh, I didn't realize I was wasting all that money on that thing that I don't even care much about.
I would so much rather, save for a new car, or maybe you would rather go out for coffee every single day and you can lower your car payment, or whatever the thing is, it doesn't matter. It's not anyone else's decision to make, but when you have your own information about what you're actually spending on, it opens the door to freedom, which is so exciting and empowering.
Mentor Mama: It sounds so similar to the analogy of Christ. Some people think following Christ is just too restricting, but in essence, it’s the freedom that you're gaining.
You say you don't actually have to try and spend less money, but you just have to pay attention, do you have any suggestions for maybe someone who's not as tech-savvy to figure out how they're spending that money? Like, you mentioned are they looking at bank statements or how are they pulling that information?
Bob Lotich: So, there are two primary ways that we recommend. The first one is very old school. Anybody can do it. But it's literally just like you would keep a food journal of everything that you eat, you're writing down everything that you're spending and the science behind this is that when you do this, you are basically guaranteed to spend less money. It’s the same thing. I remember doing a food journal with a nutritionist, and as soon as I start writing everything down, I instantly just start eating better because you're writing it down, and it's the same way with your money. And there's a law called Pearson's Law which states, “when performance is measured, performance improves.”
And so, anytime you're measuring the performance of anything, just the mere fact that you're measuring it causes it to improve. And so, it's the same way with our spending, if we just are simply writing down everything that we do on paper or on the note app, on our phone, we will spend less money.
That right there is one simple way to do it. My preference actually is an app called, Personal Capital, it's a website you can go to and it's a free app you can use and you can go in there, plug in your bank accounts or credit cards, and you can go back within five minutes and see the last three months of your spending and see exactly how much you've spent on groceries, eating out, any of these different things. It's a really, really powerful tool and we actually have a tutorial on our website on how to use the app to do that.
Mentor Mama: We will link that here. I find that so fascinating because to me, that's one of the areas I feel like I would always get bogged down in is trying to figure out the transactions. So, the app probably does a good job of assigning it for you.
Bob Lotich: Yes, it does it all for you. It’s not going to get it all right, you have to fix some of them. For example, Amazon where it's like, I'm not really sure what this is, but in general, it gives you such a huge head start and it's a great way to just start paying attention to what's going on.
To find the tutorial, the link is seedtime.com/cash flow. And so, for anybody who wants to check that out, it's just a free video I put up there showing you how to use that.
Mentor Mama: Awesome. You also say that strategically picking hobbies can have a long-term impact on your financial health.
How have you seen that play out in different people's lives?
Linda Lotich: Bob's whole thing is about efficiency. He just wants to be as efficient as possible, so he is going to pick his hobbies strategically.
I'm like, not everyone has that luxury. Some people just want to play tennis, you know? The point that he was getting across is that maybe there's something that you're already interested in doing, that you could use a little creativity and it will yield much better fruit in your life.
Bob Lotich: Right. I think the thing for me is it just dawned on me that I had certain hobbies that I was doing and participating in and really spending hundreds or thousands of dollars a year on that, and I was like, do I really enjoy this or is it just the thing I've always done?
And, at one point in my life, golf was one of those things. I was spending a lot of money on golf. And I'm like, it's okay, but honestly, I like tennis just as much, and tennis is really, really cheap and it’s better exercise than you get with golf, and so when I kind of evaluate through that lens of, is this hobby yielding anything?
Or maybe it's like, collecting thimbles or whatever the thing might be, collecting stamps, you know? And if that's something you really, really love, but if it's something you've just done and your parents have always done and you just continue to do it because it's just a thing you do, it's a question worth asking.
We can pick our hobbies, and I think it's okay to lean into our God-given desires and things like that. I'm not saying we shouldn't do that. But I'm just saying from a financial perspective, it was helpful for me because I ended up saving a lot of money.
I used to be a diehard St. Louis Cardinals fan, and I still like them, but I began questioning things like there are 162 baseball games per year at three hours each. How many of my hours am I trading to watch the Cardinals? And it's like, it's great and it's a fun, entertaining thing, but what could I do with that, whatever, 500 plus hours per year if I weren't devoting it to that?
And once I started thinking through that lens, it's like, ah, okay, I should maybe not watch 162 games and maybe I just watch one or two games a month.
Linda Lotich: Or if you only watch half the games, it's like you're still saving a whole lot of time.
Mentor Mama: Oh, that's so interesting. I guess that's something I hadn't thought of either, about hobbies. I really feel like some hobbies, too, can be totally addicting. The reason I say that is because I really like to do art, mixed media art, scrapbooking, and all these things, and finally I had to tell myself, I need to start working with what I have.
So, I’ll make a bin and I'll grab all these different things, put it in the bin, and I'll say, you can make something with what you already have, and then that actually gets my creative juices kind of flowing even more because, for me, when I watch art videos and this and that, I see all these great products.
Bob Lotich: And there are so many things like that. Because we're in an era where there are so many things to buy and you can have it immediately and you can get it right away, and you see all these YouTubers who are showing us the newest, coolest thing, so you got to buy this.
It's like this with camera gear or anything, like there's no limit. There's no end. And to your point of it advancing your creativity, I remember reading this book where the entire premise of the book was about if you want to expand your creativity, limit your resources, and that is a thing that actually expands your creativity. There's so much power in that.
Mentor Mama: Yes, for sure. Well, tell us about how you paid off your house in three years and what advice can you give to others who are trying to do that.
Linda Lotich: When we bought our house, we had been married for four years, and honestly, when we first got married, we started paying off our debt. We gave it everything we had.
Bob Lotich: We were very broke, with very low incomes.
Linda Lotich: We were not making a lot of money, but we started this system of praying for God to do something and doing the best we could with what we had.
Bob Lotich: And one other point I'll make is that the key here is that when you're doing the best you have in many of the situations, it's not enough, but that's where God shines is when it's not enough, but you're trying anyway and then you're praying and expecting God to step in.
Linda Lotich: So, Bob was praying about paying off our house because we had at that point, paid off our debt.
You had student loans, we had car loans, and we had been living in an apartment to save more money and to try and have as small of a payment as we possibly could. So, once we got out of those debts, we were like, all right, let's buy a house now. So, we buy this house and we're like, let's pay this thing off as fast as we can.
First of all, who pays off their house? We were floored that we were even thinking that way because everyone I knew, had been in that house for 20 to 30 years, still making payments and they were at least in their fifties, they at least had kids out of the house.
In my mind, this wasn't possible for someone in their thirties.
Bob Lotich: This wasn't modeled for us. We didn't see a lot of people around us paying off their houses early. This is the power of belief and expectation and thinking outside of your box because there are no limits with God. And, this was so powerful and this would be my encouragement to anyone listening it's easy to just sit there and like dismiss us and say, oh, we can never pay off our house. We couldn't in our own strength either. But God did. And, that’s the thing, but it like, if you don't get to that place of even praying, you know, Ephesians 3:20 says, he'll do exceedingly, abundantly, above and beyond. All we can ask, think or imagine in the amplified. And so, it's like we're the ones who are limiting God in so many cases here, in so many different ways.
So, we had paid off all the other stuff, student loans, car loans, credit cards, and it was fantastic because now we had so much extra cash each month and so we were putting that towards our mortgage and racing towards paying that off as fast as we could. And, I’m a typical microwave American in some ways where it's like, I want it faster, and so, I remember going out and praying in this field near our house, and I specifically went out to pray and I was asking God to help us pay off our mortgage faster. And like my plan, because I am a spreadsheet guy, it was going to be paid off in about three or four years, which most people are like, that's amazing, why isn't that fast enough for you?
Linda Lotich: So, this was about two years in.
Bob Lotich: I think this is about 2011 or something like that. About 10 years ago. So, I'm up there praying, God, can you help us pay this thing off faster? And as I'm praying, one of the clearest things I've ever felt God speak to my heart.
Not an audible voice, unfortunately, but like really clear in my heart, and felt like he said, if you really want to see me move on your finances, I want you to begin giving your age as a percentage of your income. And so, I stopped in my tracks. I started scratching my head. I looked up to the sky, like Truman from Truman Show a little bit, like, what is that? Where did this even come from? And I was 31 at that point. And so, I'm like, all right, so this means going from giving probably 11%, I think we were at the time, to 31%. A huge increase. And, so I'm starting to run numbers in my head, like, can we even do this? Are we going to be able to buy groceries? Is this even going to work out? And then my next thought is, God, I just came to you asking us to get our house paid off and now you want us to give all of our money away. And so now it's going to take like 10 years to get this house paid off. I'm like, this kind of feels like a mean trick, you know? I didn't come up here asking to give more. I came up here to ask to get our house paid off. Anyways, so I went back and talked to Linda and, I just remember that you got on board really fast.
Linda Lotich: I got on board. I'm the kind of person who, kind of, likes adventure, and so, I was like, okay. But also, when you think about it, if the Lord's asking you to do something, you can say, okay, I will give you what I have, but I can't give you what I don't have. So, we can do this for as long as we can do it. Like you're going to have to provide enough money for us to be able to live and pay our bills, and then also be able to give 31% of our income, which it was at the time. So, we were like, all right, we'll say yes, and then we'll just see what happens. We’ll do this for three months and see what happens. Let's reevaluate in three months. This isn't a forever thing. We can do this for a short period of time and then reevaluate.
Bob Lotich: So that month we began setting out on our journey of giving 31% of our income, and so, I went back to my spreadsheet and kind of calculated it all up and was like, yep, it's going to take about 10 years now, but I'm like, I'm going to obey the Lord. I'm going to follow him. I'll lay down my ambitions of getting our house paid off. And the cool, fantastic, amazing God thing in this is that 10 months later, not 10 years later, but 10 months later, that house was paid in full. To this day, I still can't tell you exactly how it happened because there were loaves and fishes type things where money was just coming in, and the business started thriving in certain ways. Just multiple things. It was like God was saying, “You obeyed me. Now watch what I can do.”
Linda Lotich: God's math is not the same as our human math and that's why it didn't make any sense. It should not have worked that way. It was literally just an act of obedience. We said yes to it, and then we saw him completely move on our behalf.
It sold us. We're like, whatever you want us to do now, because we've seen how he has fought our battles for us, just by us following him.
Mentor Mama: Yes, for sure. And honestly, that's what I thought was so different and unique about your guys' book is just the giving part and how important that is, how we need to trust God with that and then just see what happens. Do you have any tips for people that are reading this that would make giving easier or more fun?
Bob Lotich: Yes, we do.
Bob Lotich: I think one of the things that we did, was just this idea of budgeting for giving and making this a priority. So, at the beginning of every month, we set aside a certain amount of money, and it goes into an account that we call our seed account. And once it's in there, it's no longer for us. It's to be given away. And so, once money is in that account, it's sitting there, and this is the thing where it's like, it's easy to listen to this, be like, oh, that's not that big of a deal. But this was a game changer because now throughout the month, that money is sitting there like, all right, where do you want us to spend this? To whom do you want us to give this? Whom do you want us to bless? And it has made giving so much fun for both of us.
Linda Lotich: Yes, and we were just talking about this a couple of weeks ago, about that Scripture that says, “you must decide in your heart what you're going to give because God loves a cheerful giver.” And I'm telling you, most of my life I heard that Scripture, and I felt guilty. I felt like, well, the Lord only wants me to give this cheerfully, but the thing is, I don't have enough money to give. This is a huge sacrifice for me, and this is a real problem, honestly, because I have these bills that I have to pay and it can be a real struggle to give cheerfully. But we know the heart of God and he is never pointing a finger at us and telling us that we better do it, and you better do it this way. That's just not who he is. And so, I started realizing that he actually wants us to be excited when we give and this is actually a blessing for us, not something that is being forced on us. And as we were talking through that Scripture, it was saying you should do what you've decided in your heart.
This is a conversation with God, and then you can plan and prepare for this and be ready when it's time. You don't have to be caught off guard. You don't have to be at the end of the month going, God, I really want to give, or you asked me to pay for that person's coffee and I just don't have that money.
You can be ready and prepared when he says it's time and that changes the entire thing. And it's actually scriptural. In 1 Corinthians 16:2, it says, to set aside money for safekeeping to give. The safekeeping is not from thieves. It's from us like we're the thieves. If you think about it, set it aside for safekeeping. It's like a life hack if I just set this money aside and it's never mine to spend on myself. It's always there for someone else. When there's someone on the side of the road that needs a meal, you're ready to go.
It makes it so fun. And then you're actually living out the blessing of what God had intended for you to do in the first place. It's just such a wonderful way to live.
Mentor Mama: I really love that and I appreciate your authenticity there because I think a lot of people struggle with exactly what you were feeling there.
They want to give, but they're stressed, but having that money set aside really gives you the freedom to use it. There are so many world disasters or hurricanes, and you want to help or donate. And I know Compassion International, we've been working with them and they're talking about this massive world hunger problem that's going on and how nice to have that freedom to be able to give when the opportunity comes up.
Mentor Mama: I wanted to ask you one question that came to my mind. Our daughter, Ashley is getting married this following week and she keeps asking me all these financial questions. One thing is we don't have credit cards, we just have a debit card, and I feel like something that comes up is what you said earlier, like, how do you establish credit if you don’t have a credit card? Is that possible?
Bob Lotich: It is. The simple truth is that the system is set up in a way that they want you to have credit cards and so it's easier to do it with a credit card. But if she's in any kind of apartment or anything where she's renting, she can ask the landlord or whoever to basically submit those to the credit reporting agencies. That's one way. I'm generally not an advocate for co-signing on stuff, but if the two of you were co-signing on a car loan or something, that's something that could be in her own name as well. Those are a couple of different ways.
Mentor Mama: Could you just get a credit card but set up the automatic payments to only be a complete balance? So, there's never carrying over and charging interest?
Bob Lotich: Yeah, and there's still are charge cards, which have to be paid off each month and you can't carry a balance. And so that's one way as well to kind of establish some credit with not really nearly as much risk of getting yourself in big trouble. Because they will not let you carry a balance type of thing. They're harder to find, but I can point you to some links to some that I'm aware of later if you'd like.
Mentor Mama: That'd be awesome. Well, overall, what's your goal in putting this book out, and what would you hope would be the main takeaway for our listeners?
Bob Lotich: I think, there is just a lot of, I think, confusion in the church about money.
I think we've seen bad examples of money and the church or preachers in some instances going wrong. And so, it's easy to just over-swing and over-correct and kind of, get into this mindset of, well, no one should ever have any money, let's just all be broke and everything will be better that way.
But I just don't see it that way. I see that we have the opportunity as stewards, as managers of the finances that God has entrusted us with, which we all are, whether we have a lot or little, we still have a responsibility to manage it well, and you know, when I look at the parable of the talents in Matthew 25 we see these two guys who took what they were entrusted with and did something with it, multiplied it and made it more, and then they were entrusted with even more. And I have just observed that to be true, that when we take what we have, use it wisely and use it to honor God that he trusts us with more. And what's cool about that is now we just get to have more of an impact and it's not just about so we can buy or build a bigger house or fill up our bank accounts or whatever. It's not about that, but it's about God being able to work through us to impact the world around us in a bigger way. I want to keep writing bigger and bigger checks to Compassion International that I send.
I want to be able to buy cars for people and send them to them. I want to be doing stuff with more zeros at the end of it. That's why I'm interested in managing my money well. That's why I'm interested in growing my income. It's not just for me, but I want God to use me and work through me more.
And so that's our encouragement. That's what we're trying to help people in the book do, make the most of what God has entrusted you with so that you can have a bigger impact. Because we can use our dollars to rob hell and we can use our dollars to really make a dent on this earth while we're here. That's our passion.
Linda Lotich: I would add to that that not everyone is called to be a financial guru like Bob is. He is a financial expert, that's not supposed to be everybody's passion, I don't believe. I think he gives us all different things to be passionate about. And so, with the book, we want to make it as simple as possible so that you can figure out the thing that maybe is stressing you out already because you already have to think about it one way or another. Let's spend your time on it wisely instead of poorly, so that you can figure out what you need to do so that you can actually have the bandwidth, the finances, the funds, and whatever to do what God is asking you to do.
So, if he needs you to be a missionary to Africa, we don't want you not to go there because you can't afford to go. We just want you there. You don't have to work on Wall Street in order to figure out how to get there. We just want you to be able to have a simple system that you can run yourself easily so that you can do what God has for you to do.
Bob Lotich: And just getting out of debt and being able to take care of your family and being able to go on vacation once in a while. Because I know there are a lot of people reading this that are thinking, I just would love to do that. Because it's easy when you're in those really tight times, to make that my number one priority, and then giving comes next. I always love to argue that I think we should start with giving, but either way, God cares about those things. God doesn't want us to not be able to take care of our family—it's very scriptural that we do that. And he's not a big fan of debt. He wants us out of debt and so we want to help people do all those things.
Mentor Mama: You know, one last thing here that I thought of is, do you find that like a lot of people start and then stop? They start doing it for a little bit, you know, being prudent and then they stop or start again?
Do you have any recommendations?
Bob Lotich: Yes, I think there's a human nature component to that with whatever it is that requires some sort of ongoing maintenance. But part of what we have sought to do because I know human nature because I have one and I succumbed to the same setbacks, so a lot of what we talk about in part of the book is automating things. So, make a decision one time to do x, y, z, or to start saving for this, or to start paying more towards your debt or whatever, and make it automatic so that you don't have to carry the burden of continuing it. Something I discovered after looking at a lot of different financially successful people, it wasn't that they had more willpower than you and I, it wasn't that they were smarter than you and I, it was just that they made the important things automatic. And so, that's so important to figure out what those most important pieces are of your financial life and to make that decision one time, make it automatic, and then you don't have to think about it, and then in those times where you can be flaky, it continues to move forward.
Linda Lotich: Or if you forget, or you’re like, oh, shoot. It happens to all of us. But that just isn't an element of it anymore. So, you don't have to be super smart. You just have to make one good decision, one time, and then it sets you up for success. It’s brilliant.
Mentor Mama: And those apps really do help. Well, how can people find out more information about you and your book and the app and everything?
Bob Lotich: So, seedtime.com is our main website. It's the main hub of everything. And, the book you can find on Amazon. We're on YouTube, Seed Time Money, and then we have a podcast, Seed Time Money as well. So, come over and say hi. Send us a DM on Instagram. We're @seedtime there. We'd love to say hi to anybody that wants to say hi, and we'll help in any way we can.
Mentor Mama: Before we go, I just want to ask you guys some of our favorite Bible study tool questions. What is your go-to Bible and what translation is it?
Linda Lotich: I have the She Reads Truth Bible. It's just really cute, but it has really great devotionals in there and it talks about each book of the Bible and it gives you a context for it. And then it also gives you a reading plan, like, go read this chapter and then go back and read these verses from different parts of the Bible. So, I've really been loving that and I think it's the Christian Standard Version. I've really been loving that.
Bob Lotich: For me, I have a Bible that you bought me when we were dating.
Linda Lotich: When we got engaged.
Bob Lotich: Yes, so she bought me a nice black leather Bible…
Linda Lotich: That our son has actually eaten a couple of pages out of. He's devouring the Word.
Bob Lotich: What was he? Ten months old or something and he got a hold of my Bible ripped out like two pages of Proverbs and started taking a bite out.
Linda Lotich: We couldn't find them. We were like, they're gone!
Mentor Mama: Did he suddenly become much wiser?
Bob Lotich: This is what's so funny, his name actually means wise.
Mentor Mama: Oh, that’s so cute.
Bob Lotich: So that Bible is NASB. I find myself going to New Living Translation a lot.
Linda Lotich: I love the Passion, too.
Bob Lotich: Passion as a paraphrase, I think is great. I also like the Amplified just because there's so much in there.
Linda Lotich: We like them all! Every version.
Mentor Mama: They're so great. Do you have any favorite journaling supplies or anything like that, that you like to use to enhance your Bible study experience?
Linda Lotich: This is actually one thing that I just realized, and I don't know why it took me this long. Our church had a conference and I was going there and I was trying to figure out what notebook to use, which I know is funny, but I was like, well, this one was my work notebook and this one is my journal because I've been trying to journal every day. And I was like, I guess it makes more sense to take the journal.
And then it was like the lights went on for me and I thought, what if I journaled kind of what the Holy Spirit was speaking to me through them talking instead of just taking notes of what they were saying, and it changed everything for me. It was like, oh, I don't actually have to write down exactly what they say. I don't have to write down every Scripture reference, because I never go back to those anyway. But writing down what the Holy Spirit is kind of speaking to me through that, was a huge game-changer. So that’s mine.
Mentor Mama: I love that. It's a great conference tip!
Linda Lotich: Why did I not ever think of that before? It seems so simple, doesn't it?
Bob Lotich: I think it's a great idea. So, mine is going to be super practical. I have two pens that I really, really love. This is a Barron Fig Squire pen, which is stupidly expensive. This is a good gift. It's a $50 pen, but I really like it. And then this other pen is called the Space Pen, that's what the astronauts use. They designed it in, I guess, the sixties for the Space Program because apparently normal pens don't work in space, and so they needed one that would work in space, so it was designed for that. This one's a lot cheaper, but I just like the way it writes.
And this one I think is like $15 or $20.
Mentor Mama: Wow, those are really cool. Have not heard those before. Lastly, what is your favorite app or website for Bible study tools?
Linda Lotich: I know probably everybody says this, but I really love the Bible app.
I love that they have different Bible studies on there that you can just quickly look through. But also, I love that the whole Bible is there in so many different versions that you can quickly switch your version and see the exact same verse in different things. I just find myself using that a lot.
Bob Lotich: Well, and we have a bunch of Bible studies on there too. If anyone is curious, you can search for us there, too. As for me, I'm really loving the Dwell app. I'm sure someone's mentioned that before. I really like that. And then Blue Letter Bible feels kind of dated, but it can do a lot of cool stuff in terms of digging down to the meaning of words, so I like that, too.
Mentor Mama: Great suggestions. Well, Bob and Linda, thank you so much for being here today to share your advice on getting a handle on our finances. We just appreciate that so much. And for our readers, pick up a copy of Bob and Linda's book, Simple Money, Rich Life.
You can find the link here. Also, be sure to share your comments with us while you’re here. Lastly, head over to the Coffee and Bible Time website for our prayer journals that will help guide and document your prayer life at coffeeandbibletime.com. Thank you so much for joining us today.
We love you all. Have a blessed day.
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