By Ben McEachenSaturday 20 Jul 2024Money: Faith & FinancePodcastsReading Time: 4 minutes
“Severe discipline now is empathy with your future self.”
Key Points
- Glenn’s desire to seem successful brought him to the brink with housing debt.
- “The first thing I did was go to see a Christian clinical psychologist to work out why I was motivated to get all this stuff,” Glenn said.
- Glenn came to understand the instructive power of logic: “If I don’t have the money to buy something, I don’t buy it.”
- Hear the full conversation in the listener above.
Ever found yourself in a money pit?
A financial mess only getting worse?
Retired firefighter Glenn Solway has been there.
As he candidly explained on Money: Faith and Finance Podcast, Glenn’s desire to seem successful brought him to the brink with housing debt.
He was forced to learn life-changing lessons about his approach to money.
From spending out of emotion to taking a more logical approach, Glenn credits the Bible and Christian support with overhauling his spending habits.
Pitfalls of emotional spending
“I’ve learned that there is a psychology to money that’s very important,” Glenn told presenter Ben McEachen and accountant Pete Burrows, hosts of Money: Faith and Finance.
“I was viewing money in the wrong way.
“A money win for me [now] is having enough money to be able to pay all the debts that I have and live within my means.”
Glenn’s desire to seem successful brought him to the brink with housing debt.
Glenn had a “hard upbringing, not a lot of money”.
His mother had to raise five children and government support was unavailable.
“So, the scarcity mentality – not having much – that affected me as a person
“It affected my view of security and money.”
Glenn felt he had to prove himself.
More money and material possessions were the definition of success, and Glenn worked hard for them.
The feeling, gratification and appearance of money shaped his approach.
But Glenn’s decisions, often driven by a temporary emotional high, overlooked the long-term financial impact.
The consequences were dire and two decades ago, Glenn was “drowning in debt”.
“I had over $700,000 just in mortgages, and I had a car loan on top of that, and I had credit cards maxed out,” Glenn said.
Thank God for Christians Against Poverty
A man drowning in debt, Glenn could see rock bottom.
Instead of going under, he put a hand up and cried out for help.
“The first thing I did was go to see a Christian clinical psychologist to work out why I was motivated to get all this stuff,” Glenn said, alluding to his childhood seeds of financial distress as an adult.
Glenn found his lifesaver in Christians Against Poverty (CAP), a financial support service that links biblical wisdom with budget strategies.
“The first thing I did was go to see a Christian clinical psychologist to work out why I was motivated to get all this stuff,” Glenn said.
“CAP has a way of approaching a problem without judging you,” Glenn said about debt counselling he received.
CAP provided Glenn with a realistic budget and even intervened with banks to halt the accumulation of interest on his debts.
“CAP has a relational aspect of ‘I’m in this trench with you. We’re going to fight this war together, and together we’re going to see victory.’”
“They helped me to change everything.”
The good sense of money logic
Crucial to Glenn’s transformation was learning to stop emotion being the driving force behind his money choices.
Glenn came to understand the instructive power of logic: “If I don’t have the money to buy something, I don’t buy it.”
“I save money, and then I use the money I’ve saved to buy [it], and I own it.”
Sounds simple.
How many of us, though, approach our finances with feelings having more weight or influence than pragmatism or realism?
Glenn’s paradigm shifted from emotionally driven decisions to disciplined and well-informed financial conduct.
This approach also helps to dismantles the cultural vibe of immediate gratification culture.
Glenn came to understand the instructive power of logic: “If I don’t have the money to buy something, I don’t buy it.”
More than that, it released Glenn from feeling enslaved to money.
“Francis Bacon said, ‘Money is a great servant, but a terrible master’ and I one hundred per cent agree with that,” Glenn said.
“It was a worldview shift into what God says is true, not what I think is true.”
Better than the internet
What God says was a defining part of Glenn’s maturing with money.
Growing to appreciate Biblical wisdom and guidance about finances, Glenn told Money: Faith and Finance that “I see that as fundamental”.
“I either do my own thing and get my own results with my own limited thinking, or I come to the Creator of the universe and I get into what he thinks about money.
“Biblical principles have lasted for thousands and thousands of years, not just something off the Internet that someone says is a theory that’ll work.”
For any of us struggling with the weight of financial decisions driven by emotional impulses, Glenn’s journey offers hope and a roadmap to recovery.
Through logical planning and access to supportive resources such as CAP and God’s word, it’s possible to transition from financial bondage to freedom.
Listen to the full interview with Glenn Solway in the player above.
Article supplied with thanks to Ben McEachen. Ben is Hope 103.2’s Mornings host. Ben was a full-time movie reviewer for more than a decade, including for Open House, The Big Picture, The Advertiser and Empire. Before Hope, he was deputy editor of Eternity News.
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