Be saved, and save!

[Neighbor]

23 minutes ago, GandalfTheWise said:

@Neighbor  I ran across a Christian a few years ago who was researching creating communities for a Master's thesis.  Taking large unused buildings of various types and making them into combinations of apartments with big common spaces and small business spaces, and getting a wide range of Christians, from newlyweds to young families, to the elderly to live and work in these communities.   With adequate income and capitalization, these would be self-sustaining and then with a certain level of savings,  it could be duplicated without debt.  

My instincts tell me that one big problem for the common person is interest payments.  Be it a mortgage payment, tuition payment, car loan, or even the extra cost of renting that goes to cover the landlord's mortgage interest, the hyper-rich have put themselves into a position to collect a cut from most transactions and purchases.  Creating a community that could run on a cash basis with no loans keeps more of the money within the community, reduces the cost of living, and probably raises the standard of living.  Eventually, if large enough, some degree of group policy self-insurance and some degree of medical and dental support might be possible as well.

Of course, many potentially sticky issues to consider, but I thought the concept was interesting.

It is! "We" look at it in it's various forms often. In fact even today. Course, looking doesn't get'r done.

[Sower]

1 hour ago, GandalfTheWise said:

@Neighbor  I ran across a Christian a few years ago who was researching creating communities for a Master's thesis.  Taking large unused buildings of various types and making them into combinations of apartments with big common spaces and small business spaces, and getting a wide range of Christians, from newlyweds to young families, to the elderly to live and work in these communities.   With adequate income and capitalization, these would be self-sustaining and then with a certain level of savings,  it could be duplicated without debt.  

My instincts tell me that one big problem for the common person is interest payments.  Be it a mortgage payment, tuition payment, car loan, or even the extra cost of renting that goes to cover the landlord's mortgage interest, the hyper-rich have put themselves into a position to collect a cut from most transactions and purchases.  Creating a community that could run on a cash basis with no loans keeps more of the money within the community, reduces the cost of living, and probably raises the standard of living.  Eventually, if large enough, some degree of group policy self-insurance and some degree of medical and dental support might be possible as well.

Of course, many potentially sticky issues to consider, but I thought the concept was interesting.

Several years back, we had a pastor from Houston come to our church and give a three day lesson on Christians having 'financial freedom', how the church and our members can, with biblical instruction, be debt free. We listened, and our church was debt free in just a few years, and a huge surplus. So many methods to list, but my favorite for families was buy used cars. Buy one with low mileage for half price, do real good maintenance and get a hundred thousand + miles.
To address your comment Grandalf, about young and old and mortgages, this pastor's church and most of his church members were debt free. I liked that they incorporated a cool program where the older retired folks with savings were brought together with the younger families needing home financing, and they worked out a legal binding agreement to which each got a better deal, with lending receiving more, with burrowing, paying less, and no middle man. Incorporating many of his methods turned out to be one of the better decisions our church did.