By Tom Tracy - Florida Catholic
Photographer: COURTESY PHOTO
Jim Flood, mortgage banking professional and member of St. Andrew Parish in Coral Springs, came up with the idea for a "financial boot camp" for Catholics.
�Far too many people live beyond their means and that is why a lot of people are in trouble,� said financial planning veteran Melinda Gambino, a member of St. Elizabeth Seton Parish in Coral Springs.
�Debt, debt, debt� might be the theme for the last few years in South Florida in particular, where an estimated one-third of the population is believed to be living below the official poverty line. According to a just-released report by Forbes.com, 47 percent of homeowners in the Greater Miami metropolitan area are "underwater" on their mortgages.
The Bible warns about avoiding debts and interest, but the concern now is to help people start climbing out of their financial predicaments, according to Gambino, who specializes in the use of scriptural principles to help people with their financial planning decisions. At her employer, she is one of a handful of investment professionals nationwide who form a group of fund-advisors working with Christian-based investment principles.
Photographer: COURTESY PHOTO
Melinda Gambino, who specializes in the use of scriptural principles to help people with their financial planning decisions, will be the featured speaker at the "financial boot camp for Catholics" set for Feb. 11 at St. Andrew Church in Coral Springs.
Gambino will be the featured speaker at a one-day �financial boot camp for Catholics� set for 10 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 11. The event is free and will be held at St. Andrew Parish in Coral Springs.
�I will speak about biblical responsible investing and what the Bible has to say about investing our treasure, living debt free, and what to do with our time, talent and treasure,� Gambino said.
The housing collapse, high unemployment and lackluster stock market performance have brought a new level of stress to local families not seen since the Great Depression, added local mortgage professional Jim Flood, who helped come up with the idea for the financial boot camp workshop.
Flood is open to replicating the free workshop at other parishes in the archdiocese at a time when people are cash-poor. He conducted a series of similar workshops back in 2008 when the economy and the regional housing market were hitting bottom. Now, with a slow economic recovery, he sees a need to continue giving people information they can use to make the most of the crisis.
�People are devastated, so we need to give them hope to get from point A to point B with employment and housing, and then when you get some money what you do with it,� said Flood, an extraordinary minister of holy Communion at St. Andrew Parish and a driving force behind the parish�s Good Stewards Ministry. �We are trying to help people get straightened out and do it biblically.�
Budgeting, investing, tightening up spending and getting their financial house in order are the first steps for many in the community. High on the list of concerns is how to crawl out from under bad real estate transactions and loans, so home foreclosures, short sales and mortgage matters are likely to be a high point of conversations during the boot camp, Flood said.
But it is also time to remember the Biblical command to give and be generous in the community. Protestants often tithe up to 10 percent of their income and Catholics ought to consider a formal plan for supporting charities and parishes even as they work through their own fiscal recovery, Flood said.
�I think you are not fulfilled unless you are generous. If you are constantly taking and not giving back you aren�t at peace, and you are at peace when you are generous and behaving the way that God wants.�
�It is in the scriptures that God has given you great blessings. He has loaned us the money we have and this is not really mine and spiritually I need to be a good steward of it,� he added.
Erasing $45,000 in debt
MIAMI � Anita Brown has a glass jar in her office with the remnants of shredded credit cards from dozens of families who took a financial management course she helped bring to Miami over a period of four years recently.
�We might make a mosaic out of that,� she said of the credit card pieces.
A director of religious education for Our Lady of the Lakes Parish in Miami Lakes, Brown and her husband Perry were on vacation in Georgia a few years ago when they heard a radio program with Dave Ramsey, a syndicated financial advice speaker and a financial consultant on several television networks.
They bought his book, �Financial Peace,� and organized the workshops at the parish based on his steps for moving towards greater personal financial responsibility with the help of biblical principles and scriptural passages.
Brown said she and her husband managed to erase $45,000 of their own personal debt. During one of the parish�s Financial Peace sessions the 80 families on hand each estimated the amount of personal debt they carried. The total added up to more than $8 million.
�People in this generation and the last learned to live on plastic,� Brown said. �We had people attending who were lawyers, accountants, doctors. If the adults had teens and college students we encouraged them to come as well so they can learn not to make the same mistakes we have made.�
Once people are out of debt they ought to consider giving something back to charity or church, she said, adding, �The first place you have to start giving is back to the Lord.�
Brown said her parish may offer another financial advice course in the future since many families are still hurting in the current economy.
MIAMI � Anita Brown has a glass jar in her office with the remnants of shredded credit cards from dozens of families who took a financial management course she helped bring to Miami over a period of four years recently.
�We might make a mosaic out of that,� she said of the credit card pieces.
A director of religious education for Our Lady of the Lakes Parish in Miami Lakes, Brown and her husband Perry were on vacation in Georgia a few years ago when they heard a radio program with Dave Ramsey, a syndicated financial advice speaker and a financial consultant on several television networks.
They bought his book, �Financial Peace,� and organized the workshops at the parish based on his steps for moving towards greater personal financial responsibility with the help of biblical principles and scriptural passages.
Brown said she and her husband managed to erase $45,000 of their own personal debt. During one of the parish�s Financial Peace sessions the 80 families on hand each estimated the amount of personal debt they carried. The total added up to more than $8 million.
�People in this generation and the last learned to live on plastic,� Brown said. �We had people attending who were lawyers, accountants, doctors. If the adults had teens and college students we encouraged them to come as well so they can learn not to make the same mistakes we have made.�
Once people are out of debt they ought to consider giving something back to charity or church, she said, adding, �The first place you have to start giving is back to the Lord.�
Brown said her parish may offer another financial advice course in the future since many families are still hurting in the current economy.
Flood has 25 years of experience in banking, from lowly teller to regional president of HomeBanc Mortgage Corp. He went through his own period of unemployment difficulties and is currently a regional manager of Supreme Lending in Broward County.
He also wrote a quick-read, goal-setting book called �Life Balance Solutions.� The book is based on his Catholic faith and more than two decades of experience counseling colleagues at HomeBanc.
Flood�s book cuts across denominational lines and has been a help to Protestants and other believers. He reminds audiences that their ultimate goal is to get to heaven, and �my financial records won�t come with me.�
�This is not only St. Andrew�s ministry: it might be available to other parishes and to help all the Catholics in the archdiocese,� Flood said.
In addition, the U.S. Catholic bishops and a variety of religious communities have done considerable work in drawing up guidelines and investment principles for Catholics who want to make money in the stock market but also in a moral and ethical manner.
Catholics shouldn�t just blindly invest in mutual funds without regard to how their money is being used and what those companies are supporting, Gambino said. There are ways to screen investments so they have nothing to do with activities that violate Catholic teaching on life issues, for example.
�I am able to get the same returns by being biblically responsible,� she said.
Meanwhile, until people get their financial house in order, they won�t easily be able to give to charities and church again.
�Don�t beat yourself up if you are in debt, but when you get out of that don�t forget to give and let�s never get in that situation again,� Gambino said.
For information about the financial boot camp call 954-481-6133 or 954-752-3950.
