Listen in on this amazing conversation with Michelle McKinney! Michelle is the founder and Dream Architect of Dreams Unleashed. In Part 1, Michelle talks about losing her mother at a young age. She also shares about adopting her own daughter and how God taught her about pain, redemption, and calling from both experiences. Learn more about Michelle and her business at www.dreams-unleashed.com and share her passion for National Angels at www.nationalangels.org.

In college, God started really speaking to me about personal finance (or more accurately, I started really listening). From an often misinterpreted verse in the gospel of Matthew to an old, red Mitsubishi, I learned lessons about money I (and I hope, YOU) will never forget! Episode Transcript: Intro 0:44 Hi, I’m Alexis and welcome … Continue reading Episode 002 – The Price is Right!

In college, God started really speaking to me about personal finance (or more accurately, I started really listening). From an often misinterpreted verse in the gospel of Matthew to an old, red Mitsubishi, I learned lessons about money I (and I hope, YOU) will never forget!

Episode Transcript:

Intro

0:44 Hi, I’m Alexis and welcome to That Makes Total Sense! So I’m super excited about this episode because you know that here on the podcast we talk about faith, finance and everyday life in a way that makes total sense and this episode has all three of these wrapped up into one. Now for this episode, we’re going to have to go way back to the early two thousands when I was in college. But this story that I’m getting ready to tell you really encompasses, when God radically changed my perspective on finances. He just took everything I knew, every paradigm I tried to live inside, and completely threw me for a loop. It was like I got whiplash living this story out, but in a good way, because here is what He did: He gave me a car! And this is the thing, like, I don’t know if you guys were that generation like me were like, you’re home during the summertime, and you just watch The Price is Right? And that was like the best part of The Price is Right, is everybody wants to see who’s going to win the car or! Or they pull the curtain up and boom, there it is! It’s a car! Now granted, I’m going to give you a little spoiler alert: this was not a brand new car. And I think the reasoning behind that is because He’s a really good Daddy. And He knew I did not need, I could not handle a brand new car. But He gave me a car nonetheless. It was a new car to me and I was ecstatic! He really got my attention. And I hope that this story, even though it’s 15, almost 20 years old, will really grab your attention too. And you can see just how amazing He is, how He uses His goodness to teach us things. And maybe we can learn something about money together.

So here’s what happened. This is back, like I said, I was a junior in college and I was engaged to, my now husband Seth, who by the way produces this podcast for me. Yay. Seth also wrote and performed the musical intro, just so you know. So I was engaged to Seth and I was driving a pretty cool car. I mean, it was a car that, honestly, it was newer, probably newer than any car I still have owned to this day. And I had absolutely no business driving this vehicle. I had payments on it, but not only that, they were payments that I really could not afford at the time, even though they were low comparatively, I still could not afford these payments. There was really nothing about this car that was okay for me to have, but I struggled to keep it up.

I have been known to have a stubborn streak. I’m probably the only one out there, but I was really struggling to maintain this vehicle and I really had no business doing it. Well, in the meantime, God was calling me and my husband, and my future husband, and a group of friends of ours to go on our very, very first or my very, very first overseas mission trip to Israel. And it was going to be amazing! But it was really expensive and we were having to write letters and raise money and earn money to go on this trip. Now, here’s where I want to pause for just a minute and say, I fully endorse this kind of fundraising. We have since then been able to help other young people go on overseas mission trips. I think it’s a beautiful thing. I think it’s a wonderful thing. I think it’s a great way for their community to get involved in their mission, not just financially, but prayerfully. I fully support it. I love it. However, in that moment, God used that exact thing to convict me about money. Specifically, I heard him tell me in my heart, if you didn’t have that car payment, how much of this trip could you pay for on your own without having to f

Have you ever found yourself digging through the trash looking for something precious when there you are, up to your elbows in banana peels and dirty napkins, and God speaks a word to you? Not really? All alone out here? Well, listen in to what I heard Him say when I was doing just that. … Continue reading Episode 001 – Looking for Lost Treasure

Have you ever found yourself digging through the trash looking for something precious when there you are, up to your elbows in banana peels and dirty napkins, and God speaks a word to you? Not really? All alone out here? Well, listen in to what I heard Him say when I was doing just that.

Episode Transcript:

Intro

Hi, I’m Alexis Busetti. Welcome to That Makes Total Sense! This is the podcast where we talk about faith, finance and everyday life in a way that makes total sense and today I want to offer up to you guys a teaching. This is something that God really just downloaded to my spirit this last week and I have been praying and I hope that it ministers to your hearts and to your spirits like it did to me this week.

So I want to start with a short passage of scripture from Luke. This is actually from Luke Chapter 15 and it’s verses 8 through 10. And this is Jesus talking and He says, “Or what woman, having 10 silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it. And when she finds it, she calls together her friends and neighbors saying, rejoice with me for I have found the coin that I had lost! Just so, I tell you there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Now these few verses, this short story, is housed like I said in Luke 15. But it’s sandwiched between two more familiar stories. They’re a little bit more popular. We quote them more, these other two parables. But all three of these tellings are in direct response to the Pharisees and the scribes when they were grumbling about Jesus. And what they were saying about Him was He is a man who, and this is the quote from the ESV, “who receives sinners and eats with them.” And I just originally thought – Oh my goodness, what madness! Like he receives sinners and eats with them! And we know Jesus as that man, as that God now. But this was extremely disruptive to the way of life that was happening in Jerusalem and within that culture at that time. And so they were beside themselves. This is a man who receives sinners and eats with them. And so in direct response to that, instead of getting mad right back at them instead of grumbling in return, He tells these three stories back to back to back. And I believe He was trying to introduce love and compassion into the situation and really into their hearts.

So the first and third of these illustrations are really familiar. We learned about them if we grew up in church and went to Sunday school, we sing popular worship songs about the first illustration. And the third one is really made its way into our own popular and secular vernacular. So the first story He tells is about a man who, and again this is familiar, having 100 sheep, this man would leave the fold of 99 to go and find the one who lost its way. And he would carry that last one home again on his shoulder celebrating. And asking the ones who despise him for this meeting with the tax collectors and sinners – He says, who among you wouldn’t do the same thing even for your sheep? He says that this is, this is who we are. This is who I am specifically.

The third example that He gives – remember the second one is the woman with the coins – but the third example is a little bit closer to home I think. I think it’s a little bit more personal because sometimes we can put ourselves in the place of one of these three main characters. And that’s the one of the story of the prodigal son. Where in that parable, Jesus puts God the Father in the place of the pacing, praying, waiting, gentle father who’s waiting for his wayward son to come home.

But what about the story in between? The one about the woman with the lost silver coin. I’m going to speak for myself when I say that her featured parable usually gets lost in the pages of my Bible or in this space on my Bible a

Welcome to the That Makes Total Sense! podcast. I’m Alexis Busetti and I’m so glad you’re here! This is the place where we talk about faith, finance, and everyday life in a way that makes total sense. It’s not so much about changing our convictions as it is about messing with our methods. So grab … Continue reading Episode 000 – That Makes Total Sense! Trailer

Welcome to the That Makes Total Sense! podcast. I’m Alexis Busetti and I’m so glad you’re here! This is the place where we talk about faith, finance, and everyday life in a way that makes total sense. It’s not so much about changing our convictions as it is about messing with our methods. So grab a quick cup of coffee and join me for a little introduction.

Episode Transcript:

Hi and welcome to That makes Total Sense! The podcast where we talk about faith, finance and everyday life in a way that makes total sense. I’m your host Alexis Busetti – personal finance coach, writer, and Bible teacher.

Have you ever been going along in life doing something the way you’ve always done it and then someone comes along beside you and does it completely differently? At first it probably seemed odd, but the more you paid attention, the more you thought that makes total sense! Maybe it’s those conversations we’ve all had – they range from deep faith issues to parenting to finances to work and we’ve always thought about things in a certain way. Then our ears perk up when we hear someone else’s perspective. It’s definitely different, but the more we listen, the more we see how that makes total sense.

It’s not about changing our convictions as much as it’s about messing with our methods. And you and I are going to have a lot of those moments together here on this podcast.

We’ll hear the personal stories of friends I’ll be interviewing who are doing things in new and innovative ways. We’ll ask and answer questions from clients and audience members specifically about money and how we relate to it. And we’ll explore some faith teaching together. In all of these, in each episode, we’ll pause and say to each other, “That makes total sense!” Hi everyone and thank you so much for listening to the inaugural episode of That Makes Total Sense! I’m Alexis Busetti and I am so excited to be hosting this podcast! Honestly, this is not anything I thought I would ever do, but I’m having a blast so far and I’m so glad you’re here with me! The whole point of this podcast is for us to explore together. I know you’ve been there just like me where you wanted to start something new or travel somewhere or take a new life adventure and the first thing you did was Google it. Or maybe you talk to all your friends who had done it and they each had a piece of advice, a thought on how you should proceed. Then all of a sudden that one person speaks up or you read that one hidden article and you think, “I never would have done it that way, but that makes total sense!” Well, that’s what we’re all about here. For me, the first place that happened in my life in a tangible way was with money. Now I’m a personal finance coach and I love numbers and budgets, but I also have a background in social work and understand that personal values and relationships are super important. I began hearing from clients with a high, I’ll call it a financial or debt recidivism rate. People who knew what to do and even had a history of living financially how they wanted to before, but they fell back into their old bad habits. The more I listened to their stories, the more I realized there was a common thread. Their relationship with money was broken. They were good at making budgets, but afraid to make those budgets line up with what was truly important to them. Once we uncovered their values and motivations and started repairing their relationship with money, they were golden!

In my faith walk, God is breaking it down for me really simply right now. You see, I’m a rules follower by nature and praise God, the Bible has hundreds of rules. Yes, I believe in Jesus, but I kind of thought I could do most of this life stuff on my own ability to follow rules. If I could do