Roundtable: Prudent Finances

A roundtable discussion I would like to have in the near future would discuss the question: What is it to be Christianly prudent with our money?

[In general, I think having discussions like this when there is nothing immediately pressing (except salvation) is a good way for it to be fun and lively and for none to feel too pressed. We are not talking about what we have to do tomorrow, but for the clarification of thought. Then when the rubber meets the road we already have something under our belts.]

In this case I offer two exhibits around which maybe we could center discussion.

First, the Sermon on the Mount, and especially Matthew 6:19-7:29. If we assume that this has a lot to do with our finances, or even that Jesus is actually talking about money the whole time, where do we go with it?

The second could be seen as one possible practical interpretation of Jesus’ teaching – an excerpt from Dorothy’s House of Hospitality.

What are the strengths and weaknesses this early Catholic Worker model?

We were looking over our last accounting which we sent out to our friends last September and we noted that not only has our circulation doubled, but the number of people being fed has quintupled. This means that the printing bill is $450 a month, and that the food bill for the Charles Street place and the country place combined is about fifty a week, or $200 a month. That includes fifteen quarts of milk a day, and it isn't we hale and hearty ones who drink it, but the children and invalids, of which latter there are always about four.

And lest this large grocery bill, which our readers pay after all, staggers them, let us count ourselves up.

Down in the country there are ten children right now, aged six to fourteen, and their appetites increase and multiply with the days at the seashore. (During the summer we took care of fifty children altogether.) Then there are seven adults, which makes seventeen people sitting down to a meal three times a day, or fifty-one meals served a day--3,060 for the months of July and August. (But there are more than that, often fifty people over the weekends.) Of course, the midday meal is not rightly a meal, but just sandwiches, peanut butter or tomato, and either cocoa or milk, and you should see the bread and butter fly.

As for the Charles Street quarters, there are sixteen people living there and they've been on a long fast during the summer. Those who come back from the country tell of delicious lemon meringue pies, not to speak of ordinary food, and city workers lick their chops (especially Big Dan, whose large bulk is hard to satisfy on oatmeal in the morning, sandwiches, and not too many of them, at noon, and vegetable stew in the evening).

In addition to the sixteen living in the house, there are the two married couples living in little apartments and eating at home, whose rents and grocery bills, gas and electric, must also be paid. Also there are half a dozen coming in to eat at the office who do not live here. Rents total $150, whereas last year they were $62, and the combined gas and electricity amount to $25; laundry, $15; telephones, $ 18; mailing and express, $75. And as this month's paper comes out there is another printing bill of $450, and the rent goes on and so do the groceries. Disregarding the latter two items, we are faced with our large bills (there are other little ones) of $1,403 and nothing in the bank to pay them.

This, then, is the holy poverty we are always talking about. This is the insecurity which we do most firmly believe it is good for us to have.