Crystal Paine appears on The 700 Club

[silvia]

Our favorite (former?) proponent of biblical womanhood, Crystal Paine, recently appeared on Pat Robertson's news talk show The 700 Club to promote her new book, The Money Saving Mom's Budget. Check out the video here: http://www.cbn.com/media/player/index.a ... _020212_WS

It seems as though Crystal has toned down her fundamentalist schtick over the years--although whether that means she's actually less extremist or just less likely to talk about it is anybody's guess. I'm inclined to think the latter. I do think her messages about smart budgeting and saving money are largely positive ones, and I applaud her for getting those messages out there. I just wish she'd publicly renounce the pro-female submission, wife-as-keeper-at-home ideas she once promoted--her current life in the public sphere so obviously illustrates that she's left these ideas far behind, in practice if not in principle.

[emesbe]

I think it's awesome that they are debt free and everything, but they are always touted as "went thru law school with no debt" and neglect to mention that her husband had a trust fund or something to pay the tuition. When she tells it, it seems as if they were paying tuition with their jobs, but no, they only had to keep themselves alive.

[prairiemuffin]

Wow, she definitely looks a hell of lot better now than she did. There was a time when I was concerned for her health: she was always ghostly pale with huge dark circles under her eyes. She looked like a gust of wind would knock her over. Now look at her! Hip clothes! Highlights!

Also I feel a twinge of guilt snarking on this but her wedding dress was FUGLY.

[Not That Kind of Dr]

Good interview, but can I chase her down and shove some barrettes in her hair? It would drive me nuts to have all that hair dangling in my face.

[silvia]

I think it's awesome that they are debt free and everything, but they are always touted as "went thru law school with no debt" and neglect to mention that her husband had a trust fund or something to pay the tuition. When she tells it, it seems as if they were paying tuition with their jobs, but no, they only had to keep themselves alive.

Yes, it sounds as though the couple got a significant chunk of money when Jesse's mom passed away: http://www.cbn.com/700club/guests/bios/ ... 20212.aspx. So C & J had $35,000 put away even before they got married. There's no way they would have been able to pay for law school debt-free without that big head start, unless Crystal was working more (I think she was only doing a few odd jobs at the time).

[kb2]

Whatever. The 700 Club likes to be overall toned down-ish, so it can sneak in the batshit crazy instead of owning up to how they actually feel about things.

[Clementine]

Did they inherit money to pay for the house too? I remember that she had some timeline for savings or paying off debts and one month, they went from making the usual payment/saving - don't remember how much it was, but a couple of thousand of dollars or so - to debt free/house paid for.

I think it's great to live debt free, but I really don't think it's responsible to get pregnant and have children when your budget is so tight that they can't afford $2 fish food, unless you have great back-up that you know you can get money from.

I'd love to know what they eat to live on $35 per week.

[Phyllis Styne]

Chunky highlights are back oh nooooo! Maybe that's money saving, go to a salon with '80s styles and prices? She's wearing jeans and that convinces me that these guys are going all like the wolf in sheeps clothing with us, bring back the floor-length skirts so we know who you are nad what youre promoting! BTW do floor-length skirts compact down to floorts? Does that sound too much like flirting? probably so. Bah, stealth patriarchy.

[silvia]

Chunky highlights are back oh nooooo! Maybe that's money saving, go to a salon with '80s styles and prices? She's wearing jeans and that convinces me that these guys are going all like the wolf in sheeps clothing with us, bring back the floor-length skirts so we know who you are nad what youre promoting! BTW do floor-length skirts compact down to floorts? Does that sound too much like flirting? probably so. Bah, stealth patriarchy.

Oh, those highlights! Crystal is pale enough that her natural color (dark brown) looks much better on her than an ash blonde (you want to stay away from the skin-matches-hair thing). If I were her stylist, I'd steer her away from the bleach, adding only a few subtle highlights in dirty blonde, then cut in a few side-swept bangs to keep her hair out of her eyes. I do give her credit, though, for ditching the 90s-era curled bangs and curling-iron curls she sported in some of those early pics with Jesse (shown in the 700 Club video). Yikes.

[starfish]

She's now got a steady stream of paid help and baby sitters. This is part of the reason why she's looking better and healthier.

[prairiemuffin]

I'd love to know what they eat to live on $35 per week.

IIRC, they ate better than I expected. If she was being honest in her blogging, that is.

[jericho]

I have a family of 3 (with 1 year old child) and our monthly budget is $30/week. Its easy to do if you don't go out to eat, make home cooked dinners and go easy on the meat. It isn't for everyone, but if you have the motivation, its not that hard to do.

[silvia]

Oh, I don't doubt that a $30/week budget is doable, and it may even be possible to do healthfully, depending on how much your family eats. On the whole, I think Crystal is to be commended for encouraging people to cut their grocery budgets.

What I do wonder about, though, is the increasing gap between Crystal's income and her grocery budget. She's obviously making a killing from the Money Saving Mom site, although she has pledged to donate all proceeds from her book to charity. If you're making (purely hypothetical scenario here) $8000 a month after taxes, how do you motivate yourself to maintain a spartan grocery budget and spend time each week clipping coupons for food that is often highly processed, when you know you can easily afford better, fresher food while making a lesser time investment?

[jericho]

Oh, I don't doubt that a $30/week budget is doable, and it may even be possible to do healthfully, depending on how much your family eats. On the whole, I think Crystal is to be commended for encouraging people to cut their grocery budgets.

What I do wonder about, though, is the increasing gap between Crystal's income and her grocery budget. She's obviously making a killing from the Money Saving Mom site, although she has pledged to donate all proceeds from her book to charity. If you're making (purely hypothetical scenario here) $8000 a month after taxes, how do you motivate yourself to maintain a spartan grocery budget and spend time each week clipping coupons for food that is often highly processed, when you know you can easily afford better, fresher food while making a lesser time investment?

I think she said on the 700 club that she does spend more on food now.

[starfish]

I think she said on the 700 club that she does spend more on food now.

Gosh, I hope so. She keeps those kids on starvation rations. Eat a steak every now and then, Crystal. Let those kids have some red meat or fresh fish or something with protein besides your weird smoothies.

That's one of the more common things about these fundie families--it seems as if the moms want to control things through the food. This is a topic for another time, but I really saw that in the Hannah Overton case where her adopted son died of salt poisoning. He had a lot of food security issues, but they were trying to mold him into the starvation diet/ camp survivor lifestyle. Even now, the father can barely feed the rest of the kids.

Seriously, Crystal needs to let loose the purse strings and let those kids eat.

Do they even know what ice cream is? Actually, I think so because they go to Baskin/Robbins on free cone night. But that's the only time!

[notathumper]

When Crystal was touting how she and Jesse had paid cash for their house, I kept waiting for her to acknowledge how they had really done it. I don't believe she ever did. The interview on the "700 Club" continues to perpetuate the idea of anybody being able to save up for a house.

Crystal has had some extraordinary circumstances which has allowed them to have a paid for house.

Here's what I wrote on the old board:

Crystal wrote in April 2008 on her blog that they had $2,500 towards paying cash for her house. It was at this point, they thought they could accumulate enough cash over a three to five year period.

As the months went by, she updated the percentage they had set aside towards their goal. At no time did she actually mention how much money they had saved after the initial $2,500. With just the percentages, it is possible to back into how much money they accumulated.

When I calculate how much was saved, I make only a few assumptions. The house they eventually purchased was listed for $189,900 (available on the internet). Due to the economy, I assumed they got it for a 20% discount making the price $151,920 (I’ll round to $152,000 for ease of calculation).

So, based on the initial savings of $2,500 and a price of $152,000 they saved $149,500 from April 2008 to the completion of the goal at December 31, 2009. This represents approximately 20 months.

By simply dividing $149,500 by twenty months, the average monthly savings is $7,475! That is the AVERAGE, some months were less and others were way above. In fact, from November 01, 2009 to December 31, 2009, just two months, they saved 25% or approximately $38,000. That is phenomenal.

This is NOT the sole result of clipping coupons, eating beans and rice or a cheap house rental. This is the result of a high income and my sense is that it is due to the blog. Anyone could save cash for a house if they have an income stream like this AFTER meeting all of their day to day expenses.

I know she is trying to feed a sense of suspense with her soap opera style writing, but I hope blog readers are critical thinkers (ha!). Her writing is disingenuous to have not mentioned some of the above by now. I feel that Crystal will be dishonest with herself , the women who read her blog and GOD (!) if she does not write clearly the reason(s) for saving almost $150,000 in twenty months.

[Wintermute]

Didn't she say at one point in the most recent House-In-Cash series that they had a massive, sudden increase in income from their businesses, or something like that? I seem to remember her writing that's what happened (not an inheritance).

[silvia]

Didn't she say at one point in the most recent House-In-Cash series that they had a massive, sudden increase in income from their businesses, or something like that? I seem to remember her writing that's what happened (not an inheritance).

Yes, in this post http://moneysavingmom.com/2010/04/how-w ... art-2.html she mentions "a couple of unexpected business opportunities which arose due to the Christmas season." I don't remember her specifying what these were...?

[Doomed Harlottt]

I am mainly amazed that she is wearing jeans! I thought she was all Vision Forumish on that topic back in her Biblical Womanhood Days.

[emmiedahl]

These sites annoy me a bit. The average American family does not even earn what the Paines saved every month, but she still gets all sanctimonious about buying her house in cash.

It is something I would love to do someday, but I would do it knowing that I was both disciplined and very, very fortunate.

[starfish]

I smell an inheritance. I recall that they went to a family funeral, and suddenly they had enough cash for the house.

Jesse did buy out someone's law practice, but just how many drunk drivers are careening around Wichita to require his legal assistance? He did actually have a trial a while back. I wonder how that went.

[notathumper]

These sites annoy me a bit. The average American family does not even earn what the Paines saved every month, but she still gets all sanctimonious about buying her house in cash.

It is something I would love to do someday, but I would do it knowing that I was both disciplined and very, very fortunate.

These are exactly my thoughts!! NO American family of four (or five) can meet expenses AND save this amount of money for a house in 20 months on an average middle class income. At the same time, I'd wager that most ANY American family of the same size could save this amount of money in that time period if their income stream was $8,000 per month AFTER meeting regular expenses.

Crystal fails to make that clear.

[starfish]

I mean, that's great she made that goal the focus of their financial life over the last few years. But it's not the complete story.

[Mattie Chatham]

New interview with Crystal up this morning on "Ungrind" --

ungrind.org/2012/money-talk-with-crystal-paine/

Edited to add: If anyone wants to start this as a separate thread, feel free. My post count isn't high enough, even though I read here frequently and am not "new."

[starfish]

She's in the Dominican Republic right now with Jesse. They are going to check on their ministry funded by the sales of her book.