I am currently not receiving any income, neither is my husband. We have been laid off for several months!

We bought a home 10+ years ago for $14,500 (manufactured home, three bedroom, two bath). It is paid off. Our total monthly expenses are $450.

We have food storage so no grocery bills (I DID buy 3lbs of apples today on sale! What a treat!). I am riding the bus instead of driving ($35 for 4 months of bus fare), but I don’t have to BE anywhere.

We can pay our bills with no income for well over a year. I know MANY others with huge homes and mortgages, fancy cars, cool toys, etc, who are struggling more than we are; not just struggling, but losing everything. Somehow, they never could afford to buy food storage. They can’t feed their families. They are extremely poor and needy.

We also got extra clothing when we could as well as games, books, bicycles, etc.

We can go out to eat a few times per month, although we now share an entree instead of buying two, and usually get take-out instead of dining in.

Do we pay much tithing? Not anymore. This is where I worry. Many people now have NO income and more people need assistance. I trust the money will come somehow. I hope more people are prepared nation-wide than they are in our ward (about 10% of active members), but I doubt it.

We are RICH! We feel SUPER rich! If ye are prepared…

No, it wasn’t a Lambourgini or a Jag. It was the very bottom end Lexus. But it was the first time we had purhcased any car that had more than Consumer Reports-style function and cost efficiency. To some extent, it was an indulgence to accommodate my husband’s commuting.

Since then we have sometimes scrimped and sometimes overindulged. It’s not always easy to tell the difference at the outset.

I very much agree. My solution to this is to give a generous fast offering every month. Of course “generous fast offering” is also undefined here, but hopefully we each individually can counsel with God and agree on a generous offering that is not a reckless or imprudent offering.

But I believe we should not beat ourselves up for using our resources to feed and and clothe and shelter our own families at any time; even though there are starving people in the world. I am thinking of that verse in 1 Timothy about caring for our families:

But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.

Good point. I actually never hear them at church either. And I agree with you that it might be more likely to hear hints at the opposite in a normal church setting. I was talking about the Mormon blogging world when I said taking pot shots at the rich is a popular sport. I see such things pretty regularly around the bloggernacle.

One of the best is in Jacob, where he explains the legitimate reason to seek riches:

This comment is question begging since we have not defined what riches means yet. What do you mean when you say “seek for riches”? Do you mean get a job (any job) that pays money? Even if it is providing food and shelter for yourself and your family? Or does seeking for riches mean something else entirely as you are using it here?

I think it is highly likely that the key to that passage from Jacob is the time and energy we spend in our “seeking” rather than the riches part. That is, the problem is not specifically in seeking “riches” (whatever that means) but in seeking anything that is not God. Lest you think I’m making that up, Elder Maxwell and President Faust have repeated this quote in their sermons:

If you have not chosen the kingdom of God first, it will in the end make no difference what you have chosen instead.

However, we here in the U.S. live remarkably well compared to the majority of the rest of the world, and while I’m taking care of my immediate family, I think I also have a great responsibility to give. I feel pretty strongly that we’re not supposed to wait until we have no money worries, or until our house is paid off, or until we have savings, before we help those less fortunate than we are. As long as we’re going out to eat, watching movies, living in heated and/or air-conditioned comfort, we need to remember those who aren’t. There are people living in “houses” with dirt floors and leaky roofs, who don’t have access to clean water. I don’t suggest that we should all dive down to some common level, but that we should always be trying to lift others up. I’m also not suggesting that we can all live at the same level, or that our national and international governments should try to enforce that. I am saying that we, as individuals, must try. Our souls are at stake; the way we treat the poor will matter a lot, even if they’re not directly in our line of vision.

Geoff, I don’t think it’s very useful to try to define “rich” and “poor,” except to ask “How rich am I?” I think everything the scriptures have to say about wealth, riches, prosperity, etc., is meant for us. Maybe even specifically us as citizens of the United States. Bottom line: If we’re eating, living in a house, and clothed, there’s something we could be doing for the poor. (The poor being defined as “anyone who has less than I do, especially if it’s basic needs”.)

Peter, Anyone who has to sell their labor is not rich, to say nothing of those who make installment payments on anything.

So, the orthopods I depose who are making 2-3 million dollars a year right out of residency, since they sell their labor, they are not rich.

My parents served a mission in the Kenya Mission, most of it in Tanzania. To have enough to eat so that you had visible body fat, that made you rich.

In Korea, where my dad was a kid (before the Korean war), any American was rich. Now, having been back for a mission there, my parents remarked that the reverse is almost true. Korea is much more prosperous now.

I remember a friend, Bill Jackson, remarking that he was rich — he could buy fresh bread any day of the week without a ration and without waiting in line.

I really think it is relative.

Myself, I’ve chosen work that gives me free time. Unlike most of my peers, I have my weekends off, I go home at 5:30 almost every night, I don’t have to start work until 8:30 or 9:00 a.m. I walk my daughter to school every morning. I actually take my vacation. In terms that matter, I am rich, though I make a good deal less money than some of them.

Interesting thoughts here.

When my wife graduated, a lot of people expected us to move out of the ward, buy a pricier house, etc. We didn’t, and it still makes me think.

But I think we are all rich.

As for a definition of “rich,” the scriptures speak in terms of comparative wealth and willingness to share, and how much more specific than that we can get is up to each individual.

I haven’t heard any “pot-shots” at the rich in church; the far more common discussion is admiring how successful so-and-so is. Likewise, I’ve not heard the term “rich” being used as “just a code word for ‘people who have more money than me and who I feel justified in looking down on,’” as Geoff put it.

The scriptures are replete with discussions about being rich, as they are with many other obstacles to spirituality. One of the best is in Jacob, where he explains the legitimate reason to seek riches:

2:17 Think of your brethren like unto yourselves, and be familiar with all and free with your substance, that they may be rich like unto you.
18 But before ye seek for riches, seek ye for the kingdom of God.
19 And after ye have obtained a hope in Christ ye shall obtain riches, if ye seek them; and ye will seek them for the intent to do good-to clothe the naked, and to feed the hungry, and to liberate the captive, and administer relief to the sick and the afflicted.

Like Nibley, the scriptures seem to ask us to look at ourselves, and our society, and ask whether we seek riches to do good, or to accumulate bigger portfolios, bigger and more houses and cars, and more exotic vacations?

I wonder sometimes, did Nibley benefit from his grandfather’s rape of the environment? Was he a trust fund baby? Did grandfather’s money pay for Hugh to learn Latin, Greek, French, German, Arabic, Coptic, etc.? Just a thought.

Actually, they managed to go bust, so no, he didn’t.

I also should point out that the definition of being rich you suggested doesn’t really work. We can’t control who envies us or not. Being envied by someone is not a sin – the one doing the envying is the one the scriptures warn

But I don’t think that being rich should be something we control, necessarily. I don’t see it as evil or wrong. But I do see it as relative. And the way you know who is rich is you know who is envied, and you also then know what measures wealth.

I always liked the D&C where it warns the rich — and the poor who envy them.

Unfortunately, I was laughing so hard that I couldn’t hear the reply.

With any luck it was a funny one. Too bad you missed it.