My wife and four children and I
recently completed tithing settlement with our bishop. He taught us
that tithing is 10% of our increase.
We just realized that for six months
of the year, we had four chickens. They laid, on average, three eggs
a day. That is about 540 eggs.
Unfortunately, we have none of these
eggs left to give the Bishop. Can you recommend what kind of eggs we
should purchase to supply our tithe of 54 eggs?
Answer:
You should supply the kind of eggs
that look like legal tender and fit into a tithing envelope.
In-kind donations of foodstuffs are
discouraged these days, and I doubt that your bishop (and his
accounting system) is set up to receive fifty-four eggs. And since
tithing must be paid to the bishop—you can’t do freelance
charity and call it tithing—you should do the mainstream,
non-attention-grabbing thing and pay with money. Especially as you
don’t actually have the eggs anymore.
The fun question here is how much
tithing you should pay on your eggs. You already know from your
bishop that tithing is 10% of your increase. It is up to you to
decide what that means vis-a-vis your eggs.
I have no idea how eggs were tithed
in the years when the ownership of egg-producing chickens was more
common than it is today. But I don’t think that really matters,
except as an interesting bit of information. What matters here is
that you, having judged the 540 eggs to be increase, teach your
children how to calculate and pay an honest tithe.
So call a family meeting to
calculate the tithing you owe on your eggs.
As a precaution, run the numbers on
your own before the family meeting. If it turns out that you lost
money, despite the production of 540 eggs, you should know that up
front. (Perhaps you already do know that, which is why you
don’t have the chickens anymore.)
To tithe your eggs, you’ll
need to determine their market value. So take your kids on an outing
to the grocery store. Eggs today come in many varieties: cage free,
free range, grain fed, vegetarian fed, omega-3 enhanced, heirloom,
and so forth. You will have to decide which kind of eggs are most
like the ones you produced, and note their cost. Then do the math
(extra points if you teach the kiddos to do it in their heads!) and
figure the market value of your 540 eggs.
For the calculation of increase, the
ages of your children are important. If you have small children, you
might decide to put a value on your eggs, pay 10% of that value, and
call it good. It would certainly be an honest tithe. It would also
teach the children to think broadly (i.e. beyond their parents
earnings) about increase and give them the happiness of paying
tithing.
If you have
older children, a more sophisticated understanding of increase is
appropriate. Discuss with them the cost of producing the eggs, such
as the cost of the chickens, chicken feed, chicken wire, chicken
coop, etc., which you may then choose to subtract from the value of
your 540 eggs.
In addition to demonstrating how to
calculate an honest tithe on a non-cash increase, this little
exercise will teach your children the principle of return on
investment and, importantly, that eggs don’t grow on trees.
Do
you have a quandary, conundrum, or sticky situation in your life?
Click this button to drop Cyndie a line, and she’ll be happy to
answer your question in a future column. Any topic is welcome!
Cynthia Munk Swindlehurst spent her childhood in New Hampshire and her
adolescence in San Diego. She served a mission in Manaus Brazil. She
graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in English and from
Duke University with a law degree.
She practiced law until her first child was born. She enjoys reading, tap
dancing, and discussing current events. She and her husband live in
Greensboro, North Carolina with their two sons.
Cyndie serves as the Sunbeams teacher in her ward.