Guest: Matthew Snyder

Andrew Carnegie - “The almighty dollar bequeathed to a child is an almighty curse. No man has the right to handicap his son with such a burden as great wealth. He must face this question squarely: Will my fortune be safe with my boy and will my boy be safe with my fortune?”

First principle - ownership. Am I the owner of my money - or is money, and the ability to make money, a gift from God? How you answer this question will direct the way that you understand the concept of money!

James 1:17 - Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens.

“Stewardship” - the idea that you are not the owner, but you are responsible for the management of something. ALL that you have has been given to you - your time, your talents, your treasure - and you are responsible for the management of every aspect of your life.

Managing Your Money:

Giving

Saving

Investing

Spending

Giving - you need to plan your giving - setting aside a percentage of your income to give to others - your church, the needs of others, a cause you find important, etc. Matthew has made a commitment to give away an increasing percentage of their income year after year!

Saving - there is saving for the long-term and saving for emergencies in the short term. The more you save early, that money builds and compounds over time!

Investing - it takes money to make money. Look for opportunities to use your money to invest into the development of industries that make money. You can be aggressive or conservative with those investments - basic principle: don’t put all your investment “eggs” in one basket - important to diversify your investments.

Spending - using the resources that the Lord has blessed you with to enjoy life - if you like shoes, buy shoes…if you like drinking coffee, buy coffee - but be wise in how you spend your money and don’t let your money and the things that you buy control your life!

Debt - the basic principle is to work to LIMIT debt. Three things to pay attention to:

Credit cards - pay these off first, highest interest rate. Look at credit cards like cash.

College loans - pay these off next to get “debt-free” so that you can look to purchase some of those bigger ticket items.

Cars - be careful not to spend too much money on a car as a status symbol!

Delayed gratification - you don’t always have to have everything you want right when you want it - save up for things, delay that gratification until you can afford it.

Make sure you have conversations about money, finances, etc. if you’re in a relationship with another person to make sure you’re both on the same page!