Personal Finance: Another Perspective (Bryan Sudweeks) Part 1

Nine Myths of Personal Finance: What Wise Stewards Know


Myth #1:  It's All Mine (Reality: None of it is yours)
     Principle 1: Ownership: Everything we have is the Lords
     Principle 2: Stewardship: We are stewards over everything given us
     Principle 3: Accountability: We are accountable for our choices


Myth #2: It's About Money (Reality: It's About Faith)

• In most cases, financial problems are BEHAVIORAL problems, not money    problems.

Myth #3: It's a Temporal Matter (Reality: Money Matters are Spiritual because...)
     1.  All things are spiritual
    2.  Money is a medium of exchange
    3.  There is no true freedom without financial freedom
    4.  Money is a tool to teach principles to children: sacrifice, discipline, work, law of the harvest


Myth #4: It's a Man's Responsibility (Reality: It's a shared responsibility)

•  Spouses should be equal partners with money matters.

Myth #5: Credit Card and Consumer Debt is OK (Reality: Debt is Dumb!)

• Debt stops growth and is expensive
• Credit cards are fine IF you pay them off each month

Myth #6: If I Pay Tithing, I have little to worry about financially (Reality: There are Dangers to not being financially wise)

• Learning, thought and education on my part is important

Myth #7: Budgets are for college students (Reality: Every family should have a budget)

• Most families can't account for 10-20% of their spending each month
• Budget is the most important tool in obtaining our goals
• When you plan your spending, your money goes to our important goals

Myth #8: Parents are responsible to support adult children (Reality: Adult children are responsible for supporting themselves)

Myth #9: There are no good sources of Personal Financial Information (Reality: There are many good sources)

• providentliving.org
• Family Finance Workshop (Coming soon from LDS employment resources)
• personalfinance.byu.edu

Understanding What Wise Stewards Know

1. Recognize their stewardship
2. Have priorities in order
3. Plan their future early and live their plan
4. What they become is the most important thing.  Realize that it's not what you earn, but what you SAVE to acquire wealth.
5. Money cannot buy happiness but it can eliminate financial problems.
6. Understand assets and liabilities.  Assets have value.  Income generating (investments, savings, etc.)  Income consuming: (cars, toys, house, etc.)
7. Understand income: earned income (job), passive income (investments, real estate, businesses), portfolio income (financial investments)
8. Be responsible with your money.  "Every day with every dollar you decide to be rich, poor or middle class." -Robert Kiyosaki, Rich Dad, Poor Dad
9. Make a living by what they earn, make a life by what they are
10. Remember that the storms make us strong if we learn lessons from the storm.

My thoughts:

I was a little wary of this class after the first session.  I wanted to know more about what to DO to be more financially savvy.  But after the other personal finance classes, I learned that it was important to realize what good principles are BEFORE learning about how to spend/save money.  I highlighted some of the things that stood out to me from this class.  Also, check out the personalfinance.byu.edu website.  It has some awesome tools and has all the personal finance class books online that you can take on your own time.