Matt Bell's Blog, page 28

Profitable Ideas: Logging Off, Making Your Last Smart Money Move Now, and More

Weekly roundup of recommended personal finance articles from around the web.

How to log off (MIT Technology Review). To a great degree, social media is a distraction and discouragement—for us and our kids. See also, How to stop mindless scrolling (Business Insider).

Too many employees cash out their 401(k)s when leaving a job (Harvard Business Review). This is how NOT to prepare for retirement!

More weddings, baby showers and birthdays are going gift-free (Wall Street Journal). It was always a nice sentiment. Now it’s helpful in very tangible ways for more people than we probably realize.   

What about lending money, charging interest, and cosigning a loan? (Randy Alcorn via FaithFi). These feel like purely practical dollars and cents decisions, but don’t make them without knowing what the Bible says.

Volunteer with your children (Institute for Family Studies). A great way to guard against entitlement.

It’s time to figure out your enough number (The Finoneers). How much is enough? It’s a simple question, very challenging to answer, and worth the time to try.

Should I prepay for my funeral? (Clark Howard). Probably so. It’ll save your loved ones from having to make tough, over-priced decisions.

Ex-Google vp on the “one skill” she looked for at job interviews above all others (Foundation for Economic Education). This powerful “soft skill” is hard to find.

7 minimalist mistakes you’re (probably) making (Becoming Minimalist). In your quest to simplify, you may be making things unnecessarily difficult.                                                                            

To weigh in on any of the above, just leave a comment below. And if you haven’t done so already, sign up for a free subscription to this blog.

Four “Blind Spots” To Watch Out For When Investing

Ignorance definitely isn’t bliss when it comes to your investments, and yet we all seem to be hard-wired with blind spots, or as psychologists call them, behavioral biases. Here are some of the more common ways we tend to make irrational and unprofitable investment decisions.

1. Assigning too much value to the most recent news

Try to remember what you had for dinner on each of the past seven nights. Assuming there was nothing unusual about any of the meals, which one do you think you’ll remember most easily? Last night’s dinner, right?

That makes sense. It’s only natural that we would remember most clearly what happened in the most recent past.

But here’s the problem when it comes to investing: It isn’t just that we most easily remember what happened in the recent past; we tend to assign greater significance to the most recent events as well, viewing them as indicators of what’s likely to happen in the future. That’s called recency bias.

For example, let’s say you’re thinking about buying a particular stock. Before placing a buy order, you check its performance today and are pleased to see that it’s up. Without consciously thinking about it, your built-in recency bias sees this as added confirmation that the stock is worth buying. It might be a good stock to buy, and it might not. One day’s performance means very little.

What to do? Make sure you’re basing your investment decisions on something more than just the most recent news. You need a comprehensive process for deciding what investments to make. (Read Is There a Trustworthy Process Behind Your Investment Strategy?)

2. Reacting too strongly to bad news

Recency bias can be magnified if the recent news is bad, and of course, there’s been plenty of bad news lately. This is called loss aversion — the tendency to feel the pain of loss on a much greater magnitude than the pleasure of an equal gain. According to some studies, losses can feel twice as bad as the good feelings that accompany comparable gains.

Loss aversion can lead to many forms of bad investor behavior. During a steep market decline, some investors can’t stomach the pain and decide to sell. But that often makes matters worse because selling locks in their loss. When the market eventually cycles back up, fear keeps them on the sidelines and they miss the rebound.

How to combat loss aversion? Don’t monitor your portfolio so closely. People who check their holdings frequently have been found to trade more (because of fear-based selling) and generate lower returns than those who monitor their portfolios less often.

3. Seeing only what you want to see

As the old saying goes, if you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail. By the same token, if you have a hunch about a particular investment, and especially if you’ve become emotionally attached to the idea of owning it, you may tend to notice only news that supports your point of view.

When confirmation bias gets its claws in you, it becomes very difficult to see things differently. You will ignore contradictory information, selectively remember conversations or articles about the investment you are considering, and even read ambiguous commentary as favoring your point of view.

Confirmation bias goes a long way toward explaining the existence of “perma-bears” and “perma-bulls” — market analysts who always see a bear or bull market on the horizon and can point to evidence supporting their opinions.

To avoid confirmation bias, proactively seek opposing points of view. Feeling strongly attached to the idea of investing in XYZ Corp? Look for reasons not to invest in it.

4. Using the wrong benchmarks

When you walk into a car dealer’s showroom and see one of its most expensive vehicles on display, the model you had in mind probably looks like a bargain. That’s a type of bias called anchoring in action, with the expensive car serving as a very influential point of reference.

When it comes to investing, it’s common for people to anchor their portfolio’s performance to “the market.” Even if they have 40 percent of their money invested in bonds, the fact that the market generated a 30 percent gain makes them feel bad about their paltry 18 percent. It might even prompt them to change their portfolio and take on more risk than they should.

What’s the solution? Create a written investment plan tailored to your age and risk tolerance, including a realistic assumed average annual rate of return, such as 7 percent. Using that as your anchor, an 18 percent return wouldn’t be a disappointment; it would be amazing.

Other ways to combat behavioral biases

The ideal emotional state for an investor is unemotional. However, we’re not robots. So, awareness of our many biases is a good starting point for preventing them from steering us in the wrong direction.

Another helpful step is to press the pause button. Since it’s impossible to time the market, waiting a couple of days before executing a buy or sell order isn’t going to make much difference in that investment’s performance. However, using that time to question your assumptions may make a big difference in helping you more rationally decide whether the investment should be bought or sold in the first place.

By far, the single best step you can take toward unbiased decision-making with your investments is to use an investment strategy that’s fueled by an objective investment selection process.

Take it to heart: “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” – Jeremiah 17:9                                                             

Take action: To put an unbiased investment process to work in your life, read, and act on, 6 Principles for a Solid Investing Plan.

Read more: Investor Live Fire Testing  

Profitable Ideas: Protecting the Priceless Database You Carry Around, First Impressions, and More

Weekly roundup of recommended personal finance articles from around the web.

A basic iPhone feature helps criminals steal your entire digital life (Wall Street Journal). More and more of our vital information is on our phones. Carry with care.

Want less stress? Limit your child’s screen time (Becoming Minimalist). It’ll be good for them, and for you.

‘It broke me.’ Everyone says you need power of attorney, but nobody tells you how hard it is to use (MarketWatch). A cautionary tale.

How to escape the hedonic treadmill (HackerNoon). Gratitude is one of life’s true superpowers.

This is what a job interviewer first notices about you (Reader’s Digest). First impressions speak volumes.

Use it or lose it: if your employer gave you more time to spend your FSA money, the time is now (USA TODAY). If you carried over some FSA money from 2022, you may have just days left to use it.

Why we usually can’t tell when a review is fake (Planet Money). It’s unfortunate but true: there are a lot of fake reviews out there. Here’s what to watch out for.

Nice people don’t value money? Your personality may reveal your savings skills (Study Finds). Temperament plays a big role in how we manage money. Learn more about the financial tendencies of people with a sanguine, melancholy, choleric, and phlegmatic temperament on my site.

To weigh in on any of the above, just leave a comment below. And if you haven’t done so already, sign up for a free subscription to this blog.

Tapping Into the Odd and Powerful Force of Momentum

I didn’t want to workout the other day. I was dead tired. Just couldn’t sleep the night before. But I did it anyway.

I didn’t set any records—that’s for sure. But I did it. And I did the full workout.

It was as if I had no choice. A mysterious force seemed to propel me forward and keep me going until I was done.

It was momentum.

The power of unbalanced forces

I love the terminology from Sir Isaac Newton’s Laws of Motion. He said an object at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.

I didn’t do well enough in science to understand what Newton was really talking about. However, “unbalanced” is a great way to describe four forces that help get us moving toward our goals: commitment, accountability, small wins, and deciding to not stop.

What’s normal in our world is to be overweight and in debt. If we’re going to be different, if we’re going to be physically and financially fit, we’re going to need to be a little odd. We’re going to need some unbalanced forces working in our favor.

Commitment

There’s huge power in making a commitment – deciding to go for something in the face of fatigue, the call of the couch, and the dime-a-dozen doubters who nip at our dreams.

Scottish mountain climber W.H. Murray summed it up well:

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets: ‘Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!'”

Murray climbed some of the world’s tallest mountains and wrote several now-classic books on the subject. He wrote Mountaineering in Scotland on a roll of toilet paper while in prison during World War II. When his captors confiscated it, he wrote the book again.

Clearly, Murray was an oddball. He was committed.

Accountability

A number of years ago, my wife, Jude, and I ran our first half-marathon. I had never run that far before. Because our kids were really young, we were only able to run together once during our 13 weeks of training. Still, she pushed me out of bed when I didn’t want to go. I bribed her with breakfast when she didn’t want to go. It made a huge difference.

Pursuing a goal with someone else is the ultimate form of accountability. But just mustering the courage to tell someone about your crazy plans will help a lot.

Who else knows what you’re pursuing? If no one knows, call a trusted friend today and tell him or her. Ask for their prayers and encouragement. Invite them to ask you about your progress from time to time. You’ll be amazed at what a difference it makes.

Small wins

It doesn’t matter whether I’m feeling energized or tired, there always comes a time during a workout when I want to quit. There are other things I’d rather be doing. I wonder whether it’s making any difference. That’s when the power of small wins is especially helpful.

When I’m biking outside, I’ll pick a landmark up that I know is coming up ahead – maybe a certain cross street. If I’m on the bike in our basement, I’ll aim for the next five minutes and then the next five. After I hit each sub-goal, I’ll set a new one.

It’s important to set sub-goals when going for a financial goal as well. Maybe you’ve run the numbers to see how much faster you’ll dump your debts if you throw an extra $50 or $75 at them each month. Every month that you hit that sub-goal, you’re making tangible progress.

Deciding to not stop

Recently, someone asked me about the idea of taking an occasional month off from whatever you’re doing to pursue a financial goal in order to celebrate some of the wins along the way. It’s a common idea and, without thinking about it enough, I said it made sense. I wish I hadn’t said that.

I don’t think you should stop. Not until you accomplish the goal you’re pursuing. The feeling of accomplishment from achieving each sub-goal is celebration enough.

When we lived in the Chicago area and I used to run regularly, there was a train track on my running route. For a while, whenever I’d approach that train track, I’d hope for a train. I thought it would feel good to stop for a few minutes and catch my breath. But what I quickly discovered is it’s less painful to keep going (assuming there’s no train coming!). Stopping kills momentum. Starting again is tough.

So, hold off on any early momentum-stopping celebrations. Wait for the big win. Then, sure, celebrate that. But before long, make sure you set another goal.

May the unbalanced forces be with you

What goals are you going for? Have you made a commitment? Do you have an accountability partner? Have you broken the goal down into a series of small wins? Have you decided to not stop?

If you have, rest assured, you’re a bit odd. Some might say you’re downright unbalanced. And I’m betting on you to get to where you’re going.

What else have you found helpful in building and maintaining momentum?

If you found this article helpful, encouraging, or otherwise worth the time to read, why not pass it along to someone else by forwarding a link? Extra points if you encourage them to subscribe. Twice a week, they’ll receive ideas and encouragement for using money well.

Profitable Ideas: Be Prepared, Raising Diligent Workers, and More

Weekly roundup of recommended personal finance articles from around the web.

1 in 4 Americans would need to use a credit card to pay a $1,000 expense (MarketWatch). Having an emergency fund does wonders for keeping stress at bay. Read also, Saving money is all about the ‘why’ 

To become better adults, look to the lessons we teach our kids (Becoming Minimalist). The most powerful lessons we teach are those that we model.

Raising kids who do the dishes without being asked (Christian Parenting). Choose a chores system that works for your family and then—and this is the important part—implement the system with consistency.

Consumer price inflation, by type of good or service (2000-2022) (Visual Capitalist). Everything hasn’t gotten more expensive; it only seems that way!

Entitlement is fighting against enjoyment (Eric Geiger). “When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.”

You will make at least one career change in your life (The Woke Salaryman). How do you prepare? Stay curious and always keep learning.

All the recessions that didn’t happen (Yahoo Finance). Historically, many, many more recessions have been predicted than have materialized.

Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market (Reuters). Recycling may feel good, but is it doing real good?

Which college majors lead to the highest — and lowest — pay? (CBS Money Watch). The point isn’t to steer kids toward a profession only because it pays well, but knowing how well professions pay can guide decisions about how much to spend or borrow for college.

To weigh in on any of the above, just leave a comment below. And if you haven’t done so already, sign up for a free subscription to this blog.

Investor Live Fire Testing

I remember reading an article by a long-haul cargo plane pilot who described his job as hour upon hour of boredom interspersed with moments of sheer terror. That’s a pretty good description of the stock market. There are long periods when not much happens. And then there are times like these. A rough year last year. A promising start to this year, only to see stocks falter.

But there’s a big difference between a jetliner in trouble and a market in trouble. For pilots, such moments require quick decisions and immediate action. For investors, the best response is to do… nothing. Nothing? That’s right, nothing. 

And that can be extraordinarily difficult. But a sure sign that you are investing well is that when the market goes crazy you are willing and able to stay with your investment strategy. At times like these, it’s all about your perspective and your practices.

Perspective

A healthy biblical perspective on investing is about trusting that God is in control, and that he knows your needs and has promised to provide for you. It’s about saying, “Okay, Lord, I’ve done all that I know to do to manage your resources well. It’s painful to see investment losses, but I know that you are in charge and my trust is in you. Please give me wisdom and peace.”

It’s also about patience. The Bible says, “Steady plodding brings prosperity; hasty speculation brings poverty” (Proverbs 21:5). Biblical investing is slow and steady. Doing the right thing a little at a time over a long period of time. Keeping a steady hand on the wheel when things get rough.  

And just as the Bible teaches us to be patient, so does market history. Of all the daily market moves since 1926, about half were positive. In other words, on a day-to-day basis, you have about a 50 percent chance of making money in the market. However, the longer you stretch that time frame, the greater your chances of making money. Some 62% of one-month periods have been positive, 79% of the one-year periods, 94% of 10-year periods, and 100% of 20-year periods.

The investing journey is filled with lots of ups and downs, but time is on your side.

Knowing some market history is an important part of a good steward’s perspective on investing.

Practices

Navigating crazy times in the market is also much easier if you’ve made it your practice to follow a trustworthy investment strategy. Remember, a trustworthy investment strategy is marked by:

Objectivity. Especially at times of market stress, when your emotions are screaming, you need an objective, rules-based strategy. This is not the time to let your emotions sway your decisions.

Demonstrated effectiveness. Knowing how the strategy you’re following has fared during past market disruptions can help manage your expectations. If you know that the strategy you’re using has a track record of delivering the returns you need, even though it has had its share of ups and downs, can help you stay with it. 

Emotional acceptability. That means the returns your strategy has delivered have come at a level of volatility you can live with. When you know the strategy you’re using tends to be about 25% less volatile than the market, that can help you handle a 6% decline, especially when the market falls by 8%. That tells you your strategy is performing as it should.

Ease of understanding. You should be able to describe to a middle school student how your strategy works. If your strategy is something of a black box to you, a mystery, that can cause anxiety at times of market stress. By the same token, being clear about how it works can help give you peace.

The true test

Whether you’re a pilot or an investor, the true test of your abilities comes during an emergency. If you have money in the market right now, how well have you dealt with all of the recent volatility? What does your response say about your perspective about investing and your investment practices?

Take it to heart: “Whoever gathers money little by little makes it grow.” – Proverbs 13:11

Take action: If recent market events have made you realize you don’t have a trustworthy investment strategy, check out Sound Mind Investing. 

Read more: Three Ways to Deal With a Volatile Stock Market

Profitable Ideas: Be Like Buffett, Money Lies, and More

Weekly roundup of recommended personal finance articles from around the web.

Would you trade places with Warren Buffet? (Owen Stoneking). A good piece about the value of time and experiences.

Forget milk and eggs: supermarkets are having a fire sale on data about you (The Markup). Those frequent shopper cards don’t just save you some money, they make a ton of money for the store.

8 questions to ask when setting up a family inheritance (Luke1428). If you’re going to leave some money behind, do so wisely.

Research on why Christians should be the most grateful people (Eric Geiger). Gratitude depends heavily on who we give credit to for all that we have.

Five lies we believe about money (Relevant Magazine). Do you believe any of these?

Now you can ‘subscribe’ to a car instead of buying or leasing one (Lifehacker). It’s promoted as less expensive than renting, but if you never buy, your payments just go on and on.

Your 401(k) match can now be Roth (and other changes from the Secure 2.0 Act) (Flow Financial Planning). If you have a Roth 401(k), this is a welcome change.

Where new landlords go wrong (Wall Street Journal). Do you own rental property? What are some lessons you learned the hard way?

To weigh in on any of the above, just leave a comment below. And if you haven’t done so already, sign up for a free subscription to this blog.

To Invest Well, Ask The Right Question

Have you ever invested in a stock or mutual fund because it was recommended by a friend or relative? Or maybe you read about it on a financial web site or blog. 

Think about the investment choices you’ve made in your workplace plan. Why did you make those choices? One recent study found that when workplace retirement plans list the mutual funds that are available in alphabetical order, those at the top of the list tend to get chosen most often.

When the market gets a little crazy, like this week, have you ever sold an investment out of fear? Or, when the market is growing, have you ever made an investment that’s riskier that what you would normally choose?

Process over picks

One of the problems with these types of investment decisions is there’s no process behind them. Do those investments really make sense for you, given your age and risk tolerance? And how will you know if or when you should sell, or what you should buy next?

A good stewardship approach to investing is to focus on the investment process rather than the investment picks. In other words, don’t be too quick to ask, “What should I invest in?” Instead, ask, “What investment strategy should I use?” And the strategy you choose should be marked by four criteria:

1) Objectivity. Steer clear of any strategy that depends on someone’s predictions or opinions about where the market is headed or what sectors are likely to perform best. Instead, opt for a strategy that’s guided by objective, mechanical rules. In good times and bad, you don’t want human emotion involved in your investing. You want a trustworthy, rules-based process.

2) Demonstrated effectiveness. While a strategy’s historical performance doesn’t guarantee its future performance, it should have been around long enough to see how it has performed under various market conditions. And it should have a proven track record of delivering the average annual returns you need to achieve your goals. (Last week’s article, Two Steps Toward a Biblical Approach to Investing, recommended a calculator that can help you clarify your investment goals.) That doesn’t necessarily mean going with a strategy that has the highest possible returns. It means finding one designed to deliver the level of return you need, and, as the next point describes, at a level of volatility you can live with. 

3) Emotional acceptability. This means two things. First, you’re willing to do whatever it takes to follow the strategy (some require more work than others). And second, you’re comfortable with the volatility that can be expected from the strategy. Where I work by day, Sound Mind Investing, our strategies have “relative risk” scores ranging from 0.6 to 1.85. That means they range from 40% less volatile than the U.S. stock market to 85% more volatile. The various strategies are appropriate for different types of investors and can be especially effective when blended. (Read Higher Returns With Less Risk, Re-Examined.)

Again, the ideal is to choose a strategy that has a demonstrated track record of delivering the level of returns you need in order to meet your goals and has an expected volatility level that enables you to sleep at night. 

4) Ease of understanding. How well could you explain what’s in your investment portfolio and why? Could you explain all of that to a middle school student? If you’re married, both of you should be able to give at least a general explanation. That way, no matter how your portfolio performs, you’re in it together.

Think about your investment approach. How well does it meet the criteria above?

Take it to heart: “The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty.” – Proverbs 21:5

Take action: Try explaining how you’re now investing to someone, preferably a young person. See how easily you can do that.

Read more: Three Ways to Deal With a Volatile Stock Market

Profitable Ideas: Puppets on a String No More, Know Your Dough, and More

Weekly roundup of recommended personal finance articles from around the web.

Our desires are being manipulated (Becoming Minimalist). Some good ideas for taking back control.

Raising a red flag on colleges’ sports gambling play (Inside Higher Ed). “The risk of not only enabling but endorsing and encouraging gambling for [college students] is to target a vulnerable population already in debt and threatened with profound loss and addiction.”

The death of the smart shopper (The Atlantic). “Tech companies and global manufacturing have taken the weaknesses that have always existed in the idea of the informed consumer and exploited them to their logical extreme.”

Rule #1 of building wealth: play defense with your money (Darius Foroux). It isn’t being timid; it’s being smart.

Stewardship isn’t just about money (Relevant Magazine). Making something more of what you’ve been given.

11 most costly mistakes millennials are making that you can avoid (The Long Game). Probably not just millennials.

How much do you really know about your finances? (Money Ning). You can only manage what you measure.

Five ways to get better with money in 2023 (The Evidence-Based Investor). No one ever gets the money thing completely right. We’re always growing, always learning. At least one of these ideas is likely to help you keep getting better with money.

To weigh in on any of the above, just leave a comment below. And if you haven’t done so already, sign up for a free subscription to this blog.

Two Steps Toward a Biblical Approach to Investing

As with most financial topics, there are biblical principles that should guide our investing, but many of the specifics are left to us to figure out, hopefully motivated by a heart to consider how a good steward would invest. Last week, we looked at some reasons to invest. This week, we’ll start to build a more detailed framework. 

To figure out what a biblical approach to investing might look like, think about a spectrum of ways to invest. At one end are people who don’t invest. They’re confused by the terminology. “Exchange-traded funds.” “Asset allocation.” What does it all mean? Or maybe they’re scared to invest. Just look at what happened between the end of 2007 and early 2009. The market lost half its value. Half! 

On the other end are people who are excited by headlines about people making a fortune investing in Bitcoin, Tesla, or whatever else is the hot investment of the day. Investing looks like an easy path to quick riches. 

I think you’d agree that neither approach is healthy. In both cases, there are spiritual issues at work, and there are practical issues.

Take it slow

For those who are scared or confused, it may help to read, reflect on, and memorize what God’s Word has to say about His provision (Matthew 6:25-34) and protection (Isaiah 41:10), and about seeking His wisdom (James 1:5). And there may be practical issues at work, such as a need to understand that putting money in a bank savings account is unlikely to beat inflation, to learn about the power of compounding, and to review some market history, seeing that while the market moves through cycles of growth and decline, times of growth have tended to last longer than times of decline and they’ve added more value than times of decline have taken away.

Those eager to make a fast fortune in the market would also benefit from time in the Word, seeing that while wealth is not described as inherently evil, we are cautioned against being eager to gain it (Proverbs 28:20). 

Here’s a foundational investment-related verse to memorize:

“Steady plodding brings prosperity; hasty speculation brings poverty.” – Proverbs 21:5 (TLB)

That’s a great starting point for developing a biblically-informed approach to investing.

Plan to succeed

With that slow and steady mindset in place, a good next step would be to create a plan. Planning is encouraged in the same proverb we just read, only in a different translation of the Bible:

“The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty.” – Proverbs 21:5 (NIV)

Do you have an investment plan? That would include specific investment goals you’re trying to achieve — perhaps an amount of money you’re trying to have in an investment portfolio by a certain age for retirement, or a specific sum in a 529 plan account by the time each of your kids turns 18.

If not, run some numbers using this Fidelity calculator for retirement (Premium members of Sound Mind Investing have access to an even more powerful calculator) and this SavingForCollege.com calculator for college.

With the retirement calculator, after answering just six questions, you’ll get some feedback as to whether you’re on track. If not, you can make some adjustments to some of the variables. 

I recommend being somewhat conservative with your assumptions. For example, it’ll list your “planning age.” That’s the polite way of saying, “anticipated age of death.” I’d encourage using age 95. I’d rather that you plan for a long life and have some money left over rather than not having enough to live on. 

The calculator will also ask for your “retirement age.” If you plan to work past the traditional retirement age — say to age 70 — I’d encourage you to plan more conservatively by using a retirement age a year or two younger. More people than ever are saying they plan to retire later than age 65. However, most people still retire around that age or earlier, often because of health issues or the need to care for a loved one.

With the college savings calculator, if you have more than one college-bound child, use the calculator one child at a time.

Taking these two steps — adopting a slow and steady mindset for investing and starting to put a plan together by running some numbers will be a great start toward putting into practice a biblically-informed approach to investing.

Next week, we’ll take all of this a bit further.

Take it to heart: “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.” – James 1:5

Take action: Use the calculators mentioned above to figure out how much you need to invest each month in order to meet your goals. Very few people have taken this step, and yet those who have tend to set aside more money for investing each month than those who haven’t. Knowing how much you should be investing each month can be a motivator to act.

Read more: Four Steps to Conquer Your Fear of Investing