Building Wealth for the Next Generation One Cent at a Time (Part 1)

My mom’s a spender, my dad an investor, and me, somewhere in between. You might liken me to the wicked servant the Scriptures speak of, who out of fear and laziness goes and buries his master’s treasure (Matthew 25:14-30). This has been the pattern in multiple areas of my life, but today I want to focus specifically on financial matters. The Scriptures have much to say about finances and the importance of investing and generational wealth. For too long, I have been undereducated and undirected in my pursuit to not just plan for today but for decades from now.

Proverbs 13:22 says, “A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children, but the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous.” I’ve probably been leaning too heavily on treasure being stored up for me and not so much on simply being a good woman. My great grandfather was one of the first persons to invest in my future. He opened a savings account for me when I was a little girl and would periodically deposit money in it. I would watch him sit in his big rocking chair, legs crossed with his ledger as he balanced his funds whenever we lived with and then visited my great grandparents. I got access to that account in my teens when I began working and then inherited it fully to manage on my own once I turned eighteen.

I appreciated this sum of money (which wasn’t substantial but certainly more than I would have had to my name without it) having been intentionally set aside for me. As I mentioned in my last blog, one of the investments my dad made into my life was teaching me what to do to maintain a good name in the financial world. So, I learned the importance of opening credit cards and paying them off at the completion of each cycle. If there was one thing this girl hated, it was interest rates. It just boiled my spirit to have to pay more than what I had borrowed, all because I didn’t pay the calculatable charges in full.

My son’s father once told me that I have my dad’s nature, but I was nurtured by my mom. I see the truth in that. We experienced a lot of financial struggles growing up, living from paycheck to paycheck, many times in deficits, threatened with evictions, and sometimes having little food to eat. In all this though, I always saw the faithfulness of God to provide for us. Whether it was family and friends who’d send us around the corner with bags of food in tow or those who’d pull together resources so we didn’t have to leave our home, God sufficiently supplied. Going to visit my dad was somewhat of a different world. He was always financially secure and lived in stately homes that would have my brother and I oohing and awing when we’d arrive at every new abode.

Out of my exposure, I grew accustomed to having little and saving little. I just needed enough. What dropped in my spirit as of late was that I was only thinking about enough for me, enough for today. With my bent towards work in the social services and nonprofit fields, I never imagined that I’d make or have a lot of money. I needed the conviction that even if I maintained a low to moderate yearly income, it didn’t mean I wasn’t responsible for growing and investing what I could. God always calls us to be faithful with what we have – not with what anyone else has. So, if you just have two pennies to save each month, save those two pennies. If it is $200, then save that. If $2,000 then be faithful with the $2,000. I went through a rocky time in my 30s, the prime years for multiplying funds and creating streams of income, as the experts say. I got divorced, lost two jobs, worked part-time and barely above minimum wage for a season, packed and moved four times, took a loss on a lemon, and lived with two families in all of this flux. I was simply trying to breathe and recover. Now on the other side of much of that, the Lord has been calling me to be faithful in more ways than one. It was time to be that good woman and invest in my future and that of my lineage.

One of the first things I needed to do was account for my money – what did I have and how was I spending it? I’ve had an Excel budget that I’d use off and on whenever I was trying to count my coins. I needed to open it up and relook at all those categories again. So, I did. I updated it as best I could with earnings and expenses. I then created another sheet that listed all of my credit and debt accounts. From credit cards to student loans, I needed to see what was there. One of the reasons my dad encouraged me to open multiple credit card accounts was because those credit limits would increase my accessible resources which could be important for loan options and decreasing my debt-to-income ratio, thereby increasing my credit score. That’s one thing I am proud that I listened to.

And though I haven’t been perfect at staying within my allotted limits, it’s been tremendously helpful seeing my projected expenses next to my actual ones. I downloaded the EveryDollar app on my phone and replicated my budget sheet. As I make purchases, I subtract the cost from the appropriate line item. Only a few months in of restarting this journey, it’s been beneficial as I’ve sat at this computer all day pouring over financial decisions for me and my son. What’s been my pattern? Where do I need more money? Where can I repurpose funds to categories that need help? That little tracker has enabled me see and make some of those decisions. I have a clearer picture of what I have to give towards my future investments and soon my son’s.

You may be much further along than creating a budget, but for some of you I know you’re right where I lived for most of my life – trying to have enough for today. That’s okay. I want to encourage you to start right where you are with what you have. One of the books my son and I recently read is called Small Gifts in God’s Hands by Max Lucado. It’s a beautiful story filled with a lesson of faith for both kids and adults. It tells the account of a boy who after looking at all the things other people had to bring to Jesus, believed he didn’t have anything worth offering. His mom would continually say to him, “If Jesus is who He says He is, He can do big things with small gifts.” This is a truth not just in our finances but in many facets of our lives. And it’s one I needed to be reminded of as I’m constantly discrediting and discounting what I have to offer Jesus too. Join me as we both figure out how to give our small gifts to Him and allow Jesus to use and multiple them in ways unimaginable.

Financial literacy can be biblical literacy.

When me and my son’s dad were dating, we took the Crown Biblical Financial Study offered through our church. It opened our eyes to what God has to say about money. And as I mentioned at the beginning, it was a lot. One of the first things they asked us to do was to read the book Managing Money God’s Way by Randy Alcorn. It was an excellent read. I’d recommend both the course and text if you want the King’s perspective on all He’s given you to steward. Maybe I’ll pick up a copy and read it again too.