219. Training Our Children in Biblical Financial Stewardship with Matt Bell
Proverbs 11:24 MSG "The world of the generous gets larger and larger; the world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller."
**Transcription Below**
Questions and Topics We Cover:
Why do you say you relate to the prodigal son through your own financial story?
What are some of your favorite Scriptures that have taught you about God's opinion for how we are all invited to manage His money?
What are a few of your favorite ideas to teach our children as it relates to finances?
Matt Bell is a personal finance writer and national speaker. While serving as the managing editor at Sound Mind Investing, he has spoken at churches, universities, and conferences across the country. As the author of several books and video-based small-group studies on biblical money management, Matt has been featured in major print and broadcast media. He lives with his wife and their three children in the Louisville area.
Trusted: Preparing Your Kids for a Lifetime of God-Honoring Money Management
Thank You to Our Sponsor: Sam Leman Eureka
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Patreon 57 Teaching our Children about Finances with Markie Castle
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Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)
Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”
Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”
Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.”
Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”
Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”
Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”
Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”
Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“
Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“
Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
**Transcription Below**
[00:00:00] <music>
Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here.
[00:00:18] <music>
Laura Dugger: The principles of honesty and integrity that Sam Leman founded his business on continue today, over 55 years later, at Sam Leman Chevrolet Eureka. Owned and operated by the Bertschi Family, Sam Leman in Eureka appreciates the support they've received from their customers all over central Illinois and beyond. Visit them today at Lemangm.com.
Happy New Year! Some of you may have already set your New Year's resolutions, and maybe finances plays a role in some of your hopes and dreams for this year. If you're also interested in training your kids to be wise stewards with their relationship with money, you are going to thoroughly enjoy this chat.
My first guest of the year is personal finance author and speaker, Matt Bell. Matt recently released a book entitled Trusted: Preparing Your Kids for a Lifetime of God-Honoring Money Management. [00:01:22]
Here's our chat.
Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, Matt.
Matt Bell: Thanks so much, Laura. I appreciate the chance to spend some time talking with you.
Laura Dugger: Will you begin by telling us a bit more about who you are and what work you get to do?
Matt Bell: That's a great way to put it. Sure, I'd be happy to. My wife Jude and I have been married for 24 years now. We have three kids. They're 19, 17, and 15. We spent most of our time in Chicago but moved to Louisville in 2012 for me to take a job with a company called Sound Mind Investing, which is a Christian company that helps people invest. It's been around over 30 years.
On the side, in addition to the day job, I write a blog, mattaboutmoney.com, and do some other writing and speaking. It's all about biblical money management. I just love the topic. It really is a privilege to be able to do this work.
Laura Dugger: I know you've said before that you personally relate to the prodigal son through your own financial story. [00:02:25] Will you share your journey with us?
Matt Bell: Yeah, absolutely. I like to say that it was my unintentional reenactment of the Bible's parable of the prodigal son that certainly led me to the Lord and led me to this work. I can smile about it now, but it was a challenging time.
I was in my mid-20s, and I inherited about $60,000 from an uncle who passed away. I had no idea he planned to leave me any money, so it was this huge surprise and this huge gift.
I had great intentions with the money. I thought, "Wow, this is such a unique opportunity. I really want to use the money well." I thought if I could do anything, I would create my dream job, something I would love to do all of my days.
I took a little inventory of the things I most love to do. I love to golf, and I love to travel, so I created a newsletter for golfers who take golf vacations. For a time, it really was a dream come true. I got to play Pebble Beach and some just great courses in this country and some other countries. I was really having the time of my life. [00:03:25]
The problem was I wasn't attracting very many paid subscribers. It didn't occur to me as a big problem because I had this huge pile of money that I thought would last forever, but it certainly didn't last forever.
A couple of years after inheriting the money, I found myself deeply in debt. I was $20,000 in debt. I took this gift of $60,000 and turned it into negative $20,000 in two years' time because I was just so acclimated to that great life I was living and so blind to what was happening with the money. So that was a very humbling wake-up call to realize what a mess I'd made of that opportunity.
I ended up moving home at the encouragement of my parents for about six months, which I'll always be grateful to them. That was a huge safety net they provided to me. But it was also just really discouraging and literally depressing.
I remember looking forward to the nighttime when I could just sleep and dreading when the sun would come up in the morning and I had to face up to what I had done for another long day.
But it turned out to be this really great turning point. [00:04:26] I mean, during that difficult time, a good friend from college who had become a Christian after I left school, he reached out and wanted to get together and talk to me about matters of faith, which I was open to listening to because I trusted my friend and I was intrigued with what he had to say. And that set me on a course of starting to investigate the claims of Christ and starting to go to church and read the Bible.
After about 11 months after moving home, I finally accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior, which would have been plenty to come out of that experience. That would have been quite enough.
But the other thing is that it woke me up to my need to learn about money. After becoming a Christian, I was amazed to discover how much the Bible says on this topic. So the first church I went to turned out to have this stewardship ministry, which I had never even heard about such a thing, but I loved serving there and just was a sponge, just drinking up everything I could learn about what the Bible teaches about money. That turned into my life's work. [00:05:27]
So it was a difficult time, challenging time, but I'm really, in the end, grateful. It was really a wonderful turning point.
Laura Dugger: Something that stands out is the Lord's kindness in that because when you were creating your dream job, part of it involved blogging and writing. And that is part of what you get to do today.
Matt Bell: Yeah, that's very true. I love taking the background in writing and all that and turning it into something a little more productive than golf. Golf is not a bad thing, but to use it this way to encourage people to see what God's Word has to say on this topic and to start to shape their finances around His Word, I love doing this.
Laura Dugger: I love how you shared that this is the experience that set you on a path to then apply biblical principles to all of your life, but especially to finances. Matt, what are some of your favorite scriptures that have taught you about God's opinion for how we're all invited to manage His money? [00:06:34]
Matt Bell: Yeah, that's really well said. The first one that comes to mind was the first set of verses that I came across that really, to me, depicted so clearly what our relationship with God and money is to be. And that's in the Parable of the Talents, Matthew 25:14-30, where Jesus talks about a man going on a journey and entrusting three servants with his resources.
The man there represents God, the servants represent us. And so God entrusts us with some of His resources to be used for His purposes and according to His principles.
I remember reading on into that story, and it says that at a certain point the master returned, and he took account of what his servants had done with what he had entrusted to them. And I remember lingering over those words for quite a while, and I realized, you know, we're accountable. We're accountable to God for how we use the resources that He generously entrusts to us.
Now, that's not a heavy burden. [00:07:34] That's something that we shouldn't be scared of or intimidated by, but we should be mindful of that. And just really grateful for the resources that He entrusts to us and the fact that He does trust us.
He gives us so much guidance in His word about how we're to manage these resources for good purposes. So that was really a great starting point for me was the parable of the talents. Then as I've gone further in my writing and speaking and thinking about this whole topic, I've come to the realization that I think people understand... they will understand the purpose of money best when they understand the purpose of their life. Because the purpose of money is best seen as a way to express the purpose of our life.
We read in God's word about what's most important. Jesus, when He was asked what's most important, He said to love God and to love people. So those are the two starting points, the two first big-picture purposes of our lives and the two first big-picture purposes of money. [00:08:34]
And then in Ephesians 2:10 it says that God has prepared good works for us to do. And so everybody's been given certain gifts and talents and passions with which we're to make a difference with the lives we've been given. So I see those as really the three overarching purposes of our lives, love God, love people, and use our lives to make a difference in this world to honor God. And if we can shape our use of money around those three purposes, that's a great overarching orientation of money.
Laura Dugger: And to take that even further, it seems that you're passionate about taking that and passing it along to the next generation, which is also very biblical. In this book, your recent one entitled Trusted, you guide parents on ways that they can prepare their kids for a lifetime of God-honoring money management. So I'd love to know why you believe it's so important to train our children to be wise financial stewards.
Matt Bell: There are two main reasons. [00:09:34] One is that there's so much at stake here. I mean, it isn't that if we don't teach our kids about money, they won't learn. They will learn. But the consumer culture will be their teacher.
Social media has really amplified the messages of the consumer culture. You know, it used to be when I started in this work, I was concerned about young people becoming maybe too materialistic and using money, you know, spending too much time shopping, too much time spending money, things like that.
But today there's credible research out there that links some use of social media, in particular, with things like anxiety and depression and even self-harm. And so the stakes have really gotten larger. That as the consumer culture's messages get spread out into the world and amplified, it's more than just about whether we're going to use money well or not. It's really something much deeper, much more at a heart level.
So there's a lot at stake here in helping kids know who they are in Christ, if they've placed their faith in Christ, and to live from that perspective. [00:10:36]
The second motivating reason to have written this book is because there's so much potential here. You know, there's so much at stake here. That's kind of the negative kind of warning side of this whole conversation. But then there's the great, incredible potential.
If we can get young people on a good, God-honoring path with money early in life, it's incredible how much that will benefit that young person's life. It'll deepen their relationship with Christ. It'll benefit greatly their relationship with their future spouse. It'll free them to make the difference with their lives that God intended for them to make. It's just there's so much incredible potential in getting kids on a good path with money early.
Laura Dugger: And you even point out that it's not a linear effect that our finances have on our lives, but it's really an exponential effect.
Matt Bell: That's right. Usually, when people think about compounding, or like you're saying, exponential returns, they think about investing. And for sure, compounding is a hugely powerful concept when it comes to investing money. [00:11:39]
But I like to think about how it applies to all areas of finances. So if a young person really starts to get a vision around generosity, their heart is just oriented around God and serving God and loving others, and they develop some biblical practices around generosity early in life, how God could compound that young person's impact over their lifetime is incredible.
And not just in the tangible investments they make in God-honoring causes and addressing some of the great needs of the world, but in their own life, infusing their own life with a great sense of meaning and purpose and joy as they express this generous heart that God has given them.
You think about a young person who kind of gets their relationship right with God and money early in life and how that will impact their future marriage. I mean, money is a common source of stress and struggle in marriages. And so for a young person to get those relationships with money and with God sorted out early in life has so much potential to help in those future relationships that are so important. [00:12:39]
So it's just really exciting to think about how God could multiply the effect of a young person getting on a good path with money early in life.
Laura Dugger: And now a brief message from our sponsor.
Sponsor: Sam Leman Chevrolet Eureka has been owned and operated by the Bertschi Family for over 25 years. A lot has changed in the car business since Sam and Stephen's grandfather, Sam Leman, opened his first Chevrolet dealership over 55 years ago.
If you visit their dealership today, though, you'll find that not everything has changed. They still operate their dealership like their grandfather did, with honesty and integrity. Sam and Stephen understand that you have many different choices in where you buy or service your vehicle. This is why they do everything they can to make the car-buying process as easy and hassle-free as possible.
They are thankful for the many lasting friendships that began with a simple, Welcome to Sam Leman's. Their customers keep coming back because they experience something different.
I've known Sam and Stephen and their wives my entire life, and I can vouch for their character and integrity, which makes it easy to highly recommend you check them out today. [00:13:46] Your car buying process doesn't have to be something you dread, so come see for yourself at Sam Leman Chevrolet in Eureka. Sam and Stephen would love to see you, and they appreciate your business.
Learn more at their website, LemanEureka.com, or visit them on Facebook by searching for "Sam Leman Eureka". You can also call them at (309) 467-2351. Thanks for your sponsorship.
Laura Dugger: Well, what are a few of your favorite tangible ideas to teach our children as it relates to finances?
Matt Bell: I mean, it really does start with identity. I know it sounds kind of abstract, like, all right, I want to get down to the nitty-gritty of using money. But it really starts with identity. And so I want our kids to understand that they are children of God. 1 John 3:1, "For what manner of love is this that God should call us His children." And yet that is who we are.
So I want our kids to understand that their value, their worth, is not based on the brands of clothing that they wear. It's not based on where we can afford to take them on vacation. [00:14:47] It is secure in their relationship with Christ. They are fully valued, fully loved, just as they are. That's really an essential starting place that relates to money and so many other aspects of life.
But then getting kids started with something simple. A really young kid with a three-slotted piggy bank, or three envelopes, or three mason jars, where they're learning to give the first portion, learning to save the second portion, and then spending.
That framework of give, then save, then invest, then spend, and avoid the bondage of debt, as the Bible describes it, that's a really simple framework, and yet it's very rare that I find people practicing it, and it's so helpful. So to get kids on that path early with those priorities.
And by the way, as they learn to prioritize money, as they learn to allocate every dollar that comes into their life, that's a beginner's budget. The culture, again, is not thrilled about the idea of using a budget, and yet we're managers of God's resources, so we want to be intentional in the use of that money, and that whole practice of giving some, saving some, and then spending, that's a beginner's budget. [00:15:53]
So kids can start to learn at a remarkably early age. I mean, kids about as young as around two can start to understand some kind of basic concepts around money. And so we would be wise, as parents, to start to be intentional about cultivating good habits of work around the household, a diligent work ethic, a God-honoring work ethic, learn to prioritize the uses of money, learn to spend well. There's a lot to it, so we can just kind of weave it into the rhythms of daily life. Those are some starting points of getting kids going with money in a good direction.
Laura Dugger: And I'd love to dive a little bit further into each of those, because really that's what we can do with money, give, save, and spend, and I guess part of that may include investing. But let's just go through each. So when we're training our children to give, I loved that section in your book where you elaborated on generosity. I had never heard The Message translation that you put in about Proverbs 11:24 that says, "The world of the generous gets larger and larger; the world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller." [00:17:02]
Matt Bell: Yeah.
Laura Dugger: Is there anything else you would want to share about that impact of training our children on giving?
Matt Bell: Sure. Yeah, there's a lot there. I mean, unfortunately, in this day and age, you've got the prosperity gospel kind of twisting that into a give-to-get sort of message, which is not at all what the Bible teaches. But the Bible does teach that our worlds do expand.
I mean, we have greater impact, and we have greater joy when we live the generous lives that we were designed to live. Kids get that more easily than an adult who maybe hasn't heard that message throughout their life.
I heard that John Rockefeller one time, one of the wealthiest men that ever lived, he once apparently said that, I never could have tithed on my first million dollars if I hadn't tithed on my first salary, which was $1.50 a week. And I get that. I get the principle. So if you get a kid trained early that, yes, part of it is an act of obedience.
We look at the Old Testament and Leviticus where the law is taught and the tithe is introduced. [00:18:04] But then we get into the New Testament, and you see more the joy side of generosity. And there's so much secular research out there that has found that the most generous people are the happiest people.
Again, kids get that early. I think kids are naturally generous. They enjoy giving. They enjoy sharing. And so to glom onto that and to feed that and to encourage that is just a really, really good thing.
You know, we help kids by modeling it. Hopefully we don't model the behavior where giving is kind of checking the box. I met with some young adult men, some 20-something men when I was writing the book, and all of them were raised in Christian homes, all of them saw their parents giving to the church, none of them understood why. One of them even said it seemed like his parents were just checking a box.
We don't want that. We want to express the joy of generosity, the privilege of generosity. We want to treat generosity as an act of worship. And so for our kids to see that, that'll be a healthy part of their early training in generosity. [00:19:04]
But then, yes, get them in the practice of it. You know, it would be better if we didn't just give them the money to give to the church or to other ministries that God puts on our hearts or their hearts. It would be good if it's money that they earned and so it's real for them, that they're choosing to take a real portion of money that's really theirs and giving that. That'll be much more tangible and much more helpful for them.
It's one of the most beneficial things we can do for our kids is to set them up for a life of generosity because that's what God designed them to live. That'll be the most joyful, meaningful life that they can live.
Laura Dugger: And if anybody's sharing this episode with their children as a way to instruct them, will you share a story that illustrates what one of your mentors refers to as God's math?
Matt Bell: Absolutely. So there's some friends of mine in Texas and they have two daughters. They were teaching their daughters from a very young age about the priorities that we've talked about here in this conversation already of giving and then saving and then spending. [00:20:04] So they were very much in the habit of doing that but they were also very much wanting a trampoline.
And their parents said, "Great, so we'll give you some extra chores. You can save up your money for this trampoline." And so they did. They worked really hard. They saved a lot of money. They almost had enough for the trampoline.
But one weekend at church, they heard a missionary speak and their hearts were just captivated by his stories of the people that he was serving and the needs that he was meeting, and they wanted to be a part of it. And they ended up giving most of the money they had saved for the trampoline to this missionary to further his work.
One of the cool things, we parents, we can kind of swoop in and save the day in ways that are not very helpful with our kids. We can do that when they spend too much money. We can give them more money to spend. But we can also do that sometimes with generosity where we might be tempted to say, "Oh, honey, that's so sweet that you want to give all that money you had saved, but you worked so hard for it. Why don't you just let me handle that need and you keep using that money for the purpose you intended it for?" [00:21:06]
But the parents, Leo and Natalie, did not do that, thankfully. They let their kids give generously toward this missionary. And wouldn't you know it, not long after that, their aunt got in touch. Their aunt knew that they had been saving for a trampoline, did not know that they had given away a lot of the money that they had saved for the trampoline.
She was calling to say that where she worked, there was a trampoline on deep discount, and with her employee discount, they could get it for even less money. They ended up having enough money left over to buy that trampoline.
And as the dad, Leo, said to me, he said, "You know, that's just an example of God's generosity. What a great thing to happen so young in these children's lives to see that in action.
Again, we don't give in order to get. They just unexpectedly receive this incredible blessing from God to be able to give that generously and still have the money because of these discounts that the aunt was able to provide to purchase the trampoline. [00:22:10]
And so my longtime mentor, Dick Towner, he likes to talk about God's math. It's just the experiences like that that just make no sense in our logical minds, but God orchestrates things sometimes in such an incredible way.
Laura Dugger: I love that so much. That does illustrate the giving portion. As we move to consider the saving portion, we all hear that it is important to save. But you share a really critical reason why it's important and why it's important to teach our children. So when we cultivate that habit of saving money, what is the character trait that we're developing in our children?
Matt Bell: Right. It's a crucially important one. It's the character trait of delayed gratification, which is really a lost art in our world. But that's what saving is, basically. We're putting aside some money, we're delaying our need or our desire for something right now in order to have money for something later on.
So some of your listeners may be familiar with this, what's come to be known as the Great Marshmallow Experiment. [00:23:13] It was this experiment done at Stanford University back in the 1960s where a researcher brought 4-year-olds into a room one at a time and gave them their choice of treats, including a marshmallow, and told them that they could eat one marshmallow right now, no questions asked, no problem, or if they could wait, the researcher had to go run an errand, they were told, and if they could wait until that researcher came back, then they could have two.
Now, some of the kids couldn't wait at all. Before the researcher was even out of the room, they had gobbled up that treat. But about 30% of the kids could wait what turned out to be about 20 minutes, a long time for a 4-year-old to wait, in order to get that better reward.
One of the really interesting things about this study is they stayed in touch with these kids. So when they got into high school, they got back in touch with the kids, they talked with their teachers, their counselors, their parents, they evaluated them on a variety of traits, and they found that these kids were really different than the kids that couldn't wait. [00:24:11]
They were better able to wait for other things, they were making better decisions, they were better at problem-solving, better at maintaining friendships, relationships. And these kids scored, on average, 200 points higher on the SAT scores than the kids that couldn't wait.
Then they followed these kids into adulthood, early adulthood, and they continued to find some remarkable differences between the kids who could wait and the kids who couldn't wait. Better health practices, again, better able to maintain relationships, just a host of other benefits.
So we can think, oh, it's pretty cute to encourage little Johnny to put a couple of coins out of every dollar into the savings slot of the piggy bank or into the envelope, but we're teaching our kids something very, very important, and that is this character trait of delayed gratification.
Laura Dugger: So that's giving and saving, but also we want to teach our children how to spend their money and hopefully spend it wisely, or I guess also to learn those financial mistakes when the stakes are lower. [00:25:14] But you share kind of a surprising definition of what it means to consume. So can you share both the definition of consume and how we can train our children to spend wisely?
Matt Bell: Yeah. That's one of the really... So back to the whole idea of identity, our culture calls us consumers. And if you look at the definition, I think you'd be a little offended. I mean, we hear the term so often that we don't even really give it a second thought. But if you look it up, it means to waste, to squander these ways of using money that are not at all what it would be to be a steward of God's resources as the Bible teaches us that we are.
We're managers of God's resources. We're not in life in order to squander and to use up and to waste all that God has entrusted to us. We're to manage those resources well. And there are so many ways we can teach our kids to spend money well.
I mean, one of the ways is by being intentional, by living within their means. That might sound kind of silly. If your kid has a dollar-a-week allowance, like, what do you mean, spend within their means? [00:26:16] That's such a small amount of money, but seriously, if they give some, if they save some, and then there's a framework that a lot of adults use of 10-10-80. Give 10%, save 10%, and then spend 80%, but with kids, I like it to be something more like 10-50-40. Save a large amount because kids can afford to save a large amount and then spend 40.
But even 40% or 80% of a dollar, that's not much money, but yet we can help our kids learn to live within their means at a very young age by, if they go to the store with us and they want to buy some stickers and they spend their entire spending portion for the week and then they want to buy something else, we would do them the greatest favor by lovingly, warmly, kindly saying, No, I'm sorry, but you've got to wait until next week when you have more to be able to spend. So that's one really important early lesson.
But then there are so many aspects of spending well. We can show our kids how we compare us in shop, how we compare prices in the store, we're at the grocery store. And they've made it easy for us now. [00:27:16] Now we can see the cost per count or the cost per ounce, and so we can show our kids.
So I think a lot of teaching kids about money in these really practical ways is just including them in the conversation as we're out in the real world making real decisions with real money. Just help our kids see. Sometimes we just do these things.
It's faster maybe, it's easier if we can just scoot on and get it done. But if we can fold them into the conversation and show them what we're doing, we're going to teach them some really good habits around money.
Laura Dugger: Do you have any other practical tips for how we can implement these ideals into parenting?
Matt Bell: Sure. I mean, there's one that I just love that I learned from a woman named Mary Hunt who has written quite a few books about money. She talks about this idea that I just think is brilliant. We want to make money real for kids. We don't want it to be too abstract for them.
So the idea is that oftentimes kids will have some spending money, but if we can give them more responsibility over time as they get older for more and more spending categories, that would be a good thing. [00:28:20]
For example, we can give them responsibility for their clothing budget, probably as young as age 8 or 9. So if we're budgeting our household budget of $25 per kid per month for clothing, we can start to... this is what we've done. We've given our kids that money in cash, they put it in an envelope for clothing, they take it with them to the store, and now they're making real decisions.
I mean, it used to be that we would shop with them and they would still be making their own decisions about what they wanted, and they kind of knew big picture what the limit was, but it's much more real, it's much more tangible if they have the actual money in hand and now they're having to make some real trade-offs. Is it going to be one pair of designer jeans or two pair of not-so-designer jeans? And we're going to have to live within our means because I'm looking in the envelope and there's only what there is in there and no more.
So if we can give our kids more and more real responsibility for these real spending categories over time, that'll really, really benefit them a lot. [00:29:19]
Laura Dugger: There is an exciting project taking place behind the scenes right now, and I would love to invite you to participate. I will give you more details as I'm able, but for now, here's my request. Will you email me your personal story of a specific way God has clearly shown up in your life?
Big or small, I want to hear an account of the way He made Himself known to you and maybe received credit for an answered prayer, or a way He worked out a situation in a miraculous way, or how He displayed His power in your life. There's no limit to the type of story to submit, as long as it's true. So please email me your story at this email address, info@thesavvysauce.com. I can't wait to read your story. Thanks for sharing.
Do you also have any examples from your parenting that have really stuck with your kids over the years?
Matt Bell: Yeah. I mean, there's so many to draw from. [00:30:20] I mean, I kind of see our household as this living laboratory. And I don't think I've damaged the kids too badly by seeing it that way. But it's just really opened my eyes to the fact that kids can learn more about money at a younger age than we might have assumed.
And we should be open about teaching both the really kind of good lessons, happy lessons that are fun to learn, like generosity, but also some lessons that are a little tougher to learn and tougher for us parents to teach. And that really has to do with the consequences of bad choices or the consequences of mistakes or accidents. That's, again, the real world. We want our kids living in the real world.
I remember a time when one of our kids was pretty young and in the kitchen swinging a large cardboard tube around the kitchen, and we asked him to stop more than once, and he did not stop. He ended up knocking a glass of water over onto a computer, and it led to a very expensive repair for this computer.
Now, we could have just swooped in and saved the day and said, "that's not a great thing to do" and had a strong talk with him but covered the cost ourselves. [00:31:27] But we did not do that. We had him cover, I think it was about half the cost.
I mean, basically, we were giving our kids a small allowance at the time, and that ended his allowance a year earlier than it would have ended otherwise, and it pretty much drained his savings account at that time to be responsible and take responsibility for that mistake.
He didn't try to do it. He didn't intend to do it. But in the real world, things like that happen, and so we wanted our kids to learn about the consequences. So, you know, there was grace. We certainly shared in the cost of it and all of that, but we felt like it was important for him to take some responsibility for it as well.
Laura Dugger: So you mentioned the word grace. I have to share that as I was reading one of your sections, you were just elaborating on exactly what compounding interest is. And when I really stopped to consider it, when it's earning interest on interest, to me, that is an expression of grace. Even as we're training our young children about compounding interest, how can we verbalize and explain this to them? [00:32:37]
Matt Bell: Yeah, it's incredible. Again, I like applying it to all areas of money, from generosity to spending well to just having a real grateful attitude about money. There's so many ways, so many really beneficial things that can compound in incredible ways. But if we take it down to the most common example of investing money, $100 a month, if you stuffed that under your mattress every month and you just did that for 50 years, you'd end up with $60,000. That's $100 a month turning into $200, turning into $300. It's growing in this kind of straight-line, linear fashion.
But if you invested that money, did something more productive with that money, and if you were able to invest it in the way that got the U.S. stock market's average annual return of about 10%, in 50 years, you would have invested that $60,000, but it would have turned into something like $1.7 million. Now, that's incredible.
Because it's the idea that if you get a return on money... if you invest $100 and you get a 10% return, then the next year you've got $110. But if you do that another year after that, you don't just have another $10, you have another $11, because not only did the original 100 earn 10%, but now the return you got last year, that dollar earned 10% as well. [00:33:56] It sounds like a little thing in a short amount of time, but over a long period of time, it's an incredible thing. That's one of the reasons.
In a really tangible, nitty-gritty, just purely financial sort of way, I like to encourage parents to teach their kids about investing at a young age, because the Bible teaches us that we have a responsibility to provide for our families. 1 Timothy 5:8 says, "Whoever does not provide for his relatives, and especially his immediate family, has denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever." That's during the years that we're working, and in our later years, when maybe for health reasons, or other reasons, maybe we're not going to be working for pay anymore, we need to have some money in reserve that we've been investing over the long period to provide for our families in the long haul.
One of the examples I use in the book, and some of these numbers are... they're not cast in stone, it's just an example. But if a kid could have $2,000 or $3,000 saved up by the time they're 16 to 18, if they never added another penny to that money, but they invested it aggressively as they can because they have time, then by the time they're 70, which will be a pretty typical retirement age by that point, they could have well over a million dollars. [00:35:08]
And that isn't about getting wealthy for the sake of getting wealthy, that's about being a good steward, and having money saved up for providing for your family in your later years. So kids have this tremendous opportunity. I really encourage people to encourage their kids and teach their kids how to take advantage of that opportunity starting at a very young age.
Laura Dugger: It's so motivating to teach them when you lay it out that way and you see how well this will not only benefit them but others that they can bless with it as well. But something else that significantly impacts our children is our marriage. So what have you learned about the impact financial management has on the marriage?
Matt Bell: There's so much. I mean, it's a pretty common issue between husbands and wives, and that is one of the really exciting things about getting a young child on a good path with money early because you start to envision the quality and the joy of their future marriage. [00:36:07]
So the research I've read says that if one spouse thinks that their spouse handles money foolishly, that not only decreases marital satisfaction, that's intuitive, but it actually significantly increases the chances of divorce.
So using a budget, as nitty-gritty as that tool sounds like, it can have a huge benefit on a person's marriage because now we've got a tool that we're using to be proactive and intentional about managing money well. So there are a lot of things.
You know, this whole generosity piece, sometimes a man and woman come together in their 20s or 30s, and they've got some different habits and practices around generosity, and they have disagreements about that. So it's just easier if a kid gets on this good path early in life and orients not only their practices around money, but their perspectives about money in a biblical sort of way.
Laura Dugger: I love it. This is a money management and parenting tool about being wise stewards and teaching our children how to do that. [00:37:06] But there's so much more where you get to the heart issues and talk about other topics that we may not connect to money at first glance, but they were really helpful.
And one of them I'm thinking of, on page 49, you write, "I'm convinced that one of the greatest ways we can express love to our kids is to set a good example in the use of technology." So will you elaborate on that, Matt?
Matt Bell: Yeah, for sure. Social media has really become a significant force in our culture. I don't think social media is inherently bad, but I think that many ways that it gets used can be very damaging to a person, to their sense of self, to their sense of satisfaction, to their joy.
And so we want to teach our kids about the proper use of social media. We want to set some healthy boundaries. In the book, I talk about these three roles that encourage parents to embrace. The role of the gatekeeper is one of them, then the teacher, and then the role model. [00:38:06]
And the gatekeeper for kids around this topic would be to decide between spouses, when will we allow, will we allow, and if so, when will we allow the use of social media? When will we allow the use of screens? And to set up some rules in the household about the use of screens.
In our household, when each of our kids has gotten a device, a phone, it's come with a three-page contract. And people can download that off my website, and they can customize it to meet their needs as well. I looked at a lot of different contracts that I've seen, and we shaped it together, my wife and I, to create a document that we felt good about.
But we want our kids to be intentional in their use of screens. It may not come to them naturally, so that's where some of the rules and regs get set up.
I like the idea of screen-free zones in the household. So the dining room is a screen-free zone, bathrooms are screen-free zones. We don't allow computers or TVs to be kept in a room overnight. When people are using screens, the screen needs to be visible to other people so that there's accountability and transparency in those sorts of things. [00:39:16]
There's a great documentary out there called The Social Dilemma that we watched with our kids. I think when a kid is about age 12 or so, you could watch this documentary with your kids. And you hear from some of these people who've worked for social media platforms talking about some of the dangers and some of the decisions they've made in their own families about setting up some rules and regs around screen time and social media use. Our kids saw that, and we already have rules and regs, and yet they created some new self-imposed rules and regs, which was pretty interesting coming out of that movie.
As you were talking about, really your question was about being a good role model, you know, sometimes we can talk a mean game and we can set up the rules, but then our kids are watching, and they're paying attention to what we're doing. Are we spending too much time on screens? Do we have some rules that we're following of when are screens off for the night, and are we building in some intentional family time that's just about conversations and it's not about a screen? That would be a healthy thing to model for our kids. [00:40:17]
Laura Dugger: Well, and one other unique angle that you take is talking about why it's important to learn about our own temperament and also our children's temperaments when it comes to handling money. Can you elaborate on that as well?
Matt Bell: Sure. Temperament's a fascinating thing. I mean, when you figure out your temperament, it's as if somebody's been following you around all your life and they've described you. It's amazing. And everybody has it. It's God-given. We're wired up a certain way.
There are different temperament ways of analyzing temperaments out there, but the most basic one divides up temperaments into four different classifications. So the choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic, and melancholy, and they all come with certain natural money management strengths and some natural money management weaknesses.
So for us to learn our own temperament, and people have a primary and a secondary that sometimes shows up in different circumstances, but it's just a really helpful, powerful thing because it can start to lessen some of the arguments that we might have with our spouse around money now that we've got some empathy to see where they're coming from and vice versa. [00:41:30] And we can start to identify this in our kids. When they're arguably a teen or an early teenager, we can have them go through.
There's a list of characteristics on my website people can download, and they can check off which ones they relate to, and the one with the most checkmarks will be their primary, and the one with the second most checkmarks will be their secondary. And we can talk about it.
There's some ideas in the book about how does somebody with this temperament tend to come at money? You know, choleric tends to be kind of the hard-charging, type A sort of person. And they, from a marriage standpoint, can kind of run ahead of a spouse and make decisions on their own. And so they need to caution themselves about that.
By the same token, they're great at accomplishing goals. If you're trying to get out of debt, set a choleric loose with that goal because they're really good at accomplishing goals. But again, each temperament has certain strengths and certain weaknesses.
The melancholy, for example, tends to take to the use of a budget much more naturally than other temperaments. Certainly the sanguine. The sanguine is more the life-of-the-party, outgoing sort of person. [00:42:31] They've got no time for budgeting, but they can use the envelope system, the biggest-picture sort of approach to using a budget.
So it's just a really helpful set of insights that comes from learning your temperament and helping our kids understand how God has naturally wired them up.
Laura Dugger: And just to go into a few more of those, so the sanguine, I loved, you quoted Tim LaHaye that says, "I've never met a sanguine accountant."
Matt Bell: Right, exactly. We're thankful for the temperament types that are drawn to accounting and to some of these more technical professions. But that's right. Again, these are not good or bad. These are just how God has wired us up. And so to gain some insight into that.
I tend to make decisions kind of quickly. And my wife tends to, if we go out to eat to a restaurant, she likes to see her options. I tend to be a little bit more boring. I'll see the first thing I'm interested in, and I'm ready to move on and make that decision.
But we can gain empathy for each other, and we can gain a much greater sense of teamwork by understanding this is how God has gifted this person, how God has wired them up in this wonderful way, and appreciate the strengths that come with that temperament, and then by the same token, work around some of the weaknesses. [00:43:44]
So, as I said, the sanguine is not going to love the budget, but the sanguine should be involved with the budgeting process with their non-sanguine spouse. God tends to bring people with different temperaments together, thankfully.
And so it's just a wonderful insight and gives you some new structure to be able to work together on this crazy thing called money management.
Laura Dugger: Yes. I identify with the sanguine temperament myself. That's why it's easy to poke fun at it. But also a tip for me, I now love and embrace our budget because it ultimately leads to more freedom.
Matt Bell: Yeah.
Laura Dugger: And I think it's been really helpful to have some categories that are saved to spend so that you have that big picture to look forward to. But we also didn't cover phlegmatic. There were just a few points I'd love to draw out where you write, "If you're a phlegmatic, you may benefit from working with an investment advisor who will drive decisions." I thought that was really practical. [00:44:44]
Matt Bell: Yeah. Phlegmatics are really... they're kind of a steady-as-you-go sort of person. You know, great. They're going to show up on time at work and they're going to be there for you and that sort of thing. And they're really good researchers when it comes to some sort of financial decision. They're great at researching the decision, but they're kind of slow at pulling the trigger. So, right.
So we can learn from that and we can surround ourselves with some structure that'll help us in areas where we might need a little bit of help. And so, as you said, maybe working with a financial advisor who can steer some decisions and drive some decisions. That would be the better part of wisdom to say, "Hey, I'm just going to be slow at this. I might not ever get to it. So I'd rather have somebody in my life that is going to get to this for me."
Laura Dugger: And with each of those temperaments, you kind of link different Bible verses as well. I'll just read the one for the phlegmatic from Ecclesiastes 11:4. And you have it in the translation TLB where it says, "If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done."[00:45:45]
Matt Bell: It's so true. It's great to draw encouragement from scripture and to love the idea of memorizing scripture, love the idea of meditating on God's word. And so if each temperament comes with certain inherent strengths and weaknesses, and if we can use scripture to be an encouragement to maybe overcome some of these inherent weaknesses, that's the best possible motivation.
Laura Dugger: Absolutely. I think this whole conversation is a great way to help disciple our children, even if we want to listen alongside them if we're driving together. I'll link to a few other episodes we've done, some temperament episodes, even temperaments in parenting that might pair nicely with this topic.
But Matt, also, if anybody wants to follow you or learn more from you after this chat, where would you like to direct them?
Matt Bell: Sure. There's a few different places. I would suggest my own website, which is mattaboutmoney.com. There's a lot of free resources there and a lot of articles there that'll be hopefully an encouragement and a help to people. [00:46:44]
My day job is Sound Mind Investing. There's a lot of free resources and articles there, more specifically about investing. It's an overtly Christian organization that teaches biblical principles and helps people in some really practical ways around investing.
And then, I mean, the new book. I feel like it was a gift from God that this opportunity to write this book came along and to partner with Focus on the Family. And writing it was a gift as well. So you can find the book on Amazon. You can find it on christianbook.com and other sites where you might buy books. But the book is called Trusted: Preparing Your Kids for a Lifetime of God-Honoring Money Management.
But what I did with the book is I designed it so that the first part of each really practical chapter is written to parents because I think we can all continue to learn about money. And so it's written for parents to learn how to apply these biblical principles to their own lives. And then the next half of each of those really practical chapters is filled with ideas of how to bring these principles and these ideas to our kids.[00:47:43]
Laura Dugger: We will certainly link to all of this in the episode's show notes for today. And you may be familiar that we're called The Savvy Sauce because "savvy" is synonymous with practical knowledge. And so it's my final question for you today, Matt. What is your savvy sauce?
Matt Bell: I love that question. I would say that, you know, when people think about, oh, here's this idea about now I need to teach my kids about money, it feels like one more thing. It feels like... you know, no parent has extra margin, extra time on their hands.
And so the savvy sauce that I would suggest is to just weave your kids into the conversation about money through the rhythms of natural daily life. Because we're all making so many financial decisions. We don't even realize probably until we stop and really think about it. We make so many financial decisions every day. And if we can just bring our kids into the conversation.
So I might be updating our online budget. And if one of our kids is nearby, I'll just bring them in and say, hey, you know, I'm checking to see how we're doing on our grocery spending this month. [00:48:46] If we're a little bit over, we'll make it up next month and that sort of thing.
Or if we're at the grocery store, we're teaching our kids, you know, we're using a list or modeling that for them. And then we're being intentional about getting the best deals for the food that is healthy and good for our family. If we're driving in the car, we can talk about I recently got an oil change and tires rotate in the car. We talk about, hey, we're stewarding God's resources. This car is a gift from God to take care of it. I want you to know that we take it into the shop on a regular basis to keep it in good shape. And part of that is oil change and tire rotation. And here's about what that costs.
So, you know, the big picture, the short answer to your question is just start to talk to your kids about practical things you're doing with money and you'll be amazed at how much you can teach them just in the rhythms of everyday life.
Laura Dugger: Well, Matt, I very much enjoyed your book and we've begun implementing some of these principles within our own home.
Matt Bell: Awesome.
Laura Dugger: So I want to personally thank you for investing in our family and also just say thank you for being my guest. [00:49:52]
Matt Bell: Thank you so much, Laura. I appreciate what you do. I appreciate the chance to talk with you.
Laura Dugger: One more thing before you go. Have you heard the term "gospel" before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you. But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners, but Christ desires to rescue us from our sin, which is something we cannot do for ourselves.
This means there is absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. So, for you and for me, it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. We need a Savior.
But God loved us so much, He made a way for His only Son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute. This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with Him. That is good news.
Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. [00:50:57] This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus. We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what He has done for us.
Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
So would you pray with me now? Heavenly Father, thank You for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to You. Will You clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare You as Lord of their life? We trust You to work and change lives now for eternity. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring Him for me, so me for Him. You get the opportunity to live your life for Him. [00:51:56] And at this podcast, we're called The Savvy Sauce for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So you ready to get started?
First, tell someone. Say it out loud. Get a Bible. The first day I made this decision, my parents took me to Barnes & Noble and let me choose my own Bible. I selected the Quest NIV Bible, and I love it. You can start by reading the Book of John.
Also, get connected locally, which just means tell someone who's a part of a church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps, such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you.
We want to celebrate with you too, so feel free to leave a comment for us here if you did make a decision to follow Christ. We also have show notes included where you can read Scripture that describes this process.
Finally, be encouraged. Luke 15:10 says, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." [00:52:59] The heavens are praising with you for your decision today.
If you've already received this good news, I pray that you have someone else to share it with today. You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.
Welcome to The Savvy Sauce
Practical chats for intentional living
A faith-based podcast and resources to help you grow closer to Jesus and others. Expect encouragement, surprises, and hope here. Each episode offers lively interviews with fascinating guests such as therapists, authors, non-profit founders, and business leaders.
They share their best practices and savvy tips we can replicate to make our daily life and relationships more enjoyable!
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