I remember hearing the results of a survey awhile back, and although I don’t recall all the particulars, the results intrigued me. People were asked how much they would need to earn annually in order to feel “rich.”
Spending, Saving and Sharing
The answers went something like this: those who currently earned $50,000 per year would feel rich if they made $100,000; those who currently earned $100,000 felt they would be rich if they made $250,000, and so on. You get the picture. Even those who earned $1,000,000 annually felt they needed to make more to “feel rich.” When asked how much more he would need to feel rich, Henry Ford is reported to have said, “Just a little bit more.” This after he had already made a billion dollars!
The ability to save is certainly a function of how much income you earn. But at least as important is the lifestyle you choose and the spending that goes along with it. This is important on two fronts: first, Americans aren’t saving adequately to meet their future needs, largely because of their lifestyle decisions; and second, these same decisions are sometimes harmful to their spiritual health. Answering the question “How much is enough?” is a challenge for most of us, especially in our consumer-driven society. Consider the words of Saint Robert Bellarmine:
May you consider truly good whatever leads to your goal and truly evil whatever makes you fall away from it. Prosperity and adversity, wealth and poverty, health and sickness, honors and humiliations, life and death, in the mind of the wise man, are not to be sought for their own sake, nor avoided for their own sake. But if they contribute to the glory of God and your eternal happiness, then they are good and should be sought. If they detract from this, they are evil and must be avoided.
If you have resources left over after meeting your basic needs, you’ll want to use those resources to “do what is good and avoid what is evil” (Catechism 1706). Doing good can take many forms, including additional spending on your own family and sharing your resources with others.
Let me share a few examples from our family. Some of our most treasured memories come from our family vacations. Once a year, we have a tradition of spending about ten days in a cabin at one of several alpine lakes in California. It’s a time for the family to relax and unwind after months of a harried schedule. We enjoy time on the lake, hiking, cycling, and eating plenty of ice cream.
We have also chosen to sponsor children through a missionary program. The funds help meet the current physical needs of these young people, but also provide for their education and help the community develop its economy so that they can become more self-sufficient. As the saying goes, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.”
Look for the Better Purpose
As you consider how to use your resources, one attitude you’ll want to avoid is hoarding. The Lord explicitly warns us against this in Luke 12:16–21. It reads:
And He told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man brought forth plentifully; and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns, and build larger ones; and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.
A godly perspective on savings and investing recognizes the need to save for future obligations. But it also acknowledges that there is a limit to our needs, and calls us to live out the virtues of temperance and detachment. That’s not to say that we’re all called to the exact same lifestyle. But it does mean that once your valid needs have been met, you should avoid setting an ever higher standard of living when the resources could clearly serve a better purpose. Instead, we should recognize that our excess is able to help provide for others (2 Cor 8:13–15).
In a materialistic culture such as ours, it is difficult to be objective when making lifestyle decisions — especially if we have resources beyond our basic needs. Place this question of lifestyle in prayer with the “Counselor of Counselors.” As we read in Isaiah, 9:6, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be on His shoulder, and His name will be called ‘Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.’”
Also consider the example of godly people you find worthy of imitation. Finally, seek counsel from those who are close to you. Your spouse, a good friend, or your spiritual director can help keep you on a solid foundation. Just as you would want them to let you know if you were drinking too much or not spending enough time with your family, so they can be a source of insight when it comes to lifestyle decisions and how you use your money. Keep in mind the wisdom of Proverbs 30:8–9, which says, “Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’ or lest I be poor, and steal, and profane the name of my God.”
Setting Godly Goals and Priorities
So how can we set godly goals and priorities when it comes to saving and investing? I touched on this before, but I’ll recap here:
• Set aside a $2,000 emergency fund.
• Start a rainy-day fund of six months’ expenses.
• Begin saving for major purchases, such as automobiles or the down payment on a house.
• Prepay your mortgage.
• Plan the funding of your retirement.
• Assist with funding the formation and education of your children and grandchildren.
• Pass on a reasonable inheritance.
• Start tithing, which means giving to grow the Kingdom of God.
Next time I’ll talk about why it’s so important to learn the habit of saving early.
Phil Lenahan is President of Veritas Financial Ministries. If you have questions you would like Phil to address, please email them to [email protected].
