Do you have any New Year resolutions for 2024? The New Year is a great time for reflection and to identify areas in your life that you’d like to grow or new habits you’d like to take root.
Many resolutions and habits revolve around health or personal growth, both are great areas to work on! What about your financial life? At Beacon Wealth Consultants, we believe that good stewardship and faithful investing are important both for your finances but also for growing your faith. Below are four suggestions to help you start 2024 with renewed commitment to stewardship and biblically responsible investing.
1) Read a good book
Many of you are avid readers and actively seek out book recommendations. Mortimer Adler, philosopher, and author of How to Read a Book, said “In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.”
This year, why not dive into some good financial reads that will enlarge your view of Christian stewardship in how you give, manage, and invest the money God’s given you. Here are three suggestions to get you started!
- The Treasure Principle by Randy Alcorn
- An Uncommon Guide to Retirement by Jeff Haanen
- I Found Jesus in the Stock Market by Cassandra Laymon (Beacon Wealth Consultants’ president!)
Each of these books is easy to read but will leave you will a lot to think and pray about.
2) Increase your Giving
When January rolls around, many working people increase their retirement plan contributions. Increasing your contributions by 1-2% each year is an easy way to save more for retirement every year and many people don’t even notice to change on their paycheck. Some 401(k) and 403(b) even allow you to set up these increases so they happen automatically.
This is great advice to follow but have you ever considered increasing your giving by 1-2% each year? Imagine the kind of Kingdom impact you could have if you increased your giving every year over many years. How would your church or other worthy organizations be blessed by this generosity? Matthew 6:21 says, “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” I think Jesus is saying that our hearts grow toward the places where we are putting our money. Where would you like your heart to be?
3) Know what you own and are profiting from
Our American financial structures and system make it very difficult to know what companies and activities you are actually investing in and profiting from. Many people, including Christians, think of investing as maximizing returns from “the market.” Sadly, this means that many Christians are unknowingly profiting from things like abortion, pornography, and products that prey on human addiction. Also, many Christians are missing out on the joy of investing in and profiting from companies with products, services and business practices that benefit people and communities.
This New Year, make a commitment to “know what you own.” It’s super easy, just request a complimentary portfolio screening and we’ll let you know if your current investments align with your values.
4) Align your investments with your values
Once you “know what you own”, you may find that you are profiting from some products or services that go against your values. This is not uncommon. Each of our clients (and our advisors too!) started out the same place you are: a desire to better align their investments with their values!
For over 25 years we’ve specialized in helping Christians like you invest in a way that honors their faith, pursues their financial goals, and makes an impact through purposeful investment selection. Faith-based, biblically responsible investing is a worthy goal to pursue and it’s easy to get started. It starts with a conversation, so give us a call!
May the Lord guide you as you prayerfully identify areas to grow and new habits to form this year. Our prayer is that you will have a heart that seeks to honor the Lord by being the best steward you can be and that you will one day hear “Well done, good and faithful servant!”
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