Lawrence Wu
  • Blog
  • Guides
  • Apps
  • About
  • Subscribe
Categories
All (18)
banking (1)
budgeting (2)
career (2)
debt (1)
explanation (6)
faith (1)
giving (1)
housing (1)
how-to (8)
insurance (1)
investing (4)
personal finance (18)
reference (3)
saving (2)
spending (1)
taxes (2)
tutorial (1)

Guides

Evergreen, long-form guides — organized so you can learn, do, look up, and understand.
Author

Lawrence Wu

Guides are different from blog posts. A post is a snapshot with a date. A guide is evergreen: it teaches one subject as a series of lessons, in order, and gets updated in place rather than archived. Each guide follows the Diátaxis shape — a place to start (tutorial), task-oriented how-to pages, reference material to look things up, and explanation of the principles underneath.

New lessons also go out as an email newsletter. Subscribe on the subscribe page or grab the guides RSS feed.

The guides

Financial Stewardship

Make wise, God-honoring decisions with your money — giving, budgeting, saving, investing, insurance, taxes, and the heart behind all of it. Written with young Christians especially in mind.

All lessons

Get started: first steps of faithful stewardship

personal finance
tutorial

Ten first steps, in order — career, giving, 401k match, Roth IRA, debt, a budget, banking, and automation.

3 min

Giving: how much, and to whom

personal finance
explanation
giving

The New Testament gives no percentage command — a starting point, a heart check, and where giving should go.

4 min

Career and income: your most valuable asset

personal finance
explanation
career

Steward your income-earning ability, negotiate without fear, and know that income is not the same as savings.

4 min

Spending and contentment

personal finance
explanation
spending
budgeting

Live below your means, know your needs from your wants, and let tracking expenses become a spiritual discipline.

5 min

Saving and trusting God

personal finance
explanation
saving
faith

Biblical warnings about wealth, and what makes Christian saving different from worldly saving.

4 min

Investing basics: why invest, stocks vs. bonds, risk

personal finance
explanation
investing

Why invest at all, how stocks and bonds differ, and why the long run flips which one is risky.

4 min

The case for index funds

personal finance
explanation
investing

Active managers rarely beat the market. Diversify, mind the behavior gap, and let index funds do the work.

8 min

Set up a budget with YNAB or a spreadsheet

personal finance
how-to
budgeting

Pick a budgeting tool and give every dollar a job.

2 min

Decide whether to rent or buy

personal finance
how-to
housing

Rent vs. buy is a stewardship decision, not a horse race — the trade-offs, plus pros and cons of each.

3 min

Use credit cards wisely and manage student loans

personal finance
how-to
debt

Credit cards can serve you at 2% cash back — or own you at 25% interest. Plus how to think about student loans.

3 min

Set up your banking: one account for checking + savings

personal finance
how-to
banking

Replace the checking + savings pair with a single Fidelity Cash Management Account earning money market rates.

2 min

Build your savings: emergency funds, I-Bonds, 529s

personal finance
how-to
saving

Emergency funds, high-yield savings, I-Bonds, and 529s — practical places to put money you’ll need.

4 min

How to invest: accounts and simple portfolios

personal finance
how-to
investing

The accounts to use (401k, IRA, brokerage) and two simple portfolios that do the heavy lifting for you.

4 min

What to do after getting laid off

personal finance
how-to
career

A ranked checklist for the first weeks after a layoff — unemployment, severance, health insurance, money moves, and mindset.

3 min

End-of-year financial checklist

personal finance
how-to
taxes
investing

A handful of things to consider doing before the calendar year ends — FSAs, tax loss harvesting, retirement contributions, rebalancing, and giving strategies.

5 min

Insurance and HSAs at a glance

personal finance
reference
insurance

The types of insurance worth having, term vs. whole life, and the triple tax advantage of HSAs.

3 min

Taxes: brackets, deductions, credits

personal finance
reference
taxes

Progressive brackets, marginal vs. effective rates, and the deductions and credits that matter most.

3 min

Recommended resources and books

personal finance
reference

Core seminars, Bogleheads, Humble Dollar, and the short list of books worth reading.

1 min
No matching items

Part of the Guides section — evergreen pages that get updated, not archived. Get new lessons by email newsletter or via the guides RSS feed.

 
Cookie Preferences