Financial Stewardship

Make wise, God-honoring decisions with your money — a guide for young Christians especially.
Author

Lawrence Wu

This guide’s modest goal is to help people, young Christians especially, make wise and God-honoring decisions with their money. It began as a 1-hour personal finance and stewardship talk I’ve shared with some Christians, and as articles on my Modest Money Guide site. The lessons now live here, where they get updated in place.

I usually start with a quote from Tim Challies that I like:

…money can be as big an idol when you seek not to spend it as it can when you do nothing but spend it. Frugality should not be an end in itself but must be a means to a greater end of bringing glory to God and of serving others. Ever and always it is a matter of the heart.

Everyone has different struggles with money and it manifests itself in different ways. Some may spend too much (their idol is using money as a means to show off). Some save too much (their idol is using money as an insurance policy). In both cases, there is idolatry going on. With the people that I’ve associated with, living in California most of my life, the saver/hoarder idol is more common and what I tend to warn people against. Money is a tool. It is a powerful tool in the hands of a genuine believer who wants to honor God. But if one is not careful, it can subtly substitute itself as a god you are trusting in.

This guide follows the Diátaxis framework: start here to learn by doing, how-to guides for specific tasks, foundations to understand the why, and reference to look things up.

Several lessons have an interactive companion, collected on Stewardship: the asset quilt, stock and bond returns by holding period, what starting early and fund fees are worth, tax brackets and state taxes, household budgets, and income and net worth by age.

Start here

A guided on-ramp — first steps, in order.

How-to guides

Steps for a specific task or decision.

Foundations

The why behind the how — principles and convictions.

Reference

Look-up material.

If you’re new, begin with Get started, then read the foundations in order — the sidebar follows that path.