Click below to listen to Episode 135 – The #1 Reason Behind Financial Success
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The #1 Reason Behind Financial Success
Financial success is not just making a lot of money, but more importantly, it is WHAT you do with the money you make. Are you investing it correctly and diversely? Is your family prepared financially if something were to happen to you? Do you have money set aside for the future in case of a financial disaster like a loss of a job or disability? All of these and more are key to being financially successful and prepared.
So, what two words can easily sum up financial success? Bob and Shawn discuss what most financially successful individuals do in order to invest wisely, save consistently, NOT procrastinate, and have a financial plan in place. Listen in to discover the key reason behind financial success!
HOSTED BY: Bob Barber, CWS®, CKA®
CO-HOST: Shawn Peters
Mentioned In This Episode
Christian Financial Advisors
Bob Barber, CWS®, CKA®
Shawn Peters
Bible Verses In This Episode
PROVERBS 1:1-7
The Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, King of Israel: for gaining wisdom and instruction; for understanding words of insight; for receiving instruction in prudent behavior, doing what is right and just and fair; for giving prudence to those who are simple, knowledge and discretion to the young – let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance – for understanding proverbs and parables, the sayings and riddles of the wise. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
PROVERBS 2:6
For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Intro:
Welcome to Christian Financial Perspectives, where you’re invited to gain insight, wisdom, and knowledge about how Christians integrate their faith, life, and finances with a biblical worldview. Here’s your Christian Financial Advisors’ host, Bob Barber and his co-host, Shawn Peters.
Shawn:
Welcome to another episode of Christian Financial Perspectives. We’re so glad you joined us today, whether that’s on video or listening via audio. Bob, what do you got for us today?
Bob:
Well, I have a lot better subject today than I did last week. Last week was the number one reason for financial failure, and that’s not ever fun to talk about. I don’t like talking about that, but we needed to. But today we’re gonna talk about the number one reason for financial success.
Shawn:
I guess we could just say this is part two of the number one reason behind financial failure and success.
Bob:
Hey, that’s pretty good. I like that. Maybe we could have all done that at one time, except it would’ve been an hour.
Shawn:
It would’ve been a long program.
Bob:
Yeah. So last week we covered the number one reason for financial failure in detail, which is procrastination.
Shawn:
Oh, I forgot to look it up ahead of time. I thought I’d have time before this. Procrastination. I know it.
Bob:
You know, and the things that people will procrastinate on, we talked about that last week, and they’ll procrastinate. The first one’s a really big one. We’re not gonna go all over them again. We’re just gonna touch on them. It’s getting their estate plan done.
Shawn:
That’s right. This is just one thing after another. It’s just one thing after another.
Bob:
Can’t ever get around to that. You know, Christmas is coming and after Christmas I’ve got the next thing, then it’s taxes, then the kids on vacation. It’s always something.
Shawn:
And all of a sudden it’s Christmas again.
Bob:
Yeah. Exactly. Keeps going.
Shawn:
So the second one. Saving and investing early enough and consistently.
Bob:
The key is early.
Shawn:
Yeah. Exactly.
Bob:
And one I’ve seen unfortunately, with those that are left behind, it’s not having enough life insurance for the younger breadwinner when they have children.
Shawn:
That’s right.
Bob:
I want you to have lots of life insurance.
Shawn:
Jenna has enough. Jenna’s got enough to take care of her.
Bob:
Enough? I want you to have enough in case of something were to happen to you.
Shawn:
Yeah, no. That’s…
Bob:
Who do I make the program with?
Shawn:
I mean, I guess you’d find somebody, but see, the key is, Bob, that at least this is what I remember when I was going through the whole life insurance thing, is you want enough to make sure you take care of the family, but you don’t wanna be tempting.
Bob:
Exactly.
Shawn:
Don’t want Jenna to look at that going, “Well, he’ll be with the Lord.”
Bob:
Yep. Exactly. You don’t, you act up. You’re outta here. So if you’ve not seen last week’s program, we would definitely advise you, recommend you go back and see it. All right. So today, let’s cover the number one reason for financial…
Shawn:
Success.
Bob:
Success. But you know, first I think it’s important that we look at what financial success looks like.
Shawn:
That’s right. I’m sure everybody thinks of something different, but we’re gonna cover some areas that we feel are applicable to pretty much everybody.
Bob:
Yeah.
Shawn:
So number number one, a 65 to 70 year old can retire because they started saving and investing early in life and didn’t procrastinate. So, that’s one example.
Bob:
It’s that word again from last week.
Shawn:
So, don’t procrastinate. That helps.
Bob:
And I tell you, when I meet these 65 or 70 year olds, or even 60 year olds when they come in, and you’d be surprised, I mean, the majority of ’em have over a million dollars. You, but they started 30, 35 years ago. And they were just so consistent in how they did it. They weren’t trying to get rich quick.
Shawn:
It’s that consistency.
Bob:
It was that scriptural principle who saves little by little makes it grow.
Shawn:
That’s right.
Bob:
The second one I think of with financial success is when an unexpected expense comes along, like a major repair, your air conditioner breaks. You need a new car, or even you lose your job, or maybe a health emergency comes along and you have enough in…
Shawn:
Cash reserves.
Bob:
Cash reserves to cover it. That is so important. That’s something a lot of people fail to do, is to build their cash reserves. You know, Shawn, I even noticed that a lot of people, they’ll, build up their 401k, but then they forget to build the cash reserves.
Shawn:
That’s right.
Bob:
So I recommend doing both at the same time. Not one or the other.
Shawn:
That’s right. All right. And when it comes to like your individual IRA or things like that, maybe you do outside of your work plan. You know, it’s one of the things that when people come in and maybe they sold a home recently and they downsize. and they say, oh, I’ve got $200,000 left over that I can invest. And the first question I always ask is, great. Well, how much do you have in your cash reserves? It’s crazy, in my short time compared to yours, how many times it’s happened where they don’t have cash reserves or it’s very, very little. It’s like, okay, well then you don’t necessarily have 200k, maybe you’ve got 150k. Like, but you need to look at your expenses. That’s just one of those things, like we said, if you have everything in an IRA and everything in a 401k and you have that unexpected expense come along, you’re not gonna be in a good spot.
Bob:
Especially, it’s crazy to have cash reserves right now if you’re in this bear market. Investments are not considered cash reserves. It’s a complete separate thing. You know, this other one is kind of a ironic thing. It’s kind of a flip on what success is because it’s not success when somebody unexpectedly dies.
Shawn:
But it’s when someone unexpectedly dies and they have their estate plans in order.
Bob:
Yeah. That’s a nice thing. I see it more times than not that their estate plan is not in order, you know? So think of that as financial success to get your estate plan and don’t pro…
Shawn:
Procrastinate. Don’t procrastinate. So number four, a breadwinner unexpectedly dies and has enough life insurance to financially care for the family in their absence.
Bob:
Fortunately, we’ve had some of these too. I mean we just did a life insurance analysis yesterday. Austin and I were doing one and for a breadwinner 42 years old. Let me see. They make about $105,000 a year. And they had, I think, it was about $120,000 saved up in their 401ks and different savings. And when the life insurance analysis came out, we thought we were reading the numbers wrong. You know what it said that person needed if they were to die next year? 1.8 million in life insurance.
Shawn:
And how much did they have in life insurance?
Bob:
About $100,000.
Shawn:
So they’re a little low.
Bob:
They’re a little low. Yeah. But then again, I’ve seen where there had been unexpected deaths where the breadwinner did have a million and a half. And it really took the pressure off for the remaining spouse.
Shawn:
And one of the things, too, I think would be good for our viewers, listeners, when you talk about life insurance, it’s far more important earlier in your career, earlier in your life. Because typically, your 20 something and 30 something year old isn’t gonna have a whole lot of investment stake. It’s just not very common. I mean, and maybe if you went to law school or are a doctor and you graduated early and maybe you could build up really quick, but for most people, they don’t have a lot for investments. So, having that larger life insurance, even if it’s a 20, 30 year term, super cheap in your twenties and thirties. But that helps while you have time, cuz you’re, of course, diligently saving and investing during this time that you kind of help cover that difference. So then as you get older, you don’t need the life insurance as much because you’ve been able to build up your assets.
Bob:
I tell you what I’m gonna do, and Garrett, I want you to remind me of this. I’m going to put together a chart that we can put up when we’re showing this. Because really, your life insurance is up here when you first start, and then it goes down.
Shawn:
That’s exactly what I was thinking.
Bob:
And savings is going up and I’ll show a chart. That’s one of the reasons behind buying term and investing the rest, which was a really big deal about 30 years ago when that came out, because it used to just be whole life life insurance.
Shawn:
Which is incredibly expensive. But if you buy that longer term when you’re younger, and then like you said, you invest the rest, that makes a big difference. So as that life insurance is getting closer to expiring, you’re slowly building up your assets.
Bob:
Yeah. And that chart will really put this in perspective. And one of the last things I looked at, but there’s so many other ways of looking at these five.
Shawn:
These are really just five. We figured these were a good, broad overview.
Bob:
And I’ve seen this personally in our family when my wife got cancer and we had disability insurance coverage, and she could no longer work. And we had that disability coverage that covered her salary while she was getting her cancer treatment.
Shawn:
That’s right.
Bob:
Now, we’ll say, we’re heading towards five years of being cancer free now. So, we’re really excited about that. People ask all the time how Rachael’s doing and she’s doing really, really well. So, I’m glad that we’re fortunate and very happy to say that. Some of the things financially successful people do are they do not…
Shawn:
Procrastinate.
Bob:
I know we’ve said it a lot, and they save…
Shawn:
Consistently.
Bob:
Yeah. They invest wisely and diversify.
Shawn:
They know where their money is going and they track it.
Bob:
Yeah. Budgeting.
Shawn:
Okay. They can give and help others in need.
Bob:
I think that’s very important.
Shawn:
It is.
Bob:
They have a good financial plan in place that is so important. We’ll help put that together for you as a fiduciary based advisor.
Shawn:
They also try to educate themselves about how money works.
Bob:
And if you watch this program every week, you would definitely get educated. I think this, well, we say what, which podcast episode is this? 135?
Shawn:
135. Should be.
Bob:
Yeah. 135 episodes. So, if you haven’t listened to all 135, go do it.
Shawn:
Maybe just little by little.
Bob:
Yeah, yeah. There you go. Little by little. Don’t have this, you know, they do that with Netflix. Like you watch an entire…
Shawn:
You don’t need to binge watch our podcast episodes.
Bob:
Don’t binge watch. It will bring brain damage to you, too much overload.
Shawn:
Then the last one is seeks wise counsel and advice.
Bob:
So the number one reason for financial failure is…
Shawn:
Procrastination.
Bob:
The number one reason behind financial success is…
Shawn:
Wisdom and knowledge.
Bob:
Wisdom and knowledge. Shawn, if you’ll read that first chapter of Proverbs. It’s not really long, but I love that first chapter. It talks about that.
Shawn:
Will do. Proverbs 1:1.
Bob:
The whole chapter.
Shawn:
Exactly. “The Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, King of Israel: for gaining wisdom and instruction; for understanding words of insight; for receiving instruction in prudent behavior, doing what is right and just and fair; for giving prudence to those who are simple, knowledge and discretion to the young – let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance – for understanding proverbs and parables, the sayings and riddles of the wise. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”
Bob:
So smart people don’t despise it.
Shawn:
That’s right.
Bob:
They like that wisdom and instruction. Proverbs 2:6 says, “For the Lord gives wisdom and from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.” You know, we want to help you be financially successful and we wanna come alongside you in this journey in life. Christian Financial Advisors, we are a fiduciary based advisor, which is so important because we work for you. We’re only paid by you. We’re never paid any commissions, so we have no conflict of interest. There’s not any trails paid to us. There’s no corporate giant pushing us to sell certain product or a certain stock or a certain mutual fund. Our interest is your interest, and this is to help you be financially successful. So you wanna talk about it, visit us on our website www.christianfinancialadvisors.com or text or call us during in business hours, Central Time, at (830) 609-6986.
Shawn:
Thank you for joining us and God bless.
Outro:
We invite you to listen to all of our past episodes, covering many financial topics from a Christian perspective. To make sure you don’t miss any of Bob’s upcoming episodes. You can subscribe to Christian Financial Perspectives on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or Amazon Music to learn more about integrating your faith with your finances. Visit www.Christianfinancialadvisors.com or call (830) 609-6986.
Disclosure:
Investment advisory services offered through Christian Investment Advisors, Inc DBA Christian Financial Advisors also known as Christian Financial Advisors Management Group, a registered investment advisor. Comments from today’s show for informational purposes only, and not to be considered investment advice or recommendations to buy or sell any company that may have been mentioned or discussed. The opinions expressed are solely those of the host Bob Barber and his guests. Bob does not provide tax advice and encourages you to seek guidance from a tax professional. While Christian Investment Advisors believes the information to be accurate and reliable, we do not claim or have responsibility for its completeness, accuracy, or reliability.