Faithful Finances

Money is practical. It's also emotional, moral, and — if we're being honest — kind of spiritual. 

In this episode, Mark and Jess sit down with Martha Wells, a Davenport-based accountant and enrolled agent with over 40 years of experience, to talk about what our finances actually reveal about our values. 

From the anxiety of opening a shoebox full of receipts to the ethics of tax deductions and generous giving to talking to both your kids and your parents about money — this is the money conversation your church probably never had. Practical, honest, and surprisingly hopeful, we hope.

Thanks to the incredible production team of Sorta Sacred:

Music: Brian Schou 

Design: Lauren Brown 

Merch: Allison Winter 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So, Jess, in polite conversation, of course, there's a number of things that we just shouldn't talk about.

SPEAKER_02 0:05

Oh, sure.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Politics, money, uh some other uh sorts of things, I'm sure. But you know, with that in mind, let's talk money today.

SPEAKER_02 0:13

Ooh, yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_00 0:14

I'm wondering what's the most ridiculous thing you've ever spent money on?

SPEAKER_02 0:19

Well, probably lots of things. Um, but so I don't have TikTok. I don't know if that ages me, but uh it's also because I know that I would see these products on TikTok that are just like highly rated and be like, purchase, purchase, purchase. So I purposely do not want to spend money on those kinds of things.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

It's a lack of willpower. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 0:39

Where it's like, well, they say it's good. Um but okay. I did purchase something like this one time. I love getting pedicures. And I didn't want to spend the money on pedicures, but I didn't like the way my feet felt. They were really rough. And so this like foot exfoliating thing was recommended online. And so I bought it. And it's like um, it's like a liquid-filled bag. Okay, you put your foot in it and you tape it around your foot, and then you do it on the other foot, and then you sit 20 minutes or so. You know, if you have to walk around, you're like slosh, slosh, slosh, slosh.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Well, you can you can walk around in the liquid-filled bag.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

You're supposed to, but I did. Who has time to sit stuff in 20 minutes? But then you take it off, and over like the next few days, like the dead skin peels off and it's really disgusting and satisfying. And so then it worked really well. My feet were really soft, but then I just kept purchasing it and purchasing it, and it was like subscribe and save. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:42

But at that point, like, why don't I just get a pedicure? So it got to a ridiculous level, but it's those kinds of products that like they're probably really good products, but do I actually need them in my life?

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

And then I bring it to the ridiculous level.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Yeah. So a one-time purchase. Fine. Fine, no problem.

SPEAKER_02 1:59

Yeah. Try it out.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

But keep going.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

But yeah, subscribe and save. Subscribe and save.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Yeah. I didn't save anything. I spent more. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

What about you? Is there anything ridiculous or a pattern of behavior that you have that's ridiculous?

SPEAKER_00 2:15

So in most things, I am really cheap. Like really, really cheap. The jeans I'm wearing today are Amazon brand.

SPEAKER_02 2:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

I don't want to spend money on things like that unless I want to spend money. And then I will absolutely fork out a lot of money. I'll work it into a budget. It's somewhat responsible most of the time. So I'm thinking in 2019 or early 2020, my son started taking piano lessons. And we had this very ordinary home studio piano, very adequate. I was happy playing it. All was going really well. What is the only natural thing that you do when your two-year-old son, well, not two-year-old, he was he was uh five, starts playing piano? You buy a grand piano.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

So that's what we did. So he starts piano, this little five-year-old, and he's he's you know progressing quickly for a five-year-old, right? And he's doing fine. So let's just get him a six foot, one-inch glossed black grand piano that ended up being an absolute boat anchor as we tried to figure out what kind of house we're gonna purchase when we move down here to the Quad Cities. That's my pattern. It's I'm not gonna spend a lot of money until I do. And then I'm going to buy the absolute best thing that I possibly can.

SPEAKER_02 3:42

You go all in.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

I go all in. Yeah. So when I'm gonna go buy some dress shoes, I'm not gonna go to a discount shoe store. I'm gonna go and get some Johnson and Murphy's or Alan Edmonds and fork out hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars.

SPEAKER_02 3:56

I don't even know what those are.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Right? Yeah, I shouldn't know what those are. I'm clergy. But so very, very cheap until I'm not. And we just we kind of make it work. We we save up. I think we do it reasonably well, but there's no reason to have a six-foot-one inch grand piano in my house, especially for my son, who at the time was five and kind of learning how to play Mary Had a Little Lamb.

SPEAKER_02 4:21

Is he still playing it though?

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Oh, yeah. So that's an investment. Oh, totally investment. And he's flying. He's doing great, and I'm playing a lot more, have been playing more since we bought it. But also, would we have still played had we kept the old normal studio piano? Yeah, probably. But the big one's so pretty.

SPEAKER_02 4:39

Well, speaking of which questionable ways we spend money, today we're talking with someone who's seen it all when it comes to people's financial lives. And unlike me, she actually knows what she's doing with numbers.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Welcome to Sort of Sacred conversations about the joys and challenges of life. Together, we're finding something sorta sacred, even the most normal parts of our days.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

Most people believe they're supposed to be better with money, and they're embarrassed about what they're uncertain about. Life is messy, it's chaotic. There's a pile of bills that you're gonna get to when you're done running errands.

SPEAKER_02 5:32

Well, it's that time of year. The time when we all suddenly remember that shoebox full of receipts we promised ourselves we'd organize monthly.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

And if you're like most people, tax season brings up all kinds of feelings. Stress, obviously, but also guilt, some confusion about what's smart versus what's right. And if we're being honest, a little existential dread about what our money says about us.

SPEAKER_02 5:59

Today we're talking with someone who sees people's financial lives up close. Not just the numbers, but the values, the priorities, the stories behind the spreadsheets. Joining us is Martha Wells. Martha is the owner of Wells Accounting Services right here in Davenport, Iowa. She's been preparing tax returns and providing accounting services since 1984. I don't want to say if that's older than me or not. Which means she's been doing this now for more than 40 years.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Martha received her Bachelor of Business Administration with a major in accounting from the University of Cincinnati in 1985. And she's been an enrolled agent since 1988. Her firm has been serving the Quad Cities for more than 30 years, working with in with individual and commercial clients.

SPEAKER_02 6:51

Hi, Martha. Welcome to Sort of Sacred. Hello, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

Before we get into taxes and generosity, let's ground the conversation. What does financial security actually mean? We throw that phrase around, but what does it look like in real life?

SPEAKER_01 7:07

You're having your basic needs met. So housing, food, clothes, transportation, just your basic needs.

SPEAKER_02 7:19

What about the people that don't have those basic needs yet? They don't have that financial security. Let's say they're living paycheck to paycheck. How do you start to get your footing? Where would someone even begin?

SPEAKER_01 7:31

I would say become aware of your expenses. So plan your spending, know what you're spending, know what your income is. Umledge is power, but that's but it's really being aware.

SPEAKER_02 7:50

How do you start tracking something? Is there a system that works? Is it kind of across the board? I need pencil to paper. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

There's there's I'm finding that most people track differently. So um for people who've never tracked before, I say start with just holding on to your receipts. Save them into an envelope. Just see what you're spending. So you hold the receipts. Um and then at the end of the week, open up your envelope, add up your receipts so that you have a real good feel for that. Um to go with your other question of how to track, you could do a spreadsheet. Not everybody is spreadsheet savvy. Some people get lost in the spreadsheet and it becomes all consuming and the they're more involved with their spreadsheet than the purpose of the spreadsheet. Um there's there's little programs out there, um business, NYOB, I think it's called. Um so there's other ways of tracking.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

Does f financial security look different for people at different stages of life, in your view, or is it uh is it just kind of that that blanket definition that covers everyone?

SPEAKER_01 9:19

I uh have loved that thought. I I was because I've really been pondering this thought this week. And I really think financial security is true at every season of life. And we, as we age, have experience and so we can relate to, oh, they're new college students, they're at this point, they're gonna be worried about housing, they're gonna be worried about the job, they're gonna have a mortgage or they're gonna have a car payment. So we can look at their changes of life with hindsight in 2020. New parents, again, we can see what they're gonna have this. But I think the group that gets overlooked is are the older people. Um so they have the same insecurities as the rest of us. Um, the housing, the the food, the uh clothing and transportation, maybe, maybe not so much. Um but maybe someone is staying in their house because the house is paid for and they're not moving up to a home that would be more um accessible for them because there's a cost to that. So uh the different seasons have different security issues, but they all come down to the four.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

So, Martha, how do you even know where you stand financially?

SPEAKER_01 10:58

Well, you don't know what you don't know. Um you you can have a credit score, but all that is doing is saying how well you have paid your debt. So, um, but it doesn't tell you if you have money or if you have enough money. And you see people on YouTube or TikTok and they say you need to have this much to retire. But that wouldn't be true. Uh it's not the same for somebody who lives in California versus somebody who lives in Iowa. Um so there is it's going to be different for each person. So I'm back to this awareness, knowing, being aware of how much money you have, what are what are your long-term plans, what are your current short-term plans, and do you have enough money to accomplish those and sort of budget out, um, project out what you're gonna need?

SPEAKER_02 12:04

A lot of people just avoid even looking at their finances. The anxiety of it all makes them freeze up. Why do you think that is, and how would someone start to move past that anxiety?

SPEAKER_01 12:19

I really think most people believe they're supposed to be better with money and they're embarrassed about what they're uncertain about. Um, whether whether they're uncertain and don't know about investments, if they don't feel like they handle their bills very well, if they don't understand taxes, there's an embarrassment because everybody else knows this and I don't. And I'm afraid to ask and because I don't want to look stupid, or I don't want to show my ignorance or my what I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

Or, you know, I'm almost 40 years old. I should have all of my stuff together. But you once you start talking about it, the people around you are like, oh, I was uncertain about that too.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

Yeah. And and or I'm 50 years old and I should have my retirement plan. Well, there's there is a lot of uncertainty involving money. And um there is a lot of that is because we again we think we're supposed to know this, but how how were we supposed to learn it? It's it's not osmosis.

SPEAKER_00 13:40

Is it a fear that they don't know how to use money or they don't know what money is?

SPEAKER_01 13:47

Well, I think we start with we compare ourselves to others. So we are looking at um our siblings, we are looking at our parents, we are looking at our neighbors, we are looking at um social media. I mean, nobody takes a picture on social media of their messy house. They only take a picture of their clean house. They don't take a picture of their children when they're being real. They're taking pictures of their angels when they are dressed up and accomplishing wonderful things. Um, but most of the time life is messy. And most of the time it's chaotic, and most of the time, there's a pile of bills that you're gonna get to when you're done running errands with the kids. And um dealing with money doesn't come as naturally for a lot of people because they they were taught this stuff when they were in school and they had to go through junior achievement or they had to take a personal finance class and they were taught how to handle a checkbook. But at that time, point in time, there was no point that they could completely relate to it. They didn't have a job. They didn't have a checkbook. So they were just doing the math and the procedures and the steps that they were supposed to to get the grade, but they didn't get the understanding.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

So when there is actual money there, when there are those jobs and you actually have to do it, that can cause a certain amount of financial fear to creep in. Yes. You've sat down with a number of people over your career. What does financial fear look like?

SPEAKER_01 15:40

Mostly denial and avoidance. So um people will deny. When I talk about denial, they talk about uh I'm thinking that they think they have more money than they do. So they might spend more than they have, or that they can cover. That can be seen through um vacations or through a car purchase or um activities or a house. You you buy just a little bit more than what you really can afford. I can remember the first house I bought, uh, my husband and I, he was in the military, we went to Louisiana, and it was our first home. We'd been married two years, and um the real estate agent told us we could afford this house. So we bought that house. It was a great house. We could afford the house. I could not afford to paint the walls, I could not afford to get the curtains, I could not afford to furnish the house in a better way than the hand-me-down furniture that we had. So um it was a lesson that I learned and stuck with because the next time we bought a house, I'm like, this is what we can afford. And they're like, oh, but you can afford more. I'm like, no, no, this is what we can afford.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

You have to live in the house, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

Exactly. So denial is one. Um, avoidance is another one. We're talking about fear. Um there is a fear of bills. And when the bills start coming and repeating, there's the fear looks like unopened mail, and that male starts growing. And um it's just it can be, and and the more you don't open the mail, and the more the mail grows, it's a cycle, and and it's hard.

SPEAKER_02 17:57

How do you take the first step to get past that avoidance?

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Well, I'm one who likes buddies. You know, you have you have a a friend, uh it could be your spouse. Sometimes this fear is that your spouse doesn't know that this pile is here. And so you may not want to admit this to your spouse. It would be healthier for the relationship if you did, but I'm not gonna say you have to, but a buddy, you're gonna have somebody is close in your life that you trust. It could be a friend, it could be your spouse, it could be your parent, but that you do have somebody in your life that you can trust. Have that person help you, have them open your mail, have them sort through it, and get it it might be 10 copies of the same bill. So when you get through that stack, you have just one bill. And then you go, Oh, well, in three payments, I can have this bill taken care of. Or this bill isn't that big. I you just hadn't opened the mail yet. It you just had the return. Um, a personal personal story. I I don't like medical bills, I don't like medical insurance. That's I will deal with the IRS, I will deal with anything else. But um that was the hardest change coming from a military life to a civilian life was medical bills. And he's been out of the army for 30 years, I I still don't like medical stuff. I take my stack of medical bills to my office. I have a friend, coworker, employee, who I hand this to. She opens them, she tells me what I owe, who I owe. I hand her my debit card and say, please pay. I can't even make the step to pay it. I it's a personal thing that I cannot do. She takes care of it for me. That is how I handle that stress, that avoidance of that little aspect of my life.

SPEAKER_02 20:26

I feel like I have a lot of comfort hearing you say a lot of these things because I'm like, yeah, I understand that. I feel that way. I'm not alone in feeling that way either.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

And and it's and it's just because I have that issue with my medical bills doesn't mean I have that issue with everything else. Everything else is well under control. But that I and I don't, I just accept the fact it's medical, it's an issue, and this is my solution. I had to find a solution to what I can't handle.

SPEAKER_02 20:59

Fear often has emotional roots, not just financial ones. Could you touch a little bit on where some of that might come from?

SPEAKER_01 21:07

Parents, some parents have used money as rewards. Here's you got good grades, here's $10 for each A. So you're you're receiving rewards for your money. Uh money is the reward for the good deed. Um or it's the punishment. You didn't do your chores this week. You can't go to the trampoline park. You didn't do this, you can't do that. And uh so the punishment, even though it's not a it cost you, it it's a denial of something. So um so there's emotional ties at some point we're going to tie the money to. Feeling good, which is why some people tend to spend or overspend, or feel happier when they're spending, or reward themselves. I just did this. Let's go celebrate by spending. Well, that's great if you can afford to spend. You could also celebrate by taking a walk or driving to your favorite park. That wouldn't cost anything.

SPEAKER_02 22:34

You've been doing this since 1984. Four decades of seeing people's financial lives. What's it actually like being the person that everyone comes to being like, Martha, I forgot this and I don't know where this is, and how do I find this? What does that feel like? It feels like my job.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

It's what I'm supposed to hear. So, Martha, I forgot this. If it's related to taxes, I might then look and say, okay, this is the report you got it on last year. Here's a phone number you can call. If somebody shows up with a document that we have filed their tax return already. So let's say something comes after the fact, we can amend. You have three years to amend. So if I look at it and go, okay, you're going to owe a little bit more money, let's get the payment in. This needs to be reported, but I don't have time to amend right now because I have all these other returns. We will amend after April 15th so that you're still, you have filed. You are timely. An amendment has a three-year window. Then the other thing that happens sometimes is that people, that shoe box you talked about in the beginning, they come in the shoe boxes. I will say to someone, you can pay us to sort this, or you can save some money and sort this yourself, and we'll add them up, or you can add them up. Um, but shoeboxes are very common, so are grocery bags. Um I really encourage people if they want a basic system to keep track, envelopes. I'm I'm a big fan of the envelope system. You just you put your your charity receipts in your one envelope, you put your um other business expenses in another envelope, and then at the end of the year you add up those receipts and write the total on the envelope. That's good enough.

SPEAKER_00 24:46

Do you ever feel like a priest? Forgive me, Martha, for I have spent. Does that does that does that thought ever cross ever cross your mind?

SPEAKER_01 24:55

I I laugh at that because people come in and they look at me and they feel like they need to confess something. And and I am very non-judgmental. I have seen and heard a lot. Um, I've never thought about it in a from a moral standpoint. It's the law. So I'm we're going to follow the law. And it's um minimizing taxes is good. Um, the goal is to pay what you're required, but not any more than what you're required. One one year I had called the Iowa Department of Revenue for some assistance on something. And I must have made a comment about not wanting to pay the tax. And she said, our mission is to serve Iowans and support state government by collecting all the taxes required by law, but no more. And I loved that because I thought, great, that's my call too. No more. The one we will pay what we're supposed to, but not anymore.

SPEAKER_02 26:14

When did you realize that your work with numbers touches people's lives, their values, their beliefs? Like that's not just the numbers and the math. This is something that people deeply care about.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

I see that when um when they reach a point where they can take something to the next level. I have a client who is part of a group of five men who they have noticed various people in the community or in their church or um that might need some extra help. And they have sort of formed this group that they help support these people through some rough times. I asked him if he wanted to formalize this and make a nonprofit. I we could do that. He goes, no, we don't need to. It's we just want to step up. So they are giving, truly giving. There is no tax benefit, there is no no benefit. So there's a value that's gone beyond numbers. What does a healthy relationship with money actually look like? I would say awareness, responsibility without obsessing over it, or without controlling others.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

How have you seen money become an idol?

SPEAKER_01 27:46

When it is dominating every aspect of your life. So your decisions are made with regards to money. Your actions are done with regards to money.

SPEAKER_00 28:02

And that can be both scarcity and excess.

SPEAKER_01 28:06

Yes. It would be um the I can't do that because it will affect our savings. I can't do that or I I have to do that to get more money.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

Is there a difference between good with money and being faithful with money?

SPEAKER_01 28:30

I would think that would be about being competent with money and being thinking of yourself as a steward or a stewardship with this money. Uh when I was a child, there's the the parable of the the three servants that had the talents. I always felt like the the servant who received the least, who buried it, I couldn't understand why he was in trouble and why he was shamed. And because as a child, I was a rule follower. I did not take risks. That man did not take any risk. He was returning the money that he was given. Now, as an adult and and knowing there's there was symbolism in the story, and it wasn't literal. Um I understand that there was some the the benefit of investing, etc. But to me, his stewardship as a child, his stewardship was he was doing the right thing. Now I see stewardship as being responsible with the money. Now what am I doing with my to to help others? We are tasked. I mean, if we if we go back to um the story of Adam and Eve, I mean, we were given the stewardship to be responsible for the animals and the earth and the and we have responsibility here.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

Take care of it. Yeah. Take care of people. Yeah. And that's probably a pretty good way of thinking about how to manage it all in the long run anyway.

SPEAKER_02 30:18

Yeah. What's the better tax practice? Should you be getting a big return at the end of the year, or is it better to break even?

SPEAKER_01 30:25

My viewpoints, it's better to break even. The refund, a big refund, is only a return of your own money for the most part. I mean, there are some credits that some people can get back, but for the most part, the government has held on to your money and they're just returning the excess that was yours to begin with. So I think that you have a near-perfect return if you get less than a thousand or you owe less than a thousand.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

Does the tax code actually encourage generosity or does it just confuse people?

SPEAKER_01 30:59

Well, both. It confuses people, mainly because the tax, the laws change and they have been changing more and more frequently. Um the other hand, people give no matter what the tax law is. So that's not their motivation. Um most people use a standard deduction, means they don't itemize, so there's no benefit from charitable giving. However, in 2026, they're going to be able to deduct $1,000 if they're single, $2,000 if they're married, filing a joint, off the front of their tax return. So I just tell people, you just keep giving, keep keeping track, and just let me know what you gave, and if we can use it, we'll use it. If we can't, we won't. Um but the uh what's more important is when you were asking about that question is um is that the motivation? I'm gonna have you substitute the word children for charity. So there's tax credits associated with having children, but that's not the reason to have children. So there's a tax benefit potential for giving donations, a variety of different types of donations, but that's not the reason for the donations. I tend to talk to people about that they don't know. I'm gonna say your average person is when they're 70 and a half, they can start giving something called charitable or qualified charitable donations, and they give it from their IRAs. And it's a way to reduce the taxable portion of their IRA and give at the same time. And I usually ask my clients who are in this age ballpark, I was like, are you a giver? Do you tend to give? Or I can tell that they they give to their church or to their favorite charity. And I will say, you can still give, but if we take this path to giving, you will get a tax benefit. So it's usually getting the benefit for something they're already doing is the approach I take.

SPEAKER_00 33:46

So what do you tell people who want to be generous but are afraid that they don't have enough or won't have enough?

SPEAKER_01 33:55

Well, from a spiritual point, I've always thought about it as time and talent. So as a young person with four kids and um limited household income, I tried to give more time. I volunteered more. And um and my giving was what I could do. And now as an empty nester, I try to give a little extra to help the family who may not be able to pay. So um, but I have never come across any nonprofit that has said, no, your donation is too small. So $25, $10, $50, $50 a month. I mean, whatever your ability to give is going to be welcomed.

SPEAKER_00 35:04

I I found for a lot of folks just the pattern of giving financially is a bit foreign. Yes. So just starting. Yes. Doing something. And maybe it's something that you notice uh from a cash flow perspective, but just start.

SPEAKER_01 35:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:20

And once that habit is ingrained, that's when we can talk about a deeper sense of stewardship as we grow and as we do hit 70 and a half and have to do these QCDs. Yeah. But you've got to start somewhere.

SPEAKER_02 35:32

Martha, can you talk a little bit about giving to what you deeply care about or connects with you personally rather than just giving to charity in a generic way?

SPEAKER_01 35:44

Yeah, I have an example. Um when my children were small, my mother one year um was giving to Heifer International on our behalf. And so she gave a set amount of money. And I let my kids know that their Christmas present that year was a gift. And they're like, but we didn't get to pick it out. So the next year when she did the same thing, I said, My kids would like to pick out the animals, et cetera. And for me, that was important because it was an act of giving, but it was something for my children. And my older son was like, we've got to give bees. Bees are are very important and they are they're disappearing. And then, and so we were, we gave bees. And then another child was like, Well, we're gonna give them chickens because the chickens will lay eggs and they have both eggs and they can have baby chickens, and and so they were all about their reasoning made sense, and then they were able to make a choice and have care and concern about the charity, but also input and was joy in that they were giving. When you're choosing your charities and who you are giving to, there's going to be some connection.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

So you really are talking about allowing or yeah, I think allowing your values to guide your generosity.

SPEAKER_02 37:21

Yes. So, Martha, after 40 years in this work, what is one financial conversation every adult should have, but often avoids having?

SPEAKER_01 37:32

I would say talking to their aging parents about money. When we talk to our parents, we become eight years old again, and we feel like we are saying a dirty word that we just heard and we don't know what it means, and that we're gonna get in trouble and that our parents are gonna act badly about this. And there needs to be a conversation. Now, also on the flip side, when we talk to our parents, we shouldn't treat them like they're eight years old. We need to give them the respect that they have earned and that they have acquired. And but there needs to be a conversation. So, example, I have. So I need to give you a little bit of date reference here. Um but all his statements and all this, and he and I f I have online banking. Great dad. Where are the passwords? They're in my head. I'm like, we won't have access after you pass. So we need those passwords. We need those passwords. Yes. So my father gave us a gift that he had everything in one place. I have a client now working with parents who are alive who have money scattered and they are trying to find all the money. And once dementia steps in, you have trouble getting this information. So we have gone back through years of tax returns and looked for statements of what I can give copies of to help them locate the money. And the money, we're not looking for it for inheritance purposes, but right now, both parents have gone to a nursing home, full, full care nursing home with no long-term care insurance. So we're looking for assets to be able to pay for the nursing home. So I would say talking to parents about money.

SPEAKER_00 39:58

What's something people often regret not thinking about sooner?

SPEAKER_01 40:02

Retirement. And I actually have something to share with you on that one. This is, I used to teach Financial Peace University, Dave Ramsey's program. That is a great program, but this is the page that freaks everybody out when they see it. And this is, I'm going to describe it since this is not a visual podcast. And this is a story of Ben and Arthur, and it talks about Ben who invests $2,000 a year from age 19 to age 26. So he started early, and then he stops and doesn't put a dime in the rest of his life. Arthur starts investing $2,000 a year when he turns 27, and he does it all the way till he's 65. So with investing only $16,000 by Ben, he ends up with compound interest, over $2 million. Arthur, who invested I don't have the total number here, but from age 27, almost 40 years, he only has one thousand million five hundred dollars. He never catches up. So when people see this, they usually freak out and panic because they're seeing this when they're in their young 30s. And they're like, it's too late. What am I gonna do? I'm never gonna, I'm gonna have to work the rest of my life. I'm never gonna be able to retire. And I'm like, no, no, no, it's okay.

SPEAKER_00 41:55

Start. Just start.

SPEAKER_01 41:57

Just start. But I love, I love this visual because it's important to start. Um, I one of the other things I say to people is start a Roth IRA whenever you get your first paycheck. You cannot have a Roth IRA, you cannot have any IRA until you have earned income. But there's a five-year window before you can withdraw from a Roth IRA. And it starts with the first Roth IRA. So I had a client who had a child who was a model, age four. I'm like, put that money in an IRA and we'll report a tax return. Taxes are based on income, not on age. So if you are a child model at four and you have earnings, you have a tax return. So put that money in. There was no tax owed for that child, but they have a Roth IRA that was started for them when they were four. And think about that compound interest. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:15

Time. Time clearly is your friend.

SPEAKER_01 43:18

Yes. Yes. And the earlier you start, the better.

SPEAKER_02 43:22

I'm going to time travel.

SPEAKER_01 43:24

Right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:25

I did not start it on Roth IRA. Dang it. Yeah. What's one small step someone could take this year toward more intentional finances? Something that doesn't necessarily require a financial planner or like a complete life overhaul.

SPEAKER_01 43:40

I would the I would have them set aside money in advance for a planned expense. Most people don't do that. So if we're talking one small step, so I'm thinking one small change in habits. And so if you know you're going on a vacation or if you are going to make a major purchase, I would say, let's try to set that money aside in advance so that when you go on that vacation, you are paying for it. And when you come back from the vacation, there's nothing following you. It's been paid for. And while you're there, you know that when you are buying, you're spending the money on the food that you're going out, you're going to the theme park, it's paid for. So it's a lot more enjoyable when you're not worried about it coming, following you home.

SPEAKER_02 44:45

So let's talk about the practical side of talking to your kids about money. How do you actually teach kids about that? Where do you start?

SPEAKER_01 44:53

So I'm going to talk to you about this from my role as a mother of four, but my four are now adults. Some of the things that I did also as a child of parents who role modeled this for me, and as an accountant who works with people in today's digital world. So I just need to give you a little bit of context here because context is one of my strengths. So, first of all, allowances. I know parents struggle with the idea of allowance. Do we give an allowance? Don't we give an allowance? Do we give an allowance? Do we pay for chores? Or you do chores because you're part of the family and chores are responsibility. You get an allowance because you're part of the family, and there's all sorts of parenting reasons. Those are your reasons. Choose the reason that works best for you and your philosophy. That's not the issue at hand. But somehow kids need to have access to money that they're responsible for. So as a child, so I'm going to start with when I was a child back in the 1900s. And I I will age myself just because my allowance was 30 cents a week. And I one dime went to Sunday school offering, one dime went to Campfire Girls dues, and one dime I got to keep, which was great because candy bars were only a nickel. So um but I I learned the responsibility of giving. I learned the responsibility of taking care of my bills, and I learned the responsibility of having money to spend. So as a parent, I uh tried to give an allowance to my kids. I see the word there, tried. Okay. Um and I liked the idea of cash, and we used um frosting containers, and because they're they're a great size, and and had three frosting containers, and they could have the giving, the keep, and the um whatever the responsibility stuff was. But cash flow wasn't always there for us. So and I it was in that transition age where I didn't always have money. I use a debit card. So allowance was um a challenge for me because I didn't always have cash on hand. And it it's very important to be consistent with kids and to fulfill, I mean, if they're expecting an allowance, you fulfill the allowance. So Katie Hansen was parenting kids at the same time I was parenting kids, and she gave me this wonderful wisdom about the a digital their allowance system was a checkbook register that the kids they would fill in what the allowance was for each week and add it to each checkbook register. And then if they were out and about and the kids wanted something, they're like, Do you have enough money? And they would look at their checkbook register and say, Yeah. And then they would deduct it. Mom was the bank, she would pay for it, but it it was deducted from the checkbook register. I loved that idea. I never implemented it, but it I love the idea. And I think it's a more natural way to deal with the digital age because our kids today are not going to see money. They're not gonna hold too much money other than maybe a birthday card. Um, but they need to learn how to be responsible with this invisible money. And as an accountant, I deal with clients who check their check their bank balance on their phone and aren't taking into consideration the $5,000 check that was written three weeks ago for a vendor and it hasn't cleared yet. They're like, Yep, I have enough money. We can buy this piece of equipment. I'm like, yeah, no, you done. And so there has to be a way to learn or teach our children for dealing with money in real time in the digital age, with um the responsibility there.

SPEAKER_00 50:08

I love that. We my wife and I don't do a great job with allowance because we never have cash.

SPEAKER_01 50:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:14

But this is a really nice way of kind of balancing those two things and keeping them in a nice tension. I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_02 50:21

How do you develop a financial system that works for your family?

SPEAKER_01 50:25

As kids get older, they have more wants and they're more vocal about things, and their wants tend to be more expensive. And so having them be part of the planning. So yes, they might want to go on this school trip. Okay, that school trip costs a little bit of money. Maybe they should work a little bit and um collect all the the be responsible for cleaning out the aluminum cans and collect all the money for when it's returned, but they have to do the work for that. Or they have to babysit, or they have to go rake some yards and they have to help get a $100 or $150 towards this $900 event. There's no shame in having them contribute. Um, there's also an idea of maybe giving them a budget and saying, okay, it's time to get new clothes. You have $100. And here's a store, and here's goodwill. And you can get a lot more from goodwill than you can the store. However, you can do a combination, it's not an all or nothing. So having the kids experience the shopping, the saving for, um, the understanding that there's a cost without guilt. I mean, we had to balance that too. It's like they need a healthy relationship with money. So if everything that they're doing is out of guilt or out of pleasing you or out of reward, then they're going to be adults who are constantly thinking that they can't do this because there's shame involved, or they were good, so they get this. So they it's role model and encouragement.

SPEAKER_02 52:37

So it sounds like we need to have a healthy grasp of money. Yes. To model that for our kids, too. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 52:45

So what does it look like when families actually get this right?

SPEAKER_01 52:49

Well, I don't want it to be a measuring stick because every family is different. In a family where a child understands that sometimes the answer is no, is healthy, um, sometimes the answer is yes, but sometimes the yes has to be a plan that the adult child is launched. And there's a lot of adult children living at home. Um, but that's part of the plan too, because they might be saving up for that their home, or they might be saving up for or paying off student loan debt.

SPEAKER_02 53:28

Before we close, let's give people something to take home. Are there books, apps, tools, resources, things you'd like to point people toward?

SPEAKER_01 53:37

Okay. So I mentioned earlier, I have taught Financial Peace University before, and I do think it's a great program. So I would recommend Financial Peace University for people who are trying to figure out how to budget, how to handle their money, and how to get a control of some things. Um I like the book Money Rules by Gene Chosky. And I like the book Love Your Life, Not Theirs by Rachel Cruz.

SPEAKER_00 54:09

What's one thing listeners can actually do this week?

SPEAKER_01 54:13

Track every expense. Now I know I had talked about this a little bit earlier, but it it really is an eye-opening exercise. So if you keep track of every um drive-thru coffee that you've gotten, every candy bar that you've purchased, every groceries, if you keep track of everything for one week, it gives you an awareness that's important because you can't change financial spending or plan a budget until you are aware of what you spend your money on.

SPEAKER_02 54:55

This has been a very refreshing conversation. I was very nervous because finances could that's a big conversation to delve into. So thank you for making taxes and money feel less terrifying and less morally fraught at times.

SPEAKER_00 55:10

And for reminding us that generosity isn't just about the check we write, it's about the life we're living. Thank you for coming on. This is great. And thanks for listening to Sword of Sacred.

SPEAKER_02 55:22

Until next time, may your spreadsheets balance and your generosity flow freely.

SPEAKER_00 55:27

From us here at Sort of Sacred, keep finding the sacred in your everyday.