Is It Moral to Be Wealthy? | E45
Is financial prosperity a blessing or a spiritual trap? In this thought-provoking episode, Deb Meyer sits down with Deacon Christopher Warner to explore the moral and spiritual dimensions of wealth, giving, work, and responsibility. Whether you're Catholic, Christian, or simply curious about aligning money with your faith, this conversation offers deep insights into the tension between financial abundance and spiritual purpose.
Discover how principles like subsidiarity, stewardship, and virtue can shape your family’s financial life. Also learn why budgeting and charitable giving are more than just numbers on a spreadsheet.
Episode Highlights
(0:04) The moral tension between wealth, idolatry, and faithfulness
(2:10) How the principle of subsidiarity empowers parents to lead family finances
(7:37) Why charity begins at home and how giving is a matter of justice, not just generosity
(11:38) A breakdown of four financial personalities: Givers, Hoarders, Consumers, and Spenders
(12:26) The dangers of self-inflicted financial suffering and how to avoid it
(22:28) Viewing work as a path to virtue, whether you're an entrepreneur, manager, or laborer
(24:20) Creative ways to teach financial responsibility through chores and entrepreneurship
Resources & Mentions
Christopher Warner’s Substack: wayofthefamily.com
Book: Catholic Money by Christopher Warner
Episode 37: Faith, Family & Finances with Compass Catholic Ministries
Connect with Deb Meyer
Website: WorthyNest.com/podcast
Full transcript
Deb Meyer (00:00.959)
Have you ever wondered if it's morally acceptable to be wealthy? How can we guard our hearts so money doesn't become our idol? Today's guest, Deacon Christopher Warner, is a wealth of knowledge, pun intended, on family finance as the author of the book, Catholic Money. His Christian mentors include Dave Ramsey and Hans Johnson. Christopher is a Greek Catholic deacon who lives with his family on a small farm. Christopher, welcome to Beyond Budgets podcast!
Christopher Warner (00:29.294)
Thanks, Deb, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
Deb Meyer (00:31.005)
Yeah, I'm excited. I first discovered your work through a Substack article that you wrote in early February called Subsidiarity Begins at Home. Could you tell listeners a little bit about that concept of subsidiarity, especially as it relates to Christian or Catholic families?
Christopher Warner (00:49.262)
Sure. This is a principle from Catholic social teaching. It's the idea that we can expedite and delegate authority and responsibility more efficiently if we honor the natural structure of authority in creation. So you have individuals and you have families and then you have a parish community, and then you have a greater community, a local community. And on a government level, this could be like, you know, local government, state government, federal government. The idea is that decisions should always be made at the lowest possible level. So, it's the opposite of top-down management.
It's, in most situations, that a father and mother can make the best decisions for their family and including their family finances. An example of this would be homeschooling … a homeschool parent can set their own curriculum, which is really nice. They can set it according to the children's needs and their abilities. Compare that to a state-wide mandated curriculum that's set by the board. That's a violation of the principle of subsidiarity. And a financial example is the head of the household, he's the one who should be making decisions for his family about how to spend his money, not the government.
Christopher Warner (02:40.778)
A lot of our taxes, like over 50 % of our taxes go to wealth distribution, education, and healthcare. These are all decisions that actually should be made at the family level, not at the state level. So we could talk more about that if you want, but another important part of this principle that's really important is understanding the role of intermediate institutions. So the church and private schools and private hospitals … all of these play a really unique role and a very important role in a flourishing society because it's always about the family. How can families flourish in their vocation as families without somebody else trying to intervene in these situations and make it more complicated than it needs to be? And also there's a lot of waste when you don't make decisions according to the principle of subsidiarity.
And then I would just say finally that the reason this is so important is because it's not just our material well-being that is at stake, but it's our spiritual wellbeing as well. whenever we're making decisions as the mother and father of a household, we are making the decision, first and foremost for the spiritual good of my family, right? So, those are priorities that supersede the financial material well-being of the family. Now they go together, right? You can't have one without the other, but they have to be complimentary and the one has to be subservient to the other.
Deb Meyer (04:34.357)
So I guess just explore upon this concept a little further. The idea here is that you're saying we need to look at it from an individual family unit and we don't need to be influenced as much by outside forces like the government or state or whatever. We're trying to make our unique decision based on where we see God leading our families, where we can all grow spiritually.
And if we happen to have financial prosperity because of it, great, but that's not the main goal. Is that a good summation?
Christopher Warner (05:07.81)
Yeah, yeah, think that's good. It has to do with authority, so it has to do, and responsibility too. you know, like 80 % of the decisions are actually my responsibility as the head of my household, right? But there are some decisions that have to be made outside. even, like I don't, I'm Catholic, so I don't just.
I don't have a home church. I'm not just sort of doing Christianity on my own as a Catholic. So I have to go to church to receive the sacraments. And I have to submit my will to the authority of the church and obey the teachings and precepts of the church. So those are things where I don't have authority. Those are areas where I don't have authority.
Christopher Warner (06:04.11)
And then there are also things like the federal government is delegated with the authority to defend us at the state level, right? So like I couldn't just go to war with, you know, I couldn't go to war with Canada with my own little private militia, right? That wouldn't be right, right? That would violate the...
Deb Meyer (06:29.162)
Sure, you're not going to war with anyone.
Christopher Warner (06:34.446)
Right, but there are situations where it is morally legitimate to go to war, know, but that has to be that's a decision at us at the state level, right that I don't have, know, so or or even more local example might be like You know, I need I need a mediator in I need it I might need to go to court with somebody right because there's something that I can't settle on my own, right? I can't just take the law into my own hands
Deb Meyer (06:45.747)
At a higher level, yeah.
Christopher Warner (07:04.078)
For example, I can't just go shoot my neighbor because he stole my pig. This is how subsidiarity plays out on a very practical level.
Deb Meyer (07:18.347)
Okay, well, one of the things related to that topic that I thought was interesting from your book, you said, charity is more than a tax write-off opportunity. It is a matter of justice. And I really like that concept because it is about trying to broaden how we look at even charitable giving and just having a better relationship and mindset when we are charitably inclined to say like, h”ey, it's not just about the financial tax write-off that might be coming.” It's really about where are the parties that really need our help? And I know you have some thoughts on that as well of like kind of that hierarchy of what charitable giving looks like. Could you share a little bit about that?
Christopher Warner (08:03.626)
Yes, so St. Ambrose is really good on this. He talks about, so when we talk about justice, there's three types of justice. There's legal justice, communicative justice, and distributive justice. Communicative justice is basically fulfilling our contracts and obligations to each other. So if I sell you something, I need to deliver the good, right?
Christopher Warner (08:31.596)
Distributive justice has to do with the actual the unequal the natural unequal distribution of Resources in the world like because everybody has different needs and everybody also is bringing different value to the market So But then you have then you also have to apply the principle of subsidiarity who has the authority, you know to make decisions so like st. Ambrose says
when it comes to charitable giving, you wanna first be charitable with your family. So like I like to say, we shouldn't tie it 10%, we should actually give 100%. We should give 100 % meaning that everything I have is a gift from God that's meant to be shared out in love because that's our vocation. Our vocation is to be charitable within everything that we do, right? So.
Christopher Warner (09:30.35)
St. Ambrose says, first, you should be charitable with your children, any dependents. Like if you're taking care of an elderly mother or something like that, this is where your first financial obligations come into play. And then after that, those who are in your parish. those who you're receiving, St. Irenaeus says, those that you're...
receiving communion with every week. These are the next people on your list of who can I serve charitably, right? So it's a precept of the church to support your pastor. So that's important, making sure that his needs are being met. And then after that, the parishioners, if there's a family in your parish that's struggling, you wanna be able to serve them.
And we talked a little bit about this before, know, beginning of the call, but that might mean that not all of your charitable giving goes to your DAF, right? Because, you know, a DAF is great, like if you're gonna give to, like you can give to your church through the DAF or through to your church school through the DAF. But if like, for example, you wanna pay off, you know, the...
Christopher Warner (10:56.398)
You want to help pay off a mortgage on one of the parishioners homes or You want to give them just a gift, you know a couple thousand dollars to help them get through a hard time then Obviously that's that's not a taxed. That's not a tax break but for you, but it's it is a it is your it might be your duty in The according to the principle of subsidiarity and how you should best exercise charity in the situation.
Deb Meyer (11:27.293)
Yeah, and just for listeners who aren't as familiar, DAF stands for Donor Advised Fund. So it's a technique that we use sometimes with clients who are very charitably inclined. We would give appreciated assets to that donor-advised fund and then make grants out to the recipient charitable organization. So in this case, Deacon Christopher is talking about giving out from the donor-advised fund to your church or local parish. All right.
Let's go into differing views of money because I know you obviously come from a Catholic standpoint, but there's a secularist view of money. There's that Protestant prosperity gospel. Can you explain some of the distinctions between each of those categories?
Christopher Warner (12:13.358)
Sure, so from a secularist standpoint, this is generally speaking a materialist vision of the human person, that we are basically an intelligent animal, but not intelligent in a domestic sense. There's kind of a denial of the spiritual side of man. So death is over. Life is over at death, right? And so the only time you have now.
The secularist is working toward temporal rewards. It's eat, drink, and be merry because tomorrow we will die, right? And if you don't have that eternal perspective, then your financial decisions are going to look really different from somebody who has more of an eternal perspective.
Prosperity gospel, unfortunately, is more like a secular understanding of wealth than a Catholic understanding because the prosperity gospel kind of treats the Bible like a code book, like a magic code. If you just tithe, if you give 10 % to your pastor, then God will reward you. It's in the Bible, that's what he says.
Deb Meyer (13:40.811)
That's a very literal interpretation.
Christopher Warner (13:42.56)
Yes, like God wants to make you rich. you are living a Christian life, the mark of living a Christian life is if you're rich. Like you know that you've done well as a Christian if you're rich. That's not how God actually works in the real world. Part of that is it's a denial of original sin, right? So the Catholic vision,
Christopher Warner (14:12.47)
It takes into consideration three things, suffering, the fall, and the cross, right? So suffering is really important for our salvation because it's the remedy and the cure for our sin, right? We inherit sin, but we also sin particularly. So we inherit sin through Adam and Eve, but we also...
make bad decisions ourselves, right? And those decisions and the effects of the fall have consequences in the world, right? There's no way around it. suffering is linked to this and it's not always a bad thing because it's purifying. It's the remedy and the cure. So when we suffer, if we suffer in union with Christ on the cross,
Jesus came and died for our sins and He gives us this opportunity to participate in the cure like this. So when we offer our sufferings, our daily sufferings in union with the cross, we are also making atonement and reparation for our own sins and the sins of the world. And this is a powerful concept in Catholic theology and really important one to not...
Christopher Warner (15:38.7)
not forget when it comes to financial management because whether or not we're gonna have financial suffering is not the point. Like some people will have financial suffering and others won't. But most of us need to...
Deb Meyer (15:52.745)
And that doesn't mean like they're better or more closely aligned with God or not, right? Yeah. Yeah.
Christopher Warner (15:58.046)
Exactly, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, thank you for making that like explicit because it's really important to understand this that like if you're financially suffering, it's not necessarily because you did something bad, right? So one of the distinctions I make and we don't really have time to go into it probably, but maybe I'll post on this here in a couple of weeks, but there's a difference between self-inflicted suffering
Christopher Warner (16:27.168)
and innocent suffering. So if you have, for example, a famine or a war or something, or if your parents die and you become an orphan, like these are all innocent. This is all innocent suffering, right? There is such thing as being a victim. Like you can't be a victim of war or circumstance, right? Like, you know, a hurricane or something like that. So that's real suffering, but it's innocent suffering.
Deb Meyer (16:40.255)
You weren't responsible. Yeah. Yeah.
Christopher Warner (16:56.77)
But now there is self-inflicted suffering as well. And this is important to keep in mind. If you spoil your children and spend beyond your means, you will financially suffer. I mean, depending on your income, there are lots of examples of ways that we can, if we squander our wealth, if we spend $10 million a month,
Deb Meyer (17:02.485)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (17:23.881)
frivolous things.
Christopher Warner (17:26.446)
and we're only making 9 million, then you're going to suffer even though you're making $9 million. If you have $10 million in liabilities a year and you're bringing in 9 million, you're actually going to really suffer, which is kind of funny to think about, but it's true. We have to be able to spend within our means. And sometimes that means not tithing, like not giving 10%.
Deb Meyer (17:31.401)
you
Deb Meyer (17:39.999)
You're still suffering.
Alright.
Christopher Warner (17:55.126)
outside of the family giving. Like maybe you can only give 3 % to your pastor and that's fine. You know, if that's because that's actually responsible.
Deb Meyer (18:01.321)
Because if you're not giving or if you're giving that 10 % but you're in a financial position where you can't meet your obligations, you can't pay for housing or feeding your family, that's where it comes back to that concept of severity, taking care of your family and then looking at the church.
Christopher Warner (18:24.696)
Yeah, exactly. So I think those are some of the key distinctions between a secular prosperity gospel and Catholic view of this.
Deb Meyer (18:38.247)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I'm glad you brought some of those examples up because I even think back to just a few years ago. I mean, my mom was very sick health wise and I was going through a lot of suffering just seeing her ill and, you know, being there by her side as she was going in and out of the hospital. And, but financially we were doing fine. It totally disconnected from our financial decisions and the idea that, you know, we all go through.
different crosses in life and some of might be financial, some of them might be more medical or things that are a little bit more outside of our control, but it doesn't necessarily impact that faith relationship that you have, the aspiration to be one with God.
Christopher Warner (19:22.818)
Yeah, and actually it's not a curse to be poor either. This is part of what the church has always taught too. You can have villains and saints who are poor, middle class and rich. That's not what makes us virtuous or vicious. Our income status. Because, I mean of course unless it's because of neglect or extreme avarice, mean, then that can be, those can be determining factors. But the point is you can be a saint and be poor. It's not incompatible with the Catholic vision of sanctity. But you can also be rich and be a saint. That's also not incompatible because it has to do with how you're using your resources and
Deb Meyer (20:01.909)
Mm-hmm.
Christopher Warner (20:22.466)
and how virtuous you're living your life in general.
Deb Meyer (20:25.949)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, I think for a lot of people that rely strictly on the Bible and say, okay, I'm probably going to misquote it, but it's harder to pass through the eye of a needle than for, you know, for a rich man to be virtuous. it's, it's, it's definitely something difficult in our faith that whether we're Christian or Catholic, but just to come to terms with the fact that
Christopher Warner (20:38.444)
I have a needle. Yeah.
Deb Meyer (20:54.111)
you know, if we are financially blessed that we really, it's not ours and that it's belonging to God, how would God have us use it wisely? And that's a big trap I see with, you know, some clients or prospective clients where they might have that high income, but they're spending it in a way that doesn't honor their obligations and.
I do want to talk about some of those different types of money managers because you talk about in your book you have givers, hoarders, consumers, and spenders. Which of those four types do think most parents should actually aspire to be?
Christopher Warner (21:35.51)
Yeah, so.
I was, yeah, I won't go into why I picked those categories, but I'll just briefly touch on these. So the giver is someone who gives away more than they should. They give away too much of their wealth outside of their family. So it's a disproportionate giving that doesn't align with their responsibilities as head of household. Like for example, somebody who,
somebody who's a missionary and also trying to give 10 or 20%. If you're a missionary, actually, you, I think some people need to be more comfortable with the idea of receiving the giving. Not everybody's comfortable with it, because it actually takes humility. If you're receiving a gift, you actually have a moral obligation to just use it the way that the donor intended it to be used, not to give it away in return yourself. Unless the donor said, I want you to give this away for me, that could be donor's intent, right? But if you're a missionary and you've been given this money, this is supposed to support your work. And part of that is taking care of your family. Now, if you have a lot more than you need, then obviously it's good to give.
Deb Meyer (22:48.693)
Sure.
Christopher Warner (23:06.584)
something away and it's never morally bad to give away, it could, I mean it could be. Like if your children are starving and you're giving all your money away to charity or something, that could be an ego problem, right? It could be actually really, really disordered. So it takes prudence, you know, it takes prudence. We can talk about that more later too, but.
Christopher Warner (23:34.286)
And the hoarder is somebody who is like Scrooge McDuck, you know, sort of swimming in his gold coins, you know. It's like, that's not the purpose of money. The purpose of money is to be, the purpose of capital is to be productive, right? And we can talk more about that too. then consumers, here I'm thinking of like,
Deb Meyer (23:42.827)
Swimming in his money.
Christopher Warner (24:03.01)
Consumers are people who spend 110 % of their income every month. Racking up credit card debt for entertainment and going out to restaurants and all these expenditures that are really, because they have to have that. There's this Greek principle in spiritual theology, it's called epithemia and it has to do with our unbridled passions.
Deb Meyer (24:07.187)
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Christopher Warner (24:33.678)
It's not bridled by the intellect and the will. It's just like, I have to have that. And we have that so much of that in our society, right? Like, I have to have that new thing. I have to. That's really disordered. And it's a great way to spend 110 % of your income. So the last category is the spender. And here, what I mean by the difference between spender and consumer is,
Deb Meyer (24:41.344)
Yeah.
Christopher Warner (25:03.91)
A spender in my mind is someone who is spending prudently. What I really mean by spender is a budgeter, because I think budgeting is a virtue, or at least there are virtues of budgeting. You can practice all of the cardinal virtues in budgeting, because it takes prudence, and it takes fortitude, and it takes temperance and justice to budget well.
Deb Meyer (25:33.087)
It is.
Christopher Warner (25:33.152)
And so this is really important that we, and so in budgeting, know, when I, when I work with clients, and, teach them how to, how to write off the budget, say, you need to spend every dollar as soon as you make it. Right. So as soon as it comes in, you have to spend it all on paper. You tell, you have to tell it where to go. Right. You have to allocate it. Now, that doesn't mean that you might have to pivot, you know, mid month, if there's a situation.
Christopher Warner (26:02.99)
But it's one thing to rob Peter to pay Paul. It's another thing to just be a consumer and just spend it without a plan. And even investing is spending because you're buying assets that are going to be beneficial for your family in the future. So those are the four categories. I don't know if you want to go into that anymore,
Deb Meyer (26:30.343)
No, I think that's a good perspective because usually I kind of think of spenders, shares, savers, like in those three buckets as kind of the core money personalities where one person is having that mindset to go in that direction. But I like the four different categories and how you kind of differentiate the spenders from the consumers where it's living beyond the means or living within the means. And it's an important distinction. So thanks for sharing that.
Christopher Warner (27:05.003)
Maybe if I rewrote the book, maybe I'll do a second edition one day. I might change that category to budgeters, because that might be a better way to describe that category.
Deb Meyer (27:12.03)
Okay, yeah, yeah.
Mm-hmm. So I also really liked your standpoint on work because you were talking about those three main buckets of entrepreneur, manager, and laborer. How do you think we can grow in virtue through work depending on where we fall in those one of those three categories?
Christopher Warner (27:32.718)
Sure, so I talk about three different types of workers in my book, the entrepreneur, the manager, and the laborer. And each of those persons has a different responsibility, right? The entrepreneur is sort of driving the business, the manager is making sure everything's running well, and the laborers are doing the work. And they're all three very important, right?
Christopher Warner (28:01.954)
There are some people who wanna say that the labor, like it's sort of a communist idea that only the labor matters, right? Of course, it's an internal lie in the communist ideology because the people who make all the money are the managers at the top, even in communism, especially in communism. But there's this like labor ideology. But all three of these, all three of these, positions have their own authority and their own responsibilities, and they're all vital for the success of the business. So we can grow in virtue. I mentioned the cardinal virtues. These are very important for both running a household and running a business. So just to give a few examples of how we can exercise the cardinal virtues.
Christopher Warner (28:59.734)
Exercising prudence would be an owner who's discerning how much to reinvest into his business, for example. Or it could be either the husband or wife, whoever writes the monthly budget, they are making these prudential decisions every month based on the needs of the family. And then they talk about with their spouse, of course, and make sure this is what God is really calling them to do this month. Justice is exercised by an owner of a business. For example, when he's...
When he takes a just return in proportionate to the risk that he's taking, so when he takes a capital return on his investment that's proportionate to the risk, a client is due a product that serves his need, right? So justice is giving someone their due, right? So we give the client the product that is gonna serve their need, that's...
Christopher Warner (30:09.92)
That's what's due to the client. An employee is due a just wage according to the value it brings to the market. These are examples of how we exercise justice. And then an example of fortitude would be like, well, in the household, it would be like the courage to do the dishes and the laundry even though you'd rather watch a movie. But this is important. And I talk about this in the book.
Deb Meyer (30:33.065)
Right.
Christopher Warner (30:40.044)
The most important work is actually happening in the household, not outside of the household. Everybody shouldn't be aspiring to find their fulfillment in life by working outside the home. I think that's a little bit disordered. What we do outside the home is really important. It brings value to society. But at the end of the day, the most important work is to serve the church and to serve your domestic, the domestic church, right? So the absolute most important job that any of us can ever do is to raise children, you know, to catechize them, to train them in virtue. This is hard work, but it's the most important work of our lifetime because it's training your children for heaven and how to get to heaven. There's nothing more important than that, right?
Christopher Warner (31:40.418)
So that's why we have to do the dishes. Yeah, or train the children to do it or do it as a family. Like this is actually, it's gonna be great. Like we have a new rule in my family. Like we all do the dishes together. At least that's the rule. My wife usually still ends up doing most of it. But we like, okay.
Deb Meyer (31:43.115)
Because if we don't do it, who's going to do it, right? Or get the kids to do it as they get older.
Christopher Warner (32:07.158)
Dinner's over, let's go do the dishes now, and then we can talk about doing something fun. Because we need to bring order, right? Teaching your children how to bring order to the house is really, important for the spiritual life and for their.
Deb Meyer (32:21.489)
curious going into that though for a minute because chores are a big deal in a lot of families and different people have different perspectives on should you pay for chores or not. I personally do not pay for chores but I know some people that are big proponents of it, especially for teaching good financial habits. What's your take?
Christopher Warner (32:43.852)
I think it depends on the child and the situation. So I think there are certain chores that children just need to do. But to be part of the family, your contribution to the family, You're part of this household, and that comes with certain benefits. You don't have to explain it all in monetary terms, My son is totally money-motivated so I have to explain a lot of these things in money terms. Like look, you can do the dishes, or I could pay you to do the dishes, but then I would also charge you rent. Is that what you want? But on the other hand, about five years ago, we moved out to a farm. One of the ways that I taught my son responsibility and entrepreneurship is I made him pay for some of the infrastructure. He was in charge of the chickens. So he paid for all the infrastructure and the feed and things like that. But then we bought the eggs and we bought the meat birds from him, and he made a profit. So he was incentivized to do it, and he learned a lot from that experience.
Deb Meyer (33:57.213)
Okay. Yeah. And to do it well.
Or even people that aren't living on farms, just what those chores are that are kind of above and beyond the norm, right? Like dishes need to be put away every day or practically every day. But doing a big lawn project isn't necessarily a normal kind of scope of work. It might be something that you pay for that because only one kid and you have three kids or four kids, whatever. Only one kid can help you with that job. So.
Christopher Warner (34:40.046)
Right, these are prudential decisions that have to be made day to day according to the, the bigger question is what are you trying to teach your child through this? What virtues are you trying to instill in them? And how are they gonna learn that best? That should be our guide for how we not, it shouldn't be a bribe. Although I'm not above bribes.
Deb Meyer (34:51.373)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Christopher Warner (35:09.152)
You know, I have said like, look, you want to watch a movie tonight? You need to fold the laundry and do the dishes and then we'll talk about it. You know, well, that can be a big motivator. then, you know, it usually works too. You know, the dishes get done really fast, the laundry gets folded and then we're like, OK, well, we can reward that with, you know, you were diligent and you are incentivized. So, yeah, we can can do something fun.
Deb Meyer (35:36.425)
I like to think of it just as a reward, not a bribe, but we'll reward you with this if you do this.
Christopher Warner (35:39.242)
Not a bribe. Yeah, maybe bribe isn't the right word.
Deb Meyer (35:46.219)
But I guess bribe is a little bit conditional. Well, thank you so much. I know our time is wrapping up here, but yeah, if people are more interested in learning about some of the concepts we talked about today or others from a Catholic faith perspective, where would be a good place to find you and connect with you?
Christopher Warner (36:06.048)
Yeah, so the best place right now is wayofthefamily.com. So www.wayofthefamily.com. That's my new sub stack and I'm trying to direct traffic there because from there you can see the different services in my books and things. So thank you, Deb.
Deb Meyer (36:16.245)
Okay.
Deb Meyer (36:25.811)
Wonderful. Okay. Thank you. I had such a great time talking with you.
Christopher Warner (36:30.882)
Yeah, likewise.
Deb Meyer
Don't go anywhere yet. I still have a little bit of additional content for you. And again, I'd encourage you if you enjoyed this episode or really any of the Beyond Budgets podcast episodes, if you haven't left a rating or a review, it does make a difference in discoverability and just makes me feel good for doing this work, putting this effort into making the podcast broadly available. So.
Please leave a rating or a review is even better written review on Apple or Spotify wherever you listen to the podcast. Those those do make a difference and other people finding out about it organically and again just really means the world to me. So thank you in advance for for leaving those ratings and reviews.
All right, let's dive into some of the extra resources that I think would be important to attach to this episode. So when Dean Christopher was talking about the Catholic stance on things, I didn't mean it as an exclusion for anyone that's not Catholic. So I hope no one took offense to any of the Catholic focused discussion. It's just, he happens to be a very Catholic.
scholar in this matter and his whole book is directed from a Catholic point of view. Now if you're more broadly Christian and maybe you don't have the prosperity gospel mindset and that's great I mean I'm indifferent on whether people have certain mindsets or not I just want people to broadly more have an abundance mindset over that poverty mindset that that things are always fixed that they can't improve any kind of outside circumstances in life.
When I say poverty, another word for it would be a scarcity mindset, always living in fear rather than seeing that hopeful opportunity. So some other resources to consider if you're really struggling from a cashflow perspective and you are faith oriented, I would suggest going back to episode 37 with Camilla Gonzalez of Compass Catholic Ministries. The episode's called Faith, Family and Finances, A Better Way to Manage Money.
And in that we highlight why financial stewardship matters, how to actually practice it on a daily basis, not just a theoretical idea, and then simple ways to really eliminate debt. We also talk about creating a sustainable spending plan. And we do focus on that aspect of generosity, how generosity and intentional giving can actually lead to greater financial peace. I'm a good case in point. I know when I give charitably and a, you know,
sacrificial way, it does lead to this uplifting sense of freedom. I don't, I really am surrendering to what I feel God calling me to do. And it just, it feels amazing. So I'd encourage you if you feel shackled by financial decisions or burdened by financial decisions, maybe start giving a little bit more freely to charitable causes that are important to your heart and see how that might improve your mood.
There are also some low cost resources within episode 37 for the families that are trying to improve their financial situation. So I know sometimes if you're going to like a spending coach, it can be a considerable monthly amount. They have some good programs that are low-cost to get involved in. And really it's an outpouring of learning the material, but also being in community with others who are going through that same kind of journey at a similar time. So it's a pretty powerful example. And then once you go through that training, there's also the capability to get a financial coach through Compass Catholic for a very low-cost fee. But they do require now that you partake in one of the courses before you go and do the one-on-one coaching. OK, so that's one resource to go back to if you're still struggling with some of the day-to-day cash flow and budgeting.
If you're kind of beyond that, if you have some extra cash flow and feel good about the family's financial situation, now you're looking for more strategic guidance on investing. That's where a firm like Worthynest can come in. We're registered investment advisors, and we really do focus on that holistic financial picture.
Cash flow is one part of that, but also around investing decisions, estate planning, insurance coverage (making sure you have adequate insurance). If we don't think you have the right kind of coverage, we don't supply insurance, but we refer you to outside agents that can supply it. Yeah, there are a lot of different things that we cover in holistic family financial planning with WorthyNest.
I encourage you to set up a free consult if you're interested in learning more about those services. And then one other thing I want to point to is episode 18 of Beyond Budgets, where we talk about Turning Dreams into Reality with Values-Based Financial Planning. That was an episode I recorded in summer of 2024, at the time my family was making a life-changing move.
Just to give a little bit of history, back in 2019, my family moved from Missouri down to Florida because of my mom's health issues. My mom was very sick with a heart condition that, yeah, she just, she was on like six medications at the time we moved down and had been since her major health event in 2017. We wanted to be there because we didn't know how much time she had left.
And we were there through everything, and eventually she did pass away in 2022. It was one of the most heartbreaking days of my life. Anyway, we felt called to go back to Missouri as a family. We, our kids included, missed some of the relationships they had in Missouri before. We also wanted to have that sense of Catholic community again, because we were kind of missing it a little in Florida. The Catholic church that we were going to really wasn't a great resource when my mom passed and made me kind of question my Catholicism for a little while.
I did find my way back to the Catholic Church, but it took some time and tears and everything else. So anyway, one of the main reasons with us coming back to Missouri was to get that sense of Catholic community again, put our kids back in Catholic school. Our two younger boys just finished their first school year at the Catholic school. One of the things that I've learned just reuniting with the Catholic community here is that things still change.
Even if you go back to someplace familiar, it's changed. The people have changed the dynamics can change. If you're really trying to recreate something from the past, it's not going to exist. And, I have found more and more that it's less about the community of specific Catholics that I'm interacting with, you know, at church, and more about the prayer time, like making sure I'm putting priority into my relationship with God on a daily basis. As Catholics, Eucharistic adoration is a big deal. I haven't been to Eucharistic adoration more than a handful of times in Missouri. Whereas in Florida, I was going pretty regularly because it fit into my schedule well on Fridays. I would be able to take like an hour and just sit in God's presence and pray.
So those are the kinds of things that I would say if you're ever struggling with your faith identity and like a certain location, it doesn't have to be about the location that you're in. You can still practice your faith regardless of where you happen to be physically located. Although I didn't get to touch on it in this conversation with Deacon Christopher, it's an important lesson I've learned over the last year that I wanted to share. Okay, that is episode 18, Turning Dreams into Reality with Values-Based Financial Planning. Again, some of the revelations I've had in the year since recording that episode. Thanks!