Wise Women Managing Money

Debt, budgeting, insurance, wealth management for women, today on Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman. Jesus had a lot to say about money management. If you look at his parables, he did care and it mattered.

It's just exciting to see people get on that track and run with it. We see so much these days that our world is ever-changing. And our world ever-changing practically always impacts our finances. Welcome to Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . While more women than ever are taking control of capital and are making financial decisions, how can you be wise with your money?

We'll find out today with the mother and daughter team. Miriam Neff and Valerie Neff Hogan are with us and they've written an excellent resource titled Wise Women Managing Money, expert advice on debt, wealth, budgeting and more. You can find out about that at FiveLoveLanguages.com. Gary, a lot of people are intimidated by money and investing and life insurance and all of that, how to budget.

I think this resource is really going to help. Well, I think so too, Chris, and I'm really grateful that it's written by two women. It's not just for women, though, yes, it's going to really, really help the women because I think there are a lot of women, a lot of widows who their husband dies and they're at a loss as to where to go with all the financial stuff.

So whether it's a single person or whether it's a married person, I think this book will be extremely helpful. So I'm excited about our conversation today. So am I because we get to talk again with Miriam Neff, a great friend of Moody Radio, founder and president of Widow Connection, a not-for-profit ministry, author of 12 books, including From One Widow to Another and Women and Their Emotions. She's a counselor by profession, Bible study teacher, seminar and conference speaker, mom, grandmom, world traveler, and she's teamed up with her daughter, Valerie Hogan, who holds a law degree and the certified financial planner designation. She works with National Christian Foundation, Orchard Ministry Development and Widow Connection. For more than 20 years, Valerie has led groups and individuals toward good stewardship with Christian Financial Concepts, Crown Financial and Financial Peace University. So now they're together, mom and daughter, and they've written this new resource, Wise Women Managing Money.

You can find out more at FiveLoveLanguages.com. Well Miriam and Valerie, welcome back to Building Relationships. So good to join you. Thank you for having us on, Gary. So Miriam, it sounds to me like this was not just something you and Valerie decided to do because you had some free time. This came from a passion that two of you have to help people and give them practical suggestions, right? Well first, we do appreciate that there are a lot of Christian men talking about money, but they're not Christian. And I focus on Christian women talking about money. And our issues and experiences are different and our voices are different.

Valerie and I have had different experiences. And as you both know, I have been working a great deal with women who suddenly don't have their husbands. Some of them are suddenly very wealthy.

Some of them move into poverty. But also, we have connected with a lot of younger women who kind of are buying into the debt thing now because that's popular in our culture. And we just care about this a lot. So there are a lot of different topics that we feel are as important that women know a great deal about as anyone else.

Yeah. Well Valerie, you've been actively teaching financial concepts for the last 20 years. What happens when people start to grasp money management?

Well I love to see the transformation in people's lives. You know, Jesus had a lot to say about money management. If you look at his parables, he did care and it mattered. It says something about our worship, our heart. And so when people really start to grasp that and realize that it will make a difference in how they can serve the Lord, their freedom, their confidence, their ability to be generous and help others, and just take some of the mental energy away from worrying about it and apply it to the other things that God has wired us up to do, it's just exciting to see people get on that track and run with it. Yeah. Meiran, you say that this is the most important book you've helped create.

How is it different than other tools that are already out there? Well it addresses the second most important topic in Scripture. The topic that is addressed most in Scripture is love, and the second is money and stuff.

And some of my other books, like Emotions and talking specifically to widows and people going through big changes, they kind of touch on it in different ways, but this gets all of it. And we come at it from a Christian perspective, which is unique in that we say, it's not ours, it's all God's. He's loaned it to us. So that puts a very different perspective on it. And when we talk about being generous, it's not like, oh, we're going to give to God some of ours. No, it's His. We get to use some of it, and it's like He's like a parent giving two children a box of chocolates, and one child takes the box of chocolates and starts gobbling it up and has chocolate all over his face. The other takes the box of chocolate and opens it and gives it to the parent to take from it first. I think it's kind of a, maybe it's kind of a mommy visual, but that's the generosity thing.

Yeah, yeah. Valerie, why is your perspective as two women writing Managing Our Money so important? Well, a couple of reasons. When we talk about women managing money, we're looking at the data. We're looking at the conversations we had, not necessarily our opinion or our agenda, but just what we've seen over years of ministry and work in this area. So women have a different experience from the data with money. Women will be managing a great amount of it, over 50%. That's the way the stats are just heading. And many times, they have some of the knowledge but lack the confidence to really move forward.

That's what we've seen from the data. So we really want to be an encouragement to say, you can do this, manage it well, gain knowledge, work around some of the jargon that sets people off. But it's so important because in marriages, statistically, 80% of the time, she will carry the baton to the end. He will go to heaven before she does. So that's so important because if it just wasn't her thing, you know, to manage the finances, it will be anyway.

And she really needs to be prepared for a couple reasons, you know, to run the race well and to be great steward and to avoid fraud and being taken advantage of. Give me one area where you see women not managing their money well. Well, we have just the world kind of battering us with voices of, it's okay to have credit, you know, you work and earn more. We really start with the biblical principle of you need to earn money and then spend and do not spend more than what you have coming in. And we're just bombarded with so much. I would say the world's message of this, consume, consume, consume, keep up, you got to look like this, you got to own that. I hate to see women buy into that at the cost of their future and the things that God would have for them. And then also at the cost of generosity, the way the church was meant to operate and how we can do for others.

So that's one way. And the other is just kind of shying away from investing. The Bible is pretty clear about what's expected of us as stewards, and we do not need to back away. We are perfectly capable of going full on into that and being that Proverbs 31 woman. She did not shy away from the marketplace. She did not shy away from investing. And she was commended for that.

Well, and I love this especially too, because as we learn and know what is important to God, the Matthew 25 steward that multiplies what she has, when we learn what is important to God, then we have more confidence and we also learn and then we're not so subject to taking someone else's opinion and saying, well, I don't know about this. I'll put it in this financial person's hands or my relatives' hands or whatever. Some of them are looking out not for you to grow your wealth, but for whatever thing they're selling and that kind of thing. And I work with so many women and deal with them in terms of trust and that kind of thing.

It breaks my heart when they trusted someone else to do something that was theirs to manage and they ignored it and they didn't do well with that. Thanks for joining us today for Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman. He's the author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . We're hearing about an excellent resource for women today. Miriam Neff and her daughter, Valerie Neff-Hogan have written Wise Women Managing Money, expert advice on debt, wealth, budgeting, and more.

You can find out more at FiveLoveLanguages.com. Miriam, you mentioned that you've written a lot about emotion. I have heard never use your emotion and your money, your investments, never react emotionally to what's going on. You need to keep that out of your decision-making. Do you agree with that advice? Oh, absolutely. How many times when someone is hurt, someone is sad, someone is mourning, someone is grieving, do they reach to something material for a solution? They call it comfort food.

I call it French fries. Well, anyway, I better not digress there. But the other thing is retail therapy. Oh, my word, as a counselor, what is therapeutic about going out with your charge card and saying, I feel bad.

I want the purple shoes today or whatever. These are things where our emotions are supposed to be our mind engaged with our heart. And so often, it's like, well, let one run and not the other. And that solution that has to do with money needs to be God-centered first, and then it will be right, and our heart will be comforted. In the book, you have 26 chapters covering a lot of topics. So let's do a little flyover. I'm not asking you to read the title of all the chapters, but just tell us some of the things that you address in this book. So we address, you know, kind of five major subject areas. One is first things first, and really that's getting a hold of what is it you're managing. Just really taking stock, taking an assessment of what do I own and what do I owe?

And then it's managing it. So let's get on a spending program. Let's kind of get a handle of where we need to go. So that's getting your roadmap and starting to budget. I know a lot of people don't like that word, but get on that spending plan to just have control. We're telling our money what to do, not wondering where it went, right? So then to really look at budget busters. There's a lot of, and emotions could be one of these things, but there's a whole bunch of things that kind of sabotage progress. Why is it that everybody doesn't rock their budget all the time?

It's one of these budget busters probably. Then we talk about investing and just kind of what are some of the tools out there, how to learn about it, what to look for in an advisor, and then really bringing it home with direction that matters. Once we do all that, how are we going to be generous? How are we going to relate to our family? How are we going to get about the things that God cares about and look at how He's wired us to be supporting and using His resources for His purposes?

And if I might add here, for instance, when Valerie mentioned the section on Manage It, some women are going to look at that section and pick one or two chapters that matter to them and not read the rest. We talk about cars. We talk about housing. We talk about discretionary, non-discretionary. We talk about just several practical areas, and someone might say, Well, I've got that down, but I don't quite know about this other area or insurance impact. It's not the cost of the car.

It's also how much to insurance, and that kind of thing. And investing, we go into several different layers of short-term, long-term equities, Roth IRAs, so that a person can say, Well, I don't know if I want to read through 26 chapters. I'm going to go pick out what's my problem right now and dig deep into that. But hopefully they will go back and read all the 26 chapters, even if it's just to confirm they're doing great.

Yeah. Well, I think our listeners can see this is a book that's going to deal with a lot of topics related to finances. You know, there are a lot of single adults in the U.S. The stats are pretty high on that. What's your advice to singles approaching financial planning, and is that different from married couples? Well, first of all, most of the women in the United States are single. And for many women who are married, we are single more years than we are married.

Those are just statistics. So that means, and the married woman also stands before God alone, but the single woman stands before God alone. So it's vital for her to grasp this, whether she's young and starting her career and trying to find an apartment, or whether she's vintage like I am, who is responsible for what Bob and I had together, and now it's just me.

But the other thing, and Valerie's mentioned this before, there are so many things pulling that person in directions that aren't godly. I think just for two women to say, yeah, we get it. We get it that this is what people are saying or what's popular out there.

But let's go back to our why. One of the things in talking with people that are single in general is they need to think about it in a couple different ways. How are they going to do in retirement? How they need to provide for themselves now and long term? And so that's one aspect of it. The other is kind of having, as you know, marriage kind of gives us that hip check in some areas where we've got, I call it self on the throne a little bit too much. So there's not that kind of really close proximity, maybe of someone who knows us that well, who's right there to say, I'm not so sure, you know, that that's what we need to do.

Let's pray about it together. So there, I think having someone that they trust, that is a believer that will lead them to accountability in these areas. And then it's just kind of the long term plan and provision. And it's a different thing with generosity too. They may be single with kids, they may be single and not have children. And so they really want to look long term about, you know, what does God want them to do with that long term generosity and legacy plan?

Yeah. You know, if a couple is married and has not been managing their finances together, which is often the case, how do you suggest that they begin that? Well, carefully, you know, Gary, you've been talking with couples for a long time. You know, one of the things is if you have, if they haven't been managing it together, maybe they just have never done that and need to start. And then there could be there's a resistance from one or the other. So I do like to take it back and say, in some of the details of like, why did you buy that?

Or why do you think that? Maybe back up and understand what is important to that person. You know, one person might say, I just really want to retire early.

And I'm okay with not spending much in order to get there. And the other person might say, well, you know, everybody in my family has passed away at age 50. So why would I do that? That gives an understanding of where the other is coming from. And so, you know, if one person goes out and buys that the other knows exactly why they did, because they know where they're coming from.

And I just, I would say start there. I also say when we go about with the spending plan, lay it out and just pray together, or sometimes literally over the paper or over the app, Lord, here's what we're doing, what would you have for us and as you know, couples that are praying together have a much better chance of unity and really success in going forward in that. And if I could add, with the divorced woman, she has usually surprises and unexpected things. So it's incredibly important for her to have the voice of two women saying, we understand their challenges and some very specific helps that we offer in the different chapters. And the additional thing about married couples, and I've been asked to talk to different groups of couples by financial planners. And I say to those couples, I say, men, do you love your wives? And of course, they nod yes.

And then I say, then they need to know everything about your finances. And that's just right there, because the realities of life require it. Because of what we've seen, just, you know, not making generalities, because that can go both ways.

But we are talking about the experience of what we've seen and the aftermath of that not happening. No, I think you're exactly right. I think there are men who handle the finances in some families and you don't need to know about all this. I'm taking this is my thing, you know, but there's also wives who have that approach. And, you know, I'm really good at this, you're not, so let me handle this, you know. But if you face the reality that you just mentioned, Miriam, one of us is going to die before the other. Not many couples die on the same day. So we both ought to have insight into all what's going on so that when that happens, not if that happens, when that happens, we are not totally blindsided in this whole area of marriage.

Well, review some of the basic budgeting issues that are misunderstood and cause a lot of financial grief. Well, one of the things we address in the book, and we go back and forth writing these chapters and then the other one critiques it and adds to it. And Valerie, in writing about that, talked about the importance of before marriage, before committing to another person, you have some very important talks about what you value and you also know the other person's financial status. And some people would say, well, where's faith in God?

In God we trust, all others bring data. And if that man, I'm sorry, I'm a little blunt here. If that man has poor credit rating, if he is unwilling to reveal his financial status, and this is whether you're divorced and remarrying or I've known some widows who remarried someone who needed their wallet or wanted their wallet, I mean this stuff is like we can say this, and as you can tell now we're fairly blunt about it. You need to know all that ahead of time.

If they're unwilling to reveal that, you do not want to commit to them in an engagement or marriage. That's important to discuss up front. And in some, what I would say general budget issues that are maybe misunderstood is how much debt is okay? What kind of debt is okay? You know, do I really have to buy a house?

Is it okay to rent? You know, there are some misconceptions, misconceptions about investing. And just getting a wise and biblical perspective.

I mean, there it is again, right? The Bible is the best resource we have on money. But to get that biblical wisdom will prevent a lot of grief and that godly counsel. Those going after, I think sometimes folks may feel, boy, I just don't get this. Maybe I'm not smart enough. And if that's not true, there's a lot of jargon there that is confusing, for most. So I would say it's very common to feel kind of insecure and shy away from what we think we're not good at. But figuring out some of those things that are maybe myths or misconceptions can prevent a lot of grief later on. It's worth looking at.

Yeah, yeah. Now you talk about different ways to invest. You don't make specific recommendations, but you do explain the options. So talk about investments a person can consider. Yeah, so we don't make recommendations for a lot of reasons there. And each person, you'll hear folks generally in financial planning and finance industry say, and it's true, you have to look at your age and stage of life and your tolerance for risk.

Now we've heard that a lot. I think that's really going to matter. Why does age? Well, I guess, forget age, but when do you need the money? If you are going to need that resource within one to five years, you're going to invest maybe in a way that's not going to have wild ups and downs.

Whereas if you're probably not going to need the money to retirement, and that may be 40 years, you've got time. So we look at the kinds of things like, what about a checking and savings account? What about a money market? We look at things like stocks, bonds, and various kinds of investments like that. To just kind of fly over, we talk a little bit about, okay, you've heard about the S&P 500. Do you know what it is?

Or does that just kind of fly over our heads? Let's break down what does that mean? What does the NASDAQ mean?

What is the Dow? So I mean, those are kinds of things we might hear or see tickers go by on a screen. And you know, if it's just all jargon to us, we might shy away from that, but it's knowable.

Well, and if I might add in the book, one thing I love is we have these definitions, the Miriam and Valerie definitions. So it takes the jargon and it says, this is what it is. But then another thing, we have pictures in there.

We love graphics. So for example, someone might say, well, I don't know the difference between a small cap, a mid cap, and a large cap. So we have a picture of an adult woman in a business suit, and we have a picture of a teenager that's, well, a teenager, and then we have a toddler.

There you have it. The toddler is a small cap. The teenager is the mid cap. The adult is the large cap. Now, which one has more growth potential? A company that has been around a long time has different growth potential from that baby, that toddler, that has a lot of room to grow. There are big differences there, but it helps for us just to know the jargon, small cap, mid cap, large cap.

What do you say about that, Valerie? Yeah, traditionally that's true. And I mean, we're looking over the long term and what's great about all of these different kinds of investments is that, you know, the Bible talks about diversification and we hear that word over and over, diversification, that's the way to go, which means have a little of each or have a significant chunk of each. But we want to spread out and not quote, put all of our eggs in one basket. There are times and different kinds of market conditions where smaller companies, you know, really have the runway to go. Other years, large companies, I mean, who would have thought toilet paper would have been a hot Wall Street commodity for a bit, right? So it's covering kind of that anything can happen. You know, the Bible talks about building wealth little by little, and we're back to, boy, is that a great idea, you know, great source of wisdom there. You don't know what can happen, so just don't go all in on one thing or the hot latest item, because that's prone to change as we've seen. Do you deal with exchange traded funds, the ETFs that are like baskets of stocks in certain sectors?

We do. We talk about that a little bit and we clarify what that is and how it's based on a mathematical equation, an algorithm. So it's not really based on a human being buying and selling. So that does save some fees because most of the time that human being is not doing it as a volunteer. They're doing that as an employee that is getting paid for that.

So they are really good. For somebody who does not want to oversee everything all the time, an ETF can be a really good option and it can cover a broad category of the market. Like for example, the S&P 500, an index that covers all of that. So if you need diversification and want to have low fees, that can be a good option for you.

It's one of the tools in the toolbox that you can use. You're listening to Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, New York Times bestselling author of "The 5 Love Languages" . You can hear a podcast of the program and find out about our featured resource today at fivelovelanguages.com. Miriam Neff and Valerie Hogan have written Wise Women Managing Money, expert advice on debt, wealth, budgeting, and more. Find out more at fivelovelanguages.com.

Click Resources, then Building Relationships when you go to fivelovelanguages.com. Well we've mentioned the topic of generosity in our other sessions, but I want you to talk a little more about this because you talk about generosity to God in the book. Clarify what you mean by that. We address all of the book from the worldview of all of the resources that we are managing belong to God. We're not taking them with us. They're really not ours.

He owns everything. And so I think we can be generous with resources, but also in spirit, humble to acknowledge that it is all His, to understand that our purpose is not to build our kingdom, but His, that we're here to glorify God. And so just having our behavior match that, we're not going to be perfect.

We're in the sanctification process, right? But really to come at money management and really management of everything we've been entrusted to look after, to approach it that way and know that He made us for a purpose and He has put what we are managing in our life for a purpose that He has. And it's not all about what I want right now or what I want later. And if I could add to that, we get very specific in saying, think about what God has placed on your heart because we give to different places and different entities and different organizations and churches. And we say, look under the hood. Make sure you're knowing what that group is doing and how they're doing it, how they're managing what you're – I call the people that give money to our not-for-profit widow connection, I call them investors in what we do. So they need to know how we're doing it and oversee that. And some ways you can know a little better is volunteer for them. Then you get in and seeing what they're actually doing. But for instance, we know that faith-based organization typically does more with the money that they have than the government does.

It goes further and it's more practical in its outcomes. So someone might say, well, I care very much about adoption or I care very much about world relief in difficult situations. So God places on your heart many times from your own experience where you want to give. And again, but that's not that you're giving your money. You're saying God's entrusted me with this.

Let me put it here where it can bring glory to Him, greater glory to Him. The concept that everything I have belongs to God, I don't think that's an internalized concept even with a lot of Christians. But when we have that, how does it help us when, let's say, we've invested in stocks and the stocks go way down? I would say the first thing is contentment. Because yes, we are counting on the markets to do certain things and we've investigated and we hope that it has a certain outcome. But when we know it's all God and we have wisely done the best that we could, our confidence is in Him and our dependence is on Him.

And for instance, on that day when the markets have gone down, we talk about you always need to have that three to six month available money for your budget right now. And going into different problems that have happened, whether it's a pandemic or disruptions in the world, how many couples and how many individuals would be much more at peace had they followed that biblical principle? And you see this in Scripture. Joseph, when there was famine coming, he saved up and was prepared. Now, we don't know how long the famine will be, but just that three to six months, that is not common in our culture. And I don't think it's all that common in all Christian families, I'm sorry to say.

Yeah, I think you're right. And knowing the market will go down. It has gone down many, many, many times. That's part of how it behaves. So understanding that and not riding that wild wave of barely having anything in reserves, and then also just taking really risky bets, I'll say, instead of investing. They're different. Those are two different things. And then when some things do go really well, that may be an opportunity, a buying opportunity. But we can't do that if we've just gone all the way, we've spent all the way up to every single thing coming in. Yeah.

I remember back in 2008, when the market went down, I think it was 2008. And my investor, who's a Christian guy, he was showing me what had happened, you know, and I said, Well, man, look, it's all God's money. I said, you know, it doesn't bother me. It's all God's money. He said, Man, I wish all my customers felt that way. Because he'd been getting a lot of pushback. What happened to my money? They get panic when markets go down, which is interesting. They don't get tons of calls when it goes up in celebration. And the other thing, then the market came flying back up again.

So if you got out because you were scared, you missed out on another wildlife. Absolutely. The other factor that fits in with what you're saying is that, and I remember a pastor said this some years ago in our church, he said, Just remember now, you're not giving to the church, you're giving to God through the church. So whether you're talking about the church or a Christian organization, I think that's important for us to have in mind as Christians. We're giving to God, we're not just giving to, you know, the church or any other organization. That kind of puts in perspective.

It does. And also, we need to, like we say, look under the hood, and sometimes organizations lose their way, even churches. But we can, again, we say, it's God, so we have to be vigilant for the sake of the kingdom.

And that puts a different perspective on it. And really, as Christ taught in his parables, the money is about more than the money. God has us on the great adventure. And He's given us things to do, people to meet, places that need our help, people in places that we might need their help, right? He has us here for a purpose. And the money is just part of that.

So really, it's His. So if we get the perspective of He's guiding us through this, He has us on this path, and it's for His glory, and then it's the great adventure. And also, we know how the story ends. So that helps, right, with the do not be anxious and don't panic, is that bad and rough things are going to happen, but He has an eternal purpose. And then, you know, we have from glory to glory.

So it's really kind of exciting if you look at it from that worldview. Absolutely. Now, chapter 24 is titled, Eight Habits of Wise Women Managing Money.

What are some of those habits and why are they so important? Yeah, well, a couple of them are, we take responsibility for knowing our finances. We don't make excuses about our finances. And that doesn't mean we have to live in guilt and shame.

It just means we get after it. And so that's one thing to just kind of keep in mind as a base, that it is all God's on loan to us to steward. And we're generous for kingdom purposes. I mean, that's kind of the why.

There's a lot of information and good resource out there about know your why. And certainly that's ours. So those are a couple.

Well, and I would mention a few more. And we say this little eight, you might say, and it's in a little special box in chapter 24. But you might want to make that your screensaver or put it someplace where it's just the reminders because we can say, I'm going to do this. I've got this plan. And then we kind of fall into autopilot, which is not good. But one of the important things is we regularly revisit our spending plan and revise with wisdom. This is not something you put on autopilot.

Yes, you can put in your budgeting process to have autopay for certain things, but then you need to watch that just like you need to watch your investments. We see so much these days that our world is ever changing. And our world ever changing practically always impacts our finances. It might be what we thought was job security that no longer is. It's whole segments of employment that really shrunk for a while and we don't know if they'll all come back or not. So when we kind of think, well, this is how it's going to be, if we think it's going to be the happily married ever after or the financially solvent on this plan forever, life is real.

And we need to keep an eye on that and be looking at it and making changes as necessary. We hope you're enjoying the conversation with Miriam Neff and Valerie Neff-Hogan today on Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman. He's the author of the New York Times bestseller "The 5 Love Languages" and our featured resource is Miriam and Valerie's new book, Wise Women Managing Money, expert advice on debt, wealth, budgeting, and more. Find out more about it and more simple ways to strengthen relationships at fivelovelanguages.com.

That's fivelovelanguages.com. Miriam and Valerie answer this question. My mother is 95. She doesn't have income coming in. She's living on the retirement of my own dad. And she will get information in the mail and other places.

She listens to Moody radio and then they say, give to Moody radio and she'll think that's a good idea. And then there's, you know, you can support a child overseas and there's all these things that she wants to give to, but she doesn't have the money to do that. How do you prioritize your giving?

Because you talked about generosity a little earlier. What would you say to somebody on a fixed income like that? It's very important that she understand what she needs to consume, what she needs to live on. So that's part of it. For her to have a very clear understanding of how much income or how much of those resources does she have access to and then what does she need and what can she give?

And so, I mean, that's the problem for some folks. If they're not, if they're not, if they haven't taken an assessment of what's coming in and what's going out, if they don't know, they're just kind of maybe winging it or guessing or, you know, again, it's that emotional or heart tug to, well, I really want to be gifted that, but I'm going to give. But if you're putting it on a credit card with no intention of how you're going to pay that, or you're just kind of throwing it out there, is it really generosity or are you taking from something else that's not really yours to give? And so, I don't believe that's what the Lord has for us.

He's got for us kind of this wise stewardship. So, if she has enough to live on and then can give, maybe just laying that out before the Lord to say, all the places I want to give are so numerous, I don't have enough resources. What is the priority? And, you know, I would just lay out for her to ask the Lord what he would have for her in that. And I would add, scripture says, take care of family first. And she's now alone, so she's her family. So, it's expected for her to feed herself and have housing. So, it's not an ungodly thing to say, I've got to pay my rent, I've got to buy my oatmeal, or whatever.

And then if she is able to shrink that because she wants to give in other places, that's okay. But we're talking about wisdom here. We're talking about following God's principles. What do you have?

And then what are God's principles? You take care of your family and she is it right now. Miriam, there are scams and predators galore. We hear about them all the time. How do we protect our money without becoming paranoid? Well, first of all, we pause when anybody asks us to do anything or invest in anything or whatever it's going to be.

And usually the scammer is pressuring for a quick answer, because they know if you have time to think about it, you'll say no. And so, one of the things we say is, first of all, be careful who you listen to. And second, if they have an idea or a plan for you, remember that's their plan for you, not God's plan for you. And I have had, I'm thinking of a young widow with four children and someone knew she had life insurance and said, oh, you need to, and this was a friend of hers, you need to put it in this particular product to save for your children for college.

That particular product gave that friend a big cut off the top. Hello? I mean, okay, I'm not going to get carried away here, but here's one of the things Valerie always says, is you can say, I will think about that and get back to you later. Yeah, the other thing is, I believe if they really have your best interest at heart, they need to be okay with the answer no. And very few scampers or fraudsters are going to be okay with that.

No, thanks. I don't want that. They need to be okay with that. And truly somebody who has your best interest at heart, if you're selling a product and that's not a bad thing, not everybody is a nonprofit or volunteer, right? It's okay to have a business and do things to make money. But if that customer does not want or need that product, move on. And so there's the difference between a legitimate business and someone maybe who's going to defraud or take advantage of.

That person is not interested if it's confusing, if they're pushing it really quickly. And so we don't need to be, I call it fighting dragons that aren't there. Like you said, how do we stay not paranoid about that? But those are just some checks. You know, don't click on things that are out of nowhere. They're getting good at it. They make their logos look like legitimate organizations. So this is hard.

Also have family and wise, godly counsel around to be speaking into that. Yeah. I got one of those just today. Yeah. This account is in question. You know, give us your information so we can make sure.

They're all too common on the phone. Now, you say that often women lack confidence in the area of finances. And I'm sure this is true of many women. Why do you think that's true?

Right. And that's not something we came up with as our opinion. There are many that do have confidence. However, what we've seen in the data and especially from my mom's ministry for widows, if women have not been doing the finances before, it's not that we lack the brains to do this.

We certainly have that and the ability. But a lot of times it's the confidence and the data shows that especially in investing. And there's some of these areas that traditionally have been a kind of quote unquote, man's world. And so maybe that's an arena that wasn't built for them or with them in the past. And so, and that can really hold back, like from all we're meant to do in that area. So we are seeing a phenomenon of especially with widows, if they've not been doing the finances before, they're just either giving way too much credibility or giving away decision making power to others because they're not confident and are unsure of themselves or they're just freezing. And we know that we can't just bury our talent under a rock. We need to keep that moving to keep up with costs.

So those are the areas that we are seeing that lack of confidence really hold back and we're perfectly capable of getting after this. Well, and if I might add, the good news here, the younger generations are more confident. And we talk about generational differences in the book as well. My generation, many of the women did not work outside the home when they had children.

I was an exception in that I was doing that. But more women now with children work outside the home. So they are bringing in a paycheck so they are more likely to be very interested in the family budget and what's going on. And for the younger women, they are seeing what's happening in other generations. So the good news is the women are more active in financial areas now in I would say generations younger and that is building confidence.

Plus Val and I are kind of trying to make a difference here with this book. Yeah, if you think about how things were 50 years ago, even maybe 30 years ago, was there a stigma attached about maybe the women managing finances and investments in the home? There certainly was. Was there a stigma attached to women talking about money?

You know, there was almost this concept of women, women of a certain grace and elegance don't ever talk about those things. I remember distinctly feeling that growing up, taking that perception in from wherever it came from. But if God is asking us to do something that's different, then we need to be able to have the confidence and to lean into that. So I think that's a little bit of where that lack of confidence might come from is that, hey, it's a whole new day and even if it wasn't, if God is asking us to do something, we need to move forward into that. Yeah.

And I think that this book is going to be greatly helpful to women who are looking for more knowledge, which brings confidence. Now let's just say a word about inflation. It's rampant. The cost of housing is through the roof.

Just amazes me. Many families are just living paycheck to paycheck. What do you say to these people with inflation being what it is?

Yeah, this is so difficult. And so what I say, I'm going to say with compassion and understanding, it is so important to just monitor what do we need, understand the difference between our wants and our needs. Inflation is just, it's a wealth eater.

It can be destructive. It can help if we're on the saving end a little bit, but really out of control inflation eats away a ton of wealth for families. And not just wealth. When I say wealth, any kind of savings getting ahead at all. So having an emergency fund, not having to put things on credit, having that buffer is critically important at times like this. Weeding out what do we really need? What can we wait on as far as spending?

And I would just say, you know, hang in there. These things do tend to ebb and flow. They can be that way for a long time. And really to understand a little bit about what inflation is, where it comes from, to understand that always after the party, there is a mess to clean up. That is how the world works. And so we can't go on as individuals or as a group or as a country spending and spending and spending with no consequences.

That is not living in reality. And so we just really need to take a look at that for ourselves and our families, but on a broader scale as well. And to take that into account and to act into that and know that we can make a difference on an individual level, but on a bigger level as well by caring about it and getting involved. Another group of people I think that many of us have empathy for is the single mom with two kids or three kids or one child. What would you say to single moms? Well, I have been involved with many who've gone through divorce and have found themselves in financially very precarious positions. And that can be true also for the young woman whose husband has passed. But for the single mom, one of the great challenges that she has is the temptation to try to soften the blow to the child for what loss they have gone through by providing stuff like, okay, you get to have the smartphone. I don't want it to hurt you because this has happened or a new pair of shoes or whatever.

And the credit card is available. So I would say it's so important for the single mom to be vigilant for them to watch every cost and know that things will have to change. Many have had to change living places.

Many have had to change things that their children can participate in. And it seems sad, but it's that reality that she is giving account before God alone as we would anyway, but especially in her situation. I would also just add, I would say to her, God sees you.

He cares about her, about her family. And my hope is that she is in a community, in a church where she can let her need be known. And my other hope is that the church would step forward and be the church and help to provide, even if it's just for a better understanding of budget. We don't need to provide for somebody's wants, hopes, and desires, but their needs. My great desire is for all of this to help us move to a place where we are part of the church and the body of Christ, and we are being that body of Christ who's reaching into a situation like that and saying, for such a time as this, we've set this aside.

We were wise stewards for exactly situations like that. And I might add, I know one mom with her, her teenagers were asking her for things she couldn't provide. And they were a Christian family, and she sat down with them and said, you know what? You're asking me for things, and I want you to stop asking me. I want you to start praying about it. I can't provide everything you're asking for, and you need to know that and take your request to God first. And I thought, wow, that's pretty bold.

But she did. Darrell Bock Yeah, yeah. Well, there are a lot of other topics you cover in the book, such as retirement and long-term care and all of these kind of things. I just really thank both of you, Miriam and Valerie, for being with us today and for taking the time to write this book, because I believe it's going to be a tool that's going to help a lot of people. So thanks for being with us. Miriam Stegman We sure hope today's conversation has been encouraging to you. Maybe you know someone who needs the resource we've been talking about, Wise Women Managing Money, by Miriam Neff and Valerie Hogan. You can find out more about them and our featured resource at FiveLoveLanguages.com.

That's FiveLoveLanguages.com. And next week you have to hear the incredible story of York Moore. It's perfect for the Easter season, and that's coming up in one week. Valerie Hogan Well, a big thank you to our production team, Steve Wick and Janice Todd. Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman is a production of Moody Radio in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute. Thanks for listening.