Book Review: Women of Worth by Bethany Frymire

In Women of Worth, Bethany Frymire gets to the heart of how we think about money. She’s down to earth, genuine, and refreshingly open about her own journey. The writing is engaging and at times even entertaining (how many finance books can say that?). While she offers sound, practical financial advice, the book goes much deeper, addressing identity, faith, and viewing money through the lens of stewardship over all aspects of life.

Reading the book feels like sitting down with a wise and fun friend over coffee or lunch. Bethany is especially relatable to busy moms juggling a hundred responsibilities and comes across not just as a financial expert, but rather a trusted friend who can help guide you along your journey with money. She doesn’t just talk the talk, she lives out the principles and illustrates them through stories from her own life.

Throughout the book, you get the strong impression that she knows God deeply and regularly seeks His guidance. Biblical wisdom is woven through the book in a beautiful tapestry that connects financial decisions with broader areas of life.

While the book is written primarily with women in mind, men can learn a great deal from the stories and practical financial guidance it contains not to mention gain insight into the women in their lives.

The stories of people Bethany has worked with bring the principles to life. She touches on issues such as overcoming debt and shame, bucket budgeting, incorporating your values into your investment strategy without sacrificing performance, charitable giving and how it shapes both your finances and your heart, maintaining a “God owns it all” mindset, and teaching children and young adults how to manage money wisely.

This book is a valuable resource filled with practical steps for anyone who wants to manage their finances with Biblical wisdom and a stewardship mindset. I highly recommend it!

You can also connect with me on Goodreads to check out more reviews and recommendations. 

Tax Planning: Charitable Donations

Well friends, it's that time of year when tax returns are in the air. Many people include charitable donations as itemized deductions on their tax returns. Not only are cash contributions available as deductions but property donations such as clothing, furniture, cars, and musical/athletic equipment to a charity can also be deducted for fair market value.

Another charitable deduction that is not as widely known is mileage driven for charitable activities. For example, if you volunteer with the Boy/Girl Scouts and drive kids to various activities related to scouts, the mileage could be used as an itemized deduction. Similarly, if you volunteer at your church or local soup kitchen, mileage would also be deductible. For 2009 tax returns, the charitable mileage rate is 14 cents/mile in contrast to the business related rate of 55 cents/mile. See IRS.gov for more details.

Another very good tax planning strategy which is best implemented at the end of the taxable year is donating property which would have a capital gain such as shares of stock or investment real estate to a charitable organization. Let's assume you purchased 100 shares of ABC stock at a price of $40 per share and it is trading at $50 per share at the end of the year. Rather than selling and paying tax on the $10 per share profit, by donating the stock to a charitable organization you would avoid paying tax on the capital gain as well as benefit the charity. It's an opportunity to choose where your dollars go rather than depending on the government to make that choice for you. This technique, of course, assumes that you have charitable inclinations. NationalChristian.com has good information on setting up a donor advised fund or Charitable Remainder Trust if these are options you'd like to explore.

Using itemized deductions requires that you have total deductions greater than the standard deduction level which for 2009 is $11,400 for married couples, $5,700 for single folks, and $8,350 for heads of household. http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=187825,00.html Other common deductions in addition to charitable deductions include mortgage interest, state income tax, property tax, education expenses, and business expenses exceeding 2% of adjusted gross income.

Happy tax returning!

Debt Snowball

A debt snowball caught on camera in the wild!



See DaveRamsey.com for info on implementing a debt snowball.

Kansas City Board of Trade

On Friday, I took a field trip to the Kansas City Board of Trade where they trade Hard Red Winter wheat commodities. This is the image you get when you think of the stock market and see people in a pit on TV waving hands frantically trying to buy or sell. This is a hub of trade for a large quantity of wheat trading that occurs in the United States. There are a few other trading exchanges for wheat as well, but this is a major one.

The majority of trading is done electronically via computer these days but there is still some that happens in person. As trades are executed, they're recorded and the price of wheat changes as a result whether up or down. The electronic boards in the background track the prices of wheat that is scheduled for delivery during various time frames. Some traders are just trying to make a margin on trades or speculation and some are hedging risk so that they get a guaranteed rate to buy or sell at. It was very interesting to see the market in person. The last 30 seconds close of the market was fairly rapid and exciting as well.

Master Your Money

Master Your Money by Ron Blue
Ron Blue's "Master Your Money" is a very good resource for learning to manage finances from a pure technical perspective as well as from a Biblical basis. He shares well honed financial expertise grounded in years of professional financial planning and accounting practice.

The book walks through the basics of determining where you are financially and then developing goals and intermediate steps towards reaching those goals. Fundamentals of budgeting are covered with attention given to increasing cash flow margin to allow for funding of long range goals such as paying off debt, making investments, starting a business, paying for children's college, and giving away large sums of money.

While Mr. Blue definitely takes the approach the debt should be minimized and very thoroughly evaluated before even considering, he does not take quite as extreme an approach towards no debt as Dave Ramsey. He also offers a bit different perspective on term vs. whole or variable life insurance.

A couple sections of the book which I found to be outstanding were the discussion on giving and estate planning. He offers lots of wise counsel on what to think about when developing a plan for passing on assets to the next generation. His insight on giving and going through a process of prayer to determine what God would have the person give is excellent as well.

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Bag of Money

A bag of money picked up on a recent trip to the Kansas City Federal Reserve. They have a really nice exhibit set up telling all about the history of money in the U.S. as well as present operations and you even get to see some of the workers in the money sorting/counting/shredding room. They've recently implemented some robots as well that help with moving money from place to place. Their names are Huey, Duey, and Louie.