The Bible teaches that we are responsible to manage our finances faithfully in a way that honors God. The phrase that is generally used is that we are to be good stewards of the wealth that God has given into our care. The word “steward” clearly implies that it is God’s money that we are managing and not our own.
2 Corinthians 12:14 reminds us that parents are responsible to save for their children. 1 Timothy 5:8 very strongly states that we are responsible to care for any close relatives who need care. In context, this includes aged parents and grandparents.
Managing your savings and/or retirement funds to meet your goals can seem like it requires an ability to predict the future. How much money needs to be saved each month depends not only on your goals and your personal situation but also on the amount of money available, time, and interest rates. Some of these things are not knowable because they are in the future and could change dramatically.
Does this mean that we should just give up and make no effort to provide for the future? Absolutely not. It means that we do our best to make reasonable assumptions, discipline ourselves to control our spending, and make wise plans for our investments. It also means that we need to seek God for wisdom as we trust Him to provide for what we cannot.
In this discussion, you will be using the spreadsheet provided below to start a basic financial plan that takes issues of debt, interest rates, and investment into account.
Open the spreadsheet and look at the bottom of the page. You will see 3 tabs. The first tab is for the worksheet you need to fill out. The 2nd tab shows the worksheet filled out with sample values. How these values were determined is described in the Word document provided below as an example to help you fill out your worksheet. The 3rd tab is for a worksheet to help you calculate your average interest rate on your current debt, if you have any. Enter the appropriate information into the cells shaded in purple.
You will fill out the Retirement Savings Calculator Worksheet to calculate the amount of savings per month needed to meet 3 different goals and then share what you learned in your thread. You can choose 3 different retirement ages. Another option is to see how delaying the time when you start saving will affect the amount that you need to save each month. You do NOT need to post, share, or send your instructor a copy of your Retirement Savings Calculator Worksheet.
Once you have used the worksheet to calculate the amount you would need to save each month for your 3 different scenarios, write your thread. Write your thread in the Discussion to accomplish the following 4 requirements:
Describe each of the goals by giving your age of retirement for each goal as well as how many years you selected to live off of the money after retirement.
For goals 2 and 3, list the % change in $ per month required to meet the goal from goal #1. For example, if Goal #1 required $1000 per month and goal #2 required $500 per month, then say that goal #2 requires 50% less per month in savings than goal #1. This will allow your instructor to figure out if you entered your numbers correctly without you having to really tell them anything about your personal finances.
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