Lent and Finance
I hope you are having a blessed and fruitful lent so far. Lent is such an important time for Catholics and its hard to believe that we are one week down already and five weeks from now we will be in Holy week.
I recently joined an Exodus 90 group to finish the second half of the program with them during Lent. If you have not heard of the program it involves a prayer, asceticism and fraternity. The major component of course is prayer but the program is talked about mostly for the asceticism practices. It involves several things like fasting, working out, cutting out phone/computer time, no listening to podcasts/radio/YouTube and infamously you can only take cold showers. It’s awesome. We meet weekly with the group as a way to support each other and help with accountability.
So this past week I have been off social media and sitting in a lot of silence since I am not able to listen to podcasts and sports talk radio. When you do this, you realize how much noise and nonsense we are bombarded with every single day. Most people on the radio talk a lot without saying much. Ads constantly telling you to buy something or go somewhere. Spreading fear and making us all feel so anxious. Its all so exhausting, but yet, addicting.
What if we stepped back and focused on God, our families, our heath and stewarding our finances the best we can? How much closer would be to our ideal rather than our current reality?
It’s amazing that when you limit the amount of content you consume that your spending starts to align more with your values rather than what the next show or advertiser wants you to value.
So, if you find yourself overspending and not having enough money every month to save, try removing some distractions from your life and increase your prayer. You should always be setting a budget of course, but I think you will find you follow it much closer when you detach a bit from the rampant consumerism of the world. When your spending matchings what’s important to you, that is how you start to align your finances with your values.
Additionally, removing the noise help you become a better investor. Fear and Greed are two of the most powerful influences on our behavior. When the news shares stories every day that feed into your fear or your greed, that will affect your decisions and likely in a negative way. Removing that influencing noise can help you stay calm, look at the facts, stick to your plan and keep your emotions from driving your decisions. This will improve your long-term investing success.
Lent is such an amazing time to prune unnecessary things from our plates and make more room for necessary things.
If you found this helpful please let me know a phil@foundationwealthplanning.com.
As a Catholic and a financial advisor, my focus is helping Catholics align their finances with their values.
Phil Francois, CFP
Owner and Financial Advisor
https://www.foundationwealthplanning.com/