Stewardship - Financial Autobiography
This is an invitation to think about how your personal budget and experience reflects your values. This is hard work and will take time. It may be challenging and you may want to take some breaks.
Self Reflection
What do you remember about money growing up? About giving?
How do you relate to money now? What do you want your budget to say to the world?
How do you feel about managing your money now?
What does the world say to you about money? About giving?
Do you have a generosity mentor, someone who taught you about generosity? How do you want people to experience you, your relationships with money, work and generosity?
Week 1: Formative Questions
Day 1: What is your earliest memory of money?
Day 2: What is your happiest memory in connection with money?
Day 3: What is your unhappiest money memory?
Day 4: What attitudes did your parents and other family members have about money?
Day 5: Did you feel rich, poor, or neither growing up? Did you worry about money when you were a child? A teenager?
Day 6: Where did your money come from? (Did you work for it, receive an allowance, have your parents buy you things?)
Day 7: Who governed how you related to money; that is, how you spent money, saved money, gave money to charity or church?
Week 2: Values Questions
Day 1: In what ways are you a spender? A saver? In what ways are you generous? Or not generous?
Day 2: Although money can't buy happiness, what are some of the things money can buy that bring happiness?
Day 3: What do you like best about money? What do you like least about money?
Day 4: What things in life are worth more than money? In what ways does your lifestyle reflect the relative importance of these things to money?
Day 5: How has your gender influenced your thinking about money? What differences do you observe in the way different genders relate to money?
Day 6: Which of the following words best communicate your attitudes and feelings about money? Why?
Day 7: Reflect on times when you have given to meet the needs of another. How did you feel? Reflect on times when you were on the receiving end of a gift. How did you feel?
Week 3: Management Questions
Day 1: In what ways are you a good manager of money? In what ways do you struggle to manage money?
Day 2: How do you feel about talking about your finances with other people? Why do you feel this way?
Day 3: Do you use credit cards? Do you pay the monthly balances in full? How does buying on credit make you feel? Why?
Day 4: How much money do you wish you had in the bank/invested? How did you arrive at this figure? How close is this amount to what you actually have?
Day 5: How much money do you give to church and charity? How do you decide how much to give? How do you decide where to give?
Day 6: Do you have a personal budget? Why? How do you make decisions about what to spend, what to save, and what to give?
Day 7: What are your greatest financial concerns? How have you made decisions concerning retirement, insurance, drafting a will, and so on? If you have not made these decisions, why not?
Week 4: Lifestyle Questions
Day 1: Does global poverty impact your feelings about money and spending? If so, how? If not, why not?
Day 2: How do you feel when people approach you for money on the street? How do you feel when you receive phone solicitations for charitable contributions? How do you feel when asked to give for a political campaign?
Day 3: Which words best describe you and why?
Day 4: What kind of legacy would you like to leave when you die? Of your worldly possessions, what would you leave to whom and why?
Day 5: One strong theme of both Jewish and Christian faith is that wealth is given for the common good of the whole community. What does this mean to you?
Day 6: In what ways does your relationship with money affect your faith? In what ways does your faith affect your relationship with money?
Day 7: In what ways do you feel your relationship with money is a spiritual issue? What does it mean to you to be a good steward?
