Key Points:
1. Joyfully live within our means
2. Be content with what we have
3. Avoid excessive debt
4. Diligently save and prepare for rainy day emergencies
5. Seek for things that will have eternal value and significance
Principles of Provident Living:
Principle 1: Everything we have is the Lord's (ownership)
Principle 2: We are stewards over all the Lord has shared with us (stewardship)
Principle 3: We will be held accountable for every choice we make, including our financial choices (accountability)
Money management teaches these eternal lessons:
Priorities
Spiritual and physical creation
Planning and follow through
Taking care of the poor and needy
Discipline
Sacrifice
Not running faster than we have strength and resources
Lesson 2
Key Points:
Principle 1: Strive to learn what Heavenly Father wants you to do
Principle 2: Seek Heavenly Father's help
a. Study the Scriptures (1 Nephi 19:23)
b. Seek guidance through prayer (Doctrine & Covenants 112:10)
c. Read your patriarchal blessing
d. Remember father's and priesthood blessings
e. Attend the temple
Principle 3: Write down your goals
Principle 4: Keep goals SMART
S= Specific
M=Measurable
A=Achievable
R=Realistic
T=Time-bound
Principle 5: Put your goals where you can see them and review them often.
Principle 6: Return and Report
Lesson 2
Key Points:
Principle 1: Strive to learn what Heavenly Father wants you to do
Principle 2: Seek Heavenly Father's help
a. Study the Scriptures (1 Nephi 19:23)
b. Seek guidance through prayer (Doctrine & Covenants 112:10)
c. Read your patriarchal blessing
d. Remember father's and priesthood blessings
e. Attend the temple
Principle 3: Write down your goals
Principle 4: Keep goals SMART
S= Specific
M=Measurable
A=Achievable
R=Realistic
T=Time-bound
Principle 5: Put your goals where you can see them and review them often.
Principle 6: Return and Report
Lesson 3
Key Points:
"The truer measure of sacrifice is not so much what one gives to sacrifice as what one sacrifices to give." (Lynn G. Robbins)
Payment of an honest tithe brings blessings--Malachi 3:10 and Doctrine and Covenants 104:15-16
Much is written in the scriptures about money and giving--9 of 10 parables in Matthew relate to these topics as do 8 of 12 parables in Luke.
Our attitude counts in the payment of tithes: we should give willingly.
"The payment of an honest tithe and the giving of offerings are important ways to show our love for our Heavenly Father and our willingness to help build His kingdom on earth. President Joseph F. Smith counseled: 'By this principle (tithing) the loyalty of the people of this Church shall be put to the test. By this principle it shall be known who is for the kingdom of God and who is against it'" (Gospel Doctrine, 225).
Lesson 4
Key Points:
"The key to most people's problems in personal finance is that they spend their money too late. They spend their money when they want to instead of spending it when they should. If people will spend their money a year in advance, they will know what their income is, what their needs are , and they can make the necessary changes to their spending to follow the prophets' counsel to live within their needs and to save for their personal and family goals."
Five principles of economic constancy:
Constancy 1: Pay an honest tithing
Constancy 2: Live on less than you earn
Constancy 3: Learn to distinguish between needs and wants
Constancy 4: Develop and live within a budget
Constancy 5: Be honest in all your financial affairs
Lesson 5
Key Points: "Planning your spending is likely the most important principle that will help individuals and families obey the commandments to get and stay out of debt and to save for their personal and family goals."
Your Spending Plan: A Five Step Process
1. Know what you want to accomplish
2. Develop your plan
3. Track your spending
4. Implement your plan
5. Compare actual spending to the plan and make changes when necessary
Lesson 6
Key Points: "Over the years the wise counsel of our leaders has been to avoid debt except for the purchase of a home or to pay for an education. I have not heard any of the prophets change this counsel" ("Doing the Best Things in the Worst Times," Ensign, Aug. 1984, 41).
Seven Steps to Debt Reduction
1. Recognize and accept that you have a debt problem.
2. Involve the family
3. Decide why you are in debt
4. Stop incurring debt
5. Make a list of all your bills and look for one-off ways of reducing debt
6. Develop one year and one month spending plans (a long-term and a short-term budget)
7. Organize a repayment or debt-reduction strategy and follow it
Lesson 7
Key Points:
1. Practice thrift and frugality.
2. Seek to be independent
3. Be industrious
4. Become self-reliant.
5. Strive to have a year's supply of food and clothing.
Lesson 8
Key Points:
- Store a 3 month supply of what you eat
- Store drinking water
- Have a financial reserve
- Accumulate a year's supply of food, clothing, and supplies
Lesson 9
Key Points:
1. Teach by example individually.
2. Teach by example as a couple.
3. Pay an honest tithe and generous offerings.
4. Teach family members early the importance of working and earning.
5. Teach children to make money decisions in keeping with their capacities to understand.
6. Teach family members to contribute to the total family welfare.
7. Teach family members that paying financial obligations is part of integrity and honesty development.
8. Remember the Law of the Harvest.
