The Rich Fool blog is built around the idea that personal finance is most powerful when it empowers us to be at our most generous, not when it makes us more secure.
As Americans living in the greatest era of wealth creation in history, we’ve been conditioned to use our vast resources to improve our standard of living and build nest eggs that ensure the comfort lasts a lifetime. Blessed with riches historically reserved for kings, we constantly search for new places to store our excess. Most personal finance advice today focuses on how to accumulate more and reach a state of financial independence.
It seems perfectly normal when everyone else around us aspires to the same American Dream. We convince ourselves that we’re wisely providing for our families and protecting our futures. And while two-thirds of us give to charity, we spend 97 percent of our money on ourselves.
I didn’t question this for most of my life, especially when I was still getting my financial footing. Then, at age 37, something unexpected happened. I felt financially secure for the first time, but the underlying philosophy that got me there eroded. I started to question the purpose of wealth accumulation and couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that I had it all backward, that having more money should lead me to be more generous instead of more comfortable. It was a pivotal personal finance moment.
Suddenly, my pursuit of the American Dream felt like the modern-day equivalent of the rich fool tearing down his barns to build bigger ones.
It was the beginning of a personal finance journey that eventually led me to start The Rich Fool blog. More than anything, this site serves as a diary for my own attempt to find that elusive balance between fiscal responsibility and radical generosity.
The Rich Fool Blog: A Confession and Admonishment
The biblical parable of the rich fool features a wealthy landowner who stores up so many goods for himself that he must build bigger barns. Once constructed, he kicks back and intends to be merry eating and drinking for many years. His journey feels familiar.
We would call the rich fool wise today and congratulate him on his early retirement. But when the story takes a turn and the landowner dies, we see why God calls him a fool.
While it might seem odd to name a personal finance blog after this tragic character, it’s a confession as much as an admonishment of the Western way of thinking about money. It’s a reminder that as a privileged American and a Christian, I must fight the urge to build bigger barns, and wrestle with the higher calling God has placed on my money and possessions.
I don’t have all the answers, but I hope you’ll join me on this scary but exciting journey of generosity.
Personal finance is most powerful when it enables us to be at our most generous, not when it makes us more secureClick To TweetPersonal Finance at Its Most Powerful
While I’m approaching this topic through a faith-based lens, The Rich Fool blog won’t be a purely theological exploration. My goal is to challenge all of us in philosophical and practical ways on how we use our money and possessions.
The central thesis of The Rich Fool blog is this: Personal finance is most powerful when it enables us to be at our most generous – not when it makes us more secure. As a rich fool myself, I want to pose this central question: As some of the wealthiest individuals in the history of the world, how do we structure our finances to meet our immediate needs and responsibly plan for the future, while also using our surplus to climb the ladder of radical generosity?
To that end, I have organized The Rich Fool blog around the following topics:
- Spending: Practical tips for cutting back on consumption and placing spending limits on our lives.
- Investing: Advice on how to invest money for future needs, including retirement, and how to know when you have enough.
- Giving: An approach to personal finance that empowers us to become more generous.
- Financial Truth: Lessons about the money from the Bible, which devotes more than 2,000 verses to the topic.
The Rich Fool blog isn’t an indictment of the wealthy or a call to renounce all material possessions. It’s an honest examination of our responsibility when it comes to how we build and use wealth in America today. Most of all, it’s an attempt to avoid becoming a rich fool who stores up treasure for himself while ignoring the needs around him.
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