The 'Financial Intelligence Q&A Session 1' addresses the financial challenges individuals face, especially in the current climate influenced by COVID-19. Speakers discuss the importance of maintaining principles like tithing and saving even during tough times, and suggest negotiating with creditors to manage debts. They emphasize the need to stay informed about government programs that can offer financial assistance and encourage broadening perspectives to find ways to increase income, even if it seems daunting. The session highlights the value of investing in education and skill acquisition as a means to improve earning potential. Entrepreneurship is also discussed as a viable path during economic shifts. The speakers stress the importance of planning for both short-term and long-term financial stability, including having emergency savings and considering investment strategies. Throughout the session, the role of faith, prayer, and stewardship is underscored, with a focus on trusting God's provision while taking practical steps to manage finances wisely.

We're going to have a time of Q&A. Speakers can keep their seats. We'll run a microphone to you if somebody has a specific question for you. So we'll just open it up for a few minutes if there are questions that anybody has for any of the speakers. I'll leave this to whoever wants to take it.

But given the circumstances, I think not everyone's had to face, but lots of folks are facing right now, given our current climate. What is your advice to those that find themselves with an inability to raise that top line and working really hard towards it but are experiencing a financial hardship desire to work these ways what what kind of tips and practical applications of this stuff should they be really honing in on if they are in a place where their finances are contracting, not expanding? Great question. Anybody like to take that on? Kelly?

Yeah. Kelly, yeah. Is that on? Can you hear me? Okay.

I'm actually going to touch on this a little bit tomorrow, but I would say one practical example of that is we talk about tithing, you talk about saving. One of the first principles, those are, I would say two of the first principles, even in tough times that you continue to try to exercise. And then with that, whatever's left over, of really, I think, forcing yourself to say, how much do I have? And kind of forming your life around that. You'll see where you can cut and where you can't.

And so in my example tomorrow, kind of precursor is, in those areas where it's tough, you find your whomever those companies are that you owe money to, and you just call them up and say, you know what, this month I can't pay this much, but I'll send 15 bucks, 20 bucks, whatever it is I have to show that I am committed to paying the debts and the things that I have and to, and month by month you kind of get, because it normally takes three to six months to really get a good feel of, man, what's, how are things going? And so just kind of having a 10% tithing, 10% to myself, everything else here is now, what can I do with it? Where can I allot? Where can I allot it? And then calling up debtors and just saying, I'm here, I'm not going anywhere, I wanna pay, I'm going to pay, can you work with me?

And then using that as a metric. One way I look at that. Yeah, negotiating with creditors is really helpful to do that. Al? I was just going to say, in a time like this where we have COVID-19, which is really something like we've never seen before, you know, the government has rolled some programs designed to help some of the folks that are in the industries that are most affected.

So I would just say stay on top of that. And there's no shame in taking advantage of government programs. We all know we pay enough in taxes. I personally don't believe it's a sin to take out if you qualify for it. So that's one thing.

And the other thing I would say is maybe broaden broaden your thinking a little bit and You know the statement that Topline can't be expanded remove the word can't there's a way to do it think about it talk to a lot of people You know There's a lot of folks that have done some difficult things that seemed impossible and they ended up paying off. So sometimes it's hard to see a vision of success if you haven't done it. If you haven't gone out, and I'm just gonna pick this as an example, if you haven't gone out and sold a piece of real estate, it's kind of a daunting thing. How do I do that? If you haven't gone out, and I'm sure, my son's an insurance adjuster.

If you haven't gone out and sold a piece of real estate, it's kind of a daunting thing. How do I do that? You know, if you haven't gone out and, I'm sure, you know, my son's an insurance adjuster. If you haven't gone out and done an estimate on someone's house on the damage, that can be an overwhelming thing until you've done it. So some of this is just getting experience with people and getting that experience with something to where you can look at increasing that top line over time.

I know that's a lot easier said than done, but there's a lot of people that have made ventures. I heard once Colonel Sanders did not succeed in his endeavor until his Wall into the 60s. Tried a bunch of things that failed, then he started to take care of chicken now. I know Chick-fil-A's better, I'm not gonna argue that point. But he did OK with that, you know.

So that would be what I'd say. Yeah, I think there are lots of questions, too, to ask. How long is this going to last? Am I in a no-win industry? And is it better for me to pivot and go in a different direction?

I think those are just questions that you have to grapple with. So yeah, Ash, you wanted to say something? Couple of things that come to mind. One is in terms of improving the top line. There's a lot of opportunity in new areas that are coming up.

So Google announced yesterday that they are going to be offering certifications and these certificates cost $300 to get. So in other words, there are areas where you can get certified. One of them is, for example, data analytics. No pre-qualifications required, and there are jobs. There are jobs in data analytics.

Companies that will bite your hand off. That they're saying for a data analyst is around 60, 65 thousand dollars. So look for, Al talked about the industries that are falling off, the industries that are on growth. The need for data analysts over the next 20 years is mind boggling. If every kid in this church studied data analytics, they'd have a guaranteed income.

That's how big the demand for analytics is at the moment. So that's one opportunity, area of opportunity. The other one is I wanted to talk about, Kelly mentioned the 10% tithe. Whatever the circumstances, do not stop tithing. Because you know that God is able.

So it's not just about that 10% that is going out. It is about putting your faith in God. There are two things that happen. One, he said, I'm just wanting to repeat what I said in Malachi 3, in terms of he will stop the devourer. It's amazing how we think about shoes not wearing out and clothes not wearing out when the Israelites were in the desert.

Think about the unforeseen expenses in cars breaking down, in repairs. I have witnessed myself, There were times when I did not tithe and I ended up spending tons of money on unforeseen repairs. It is amazing. God has sovereignty over your machines. And do not let go of that.

You think your top line's shrinking, do not let go of paying that time. So those are the two things that come to mind. You know, I was talking to, that's very helpful. I was talking to a friend of mine in another state this morning and I was telling him about our conference and I was just asking him questions to get his thoughts, particularly to address the times that we're in. And One of the things he said was by taking me back 35 years ago in his life when things weren't so good.

They're very good for him now, but they were not good back at those days. And he was telling me about how, when he would go into a sales call, he would just cry out to God. He said, I would pray about money. I would say, God, I have these children. Please prosper me today.

And he said he would do that every time he walked in somebody's door to try to do business with them. He said you should never minimize the role of prayer. You should never minimize how important it is to cry out to God for your financial situation. And so he said he would pray that God would prosper him every time he met with someone. He was crying out to God.

And I was just reminded of Psalm 25, 9, the humble he guides in justice, the humble he teaches his way. And there's no greater replacement for our own ways than that. And there are lots of things that we can do. I think some really helpful things have been suggested. Crying out to God is indispensable.

And seeing every moment as an opportunity for God to bless us. Any other questions? Yes. I'll ask my question first. So it is a question and I have a comment or a testimony.

At some point, because of the times we're living in, maybe something like this conference we're doing to take it to another level as far as entrepreneurship. The reason I'm bringing that up is we kept going through problems not because of our necessarily doing, but because of the industry we're in. And so finally, Roger and I just talked about it and I said let's stop doing this. Let's just do this. Let's start our own business Because then we have control over to a little bit more degree.

So business cards and stationary, that's when they didn't have cell phones and PCs. And he was my product and I got on the phone and sold him. If you want to know how, you can ask me later. There you go. Industries change, economies shift.

We're in the midst of a massive shift, and there are tremendous opportunities in that shift. We shouldn't look at it and say, oh, woe is me, it's over for me. No. Pivot, shift. You know, Move with the flow of things.

And starting businesses and growth industries is a really wise thing to do. It's hard starting a business. It's really hard when the government tells you you can't work. But I think entrepreneurship can be a very helpful pivot point in a time like this. Anybody else?

Yes. One quick comment and then a question. So just on the thing of stewardship, a verse that stuck out to me is you have Nebuchadnezzar, right, who was a very prosperous king. And he said, the king, the king spoke saying, is not this great Babylon that I have built for my royal dwelling by my mighty power and for the honor of myself and then right after that the Lord completely wipes him out destroys him kicks him out of the city And so there you have a very ungodly worldview on stewardship. And then if you go back to Genesis, Genesis 28, so this is Jacob before he goes to Laban before he comes back with all the sheep and all the before he's prosperous he has nothing at this point and he says of all that you give me I will surely give you a tenth to you.

And then 21 years later, you know, after he spent seven years working for one wife and then another wife and then seven more years to get all the sheep and things that he has, you know, he realizes that everything he has is from the Lord and then he gives back to God. So everything that we have, right, is from God and so when we're giving him 10%, We're giving him 10% of what he's given to us. And so anyways, there's a contrast to two worldviews. But my question was, we talking about saving and paying yourself, like Mr. Jennings was saying, but when I think of savings, I think of you're putting that to the side and letting that build up, but what should you do with your savings?

Should you leave it to the side let it build up? I mean obviously you want a backup plan you know three to six months as I think Mr. Burke was saying, or should you use that savings to invest and make it grow? Yeah, any thoughts out there? Honestly, I don't want to answer that question because that's part of my talk tomorrow as well.

So if Will doesn't mind, I'll really actually get into saving savings vehicles Which which ones to go to what to use them for for when to invest all those different things So if you could give me a few hours, I'll answer that question. I try to say that's great. Yeah. Thank you, Kelly. I just want to say, yeah, you want to have some cash on hand.

Otherwise, when something breaks, it becomes a calamity, right? So, you know, I'd say three to six months of expenses. Some people are comfortable operating with less, you know, and then put more in investment. But some investments are not as easily, they're not that liquid. The stock market is today pretty much, but there's also risk.

You know, if you invest and something happens, you may not have it. So It's really about Planning for the rainy day, you know Something happened there was a fire in the house and your deductible is 2, 500 or whatever as Colton said sometimes it's prudent to have higher deductibles. I think he implied that or stated that. So you know you want to take more of that risk on yourself. You know if you have a $500 deductible your premium is more.

If you have a 25 or a 5, 000 deductible you know your premium is less because you're not planning to have a fire. So you probably won't use that insurance but you might it's nice to have if you do so you know it's all about how much cash need to have it on hand to handle the problem that could occur. An emergency surgery for someone or you're out of work for, you know, you break your leg or whatever. So that's kind of what it is. And I would recommend keeping that money close by.

You're not worried about making money on it. It's your kind of your safety plan for a rainy day. And then the rest of it goes into the younger you are, I'd say the more risky, I'm not trying to steal any of Kelly's thunder, I don't know what he has there, I'm sure it's awesome. But you can afford to take more risk as a younger person because you've got a long time to recover from something. Like I said, I gravitate more toward risk.

I like it. I don't like to lose money. I'm comfortable with risk. So, you know, those investments can be placed in a riskier place and hopefully give a higher return over the long run. Good deal.

Over here? Got a couple over here. We got Jonathan and then Mal. As a single young man, the cash flow into our bank account versus out of our bank account is we have a lot more coming in than what our expenses are. And So what is a good avenue to put those?

Because it's a great opportunity to either advance the kingdom, it's a great opportunity to invest for the long term, and then it's also a great opportunity to invest for the short term as in housing or vehicle purchase for the years ahead and marriage and different issues. So what's a good what's a good balance to you? You're not worrying about tomorrow and you know, but you're also being careful about tomorrow. You know, one of the things that I thought was helpful in one of the slides that Al had up there is he allocated repetitive percentages to different kinds of expenses and things like that. And I would just immediately think that allocating regular wise disbursements, in your situation, your expenses are really, really low.

And just come up with a mix, a diversified mix, that gets you where you want to be in five or ten years and just keep doing it regularly. I know that's not very specific, but Al's list was a really good list of options. You can play around. Your food bill's not going to be as high as his. So you can play around with the numbers and move them about.

Al? I was gonna say that if you get in the habit of just investing a certain amount per month, 100 bucks, 200 bucks, 300 bucks, whatever. And if the, there's something called dollar cost averaging and that essentially means this, if the market goes down, you can feel really good because your 200 bucks buys a lot more. If the market goes up, you can feel really good because everything you put in there is worth more. So over time, a consistent investment, especially if you may not have access to a 401k or something like that, which takes your company, adds to it, but a consistent pattern of investment like that, and you can work some numbers and decide what that number is, 100, 200, 300, 500, whatever you're comfortable with, that grows very rapidly.

Some of these vehicles are also tax deferred, IRAs and so on, where you can invest tax free, so you're not paying income tax. There's different strategies on whether to do that or not. Or use a Roth IRA, which is after tax. But the point is a habit of investing builds up a lot. And money, a few hundred dollars placed in there when you're 20 something is a lot of money when you're 60 or 70.

You know if it's grown over time with that compound interest example that I showed So I would encourage a habit of if you want if you say well, I'll wait until I'm 30 And then I'll have money maybe or 35. That's not a good idea Get it in there where you young get in the habit and kind of adjust it along the way as you see fit I'll just add to you know before Ash gets it I would eschew doodads and styling okay Doodads, you know reduce reduce as much spending as you can on doodads that aren't assets. Focus on accumulating assets. One of the biggest traps for young people, particularly young men, is cars. You know, my advice to young men with cars is buy cheap cars.

Buy cheap cars when you're young. You buy expensive cars when you're young, it'll put you back 10 years. It'll put you back 10 years. So be really wise. Don't, don't feel like you have to look like such a hot shot in your car, you know, because you don't.

You're gonna be, you know, you're gonna be a cold shot 10 years later while you're looking like a hot shot when you're 19. So that's my advice, buy cheap cars, run them into the ground, total them, and then get another one, and keep doing that for a long time. Yeah, Ash, you were just going to say something? Yeah, I was just going to say, Al's talking about investment, and I agree with everything that's been said by the other man. The one other thing I would say for especially young men in terms of investment is, Al had on his slide, and perhaps didn't get time, to talk about buy a big shovel.

You know what that means? That means the bigger shovel you have, the more you can dig. And in your terms, it's about getting a really solid credential, education, so that you can earn. So if you invest in yourself, in education, that is not spending money, that is investing. So I would say one thing for the young men, invest in yourself so you can really earn as you get older.

That foundation of having a qualification, having a real trade, having a real job in the long run will pay. So this is another question that might or could quite likely be answered in Mr. Jennings' talk tomorrow. We've talked a lot about long-term investment strategies and generally speaking, investments are more, you're thinking with a long-term in mind. But what are some good avenues for short-term investments?

Assets that you want to keep fairly liquid, but that you would like to basically keep up with inflation. There's some things that are popular, high-yield savings accounts, but just even as the interest rates have gone down, those have become even less attractive options. Are there good avenues for fairly liquid short-term investments, or is basically all investing a long-term strategy? Let's push that to tomorrow for Kelly's presentation. I think that's the best thing.

Mao? Are you still on, Mao? You still? Yeah, OK. I guess this is part of also the question for us tomorrow specifically.

But so there's some talk about my friends because the world is so different today, now the Federal Reserve can essentially just create money out of thin air. The interest rate is so low and there's some talk about my friends to just borrow as much as possible because especially if you get a government backed loan such as a mortgage, the interest rate is ridiculously low. If it's 15 years, it's 2.5% and if it's 30 years, 3%. Actually, right now, it's 2.92%. And it's like cash is decreasing in value all the time.

You know, My parents just signed a contract to buy a house. The same house last year was like 10% cheaper. So even a few days ago, not a few days, a few months ago when I actually, So I'm also in the Army Reserve, so every month I drill for one weekend. And I saw this 19-year-old, he was using, playing with Robinhood, this app, stock. So Robinhood allows you to take a margin loan three times what you have on your account.

So if you have $5, 000 of stocks in your account, you can take $15, 000 out for 5% interest rate, a 5.66 per year. It's like so low, money's so cheap. I'm just wondering if that attitude is biblical, is it sinful to think that because time has changed these biblical principles, because in biblical times we're talking about gold standard, everything's measured in silver, so many shekels of silver, so much gold, but now, you know, money's cheap. And the federal government, they're saying, some of my friends are saying, you know, they won't let the housing market crash like in 2008 again, because, you know, so many people's net worth is tied up to the house and to the stock market, to the 401k, so there's a fat put. They will never crash, so just take risks, go crazy.

The mortgage, I talked to my lender, they're allowing debt rate, so it's kind of crazy, I mean, when I wanted to, they actually encourage you to borrow more, because I guess they make more money out of it. And they allow a debt to income ratio of 43% now. I mean, I guess it's always been that way. So basically you make say $1, 000 a month and they are willing to limit your monthly payment to $430. So I just see a lot of craziness among some of my friends.

Even the 19-year-old, but the 19-year-old I saw in the Army Reserve, who probably just got of ATE, on a basic training, and is already taking margin loans, going so crazy. Are we gonna, if we don't do that, do we risk missing out in this big bubble that with all the money that's coming to the system? I really gravitate toward the terminology that you used. Craziness. My view right now is that we don't know how things are going to roll here.

There are things that have happened that have not happened before, at the level that it's happened. There are forces at work that I don't know, I don't know how you project them. I'm talking to, I'm trying to talk to financial people about it. And they don't know, but here's, here's what they all tell me. Contain debt or get rid of it and reduce your expenses.

That's what they're telling me. Well, you could have said that at any time in history, right? But I'm really confident in saying that. But this is an unusual environment. I've seen four downturns in my lifetime.

This is different. This is different. The reality is is God will take care of his people. Amen. I plan to address some of that tomorrow as well.

I think some of those specific questions you might talk through with some of these guys, these interesting instruments, unusual opportunities and things like that, matters of interest rates and whether you should buy hard assets, whether you should, you know, go into debt more because of inflation. I don't really know the answers to that question. Interest rates are so remarkable to me. When Deborah and I got married, our first house, we got a smoking interest rate deal on our first house. It was 9.5%.

Times have changed. So, is there anyone else? Adam has a question, yeah. Oh, Mike had a comment, Go ahead, yeah. Yeah, I just wanna kind of take something that Al had put up on the board earlier and just drive it home to a lot of the young adults and the teenagers coming up.

Al showed percentages of what goes where in real life and so many of you guys that are getting jobs you're still at home with your parents And so you don't have those expenses. And so it's like, well, that doesn't apply to me. I don't have houses. I'm not paying for gas and utilities. But I would, this is something I did when Jaylen got his first job.

I created a spreadsheet and I just put all those percentages down. I said every dollar that comes in, apply it to this sheet as if you had a house, as if you had to pay for utilities, as if you had to pay for food. And do that and get into a pattern. Because the easiest thing to do, I know by experience, the easiest thing to do is you get that first job and money's coming in and you don't have those expenses and it's easy to go out and start to accumulate things. And that sets you into a pattern.

And so if you, at an early age, that first job, start applying in those kind of percentages that Al was doing so that when you get the house and you're having to pay for gas and somebody actually has to buy toilet paper, yeah. You don't think about it until you're out on your own. And then all of this stuff costs money and you can actually save a lot so that when that time comes that you got to make a down payment on your first house you've got some money to do it because you haven't spent it all along so learn early to do that now. Amen. You know, there are a lot of Starbucks poppers and skinny jeans because they spent their money on coffee every day.

And they could have had a lot of money if they hadn't done that for five years. Because they weren't thinking the way Mike was just promoting. Yes, go ahead, Adam. Yes, my question involves increasing your value as an employee, getting a bigger shovel, and juxtaposing that against the time that's taken away from your family, because in some cases you may be spending time outside of your job that you're working full time to add value to yourself looking down the road to getting a bigger shovel. And so I was just wondering what should the provider's perspective be on that?

What should the family's perspective be on that? Because you know in some cases you may be looking at a nano degree, as somebody mentioned, like in Google's analytics or whatever, and just as Colton mentioned, you know, you're taking value that could be spent with your family, but you're putting it somewhere else? Those are really hard questions. I think a husband and wife have to figure that out together about what's wise, what they can tolerate. We do have an unusual situation historically.

And that is that companies today, many of them, unless it's a very highly technical field, they're not requiring education. They're looking for diligence, they're looking for humility, And they're looking for competence and learnability. And hey, the big tech companies are not prioritizing degrees right now. They're prioritizing skill and diligence and character. And can they fit people in to the emerging technologies.

But I think the answer to that question is a difficult one in a format like this. I think you'd have to ask lots of other questions of your family and what are the income implications. It's easy to sell away your family life by trying to be someone in ten years. And it can be a terrible mistake. I just think you have to weigh all the, you know, all the factors involved in that.

Yes, Ash. Two things. One is we need to get that big shovel before we get married. So young men have to make sure they do that. Yeah.

The second thing is we need to continue to keep the axe sharp. A dull axe is no good. It takes a lot more effort and you won't cut as much wood and you'll spend a lot more time. So two things that are happening today is, and something's called the half-life of knowledge, which means how long does it take for the knowledge you've gained, for half of that to become totally useless. It used to be for an engineering degree in the 60s, the half life of the engineering degree was 30 years.

It's now between two and a half and five years. So it's not just the matter of getting that big shovel but then it's also keeping the axe sharp and so we have to plan to keep up to date in a lot of our jobs to continue to study. So we have to plan for that because our knowledge is going out of date very rapidly in a lot of areas. Yeah. Yeah, rapid, rapid change.

I'm saying this from my own personal experience. I only got to try and get that shovel bigger after I was married. And it cost us a lot, not in terms of money, but in terms of not having children for a long time. Me going away for a year to go and study, Sona having to live on her own, the price you pay is huge. And so I was speaking from very personal experience in terms of getting that shovel before you're married.

Amen. I'll just add, that's a great question. And everything's a cost benefit analysis, right? There's gonna be a cost and a benefit. And you have to weigh that out carefully.

In mid-90s, I was working for an employer in Chicago and they offered essentially 100% tuition reimbursement. So I decided to go back to school and get an MBA. Now that was a large cost on the family, a big cost. It had a benefit in the end where there was a reward. But those things got to be weighed carefully.

You know, what is your current family situation? How many kids do you have? You know, what are the needs of the family? And at the time I was working full time too, so These are tough calls. These are really tough calls.

You're investing as a family something, a short-term pain for a long-term gain. You're working with your wife and calling those actions based on one of the kinds of circumstances you have around you. In our case, we had the tuition thing being totally paid for, which was a huge benefit. You know, so you weigh it all together and you make a decision and you see how it goes. And that's what we did.

So there's no easy answer to that because there's always a cost there's always a benefit so you have to you have to weigh those out carefully and prayerfully. Amen. Well just Just one other comment too is a little bit with what Nate was talking about in what you just spoke about Adam. Back when I was at the dealership, that's the conversation that we had where I was looking at the amount of hours I was putting in there and costing that. So through a series of events, I took a second thing selling the log homes kind of on the side.

But then when we decided it was time to move on from that, we decided, I think a little bit like you're talking about making the shovel bigger, was getting my real estate broker license, which was a couple nights a week. But we knew it was gonna be these set hours and what was coming after that. And then starting the construction company at the time when Isaiah was like 11 or 12, with the intent of that. And then from that is kind of where we're at now with, you know, it's transitioned all the way up to Jenkins and large loss and doing real estate. So It's that cost analysis.

I mean, it was a bunch to get licensed. It was a bunch to invest into it. But it was specific intent to fully change kind of a career thing to get different as opposed to now we've got, you know, continuing education and things that we do to keep these things going with the current career to make those better. So I think it kind of speaks a little bit to both of those. Well, those are great questions.

I think We are about ready to knock it off here tonight and we'll pick it up in the morning at 9 o'clock and we'll push on to noon. Tomorrow we'll continue on. If you have more questions, we're going to do the same thing tomorrow and open it up for questions and answers. So we'll see you tomorrow. Josh, you want to come and lead us?