Category: Estate Planning

Formula for IMPACT – part two

September 5, 2023

by Ron Bare

Alan and Katherine Barnhart gave away their company. They had spent years working on building a strong company and growing their sales but gave it all away in the end. “God is not impressed with the commas and zeroes,” Alan said. “We’re not giving away anything that God hasn’t given us.”

They were confident knowing that God owned their resources and that they had defined enough. Intentional future planning gave them the freedom to make such a generous decision.

Defining enough is an important step in recognizing that God owns everything that we have, and that endless accumulation is not what we were created for. Let us instead use our resources to join in God’s mission, spreading the Gospel through our generosity toward others. This is easier said than done, but there are six steps that we believe will help you define enough.

  • First, add up all your monthly expenses. This includes your mortgage, utilities, transportation, groceries, etc. Providing for your family is good and right, and requires planning.
  • Second, define your wants and enjoyments. This might include vacations, date nights, eating out, entertainment, etc. It’s important to enjoy life and spend time doing things you love!
  • Third, come up with a total annual spending/living goal. Once your needs and wants are defined, you can plan for both your living expenses and the things you enjoy.
  • Fourth, define how much you will need to accumulate to meet this goal of ‘enough.’ We would love to talk with you about this at Bare. This will cover what it looks like to work, save, and invest in order to have enough and then move forward to give in generous ways.
  • Fifth, pay off your debts! This is a crucial part of being financially free. When debts are not hanging over your head, you are free to move forward with saving, investing, and giving. 
  • Finally, build a base giving goal into your financial plan and try to expand this giving each year. 2 Corinthians 8:7 says, “But since you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in the love we have kindled in you—see that you also excel in this grace of giving” (NIV). How can you excel at giving? We encourage you to set an annual giving goal and then plan to expand that goal each year!

We’ve seen a variety of creative giving over the years in our clients’ lives. We’ve seen clients give the growth of their portfolio away, give their business to charity, and others have given real estate away. How can you be generous with the things God has given to you? We’d love to help you talk through what this could look like for you.

Alan and Katherine are just one example of someone who is generous with what God has given them. It’s such a great gift to the people they interact with and the communities they influence. It’s honoring to God as they remember the one who has given them all that they have.

To learn more about Alan and Katherine’s story, watch this video.

Why “Beyond Abundance” for Our Tagline?

December 12, 2022

by Ron Bare

As we mentioned in our last blog post, we have recently gone through a rebranding process and now have a “new” look and feel!  We hope you love this new look as much as we do! As we mentioned last month, as part of our rebranding, we created a new tagline  – “Beyond Abundance.” This tagline connects to our core value of “biblical wisdom” and ultimately connects to our approach of helping you with your financial decision making. We believe that living “beyond abundance,” is a posture of confidence in God, acknowledging that He can richly provide for us beyond what we need so we can generously share with others (2 Cor 9:8-12). A “beyond abundance” way of living offers freedom and opportunities to live a life of fullness (John 10:10), to impact the world far beyond what we could hope or imagine (Eph 3:20).

As we began thinking about what our tagline should be we first thought of what would resonate with you! And this is what we know – you love to be generous, and we love to promote generosity! We were reminded of all the generosity stories we have heard from you, and we have watched so many of you walk in a generous life that we can confidently say that 2 Cor 9:8-12 is true! We believe generosity is the most important part of a financial plan and a necessary component of a lasting legacy. A fulfilling and abundant life must contain living with open hands – looking for ways to be a blessing to those in need, our families, and others who we can love and serve.

In addition to generosity, we believe that it is important to be intentional to think about and expand our vision to align with desired impact, and then connect finances to this vision. Proverb 29:18 says in the KJV “Where there is no vision, the people perish”. We know as well as you do that people follow “visions” they deem worthy. What vision are you following? Have you paused to think intentionally about the vision for your life, family members and others you care about? Through our intentional process, we will help you bring clarity to your vision as well as work with you to align your money decisions to help carry your vision forward.

By living generously and clarifying your vision you can be confident that you are leaving a lasting impact in our world! You will be able to truly say you are living, “Beyond Abundance!” We look forward to connecting with you soon to continue to explore ways to do this together as well as share some new tools we are developing to help you tell your loved ones and the world your story of a “Beyond Abundance” life!

2021 – Year of Impact

March 22, 2021

by Ron Bare

Who or what are you impacting? This is the question we are asking at Bare Wealth Advisors in 2021. Each of us has an impact on someone or something, either in a positive or in a negative manner. Our mission at Bare is to help our clients “intentionally manage wealth that aligns with their God given purpose for maximum impact.” Our desire is to assist you in having the maximum impact with the wealth you are stewarding. What I (Ron) have learned over the past 25 years as a wealth advisor is that most of us aspire to having impact, but many things (both good and bad) easily get in the way of accomplishing this goal.

I recently heard a speaker say, “whenever we have excess it is easy to be wasteful.” It’s easy to think of this in terms of food, or time, but what about wealth? If you have more than enough, do you easily find yourself investing the extra into relationships or causes to help create impact? Or do you spend it on more temporal or short-term fun?

At Bare, we believe God has given us complete freedom to use wealth for enjoyment and for blessing our families, but also for SO much more! We believe in being intentional with excess wealth decisions so we can leave an impact and legacy. The end goal of managing wealth should not be endless accumulation. You have probably heard the saying, “you never see a hearse pulling a U-Haul full of our stuff.”  When we die, only what has been invested into people and impact will last. That is what we are passionate about. Imagine a world where we took the excess resources we have and intentionally invested these funds into causes or people for positive impact.

Let’s dream together about a few areas of possible impact:

Family – have we purposely invested into our families’ dreams, whether that be education, launching a business, or helping to fund a passion?

Local communities – how can we improve the community we live in? Do we know our neighbors and their struggles? Are we involved in local ministries? What other ways can we help our community?

World problems – what problem around the world do you wish to see positive change in? Clean water for all? Elimination of hunger? End of human slavery? Value of human life? I am sure we could name so many more.

Let me leave you with a simple formula for intentional money management so you can have meaningful impact:

  1. Work hard to earn a living and bring increase to your business. We were made to work and improve the earth. (Genesis 2:15)
  2. Learn to be content. Not an easy task but the more we learn contentment the more we can focus on the needs of others. (Philippians 4:12)
  3. Set long term financial goals – college, family, retirement, or other. When you know your goals, it is much easier to calculate how much you will need to accomplish those goals.
  4. Set a financial finish line. This can be an annual cap on your living expenses or a cap on your net worth. When this is set, work hard to grow your income or net worth (increase is good), but commit to using the increase for impact on others.

Following this four-step formula can help you intentionally have an impact in your family, local community, and the world. We look forward to working with you in 2021 to help you set and accomplish your goals and to begin discussions on what kind of impact you wish to leave this world!

Clarity in Planning

January 6, 2020

Driving into work today the classic 1972 Johnny Nash song “I Can See Clearly Now” came strolling into my mind.  It made me first break out in song and then contemplate the blessing of sight and finally consider how this year is going to be the Year of Vision at Bare Wealth Advisors.  You will hear more about our Year of Vision throughout the year but for now I simply want to focus on seeing clearly or having clarity.

Did you know that eyes are made up of 2 million working parts?  Or that your eye is the fastest muscle in your body?  I regularly take my eyes for granted and forget that my vision is one of the greatest gifts I have.  However, when I forget my glasses or get something in my eyes and lose the clarity of vision, it’s an easy reminder how critical it is to see clearly.

As a financial advisor, one of the areas we excel at is giving financial clarity to our clients.  It’s more than just wealth management and insurance products based on your age and risk tolerance.  These might provide a course but cannot provide full clarity.  Once we get a chance to walk through a full financial plan, understanding a client’s core values in addition to their financial goals and circumstances, we can provide a lot of clarity as to the path they are on and help them answer the question of “how much is enough?” in many areas of their financial lives.

We’re looking forward to 2020 and hope to see you soon!  As the Johnny Nash chorus continues, “It’s gonna be a bright (bright) bright (bright) sunshiny day”.

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