Faith and Finance Resources

• Faith and Finance Seminar Slides (PDF) and Summary (PDF)
• Faith and Finance Scripture References (PDF)
• Consumer Price Index Data (PDF, XLS)
• Retirement Illustration Spreadsheet (XLS)
• References:
  • The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio by William Bernstein (my top pick for summarizing investment theory, history, psychology, and business as well as practical how-to)
  • Common Sense on Mutual Funds by John C. Bogle
  • Stocks for the Long Run by Jeremy J. Siegel
  • Investing for Dummies by Eric Tyson
• Starting out with little money, I recommend setting up a Roth IRA with Vanguard:
  • The minimum amount needed is the price of a single share.  Click here for the current share prices for stock ticker symbols VT (Vanguard Total World Stock ETF), VTI (Vanguard Total [US] Stock Market ETF), and BND (Vanguard Total [US] Bond Market ETF).  Here's more information about choosing Vanguard ETFs.  This minimum is, unfortunately, not apparent on their main IRA starting page that states "Get started for as little as $1,000.*".  This more modest start is made clear in the footnote to this statement.  You can start with very little!
  • There are no trade commissions for online trades of Vanguard ETFs.  (Costs for trades of other shares are $7 online and $25 by phone.)  If you're content with Vanguard ETFs (some of the best there are), you can't do better with a discount broker.
  • The Vanguard Roth IRA's $20 annual fee is waived when you opt for e-delivery.

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Todd Neller