Department Produces Tools for Wise Financial Management

President Gordon B. Hinckley and other Church leaders have counseled multiple times concerning self-reliance, debt, and wise financial management, and the Church’s Welfare Services Department has produced tools designed to help Church members follow that counsel.

“So many of our people are heavily in debt for things that are not entirely necessary,” President Hinckley said in October 2001. “I urge you as members of this Church to get free of debt where possible and to have a little laid aside against a rainy day” (“The Times in Which We Live,” Liahona, Jan. 2002, 84–85; Ensign, Nov. 2001, 72).

A redesigned pamphlet, One for the Money: Guide to Family Finance, is a tool available to members to help them understand debt and manage their finances.

“Church members are not immune from financial pressures,” said Dennis Lifferth, managing director of the Welfare Services Department. “From the earliest days of the Church we have been counseled to be self-reliant and live within our means.”

The content of One for the Money: Guide to Family Finance is from a talk given by Elder Marvin J. Ashton (1915–94) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles at a Welfare Services meeting in April 1975. It was last published as a pamphlet in 1992. The new design has added graphics, a revamped layout, and is designed to make the message of Elder Ashton’s talk more accessible to the reader. The design amplifies 12 timeless principles outlined by Elder Ashton:

1. Pay an honest tithing.

2. Learn to manage money before it manages you.

3. Learn self-discipline and self-restraint in money matters.

4. Use a budget.

5. Teach family members early the importance of working and earning.

6. Teach children to make money decisions in keeping with their capacities to comprehend.

7. Teach each family member to contribute to the total family welfare.

8. Make education a continuing process.

9. Work toward home ownership.

10. Appropriately involve yourself in an insurance program.

11. Understand the influence of external forces on family finances and investments.

12. Appropriately involve yourself in a food storage and emergency preparedness program.

The Church is in the process of making the pamphlet available in 10 languages: Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.

The redesigned pamphlet will be available free through Church distribution centers or online in the U.S. and Canada at www.ldscatalog.com. An electronic version of the redesigned pamphlet and other financial management resources will be available online at ProvidentLiving.org.

President Hinckley has offered this promise: “If you have paid your debts, if you have a reserve, even though it be small, then should storms howl about your head, you will have shelter for your wives and children and peace in your hearts. That’s all I have to say about it, but I wish to say it with all the emphasis of which I am capable” (“To the Boys and to the Men,” Liahona, Jan. 1999, 66; Ensign, Nov. 1998, 51).