Financial Finish Lines

Michael Mulcahy
Written By Michael Mulcahy, CFA®, CPWA®

I wanted to highlight a short video we have circulated internally with the team.  A few years ago, we read the book “God and Money: How We Discovered True Riches at Harvard Business School” by Greg Baumer and John Cortines.  The book was published in February 2016, and this video is a revisit of one of the key features discussed within the book – a financial finish line.

If you have read this book already – this video is worth a watch.  If you haven’t read it (I’d recommend it, and I’ll send you a copy) here is some context surrounding their discussion.

What is a financial finish line?

In God and Money, Cortines and Baumer highlight two different types of financial finish lines.

1)      A Lifestyle (Income) Finish Line – This is a targeted cap in expenditures or assumed income for you and your family.  It is a decision and commitment to contain your lifestyle to how much you need to live on each month.  The intent is to provide freedom to be generous with what you earn beyond your lifestyle finish line.  This is revisited heavily in this Generous Giving follow up video.  Cortines talks about adjusting his finish line for inflation as well as family size and ultimately trying to maintain a specified quality of life rather than a specific dollar number (e.g. caveats for home repairs, private education, etc.)

2)      A Net Worth Finish Line – Both Cortines and Baumer would support saving for retirement and to provide for your family and children, but they caution against accumulating for accumulation’s sake.  Establishing a net worth finish line is an attempt to guard you from an endless pursuit of a bigger number while still allowing for comfortable retirement and emergency cushions.

Should you set a financial finish line?

Yes.  Finish lines are tools to protect us from the endless want of “more” and to remind us that everything belongs to God.  We are stewards of His wealth, and part of that role includes not only enjoying it but also using it to better His world.  We must be careful not to follow an endless pursuit of wealth itself.  There is no amount of net worth that can be enough (Ecclesiastes 5:10) – what satisfies is not wealth but the provider of wealth (John 4:10-14).

Do you have a finish line in place? Here are some more resources for thinking about this subject:

Should you set a financial finish line? - National Christian Foundation (ncfgiving.com)

90 Day Financial Finish Line Pledge

God and Money

Free Resources — God and Money

Michael Mulcahy, CFA®, CPWA®

Michael serves as a Vice President of Kings Path where he provides portfolio design and planning services to help families and foundations achieve their financial and legacy goals. Michael has a passion for developing tax-saving investment and asset location strategies, consulting on the development of estate structures, building and communicating business succession plans and coordinating philanthropic projects for business owners and generous givers.

Prior to joining Kings Path, he was a Senior Investment Analyst at Salient Partners where he worked across different strategies including the following: leveraged credit, value-oriented US equities, covered call and long-short tech-sector. Additionally, Michael worked on special projects where he assisted with capital financing projects, strategic acquisitions, and business unit sales.

Michael received his bachelor’s degree in business honors and finance from Texas A&M University, graduating cum laude. He is a CFA® charterholder and a CPWA® professional through study at University of Chicago Booth School of business. He is a member of the Investments & Wealth Institute® and the CFA Society of Houston.

Michael serves on the board of Vision Inspired Foundation which he helped found in 2017. Happy to be back in his hometown, Michael lives in Sugar Land with his wife, Jordan and two daughters.

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