Due Diligence for Stocks

The true purpose of every Christian is to glorify God in all we do. That poses a challenge when we invest. If only there was a way to check up on the companies we invest in like a free screening tool.

Well, fear not because such a tool exists and it allows you to peek inside the stocks that make up your portfolio. Today host Rob West speaks with financial expert Robert Netzle about inspireinsight.com. And it's your calls at 800-525-7000.

800-525-7000. I'm Steve Moore. Due diligence for stocks. That's next right here on MoneyWise Live. Our friend Robert Netzle is CEO of Inspire Investing and he's here today to reveal a service that Christian investors have been waiting for for a very long time. Well that's right Steve.

Some may not realize that you can do this. Others may have been seeking this out and trying to piece it together with other tools and I think they're going to be excited about this free online tool that helps you tell whether a particular company aligns with your values. Robert, great to have you back with us again. My pleasure.

Thanks for having me. We're talking about your free screening tool at inspireinsight.com that allows you to separate quote-unquote the good guys from the bad and the idea is that all the data we need is out there but it's scattered all over the place and you've brought it together in this one tool haven't you? That's what we're trying to do and it's come a long way over the past several years kind of a long-term vision. We keep having investors ask us how do they find this information for their investment accounts. You know investing in companies that they see align with their little values and yeah and inspireinsight.com pieces together all this really disparate data that's floating around in the universe and ties it together in a nice easy to use ticker symbol search. Yeah well and you know the big idea here and I'm excited to say this particular area faith-based investing is growing rapidly but the big idea is that based on your convictions you may want to engage in a particular company as a shareholder and Robert I know you all have a lot of experience in that area really making your voice heard and perhaps having an impact on the company the leadership of the company by virtue of being an owner and voting in proxies and showing up in the shareholder meetings and calling investor relations or you may want to embrace a particular company because of what they do. They have a kingdom aspect to it or maybe they provide some sort of social good or contribute to human flourishing but this particular area is really focusing on those companies you may based on your convictions want to avoid but how do you know who to avoid if you don't understand what's going on at that particular company in terms of their direct business or perhaps how they use their corporate profits.

I know you have two tiers of inspire insight the paid version that has some advanced features but there's really a lot you can learn about various companies with the free version and it's great that you made it free so tell us why it is you and the team decided to do that. Well we've been serving the faith-based investor community for a number of years and one of the big gaps is really just education people just don't know what they don't know and what we meet personally about ten years ago had this epiphany and the Lord opened my eyes to the fact that I was investing his money into companies and the stocks mutual funds ETFs they were directly opposed to the things that are near and dear to God's heart you know things like abortion drug manufacturing and pornography and human trafficking and all these issues and I just was totally oblivious and it's completely obvious to us that really Christians just need a way to be educated about their portfolio so they can realize what's good what's bad what's in the portfolio and have the tool to then go and make you know wise stewardship decisions to glorify God and all that they do. Yeah well I think this is really a game changer putting this information in the hands of investors so they can really be empowered to learn to understand what's going on at a particular company which allows them to make a buy or sell decision for a particular company or perhaps even decide how they may want to engage with that company and make their voice known related to their own values and see if they can really help to shape and guide particular companies using InspireInsight.com well we're going to get into the details just around the quarter how does it work what can you learn what are the scores mean where does that data actually come from that and a whole lot more in just a moment. That's right Robert Netsley with us today CEO of Inspire Investing here to inspire all of us to dig just a little deeper we'll be back with more right after this. when it comes to investing guidance you want advice grounded in God's word that's the approach offered by sound mind investing SMI has helped tens of thousands of Christians acquire investing wisdom and confidence regardless of your investing experience or how much you have to invest you can learn to be a wise and faithful steward in the area of investing a short video webinar on profit and peace of mind is available now at soundmindinvesting.org what's in a name would you believe a girl named rota bike how about cheers boozer a retired policeman has a collection of strange names every one of which he says is a real name he came across on duty names like rock pile cherry pits and billy club perhaps the downside of modern technology and electronic communication is a loss of personal identity in some places we are better known by a number than by our name it is also more common in a world of over seven billion people to feel all alone but the Bible says God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life God loves you and offers you eternal life he knows your name and why he created you if you would like to know how to begin a personal relationship with Jesus Christ please call 888-NEED-HIM or chat with us at chataboutjesus.com if the heavy burden of debt is robbing you of freedom and peace of mind Christian credit counselors can help we're a nationwide nonprofit credit counseling organization that has helped over 300,000 individuals in the last 27 years get out of credit card debt 80% faster while honoring that debt in full to learn how Christian credit counselors can help you visit christiancreditcounselors.org that's christiancreditcounselors.org or call 800-557-1985 so when you invest your money on Wall Street where does your money go really who are the people that take your money and what did they use it for well not necessarily an easy question but Robert Netsley is with us today to help us work through all that and to explain a new tool they had that makes it a whole lot easier to find this information out well I'm excited to put this in the hands of our listeners those who want to understand at this level what's going on in these companies and whether or not it aligns appropriately with their values Robert pull the layers of the onion back for us tell us how inspire insight works well inspire insight.com it's really simple it's designed for just every investor out there to be able to use quickly and easily just go to inspire insight.com you type in a ticker symbol at the top so maybe it's your mutual fund or ETF or a stock that you own or maybe you're considering owning or been recommended to you by somebody or what have you and hit enter and then you'll go to the detail page and it'll show you all the good the bad and the ugly of what that company or ETF or mutual fund is involved in from a faith-based ESG or environmental social governance perspective and it gives you all the data you get to drill down in to dozens of categories that may be of interest to you and find really that granular data of what a company is involved in again from the good and bad that you may want to support or avoid in your portfolio yeah very good you apply a score to each of these companies so tell us a bit about that rating system and how that score is derived the inspire impact score is our proprietary methodology of how we analyze and rank a company and identify how closely aligned they are with biblical values so it's a faith-based ESG scoring methodology and it rates a company from negative 100 to positive 100 anything above zero we would consider investable from a biblically responsible investing perspective so in other words it avoids exposure to issues like abortion or human trafficking and other issues that would be problematic for Christians and then the higher the score goes closer to 100 is where you see a company that is really a blessing to their customers their communities their workforce the world in general across again dozens of environmental social and corporate governance categories so that inspire how we use that is really look to build portfolios at the highest scoring companies not just avoiding the bad companies quote-unquote but really looking for the best most inspiring positive biblically aligned companies to invest in and so we go on inspireinsight.com all those scores companies that you look up are readily available with a click of the mouse and allows you to really easily gauge whether this company may be something that you want to look at for your own portfolio or not yeah give us a sense Robert if you happen to know out of the S&P 500 how many would be positive in terms of having a score greater than zero yeah definitely more than half so it changes every once in a while obviously but there's about 57% or so of the S&P 500 that have positive inspire impact scores when you look at a broader universe you know not just the large companies in America but you know the small and mid-sized companies you know it's close to 85 90% of all companies have positive impact scores and it's really it's those really large companies that have their fingers on all sorts of different pies you know political lobbying and philanthropy you know donating money to Planned Parenthood and things of that nature that have some kind of big issues but yeah inspireinsight.com allows you to get right down to the nitty-gritty and see which companies are doing what and where does all that data come from I imagine it's a massive amount of data that's being fed in to pull all these scores and ratings together yeah it's kind of mind-bending for me but you know our roots are in the Silicon Valley so obviously we use technology it's an artificial intelligence driven technology that scrapes the internet daily millions upon millions of data points are filtered through this database every day and it's able to read the context of news stories or corporate releases or you know government papers or whatever else may be out there and locate these different categories among all of that data and just to put it very simply categorizes it into this database that then applies a faith-based viewpoint on those issues and distills that down into a score and then provides the details of all the individual issues you know on such and such a date this company donating this much money to Planned Parenthood for instance or this company manufactures XYZ abortion drugs and allows you to read that right there on the screen again just a click of the mouse. Boy this sounds fantastic I can't imagine doing it without the help of computers these days let me ask you about something else ESG I understand has become all the rage and values-based investing what is that exactly? Yeah ESG is one of the gazillion acronyms we have in the financial world stands for environmental social and governance investing and very broad categories where you know you're paying attention to a company's footprint of impact not just their financial impact but you know how are they stewarding the environment how are they interacting with social issues such as their workforce or supply chains and things of that nature corporate governance how are they compensating their executives versus their employees are they involved in bribery issues and things that you find in other countries and maybe even in our own country at times and so you look at this whole impact of a company and you can interpret those data points in a lot of different ways depending on your world view but with inspire insight.com it allows you to have that faith-based worldview applied into this ESG framework and it's in a really unique and compelling way. And I know you actually apply categories or you look at various categories in evaluating a particular company so talk to us about these categories which would include ESG but perhaps go beyond that. Sure so you know a good example is the abortion issue so that is a in the social category so both from a secular and a faith-based perspective you know women's health in the broad category would be something that is considered from a secular standpoint you may you know have seen like socially responsible investment funds out there for a long time or maybe even invest in them yourself because we find that a lot of Christians have chosen those quote socially responsible funds because they're trying to be responsible which is a great thing to try to be but when you peel back the cover and you type in that ticker symbol on inspire insight.com you find that well the social issues and the responsible issues that those managers are managing for really are opposite of what the Bible would teach so they're ascribing positive points to companies that would support abortion or manufacture abortion drugs or donate to Planned Parenthood and things of that nature.

Whereas obviously with a faith-based lens from a biblical perspective those are going to be negative issues and so it's really important to know what's under the hood so to speak we can't just accept the label that Wall Street puts on a fund and take their word for it we need to be diligent and really look underneath and see what's going on. Yeah very good. Well a lot to learn from inspireinsight.com and as you said Robert all the data is there so you don't just have to accept your score you can actually parse through it and see what aligns with your values. Hey thanks for stopping by today great work on this new tool.

My pleasure guys thanks for having me. And again you can check out their new absolutely free stock screening tool at inspireinsight.com. Your calls next 800-525-7000. This is Money Wise Live. Your family and your money are two very important subjects that's why in this month's Money Wise e-magazine we're giving your family tips and tools to grow closer to God closer together and closer to true financial freedom. Get a practical advice to strengthen financial communication in your marriage infuse more budget-friendly family activities into your week and a lot more.

Your free Money Wise e-magazine subscription is waiting for you at moneywise.org slash sign up. Hebrews 4-12 says for the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. Here's Beth Moore with a quick word. Exodus 34 verse 6 I'll back up to 5 just to give you a little bit of context. Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him this is Moses and proclaimed his name the Lord and he passed in front of Moses proclaiming the Lord the Lord the compassionate and gracious God slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness rebellion and sin yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished.

If he passes in front of him when the description is given it's we see him a manifestation of this in 33 at the end of 33 then we see a manifestation of this described in 34 in 34 when he passes by him and proclaims his name what name does he proclaim to him he proclaims to him the Lord the Lord the compassionate and gracious God slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness maintaining love to thousands of generations forgiving wickedness rebellion and sin God describes himself first and foremost after proclaiming the Lord the Lord that is a word that means the covenant keeping God and when he begins to describe himself proclaiming his name I am the compassionate and gracious God the first adjective he gives himself is compassion. You've been listening to a quick word with Beth Moore. Join Beth for the online experience releasing September 15th at BethMoore.org BethMoore.org.

Keep listening for another quick word with Beth Moore. Many people are experiencing financial challenges such as credit card debt downsizing debt in jobs and depleted savings in fact more than half of all divorces are the result of financial pressures at home but there's hope in Your Money Counts biblical financial expert Howard Dayton shows that the Bible is a veritable blueprint for managing your finances and you'll discover the profound impact it has on your relationship with God. Your Money Counts is available when you click the store button at MoneyWiseLive.org Hey thanks so much for joining us today on Money Wise Live I'm Steve Moore your host is Rob West and Rob's taking your financial calls today on any financial topic anything of interest to you dial right now 800-525-7000 whether it's saving giving getting out of debt managing what you have investing what you have let's talk about it 800-525-7000. Rob let's begin by going up to Grand Rapids Michigan that is and let's say hi to Nathan. Nathan we're so glad you called today you're on Money Wise Live.

Thank you for taking my call I appreciate it. My question is I've got my wife and I have got a TOD account about $437,000 what I'd like to do is I've got it invested with a within mutual funds and I'm making fairly good money on it what I'd like to do is take the excess from those those accounts and invest that into ministries I'd like to honor Matthew 25 you know naked the clothes you sick visitors that so forth prisoners widows orphans I'd like to fulfill those scriptures but I don't have a way of I guess vetting charities I got I came to the Lord in the early 70s and I got burnt by several different ministries that weren't really ministries so I'm just a little gun shy. Yeah yeah well I can certainly appreciate that Nathan and congratulations for just the way you've handled your finances in such a way that you now have a surplus and I love the idea that you want to take that and not necessarily increase your lifestyle but put that to work for Kingdom causes clearly when we look at the scriptures we see there are some things that are on the heart of God as it relates to how we should handle his money and our giving and clearly the ministry of God's word but also the ministry of God's justice and you know I think we see so many of these areas of need including the ministry of God's mercy and you're touching on so many of those things that are on your heart and that's wonderful. Let me ask you Nathan are you looking to just take the income or the proceeds and make direct gifts or have you considered actually transferring some of these securities in such a way that you could avoid capital gains if these are in taxable accounts? I guess I'm not wise enough to do that.

Yeah okay no problem let me ask a couple of questions oh go ahead sorry. What I'd like to do is still have control that if something comes along I'd like to have the money to support say a missionary that comes through church I run across a family that needs they need a car I can maybe purchase a car for them so I'd like to have some control over it you know what I'm saying? I do yeah absolutely well one of my favorite giving tools is something called the donor advised fund and I would encourage you to look at that now keep in mind whenever you're making a gift out of a donor advised fund it would have to go to a charity or a not-for-profit so that would include all of your church that would include 501c3 ministries it would though preclude you from making a direct gift to an individual it would have to go to a not-for-profit organization but the benefit of the donor advised fund Nathan for at least that portion that you want to give directly to ministries is that you can not only transfer in cash in your donor advised fund but you can also transfer in any kind of asset namely appreciated stock or mutual fund shares and when they're then liquidated because you want to grant out a gift and you would be the one directing that they would be sold and there would not be any tax due so you'd get the full benefit of the contribution at the value of the security that you're moving into your fund and it would be the full amount once it's liquidated would then be available to be gifted and our friends at the National Christian Foundation can help you with that at ncfgiving.com and by the way they have a local office there in Grand Rapids and could be a great resource to you but for that portion that you want to actually make be able to make a direct gift to an individual you would have to do that yourself and what I would do is perhaps inside that account if you have income that's coming off of that that you don't need you could perhaps move that over to a separate giving account that you've designated yourself just so you have that money readily available to make those gifts.

Was there anything else though specific you were looking to do that I haven't addressed? You said I didn't catch the last one the national what fund? Yeah National Christian Foundation NCF for short and they serve about twenty five thousand Christian families across the country and around the world they work nationally but also have thirty local offices one of which is in your hometown but National Christian Foundation basically is just there to help Christians be wise givers and one of the great tools that they will talk to you about is something called a giving fund or a donor advised fund and think of that like a charitable checking account if you will where as you move stock or cash into the account you get the deduction for the contribution at that time and then at your click of a mouse or a phone call you can grant the money out at your leisure as the Lord leads.

The benefit is one of them is that you will just get that one contribution statement a year as opposed to individual contribution statements from all the ministries because you get the deduction as it goes into the donor advised fund not as it leaves and is granted out at your direction if you follow me. Nathan does that help? That's very helpful thank you so much. Okay Nathan give NCF a call and again the website ncfgiving.com.

Thanks very much. Plainfield, Indiana, Devin we have just a little bit of time here what's your question for Rob today? Devin you with us? Oh I think maybe we lost Devin we'll come back and try to get him later on in the meantime how about an email Rob that says dear Rob and Steve I'm of retirement age my husband just left me we're in the final stages of divorce I've never handled the finances before it feels foreign to me what should I do first? Well first of all to this writer who sent this email just want you to know my heart goes out to you we'll certainly ask the MoneyWise community to be praying for you and then in a challenging season I would say number one put together a list of all assets liabilities financial accounts get it all in one place then put a spending plan together and our coaches can help at MoneyWiseLive.org then set a meeting with a certified kingdom advisor you can find that at MoneyWiseLive.org as well. Thanks Rob if you have an email for Rob keep it brief the address is questions at MoneyWise.org questions at MoneyWise.org 800-525-7000 give us a call. How should we as Christians think about investing? What if we could invest our money in a way that aligns with what we believe? At Eventide we believe it is possible to love God and love our neighbor in the very practice of investing. We design investments for performance and a better world so you can invest for the future with a sense of wholeness and purpose. We call this investing that makes the world rejoice.

More information is available at InvestEvenTide.com. American Health Care Ministries enables believers to show love for one another by sharing each other's health costs. Through CHM's voluntary health cost sharing programs members uplift each other spiritually and financially.

CHM is an eligible option under the Affordable Care Act and a Better Business Bureau accredited charity interested learn more by calling 800-791-6225 or online at CHMinistries.org. Hi my name is Ryan a communications major at the Moody Bible Institute. The Moody Radio Verse of the Week is found in 2 Chronicles 7-14. If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways then I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and heal their land.

That is 2 Chronicles 7-14 the Moody Radio Verse of the Week. Okay two raisins, one cracker and a single almond. Yep that's my foot pantry. All of it? We laugh but sometimes Christians feed themselves spiritually the same way.

Sparse. Why not take in something healthy? Today in the Word is a daily dose of scripture and application. A fresh topic or a book of the Bible every month. Plus it's available in three flavors, print, podcast or email, all free.

Make the healthier choice at todayintheword.org. Many people adopt an attitude toward marriage and finances that it'll all work out somehow but sadly it often doesn't. Financial woes can devastate a marriage but there is a better way, God's Way. Money and Marriage God's Way by Howard Dayton will help you discover God's approach to growing your finances, strengthening your relationship with your mate and cultivating Godly joy.

Money and Marriage God's Way is available when you click the store button at MoneyWiseLive.org. With SRN News, I'm John Scott. President Trump has announced an expansion of a ban on offshore drilling in Florida speaking beside the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse. Mr. Trump says he's extending and expanding a ban on new offshore drilling sites off the Florida coast as well as Georgia and South Carolina. The existing moratorium covers the Gulf of Mexico and the president says the new one will also cover the Atlantic coast, a significant political concern in coastal states like Florida. Israel and the United Arab Emirates will sign their historic deal normalizing relations at a White House ceremony on September 15th. Helicopters continue to rescue people from California wildfires, the state already setting a record with two million acres burned.

Big tech stocks slumped again on Wall Street, the Dow was off 632 points today, the NASDAQ down 465. This is SRN News. By this all men will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. That's John 1335 and one that is certainly worth committing to memory. You're listening to MoneyWise Live. Let's continue on by going to Leonardtown, Maryland. Hey, Charles, what's on your mind, sir?

Good afternoon. Yes. Yeah, I've been debating whether or not to tap my 401k to pay off my mortgage. I've got a $150,000 mortgage at about 3.75% and the house is probably market value right around $400,000. I've got $815,000 in 401k. I just watched it vanish $50,000 in March and grow back and I'm wondering if I shouldn't use it before I lose it. Yeah.

Well, Charles, here's my thought on that. Number one, I mean, yeah, we go through these seasons where the market will take a downturn. Obviously, this year was unusual in the sense that we went from bull market to bear market, at least technically down 20% in the shortest period of time ever, and that was not systemic in nature, meaning there weren't inherent problems in the financial system or the economy. It was really event driven. It was because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But you've seen what's happened. We've come roaring back because the economy was strong going into it. The consumer was strong and the Federal Reserve has basically said, we'll put unlimited resources behind this economy to keep it functioning as we weather this health driven event. And so these types of things, although this particular one, we didn't know what it was going to look like, but we do expect the market to ebb and flow.

And keep in mind, what we experienced earlier this year, albeit brief, was following a 12 year bull market that was probably the greatest bull market we've ever seen. So I think the key is with investing is we want to stay long term. We want to invest according to our goals.

We want to have a stated objective, right? We don't just invest for investing sake because we might be giving up opportunities to do some more giving, being generous, and we don't necessarily just want to build bigger barns. At the same time, as long as we have God given goals and we know where we're headed, we know why we're saving and for what purposes, and we're giving along the way, then I think there's nothing wrong with us putting aside some for the future.

So when you can't work or God redirects you to your next assignment in a later season of life, you have the resources to support yourself. So the question is, do you pull money out at any point for specific reasons? I don't think this choppiness in the market is necessarily a reason to pull it out because again, we need to expect these kinds of gyrations. Keep in mind, the typical bear market lasts between 18 months and three years.

This just happened to be one that was very brief, and so again, as long as we have that ten-year time horizon, we should expect it and then we know we'll weather it and come out on the other side and move to higher territory, at least historically speaking, that's the way it's always been. Now, what about paying off debt, which clearly is one of the things we want to be doing. There are clear warnings in Scripture about having debt, although I don't think it's a sin. And so we should be moving toward a life of being debt-free over time, and I would say by the time you reach retirement age, I'd love for you to be completely debt-free including your home.

So that's a great thing. But should you pull money out of the market, namely retirement accounts, to pay off your mortgage? I don't think so unless you just have a real conviction from the Lord that you absolutely need to be debt-free at all costs.

And here's why. That's some of the most expensive money you can access, because if you're less than fifty-nine and a half, you've got a ten percent penalty right off the top, and then all of that money becomes taxable to you as income. So instead of making $75,000 a year—I just picked that number—now all of a sudden you pull out $400,000 and you made $475,000 in a given year, and guess what that's going to do to your tax bracket? A good portion of that money is going to move up higher. So what I would rather you do is be systematic in paying down this mortgage, perhaps accelerating your payoff over and above your monthly payment by adding something to it, which means you've got to live on a spending plan, you've got to keep your lifestyle at a minimum, so you have margin that you could direct toward debt reduction and specifically mortgage payoff. But I wouldn't do that by taking a huge lump sum out of your 401k.

I've thrown a lot at you, though, Charles. Do you follow what I'm saying? I am, and my question is, or the thought I had was, I'm in a twenty-two percent tax bracket, my wife and I. I'm retired. She's going to retire within, you know, probably three to five years. My thought was when she retires, you know, we're probably still going to be in the twenty-two percent tax bracket, unless the, you know, tax brackets change. You know, would I not be wise to just take up to the limit of the twenty-two percent tax bracket we're in, pull it out, pay down the mortgage, and, you know, and then by the time she retired, the house will be paid off because I don't have any other debt other than the house. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think that's really where you just need to really come to a conviction about how quickly you want to do it and with what resources. Clearly, if you can keep that money growing for you and you can use other means, namely cash flow from wages to accelerate the mortgage, that'd be great because then you'd have that asset there to fund your retirement in that season and you'd be paying down your mortgage, hopefully syncing it up with the retirement date. If you're just not able to do that, though, and you say, you know what, I've done some retirement planning. I feel like I'm on track and I want to take a portion of this systematically to supplement whatever I'm already sending over and above the payment to make sure that it's paid off by retirement.

Well, that's I think that's great. But again, and you pointed this out, I wouldn't be pulling out huge lump sums in any given year. I'd probably do it systematically over time. And I wouldn't miss out on the opportunity to try to do it out of margin, out of cash flow, as opposed to taking it all from the 401k just because it's there. And the last thing is, let me just say this again to make sure I'm real clear. I wouldn't do it just because of what we've been through in the market.

That should be expected and we'll go through those periods, but we'll, at least historically speaking, always move to higher ground. Charles, we're glad that you called today and we hope that information helps you. Thanks so very much.

Abilene, Kansas. Stan, what's your situation, sir? Very interesting situation. Good to have you. Thanks for taking my call.

Sure. I had that dubious pleasure as a pastor to be the executor of three estates in my family, and two of which had been fulfilled. And in the one, we found out things we didn't know and it turns out both in the decedent and his father, there were bonds, US bonds taken out and now they've come way past obviously maturity to the tune of around $358,000. Now my mom and I split the inheritance, my mom was 87. So my question is this, obviously, first of all, for tax purposes, I'm being wise here in income basis, probably should I take those out in increments? And secondly, my mom's all stressed about this and said, mom, right now, just keep it there until we know what we should do.

So for her, what would be the best way for her portion as well? Yeah. Okay. So tell me the origin of these bond accounts, were they recently inherited? We just recently in the last three years inherited them. We went with the probate, probate was clear, very easy to go through. And then we had, I encouraged my mom and ourselves, we had trust done and stuff and that included everything that came from these two estates, one of which was my aunt, the other was my mom's and so on. So we're about the last three years. Okay.

Very good. So on your inherited bonds, you received what's called the stepped up cost basis to the fair market value as of the date of the deceased death. So the original cost basis that was paid for, it doesn't matter, it's stepped up. So then the question becomes, what's the right thing to do with that money for your goals and objectives moving forward? We've got to hit a break, but do me a favor, stay on the line and right around the corner, we'll finish this conversation and talk about where you go from here. Thank you, Stan.

We appreciate that. More MoneyWise Live after. Many people adopt an attitude toward marriage and finances that it'll all work out somehow, but sadly, it often doesn't. Financial woes can devastate a marriage, but there is a better way. God's Way. Money in Marriage God's Way by Howard Dayton will help you discover God's approach to growing your finances, strengthening your relationship with your mate, and cultivating Godly joy. Money in Marriage God's Way is available when you click the Store button at MoneyWiseLive.org.

Hi, I'm Barry Maguire. I'm here to help you understand how urgent and how fun it is to share your faith at every opportunity through the eyes of a layman. Because it is fun, it is urgent. No man knows the hour, but a lot's going on right now that suggests that the rapture might be getting real close, and if that's even a possibility, the urgency of reaching your unsaved friends and loved ones goes up exponentially. It's beyond comprehension the horrors that they'll face if they don't accept the Lord before the rapture, and that takes time. So you need to start taking that time right now to move every unsaved friend you have every day closer to Jesus.

If you knew the rapture was happening tomorrow, you wouldn't hesitate, and it could be tomorrow. Here's the fun part. If you start doing this with all of your unsaved friends, some of them will accept the Lord, and when they do, that's celebration time both here and in heaven with the angels. Now that's fun. Now that's fun. There is nothing more exciting than knowing God is using you to move people closer to him.

Join us at igniteamerica.com. Where will you look for life today? It had been a long, busy day, and honestly, not the greatest one. As I focused on what had gone wrong that day, the Spirit of God softly whispered to my heart, Andrea, you will never find life in all things going right here on earth. Nothing will disobey, best intentions will be misunderstood, and plans will fall through. But life isn't found in any of those things. Life is only and always found in Jesus. In reading and believing God's words, and accepting his grace for every need, in yielding and leaning on his power for life and godliness in each moment, life is found in him. So today will you look for life where it can never be found, or will you choose to lift your eyes up to Jesus, the son of God, the author, giver, and sustainer of life.

I'm Andrea Griffith, wife, mother, and follower of Jesus, for OneCry.com. Do you know if you have enough? Enough money? Enough house?

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You'll find it all in Master Your Money by Ron Blue, available when you click the store button at MoneyWiseLive.org. Just before the break, we were speaking with Stan in Abilene, Kansas. He received an inheritance of $358,000 in bonds. He and his mother split that, and we're trying to figure out just exactly what to do at this point in time with it. Rob, I'll turn this over to you, sir, since I don't know anything about this. Thanks, Steve.

Stan, thank you for your patience. What I was just talking about before the break is that you received the stepped-up basis to the fair market value as of the day of the deceased's death. At that point, you have minimal capital gains, or at least you should by the time you sell it.

Now, obviously, three years have passed, so you'd have to factor that in. I think the big question is, are these the right investment holdings for each person who is now the steward of these resources? Are they the right thing for your mom in terms of what are her needs, goals, and objectives, and for you? So talk to me about what it is you're trying to accomplish here. Are you trying to just move to other investments, or you have a need for this money?

What is it you're trying to accomplish? Not right now, I don't, for myself and my mom, because she's done very well, and her dad, before dad, deceased, had pretty good money, so she's able to live in some senior adult living, and that's been good for her. But I'm thinking as myself, as the fact is of looking and saying, okay, do I need it right now?

No. There's parts I could use. Basically, with other things that were already in our name, as beneficiary of these bonds, and some other things we inherited, we were able to pay all our debts off and everything else, and I've done some investing already, so to the tune of about $125,000 so far. But that's what was ours, that was we're beneficiary, here's theirs in their name, even though they've been fully matured for, well, the last ones take out in the 70s.

And so we're sitting here thinking, okay, we want to do ministry, which we, that's part of our life, my wife and I, we love the Lord, been doing ministry for 40, almost 45 years now. And they were sitting there going, okay, what's the best thing to do with this? So I guess what I'm saying is, yeah, we want to set a little more aside to help for investment for our needs. But really, is it good to take it all out? What do we want to do with it? Because it's sitting there doing nothing right now, because it's fully matured.

Yeah. And I think really having a financial planner to help you navigate this would be helpful. You know, it really starts with you and your wife, and then your mom for her portion, praying through and saying, you know, based on our values and where our God-given goals and objectives, where do we think the Lord's taking us? What is our financial finish line, if you will? How much are we trying to accumulate between now and, let's say, you know, retirement, whenever that might be down the road?

And what is God calling us to now and in the future? And how much should we be using to give and get into circulation into God's economy now? And how much should we be investing for our future? And then for that portion that you perhaps want to take and redirect to other investments, what's the right mix of investments for you? You know, how much risk do you want to take?

What is your time horizon? And are there other better places for this money? There probably are right now in this low interest rate environment is probably a mix of stocks and bonds. But again, you're not trying to take any more risk than is necessary. And to your point, it may be that you want to do some giving with this money now. So I would recommend if you don't already have one, Stan, that you all set up an appointment with an investment and financial planning professional, we'd recommend a certified kingdom advisor, somebody who understands your values and God's word as it relates to your role as steward of this money and who's a competent financial professional to who can help you navigate taking this significant sum of money, $360,000, roughly, and helping you determine what do we want to do with it now in the future. And for that portion we want to put to work, what is the right mix of investments because this is a substantial sum of money. And obviously, you want to be found faithful with that. So that would be my next step for you.

You can do that by going to our website MoneyWiseLive.org. Just click Find a CKA. Stan, thank you very much for calling in today. We wish you and your mom and your family the very best.

Let's try Plainfield, Indiana again. And Devin, we're glad that you got back in queue here. How can we help you, sir? Yes. Thanks for taking me back in. Appreciate it.

Sure. My question today, I work for a large corporation and I think like a lot of people, I'm working remotely from home almost exclusively now, trying to understand what the IRS's guidelines about deductions for home office. And as an employee, do I qualify for that deduction or is that only for self-employed people? Yeah, you know, Devin, I am not a CPA, but what I would just tell you, generally speaking in practical terms, you know, as a W-2 employee, there's really not the opportunity to claim a home office deduction for work done for your employer. You would need to have a Schedule C, which you would have if you were self-employed or had a business. And then there's a separate form where you would claim through either one of two calculation methods the expenses related to use of a portion of your home for specifically work done exclusively for work. And it's IRS Form 8829. But as a W-2 employee, that is not going to apply here because you don't have that Schedule C. So I think given this situation, probably not much opportunity there. But that would never preclude you from visiting with a tax professional just to say, is there something unique in my situation that I'm missing? And you certainly want to take full advantage of everything due to you.

But I think in this situation, given that you're a W-2 employee, you're going to find that really isn't an opportunity. Thank you, Devin. Glad you called today. Quickly to Chicago and Rosie, what's your situation, Rosie?

Hi, thank you for accepting my call. I have a savings account with a bank that gives me less than 1% interest for the year. And I was wondering if you can recommend some reputable bank or provide some advice on where can I go for at least a higher interest rate for a year for my savings account?

Yeah. When you say for a year, you're talking about just a liquid savings account or are you talking about locking this up in like a CD for a year? Well, this is right now it's just a savings. It's a basic savings account where I can go and withdraw whenever I want it. The annual interest rate is 1%. But maybe, yeah, I probably would be interested in a CD, something of that sort where I could just lock it in for six months.

Yeah. Well, unfortunately, the challenge we've got, Rosie, is this is a very low interest rate environment. There are historically low interest rates that really are a direct result of the pandemic and the Fed's action to keep the economy stimulated and functioning properly in the midst of these challenging times. And the Fed has said they're not even thinking about thinking about raising interest rates at this point. So I don't think Chairman Powell has any inclination to see rates move up anytime soon. And so what that means is that these interest rates are going to stay low. So we generally recommend, Rosie, for your high yield savings that you use one of the online banks linked to your checking account.

I usually recommend either Ally Bank, Marcus or Capital One 360. About the best you're going to find right now is 0.9%. So a little bit less than 1%, which is what you said you have. Most of them are at 0.8% and the brick and mortar banks are going to be a fraction of that. So if you're close to 1%, you're pretty much at about the best you can find. Unfortunately, if you move into CDs, you're not going to find much better than that. Right now, a one year CD is only about 0.85.

So again, less than 1%. So there's no reason to lock up your money for a year if you're barely going to do better than you would with just a high yield savings. On a six month rate, about the best you're going to find is even less than those high yield savings. So I think you ought to just stay put, know that your money is safe. You have that FDIC insurance as long as you're with a bank that has FDIC and you're about the best you can be and we'll look forward to higher interest rates down the road. Okay, thank you, Rosie.

St. Joel, Missouri. Mike, we have a little bit, I mean a little bit of time. Can you give it to us briefly? Well, I'm retiring, I'm 66 full retirement and I just wonder if these, why is it taking my Social Security and still work? I see.

So talk to me about this. So if you were to stop working, you would need to take Social Security to fund your pay. Is that right? You don't have other assets you could live on? I got retirement from, it's called peers, and then I got a 403B plan.

Okay, alright. Well here's the way we would typically look at that. One of the benefits of continuing to work is, remember the way Social Security works is it factors in these quarters that you've been working and every quarter you work where you have wages that are higher than a previous quarter that has been factored into the equation is replacing one of those lower quarters. So one of the reasons why you would want to continue working if you have that option, and obviously there are a number of factors that play into this, is it would allow you to not only see that check automatically increase as you go to full retirement age and then increase by 8% a year until the age of 70, but if you're replacing quarters where you earned less years and years ago with quarters where you're earning more, that's also going to increase your Social Security.

So benefit number one is you delay it because you're going to get a higher check for the rest of your life. But I think beyond that you need to think about where is God taking me? What is it I want to be doing?

And if you want to stop work, obviously you need to first of all ask, Lord, what do you have for me in this new season because I don't think our calling has an expiration date. And then number two is how am I going to fund my expenses? Hopefully you're able to keep your expenses low, hopefully you'll be completely debt-free at that point and then you've got to put together a retirement budget that says, what do I need to fund my lifestyle, my living expenses on a monthly basis and then figure out what are your sources of income? And that's either going to be the 403b converted to a stream of income or a retirement plan or Social Security or some combination of the three. And I think what you need to think through and pray through is, does it make sense for you to delay that retirement to see the Social Security check increase or between all of your income sources, do you have what you need to fund your lifestyle? Therefore you stop working, you start taking Social Security and then you really start praying through, Lord, where am I going from this place? So we'll be praying for you as you make that decision, but a lot to think and pray about. Mike, God bless you. Thank you so very much. And well, that's pretty much it for today's program. For Rob West, I'm Steve Moore, MoneyWise Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and MoneyWise Media. If you enjoy what we do here each day, tell a friend and then join us again tomorrow for a brand new edition of MoneyWise Live.