Social Media Etiquette

A few minutes. Whether you own a business or you're trying to advance your career, social media has become a very powerful tool for courting customers or just getting your name out there. But it can also be a double-edged sword. Well today, things you should do and things you shouldn't to promote yourself or your business on Facebook, Twitter, and all the rest. Our host, Rob West, shares those with you. But please hold your calls until next time because today we're pre-recorded with some great questions.

All that just ahead, I'm Steve Moore. Social media etiquette, that's next on MoneyWise Live. If you're not using it, you're at a disadvantage because more than likely your competition probably is, wouldn't you say? Well, that is so true these days. It's really driving professional development and business growth. Here's an amazing statistic, Steve. A recent survey found that 37% of people around the world are using social media. Even more amazing, folks 65 and up are the fastest-growing demographic using the platform. Isn't that interesting?

It is interesting, yeah. So what are your primary recommendations to make this work? Well, the first piece of advice, Steve, I would offer anyone as they think about using it for business and professional reasons is get real. And by that I mean be the real you. Don't try to pass yourself off as something you're not.

If you're not an expert at something, don't pretend to be. It's okay to use humor but obviously nothing off color. That's just common sense. Aim for charming, friendly and witty but only when appropriate.

Yeah, that's always been my policy but I don't always hit it. Anything else? Well, here's one to avoid, Steve. Politics.

Actually, any controversial topic. You'll probably end up alienating as many people as you attract so what's the point? Don't post anything you'll regret later. And remember, anything you put online is out there somewhere, probably forever, even if you take it back down. Yeah, things seem to have a habit of getting retweeted so you have to be careful.

Exactly. You want to portray yourself on social media as a professional who shares valuable content to customers and others in your field and never anything offensive, of course. Commenting on current events can also be tricky unless you're really on top of things. If you're not well informed about an issue or haven't done the research, stay away from it. The last thing you want to come across is as being ignorant or insensitive to something in the news.

An example might be using a trendy hashtag to promote your business if you haven't thoroughly checked it out. On the other hand, if you have something of value about a particular issue to share with your online community, go ahead and post it but do it carefully. Maybe even ask someone for a second opinion before committing yourself. That's always a good idea. Here's something I've done, and I realize I'm showing my age here, but I've asked younger people sometimes, maybe my children, maybe others I know, sometimes there are people in your 20s and 30s or in their 20s and 30s that know stuff as an older person you may not know and that'll help keep you out of some trouble sometimes. Absolutely.

Alright, so hashtag look before you leap. What else? Well, avoid too much information. An occasional short anecdote about a personal experience related to something in your field is fine, but don't flood your online community with frequent posts about your progress on things they may not care about, perhaps what you did over the weekend. If you insist on sharing those kinds of things, you need to have a separate account for business and personal communication.

At least that's my recommendation. Yeah. What about pictures of my granddaughters? No. Well, just in moderation, I guess I would say.

In moderation. Okay. Alright. I do get spanked regularly by my children for doing that. Okay.

What else do you have? Well, next is use spelling and grammar checkers. You always want your content to look polished. If you doubt your writing skills, have someone else proof your copy before you post it. And if you realize afterwards that you've made an error, edit it and repost. You don't want to end up in some meme. If you don't know what that is, you can look it up about people who can't spell or use horrible grammar. What about showing the human side of your business or field of endeavor?

Yeah. Well, that's a great question because every business or line of work has a certain culture that interests customers and colleagues. It's okay to be transparent and share about the human side of things.

I would just say, again, do that within reason. Maybe follow the 80-20 rule. 80% of your content should provide real value.

20% to behind the scenes glimpses of the company or your profession. Okay. This is MoneyWise Live with Rob West.

I'm Steve Moore. We're going to take a brief break, and then we'll be back with more MoneyWise Live. If you're interested in gaining a solid biblical understanding of money, possessions, and eternity, managing God's money is available when you click the store button at MoneyWiseLive.org. If you're investing for retirement or any other goal, you may be wondering if it's possible to enjoy both profit and peace of mind no matter what's happening in the market. SoundMind Investing has a short video webinar on that topic at SoundMindInvesting.org. SMI has helped tens of thousands of Christians learn to be wise and faithful stewards in the area of investing.

Profit and peace of mind no matter what's happening in the market at SoundMindInvesting.org. The gusto and grit of grandparenting. For Grandkids Matter, here's Ken Canfield.

On Thanksgiving, there are probably few surprises. Seating arrangement, menus, activities, who cooks, serves, and cleans, that may already have been set in stone. Here's an idea for you. Start a new tradition and get your kids and grandkids in on the act. Brainstorm with them for some ideas.

Here are a few to start with. Organize a morning football game. After dinner, the men and kids help with dishes or handle them completely. Before or after dinner, the whole family goes for a walk. Over dessert, plan a Christmas outreach project for your entire family.

From the oldest family member to the youngest, talk about each person's earliest Thanksgiving memory. For more tips and encouragement for grandparents, check out grandkidsmatter.org. 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.

We're Money Wise Live and we talk about our telephone number often, usually because we're live, but today we're prerecorded, so if you hear a mention of the phone number, please don't call us, but you can find us online at moneywiselive.org. Chatting for just a couple of minutes today about social media etiquette, particularly when it comes to your job, your career, your business perhaps, and there are things you should do, some other things you shouldn't do to maximize that. In fact, our Facebook question of the day is, what is one tip you would pass along regarding social media etiquette? And you want to read a few of those now?

I love these. We obviously had a lot of interest in this, maybe because Facebook is a social media platform. There was a lot of people who wanted to talk about how to be proper in your social media etiquette, but yeah, I love some of these. Jeff said, don't say anything you wouldn't say face to face. I love that idea. You don't have to comment on everything you see from Janice.

This is from Charlotte. Keep your exclamation points and caps locked to a minimum. I love that. This is a great one from Lisa. She said, keep it positive, keep it kind, keep it God honoring. And I think that's always really great advice. Lynn said, be truthful and honor the Lord. Sue said, nonpolitical. And I love what Mike said, a little bit tongue in cheek, Steve. He said, social media etiquette? That's funny. And if you've spent any time on social media, you know exactly what he's talking about because that anonymity in some cases can bring out the worst in us periodically.

And we need to make sure that we are in fact being God honoring in all that we do. And you'll find us on all the primary social media platforms under MoneyWise, MoneyWise Live, MoneyWise Media. If you're looking for us, you can find us and we'd love to have you check us out today.

All right, one more time. 800-525-7000. Let's take some calls. Cleveland, Ohio. Howard, how can we help you, sir? Hi, it's actually Howard and Adrian Carter.

We call them from Cleveland. We have a quick question. We have a question. My husband is retiring and we have about 500K in his retirement fund and we're trying to figure out how to, the best way to roll it over. We do need a small amount of debt to pay off some debt and we're just trying to figure out the best way to do that.

Yeah, very good. Well, I appreciate you both calling today and it's a great question. I do like the idea of rolling the Thrift Savings Plan out to an IRA when you separate from your employer. That's going to give you a bit more flexibility in terms of the investment solutions and options that you have available to you. You'll be able to have much more control over how it's managed, not only the investments, but who is giving you that counsel. And with the $500,000, that's obviously a significant amount of money.

You all have worked long and hard to build this up. And so we want to make sure that it's managed properly. And so I would strongly recommend that you seek out an investment professional, someone who can manage this inside a traditional IRA, if that's where you roll it to, and that would be my recommendation, where the investment strategy is really based on your goals and objectives with some really wise counsel speaking into it, perhaps even making the decisions for you. Some of the things that this professional will encourage you to consider is, do you need to pull an income off of this to supplement any other income streams now or in the future?

And if that's not right now, how long is that? That will dictate the conservative or more moderate nature of the investment strategy. Obviously, if you want to tap into any of these funds, that would be a part of this.

And I would just say be careful there, because obviously if you're under 59 and a half, there's going to be a penalty. If you're not, it's still all going to be taxable and you want to be careful not to pull out too much in any one year such that you would drive that income up into a higher tax bracket. So you may want to spread that out. And keep in mind that the real purpose of this is to continue to grow and ultimately at some point generate an income. At least that's what most people do.

So you can supplement other guaranteed income sources like Social Security or any other assets that you've accumulated. So that would be my recommendation to roll it to an IRA and then begin interviewing investment professionals. I'd probably sit with at least three before you make your decision. And I'd look for somebody there in Cleveland with the Certified Kingdom Advisor designation. And you can find those professionals on our website at MoneyWiseLive.org.

That will just mean that in addition to their character requirements and significant experience and expertise, they will also have a shared value system and understand a biblical worldview of handling money. But I threw a lot at you there. Tell me what questions you have. Jeff, we really want to know is there anything that we need to avoid?

I don't think so. Other than just making sure you're really thoughtful about how you proceed. So in terms of rolling it out, as long as you don't take possession of the funds, have it paid to you and you do a direct rollover to an IRA, then you're not creating a taxable event. So that would be one thing to make sure you do. And the second thing is you're going to need to determine what custodian to go to.

Well, I would interview the investment professionals before you do that, because depending upon who you go with, they're probably going to tell you what company they want you to roll it into and they'll open the account for you. But you'll spend a significant amount of time getting to know one another, comparing really what God has called you to in this next season of life with your goals and objectives, your risk tolerance, all of those things. And then once you settle on that professional that you'll be working with, then you would initiate the rollover by requesting that rollover paperwork directly from TSP. It's not a complicated process, but it's one that you need to spend some time working through.

So you make a good decision and really connect with an adviser who's going to be a great match for you. And thanks for calling today. We do appreciate that. Moving along this time to Sandusky, Ohio. Marie, what's on your heart today?

Hey, yes. Thank you for taking my question. Yes, we have a sum of about forty thousand in our savings. The reason we came across this report most of this money was our son was diagnosed at a young age, too, with cancer and just very blessed by family, friends, community. Lots of benefits were put on for him. He was a recipient of some different donations.

And we used a portion of it during the time that we had to on bills and with me not working and stuff like that. But we're at a point now where he is doing very well. He's had a year of fans post treatment, which have all seemed to be going in the right direction. Obviously, that can change at any point.

However, he's he's for now. So we're like a year past treatment and we are considering investing what we consider his money. We want to separate it about thirty two thousand of it.

We consider his money from those donations. So majority of the money and we want to make sure it's separated at some point and we want to do something smart with it. But also knowing that we could always require it at another time, but if it could grow for his future medical needs, or if he has any future medical needs from the treatment or college or anything like that. And we did also want to use a portion of it to give back in some way. And we thought maybe we'd be able to even do more if it were to grow in the future. We just haven't had that jump out at us yet where we're like, OK, that's exactly what we want to give for. So I guess we're asking is, is it smart to be investing this money at this point? Is it a good idea? And how much should we be keeping in our savings as a fallback amount of money? We have met with an investment company on one occasion and they had mentioned getting our hands on it in a couple of days or a couple of weeks for the full amount. But we just want to make sure that we're looking into this safely and in a smart way.

Yeah, very good. Well, I love the way you're thinking and I'm delighted to hear that your son is doing well. But I also recognize you want to be good managers of God's money, specifically that's been earmarked for his care. And so it can continue to grow until he needs it down the road for whatever that might be.

And as you said, that could be everything from college to additional care that he may require at some point. I think really spending some prayerful time thinking about how you want to allocate this money in terms of how much you would want at the risk of the stock market in addition to the time horizon. And you don't have to treat the whole amount equally in the sense that you may say, well, we'd like to have, you know, I'm just going to use round numbers here.

We'd like to have 10,000 of it available in the next five years. And so we may take a different approach with that money than, let's say, 30,000 of it or 20,000 of it that we think we would want to grow for a longer period of time. If you feel like you could earmark even another amount specifically for college, well, then that gives us the ability to put it in something like a 529 plan, which is going to shelter the taxes from dragging, putting a drag on the returns. But it is going to require that you use it for qualified educational expenses. And if you just don't know enough to know or to make that decision now, you may want to avoid that. So I would probably recommend you keep it in a joint account, but just separate and earmarked for his care, whatever portion that is. And then as you all think through how long you want this money to be working for you and how much you need available in whatever time period, that's going to then allow the investment strategy to fall out of that.

Anything you need in the next couple of years, I'd probably just keep it in an online savings account, earning a couple of percent interest, a little bit less maybe. But it's readily available and it's safe because you with anything you put at the risk of the market, Marie, you need to ask yourself, would I be comfortable if this lost value? If I got a statement and it was down, let's say, you know, five or even 10 percent or more, depending on how aggressive you are and would I be willing to wait for it to come back? Because you wouldn't want to get yourself in a situation where you were concerned because you got a statement and you lost money and you thought, I just can't take any risk with this. Well, that tells me that we shouldn't have been in the market in the first place. And I think perhaps an ETF portfolio using something like Schwab Intelligent Portfolios, where you answer some questions about the purpose of this money using a low cost ETF strategy with index funds could serve you really, really well. Stay on the line.

We'll talk a bit more here offline and we'll be right back. Buying a home is the largest, most nerve wracking purchase most of us ever make. It doesn't help that you're entering a maze of unfamiliar words and confusing options that can leave you intimidated, frustrated and afraid you've been taken advantage of. Navigating the Mortgage Maze by Dale Vermilion helps you clear up the confusion, unrack your nerves and make the best mortgage decisions possible with confidence.

Navigating the Mortgage Maze available when you click the store button at MoneyWiseLive.org. 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. The principle of first mention, when you find a concept that will become important in the word of God, whether it's a character or a concept, you look in the context of the very first mention and you will learn something right there that will carry as a concept all the way throughout Scripture. First time we ever see the mention of Moses' name, first time we ever see the theme of redemption, words like salvation, words like deliverance. You want to look those things up, look for the very first place they occur, check your context and you will learn something profound about them that carried us from our very first week of study in the names of God. In the beginning God created, that's where we see Elohim for the first time, that's the Hebrew word for God and we know that it was in the context of His universal Creatorship. So that tells us even though the name God means so much more than that, it gives us an associative concept from the very beginning and we can always think of when we hear the word.

Now keeping that in mind, we look at this context and this will almost trip you up. Why do we care about Abimelech and Phichol? You might be interested to know that the name Phichol means the mouth.

And why in the world would we get this stunning name? What is it about it that sets Abraham up for the revelation of God by the name of Elohim? He is the eternal one. We have two ways to experience now that faith has come, a study of Galatians. The online experience is now available at Bethmore.org.

The workbook edition will release in January 2021. Either way, Beth would love to have you in Bible study. And thanks for listening to A Quick Word with Beth Warren. Have you ever taken a wrong turn when it comes to money?

We all have. And while you can't undo past mistakes, you can steer clear of the financial potholes ahead. This month's issue of the Money Wise magazine is all about helping you make Money Wise decisions with exclusive podcasts and articles to steer you in the right direction. Your free magazine subscription is waiting for you right now at Money Wise dot org slash sign up. A real pleasure to have you with us today. This is Money Wise Live. I'm Steve Moore, that other guy over there, the guy with the answers.

He's Rob West. And we're happy to have you with us on the program today. However, we are prerecorded. We won't be taking your calls, but we've lined up some calls in advance that I think you'll find interesting, helpful and very, very practical.

At least we've tried to make them that way. So stick around. This is Money Wise Live. Let's go directly to our phones.

Miramar, Florida. Noji, thanks for your patience. How can we help you?

Thank you for having me. This coming March, I will be 64 years young and I'm planning to stop working on my full time job at 65 and a half. Now, my balance on my mortgage is $172,000. I do have a 401K plan with $416,000 and a welfare with $115,000. And I was planning to remove some money out of there and pay my balance on my mortgage. If you agree with me on that, where should I go from there?

Which one should I take the most money out of it? Sure, Noji. And thanks for that background. Did I understand you to say you have about $116,000 in the 401K and $115,000 in the Roth? Correct, sir. Correct.

OK. So you have about $230,000 total in retirement assets? Yes. That was from my other job. The job I'm having right now, I do have a $15,000 on my 401K plan and $11,000 on my part time job also. Yeah. And what is the balance on your mortgage? $172,000.

OK. So the challenge I see here is that even if you took 100% out, which I would never recommend, you'd still not be able to pay off the mortgage. And so it's really not going even though you'd be bringing the balance down, it's not going to help you in terms of your cash flow because you're still going to have to say make the same mortgage payment. And now you've run through all of your retirement assets. So what I would recommend here based on what I'm hearing, Noji, is I like the idea of you being debt free. I just don't like the idea of you depleting all of your retirement assets to do it, especially as you're just starting out.

So I probably and I realize this would be a major decision that you'd have to think and pray through significantly. But I'd consider, number one, downsizing, perhaps finding a smaller house you could buy for cash. I don't know how much equity you have. Hopefully you do have something that you could buy with either a much smaller mortgage or no mortgage at all. The second is if you have the income in retirement to just continue paying on it as you have been, as long as you have the ability to do so. Have you run the numbers in terms of what your monthly need will be, what your budget will look like once you get to 65 and a half and you plan to stop working full time?

Do you know what that's going to be? I only got like $2,000 in debt and maybe like $1,000 or so. Yeah, but have you done a budget that says, OK, when I stop working at 65 and a half, here's what I need every month to pay all my bills, the recurring expenses, the utilities and putting gas in the car and paying the mortgage and keeping your insurance paid. All of those things, plus the things that are nonrecurring, making sure you put something aside. We recommend one percent a year putting away one twelfth of that every month for the house, for instance, for repairs.

And what about car repairs and semiannual insurance payments? Do you have a budget that has all of those categories in it so you know what you need to have in the way of income once you reach retirement? Have you done that? No, I didn't do what I said. OK, that's your next step.

So do this. I want you to go to MoneyWiseLive.org, click on connect with a coach and a coach will help you plan your retirement budget. What are your expenses going to be when you get to that point? And then we need to look at what your income sources will be. Are you going to be taking Social Security before full retirement age?

What is that? What other income sources will you have? That's going to help you determine whether you're going to be able to do this. Once you do that process, give us a call back. Those of you who were glad you called today, thanks. Kathy, we're coming your way.

Kathy wants to know about her mortgage. We'll be right back. Investing is more than just returns. It's an expression of who you are and what you value. Does the way you invest your money reflect your identity as a Christian? At Eventide, we design investments for performance and a better world. So you can invest with the confidence to reach your financial goals while remaining true to your Christian values and commitments. We call this investing that makes the world rejoice. More is available at InvestEvenTide.com.

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Hi, my name is Jessica. I'm a Communications major at the Moody Bible Institute. For this week of Thanksgiving, the Moody Radio Verse of the Week is found in 2nd Chronicles 5-13. The trumpeters and musicians joined in unison to give praise and thanks to the Lord.

Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals and other instruments, the singers raised their voices in praise to the Lord and sang, He is good. His love endures forever. That's 2nd Chronicles 5-13, the Moody Radio Verse of the Week.

You may know that you're loved by family, friends, by God, but do you really feel it? Dr. Gary Chapman and York Moore have teamed up to write Seen, Known, Loved, Five Truths About God in Your Love Language. In it, you'll learn how to know your own love language and how God uses it to communicate with you personally. Learn how God is intimately involved in your life in beautiful and unexpected ways.

Purchase your copy of Seen, Known, Loved at moodypublishers.com. How did you feel the last time you made a not-so-good decision? As Pastor Andy Stanley points out, Our decisions are like the steering wheel of our life, and so you get decision-making right, you get life right. In his new book, Better Decisions, Fewer Regrets, you'll learn five critical questions to apply to every decision you make so you can feel confident you're getting it right.

Request your copy with any gift to MoneyWise of $25 or more at moneywiselive.org. With SRN News, I'm John Scott. It was a record day on Wall Street as the Dow closes above 30,000 for the first time. Investors encouraged by the latest progress on developing coronavirus vaccines. The Dow gained 454 points to close at 30,046. The Nasdaq was ahead 156 points today, and the S&P 500 up 57. President Trump applauded the news from Wall Street, calling 30,000 a sacred number. U.S. home prices jumped in September as strong demand, low interest rates, and the smallest number of available homes on record, combined to push up housing costs.

The S&P CoreLogic Case Shiller 20-City Home Price Index showed that home prices rose 6.6% in September from a year earlier, much higher than the 5.3% increase in August, the biggest increase since April of 2018. This is SRN News. Good to have you back with us. It's MoneyWise Live with your host, Rob West. I'm Steve Moore. Now, please remember that today we're pre-recorded. We're on tape. We're not taking live calls, but let's begin with what we have. Jim in Florida, thanks for your patience.

How can we help? Yeah, you know, I'm 60 years old, and I think we have a good plan, I think, in place overall financially. I'm a pastor.

I don't know how long God's going to keep me pastoring, but that's up to Him. But we have a home, actually a new home. We've recently moved to Florida.

We live in Cape Coral. So we have a $74,000, $75,000 mortgage on it right now. It's about a $260,000 house. When we came in, I went ahead and got a 30-year mortgage on it just because of a variety of things.

But I ran across this almost by accident. The long and the short of it is you take out a small HELOC, and it looks like it's a second mortgage, and you run your money through the HELOC, and basically you're able to sidestep the huge mortgage interest, especially on a long-term 30-year principal and interest loan. And there's a software package that comes along with it that they train you to use. And supposedly, if I follow this system, I could pay my home off in about three and a half years.

There is a $2,500 fee, which we would pay up front. And frankly, if this is what it's cracked up to be, I would consider it a bargain. So anyway, I just wanted to find out if you had any thoughts.

Yeah, you know, I'm not a big fan of these. I mean, I don't think it's a scam, although I don't know this particular system, and I'm not excited about you doing anything that requires thousands of dollars up front and software packages that are required in order to administer it sound a bit complicated. I just kind of like to keep it simple and, you know, take the traditional approach. You know, it can probably work, you know, but the challenge is with so many of these, it has the potential to go awry in that you're living on credit with the chance you'll be borrowing more than you should, and you could actually end up accumulating more interest using this if you don't administer it properly or you have a disruption in your income or, you know, something just doesn't happen the way you expect. And so, you know, given that, given the complexity of it, given the cost up front and everything else that kind of goes into it, I'd rather you just try to keep your lifestyle at a minimum and pay a little bit extra on that low-rate 30-year mortgage that you've obviously paid down for quite a bit of time here, rather than getting into a system like this, just, again, because of all the moving parts and all these are fairly similar, although they have their own uniquenesses, and I'm not up to speed on this particular one, but I think anything with an up front cost that significant and the complexity that you're describing, I think would just be caution flags for me. Okay, you said the risk of credit.

Is that the HELOC that you're talking about? Yeah, because you're going to live off of that. Essentially, you're putting all of your paycheck, I guess, toward the mortgage, and then you're living off of the line of credit.

Is that right, as you need money? Yeah, I mean, again, I'm not quite far enough down the road on it to fully understand it, but yeah, you basically, I don't know if this becomes your one bank account or not, but it becomes the primary place that the flow of money is going through. And I think that's how they get around the huge interest of payments on the normal, regular first mortgage, I think. Yeah, essentially, all of your bills come out of your home equity line of credit. You have your paycheck deposited against your home equity line of credit. Whatever's left, they pay down on your mortgage, and it magically pays it off really fast, according to the system.

The problem is that no matter how many times you kind of move it all around, it tends to be the same, and again, it's very complex and it's very expensive having to pay for the setup of all of this. So, again, I'd just rather you keep it simple and rather you just try to pay against principal whenever you have extra money and not take on additional credit options and have just the complexity of managing this whole system. All right. Well, I appreciate your help. That's what I called for. All right, Jim. Appreciate your call, bud. God bless you. God bless you. Thanks for your time. Yeah, thank you, Jim. God bless. All righty.

Grand Rapids, Michigan. Hello, Scott. What's your situation? Good day to you, sir.

Hi. I'm questioning the justification of spending, oh, $1,500 on up to set up a trust. I want to be responsible if I or my wife die or if we both die.

I've checked online. There's about a half a dozen different services that you can get forms and fill them out yourself. There's even a class you can take reasonably costed. But I'm just a little not knowing what to do, you know, what's best. Look out for maybe a cheaper attorney who can set up a trust and a will. I definitely need to do something. I feel like I need to be prepared to soften the blow and so there's no probate issues or costs upon our death. Yeah.

What is it you're trying to accomplish, Scott? I'm not saying you don't need a living trust, but what is it specifically you're trying to accomplish with the creation of a trust versus just a will and some of the other critical legal documents for estate planning? I don't really know if a trust is necessary.

I don't have a great fortune. I just want to avoid my heirs or my wife having to go to court and do the probate. I understand that that's costly in itself.

Yeah. I mean, as long as you have a will, certainly it will go through probate, but it can be done efficiently. Certainly having a trust will avoid that. It will also allow the trust to be utilized even before your death. For instance, if you became incapacitated or you wanted to have assets distributed not just at death, but perhaps beyond your death for a various reason.

You had a dependent to, you know, you didn't want to give all the money to at one time or you wanted to give it out over time, things like that. Also, it's not a part of the public record, so it can be anonymous. There are a few other benefits to that as well. But I think the first question is just make sure it is, in fact, something that makes sense for you. And you're not just doing it because, you know, you heard it, you know, everybody needs one because I don't think everybody does. But I would say, Scott, that this is one of those areas when it comes to legal documents.

This is just me. And there are some wonderful online tools out there and solutions like that. I would just rather have a professional, have an attorney, have a lawyer who's competent in this area, preferably somebody who shares your values, who can really walk you through this. Make sure everything's done appropriately for your state and then updated periodically. And in addition to a will, which you absolutely both need to have, you and your wife, make sure you have some of the other necessary documents in place, like a health care surrogate and a durable power of attorney.

You know, those types of legal instruments. I would perhaps get a second opinion or even a second and third opinion. You can go to our website MoneyWiseLive.org, click on find a CKA and look for a certified kingdom adviser in the law and estate planning area.

If there's not one there in Grand Rapids, just connect with another CKA and ask for a referral. But visiting with a couple of attorneys to make sure, again, is a living trust necessary? And then secondly, comparing the costs, which is always a good thing as a steward.

I think would be wise, but I would prefer you do that with an attorney as opposed to trying to do it yourself online. That's good. Thank you. All right, Scott. God bless you, sir. Thanks very much, Scott. By the way, if you haven't visited our website in a while, you might want to check it out.

I think you'll find it interesting to take a peek at and perhaps browse. You'll find lots of free resources there, things like budget templates and ways to help you maximize your spending and your saving, archives of past radio programs, how to find a kingdom adviser in your area, how to connect with a budget coach at no charge, and much, much more. It's MoneyWiseLive.org. When we come back, Denny wants to know where the Bible talks about retirement. David wants to know, should he take out a line of credit to pay off his mortgage?

That and much more when MoneyWise Live returns. You probably have a strategy for your finances, your career, even your retirement. But do you have a strategy for your giving? At the National Christian Foundation, we can help you create a giving strategy to inspire your family, maximize your resources and leave a lasting legacy of faith.

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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. This is our final segment of a broadcast we previously recorded. Thanks so much for being with us today, and we hope you'll stick around and enjoy the rest of the program. You're listening to MoneyWise Live. Your host is Rob West. Let's go back to our phones. Denny, you're calling from Michigan, but what's the scenario there?

How can we help you? Well, I kind of have a two-part question. About paying extra on your mortgage, I pay biweekly, but my contract that I made with the bank was not for biweekly. So I pay $100 more than my mortgage per month at the end of the month biweekly.

Am I saving as much money that way as not having it contracted with the bank to do that? Yeah, it's really just a function of how much you're sending extra toward principal. Typically with a biweekly, Denny, what's happening is you're sending two half payments a month.

Is that correct? No, each week they draw money out of my account towards my mortgage. Now, I don't know if the money actually sits in the account until the end of the month. I take it that's that because I see it transferred out, so I don't know. And are they pulling that out through an ACH transfer where they're pulling it out, or are you transmitting it on your end and pushing it from your bank to the mortgage company once a week? No, they are.

They're doing that. All right. Well, I would want to know the answer to that. Is this just to kind of help you smooth out the money in terms of what's coming out of your account each week, or was the purpose behind it to try to reduce the mortgage quicker? Well, the purpose is to reduce the mortgage quicker. I have about seven years left on a $100,000 market.

Yeah, so I would want to know two things. Number one, is it accomplishing the purpose you intended, meaning as they pull it out, is there a portion of it that is going over and above what's needed for the minimum payment every month, which is going to be applied based on the standard amortization? Is there a portion that's going directly to principal reduction over and above what was scheduled in the original agreement, your minimum payment? And then secondly, is there a charge for doing this?

Because if there is, you probably don't need to pay it. You can essentially accomplish the same thing on your own. So I would get a bit more information about what's actually going on. Is the total of the weekly payments that are coming out more than the scheduled payment for your mortgage?

Yes, yes. My mortgage is normally $1,100, and through this I'm paying $1,200. Okay, great. So I suspect what's happening is that each week it's going toward the scheduled payment, but then that last week they're applying an extra $100 to principal reduction. So I don't see really a benefit of you doing it weekly because I think until that last week, the money is just going against the scheduled payment. They're probably not crediting you for the principal reduction on the front end. But I would want to know that. So have them give you a bit more explanation and then find out if they're charging you to do that.

And if so, you can just send the scheduled payment once a month and then send an extra $100 toward principal reduction and not pay them to do that for you. What was the second part of your question, sir? Well, the second part was where in Scripture I've heard someone told me in the past that retirement is not biblical.

And I disagree with that, but I don't know where that's at. Yeah, well, I think what you're referring to is that the notion of retirement is only referred to once in the Bible. It comes from the book of Numbers. It refers to the Levitical priests that was the priestly tribe of Israel living off the tithes and offerings of God's people and retiring at age 50. There's no other direction in Scripture that would suggest we should retire. Now, does that mean retirement is sinful or wrong? I don't think so, but I think as believers we need to approach it from a different perspective.

Well, what is that perspective? Well, remember, work was created before the fall of man. We were created to be productive. Adam and Eve were created as workers, so work is good. It's a part of God's plan for us. It's how he designed us. And so we should be workers throughout our entire lives.

That means our calling doesn't have an expiration date. And so that's where I think perhaps in some cases this modern view of retirement, which isn't all that old, relatively speaking, in terms of the way our culture views retirement, is not necessarily a biblical approach where we work until age 65 and then we just stop all productive activity and live a life of leisure. I don't think that's God's intention. The question is, what should be our approach? Well, the first thing is we should decide what lifestyle God has called us to and what is our financial finish line, meaning how much should we be accumulating throughout our lives versus what we're using to enjoy and provide for our families and give along the way. And we shouldn't just accumulate automatically as much as we can.

We should do it with a plan, and certainly that should be given quite a bit of prayer. Then when we get to that season of life where I would argue you have the most wisdom and experience, the question is, what does God have for you? Perhaps you do retire from the job you had leading up to that point and you shift your time and energy because you have the ability to do so financially toward serving God in another way, another capacity. Maybe you have an opportunity to do more in service for the Lord. Maybe you redirect your time and energy elsewhere. But I don't think it's working to accumulate as much as we can so we can stop all productive activity and just live that life of leisure.

I think we need to be asking the Lord to reassign us, perhaps, in that season of life toward what he has next for us. And I think that's really the difference for the Christian. Does that make sense, though, to you, Denny? Yes, it does.

Yes, it does. Thank you very much for registering what you're doing. Absolutely, sir, and God bless you. Thank you, buddy. Appreciate that. Florida David, you're on with Rob West. We're going to have to be quick about this if we're able to, okay?

Yes. My mortgage is about, I have about a balance of $35,000 mortgage and I have about $106,000 equity. I wouldn't know if it's wise to take out a home line of credit and pay off the mortgage. I don't like that option, David, simply because a line of credit is most likely going to be a variable interest rate, which means that the interest rate will move with the prevailing rates that are out there. Right now, we're in a very low interest rate environment and we could see a day if we got into a recession where rates are moving up. There's a number of market factors that affect interest rates and we're in a relatively low rate environment right now. That would mean that the amount of interest you would be sending would go up significantly and your payment could go up with it. What I would prefer you do, assuming you have a reasonably low rate right now with your mortgage, is if you're trying to pay it off quicker, do that by limiting lifestyle, living well within your means, creating positive cash flow and what we call margin and sending extra to pay down the mortgage, assuming you don't have any other consumer debt you're giving and you have an emergency fund. But the idea of getting a line of credit to pay off your mortgage, I realize there's some people out there that say that's a good idea, it's simple interest versus amortized interest and there's all kinds of gymnastics they do with depositing their paychecks and things like that.

It gets complicated and I just think for the average person, it's a bit risky and so I'd rather you just stay the course. Okay Dave, does that help? That helps a lot, thanks. Okay, God bless you sir. God bless you. You're listening to MoneyWise and I think we have time for one more last call today, so let's go to Lancaster, Illinois and Sue, we appreciate your patience.

What's on your mind? Okay, thank you for taking my call. I'm a widow and I just turned 66 and I worked for an elderly lady as her caregiver and I'm told by the Internal Revenue that I'm an independent contractor, so I have to file taxes that way and I have a rather large cash bill that I have not been able to complete in 19 and 20. And I have been approached by several companies through email telling me they can get my taxes forgiven, the tax bill forgiven and I highly question that that's possible and B, they want me to give them my social security number so that they can start my claim.

That's my question. Yeah, Sue, I would stay far from that. I definitely wouldn't be giving anybody your social security number. Now, can you have somebody, a competent professional who's a CPA or an enrolled agent, represent you before the IRS to try to pursue what's called an offer and compromise, try to get you on a payment schedule, perhaps even get some of this forgiven? Yes, that's very legitimate, but somebody contacting you through the mail or the email asking you, because they're aware of this debt that you have to the IRS and asking that you either provide them some money up front or asking to provide personal and sensitive information, stay away from that, far from it actually.

It's likely a scam or somebody that will try to take some money from you that you don't need to be giving them. So I think the key is twofold. Number one, let's learn from this and recognize that as an independent contractor, you're paying the half that an employer would normally pay of the social security and Medicare taxes. And so you are going to have some extra. You're going to need to plan for that, set it aside, make quarterly payments so we don't get into this situation again moving forward. That's where a CPA can help you.

And then with the amount that you owe in terms of back taxes, I would also get with somebody who has some experience in that to see if they can work with the IRS on your behalf to get you on a payment schedule and perhaps even get some of that reduced. And so we're going to have to let you go. We are really out of time, but we wish you the very best. Feel free to call us back if you're still stuck on this. Thank you very much. You've been listening to MoneyWise Live with Rob West. I'm Steve Moore. MoneyWise Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and MoneyWise Media. Thanks so much for being there. Join us again next time.