Bless Your Pastor Month

This is Jamin Baxter and I serve as Business Development Director for Moody Radio. The only reason we're able to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ on the radio is because of financial support from listeners like you. We also have businesses support us too, like United Faith Mortgage.

Faith and family is at their core. It's why they choose to be such a close partner with our station. It's why they specifically advertise on Christian radio stations across the country.

It's why father and son John and Ryan still lead the company to this day. Check out United Faith Mortgage and their direct lender advantage at unitedfaithmortgage.com. Thanks to you and to United Faith Mortgage for supporting Moody Radio. United Faith Mortgage is a DBA of United Mortgage Corp. 25 Melville Park Road, Melville, New York. Licensed mortgage banker. For all licensing information, go to nmlsconsumeraccess.org, corporate NMLS number 1330, equal housing lender.

Not licensed in Alaska, Hawaii, Georgia, Massachusetts, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah. This is Jamin Baxter and I serve as Business Development Director for Moody Radio. The only reason we're able to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ on the radio is because of financial support from listeners like you. We also have businesses support us too, like United Faith Mortgage.

Faith and family is at their core. It's why they choose to be such a close partner with our station. It's why they specifically advertise on Christian radio stations across the country.

It's why father and son John and Ryan still lead the company to this day. Check out United Faith Mortgage and their direct lender advantage at unitedfaithmortgage.com. Thanks to you and to United Faith Mortgage for supporting Moody Radio. United Faith Mortgage is a DBA of United Mortgage Corp. 25 Melville Park Road, Melville, New York. Licensed mortgage banker. For all licensing information, go to nmlsconsumeraccess.org, corporate NMLS number 1330, equal housing lender.

Not licensed in Alaska, Hawaii, Georgia, Massachusetts, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah. Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. Hi, I'm Rob West. That verse in verse Timothy five is especially timely in October because it's bless your pastor month. I'll talk with Brian Cluth about how you can lift up and encourage your pastor in the weeks ahead, that it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Well, Brian Cluth is a bestselling author of several books on generosity. He was a pastor himself for 10 years and is now the national spokesperson for Bless Your Pastor Month organized by the National Association of Evangelicals. Brian, always great to have you back to talk about this important event. Well, great to be with you and your listeners. We really want to encourage them to be Jesus with skin on and show God's love for their pastor and church staff.

I couldn't think of a more worthy endeavor. Brian, this is an annual event, but it's more important than ever this year due to the ongoing challenges that COVID presents, as you well know. It's still a very real crisis for many churches and pastors.

Start by telling us what the numbers describe. Yeah, what the numbers share in our State of the Play research is that, you know, two-thirds of churches were impacted financially by the downturn that COVID caused. And 90% of pastors are feeling more financial stress than they've ever felt. You know, 80% of churches are under 200 people. They have a small $125,000 annual budget, and so it's just challenging time. And many pastors are working 50 to 70 hours a week, receive less than $50,000 a year, and no retirement, no health care, no employee benefits.

Yeah. So there's a lot of sacrifice going on for pastors, and this last 18 months has been especially difficult. So they need God's love and care from their people more than ever before.

That's exactly right. And encouraging members to support their pastors and church staff financially is a big part of Bless Your Pastor Month. But there are many other ways to show our gratitude for those who serve us so tirelessly. Tell us about the three-step plan, Brian, you've developed for people who want to get involved.

Yeah. People just go to blessyourpastor.org, and it's called Easy as 123. Number one is there's a 50 ways flyer, 50 ways to bless your pastor and staff. The church just gets that and distributes that to their congregation. Number two, they receive an offering or give a year-end bonus to their pastor and staff.

Number three, they celebrate and honor them publicly somewhere between October and the end of the year. And when churches do that, we have a million dollars in grant-funded gift cards to give to pastors $100 at a time. So all of that's available at blessyourpastor.org. I love that. Brian, you referenced a list of 50 ways we can bless our pastors and church staff.

I'd love for you to share a few examples with us. Yeah, I think number one is everybody listening right now, when you're going through the grocery store line or gas station, look to your right or left, there's usually a gift card rack with gift cards for restaurants and so forth. Just pick up one of those, take it home, put it with a card to your pastor that you love and appreciate them, are praying for them. Give it to your pastor or one of your staff members, or your Bible study group does it all together and just love on them with gift cards.

That's a real easy way. Secondly, whatever skill you have, if you're a mechanic fixer car, if you like gardening, go plant some flowers for them, you know, help paint their house or do a project at their house. You know, if you're a dentist, give them dental care. Just look for practical things you can do.

And then the third thing is what do you own? What do you possess that you can share with people? When I was a pastor, people would let me use their RV or they would let me stay in their vacation home or they would share frequent flyer points, but very practical things that really helped me and my family just to experience God's love, but meet a need that we had and it made such a difference when people did that. I know you even recommend babysitting. A lot of pastors have young families and could certainly use a night out as a couple. So that could be a real practical way as well, right?

Yeah, absolutely. We have a friend that she watches her pastor's kids once a month for four hours on a Saturday. And just so the pastor couple can get away and do errands or to go on a date or do something. And they just so appreciate that, that commitment of that trusted person to help watch their children.

It makes a big difference. Well, there's a ton of materials to help folks bless their pastors and church staff this month. You can download those materials, folks, and get more information at blessyourpastor.org. Brian, great to have you with us. Hey, thanks so much and God bless. Pastor Brian Kluth has been our guest today. The website, again, blessyourpastor.org. Your calls are next, 800-525-7000.

Stay with us. Thanks for joining us today on MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. I'm Rob West and looking forward to taking your phone calls today. Whatever's on your mind, financially speaking, we'd love to hear from you.

We'll run your situation or question through the lens of biblical truth, try to give you practical advice to help you move forward with confidence as you seek to be found faithful in managing God's money. You can get in on the conversation today by calling 800-525-7000. That's right, 800-525-7000.

Our team is waiting for you and we'd love to speak to you. Hey, have you visited moneywiselive.org lately? If not, I'd love for you to do that. There's some great featured articles right there on the website, including five retirement myths and a whole host of questions and answers that I know you perhaps have. When you're there, moneywiselive.org, be sure to create your free MoneyWise account. When you do so, that will allow you to post in the MoneyWise community to get answers to your questions from MoneyWise coaches. You'll also automatically receive our MoneyWise weekly wisdom with a digest of our best new content, trending podcasts and other encouragement. I even put a note in there to encourage you in your stewardship journey each week. Again, all that's available when you sign up to create a free account.

Just head to moneywiselive.org and click sign up. We'd love for you to do that today. All right, we're going to head to the phones again. We've got some lines open. Here's the number 800-525-7000. We're going to begin today in Athens, Tennessee. Hi, Ellen. How can I help?

Hello, thank you so much. My husband and I are recently retired 65-year-olds. We are living on pension and some retirement savings and we're ready to replace our 15-year-old vehicle with a newly used vehicle. My question is, should we take a lump sum out of our retirement savings and pay cash or should we get a loan for the used vehicle or a little of both?

Yeah, that's a great question. So, you said you're living on the pension plus social security. There's a monthly payout. No, okay. Okay, not social security, just our pensions and the payout from retirement.

Got it. Okay, so the pension, is that being sent to you every month as a check or is that just continuing to grow, that portion of your retirement? No, we are getting the pension monthly. Okay, all right, but you have the option at any point to take a lump sum withdrawal from that? Well, not our pension. We're thinking we would do that from our retirement savings.

I see. So, tell me about that other retirement account that you have. TD Ameritrade and we have some annuities.

Okay, so where were you thinking you'd pull this money from, the TD Ameritrade retirement account? Yes, or another option we're getting so much a month from there. We have financial advisors and we could increase that amount to whatever we want to.

That would be another option. I see. So, you live on a spending plan, you've got a pretty closely followed budget, but there's not a lot of margin I'm hearing so that if you added a monthly payment for a car loan, that perhaps would stretch you just based on what you're pulling from the pension and the other accounts currently, is that right? Yes, but we could pull a larger amount monthly from our retirement. I see.

Okay, very good. And is that an IRA or what is it that is being managed for you that's not the pension or the annuities? Yes, yes, an IRA and we have two or three annuities, two annuities. Okay, yeah, I'm liking that idea of perhaps you all taking out a small loan.

You know, I'd love for you to put at least 20% down on it, somewhere between 20% and 50%. If you had that saved up without impacting too much your emergency fund and you could do that out of savings, that would be ideal, but if you need to take a larger amount initially from the investments, I would do that. And then perhaps you bump up your monthly payment monthly withdrawal equal to the payment so that you have enough to cover that. And that way, you're not adding all of that as taxable income in this year and you can spread that out over time. Hopefully, some of the appreciation in that portfolio would offset some of that. And, you know, I think the only other question is, and I assume you've done some of this planning, is, you know, with the amount you're pulling from the IRA, especially if you were to bump it up, is that, you know, too much in the sense that, you know, you're going to begin eating into some of the principal?

Or do your advisors feel like, you know, you can sustain this level of withdrawal based on how it's invested? Have they weighed in on that? Yes, we are not. We are still living below our interests. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it does. What is the approximate? Sure. What's the value of the IRA currently?

We have about 1.4 million. Okay. And what are you pulling out of that monthly? 5,000. Okay.

Yeah. So you're not pulling a whole lot there in terms of what you ultimately, I mean, 4% on that would be 56,000 a year. So you're pulling a little bit more than that.

But, you know, I would imagine they should be able to make that up. So I think given what you've got, you could go either direction, you know, either go ahead and put, you know, half of it down or just pay for the whole thing. How much are you all looking to spend on this new car purchase? We're looking at about a three-year-old.

And we're looking at around maybe 70, 75,000. Okay. All right. Very good. Yeah, I think I would, now that I've got all the details, here's what I would do.

I would either pay for it over two tax years, so pull half of it now, and then get a loan for the rest, pay it off next year, or put somewhere between 20 and 50% down, and then just bump up what you're pulling monthly from the IRA to cover that smaller, you know, that increase with the monthly payment. I could go either direction, whichever you all feel most comfortable with. Does that make sense? Okay. Yeah, those are wonderful options. Thank you so very much for your time. You're very welcome, Ellen. Lord bless you, and thank you for calling today. 800-525-7000 for MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions.

Let's head to Cumberland County, Tennessee. David, how can we assist you? I found a record in my dad's Bible where he bought 14 defense savings bonds between May of 42 and May of 1945, and I've got the numbers on each of them, and I don't have the amount, and the bonds are not there, so I don't know whether he ever redeemed them, or whether they've been lost, or is there any way I can check on that? Yes, I would go to treasurydirect.gov, that's treasurydirect.gov.

This is the federal government's website for bond issues, and, you know, all the information you could want would be there, including the ability to put in the QSIP number and find out what the current status of these are, and you could, you know, also read up on next steps if you needed to inquire directly. So I would check that out, David, treasurydirect.gov, and I think at that point you'll get the information. If you have other questions along the way, don't hesitate to give us a call back, and we appreciate you checking in with us. Well, folks, a lot more to come on MoneyWise Live today, including perhaps your question. Is it savings or giving?

Maybe it's thinking about some debt reduction or just getting that spending plan in line, or maybe you and your spouse are not seeing eye to eye on your finances. We'd love to help with any and all of that. Here's the number 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000. We'll be back with much more right after this. Stay with us. Welcome back to MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions.

I'm Rob West, your host, taking your calls and questions today, 800-525-7000. Just before the break, David was asking about war bonds. In case you were wondering, you know, these were initially known as defense bonds.

Basically, it's a debt instrument issued by the, in this case, the US government as a means of borrowing money to finance defense initiatives and military efforts during times of war. You know, the final round of Series E bonds, which is what they are, stopped earning interest in 2010. Those who had these in 1960 could swap them for what's called a Series H bond and defer that tax liability, but treasurydirect.gov is the place to go. There's a helpful calculator there that would allow you to determine exactly what they're worth today according to what you have, the denomination and how old it is, if in fact it hasn't been redeemed. And then your bank could actually take that paper bond and turn that into some cash. But treasurydirect.gov is the place to go.

And interesting that some folks still have those today. And so certainly I can understand they're wanting to know what the value is. All right. We've got two lines open, 800-525-7000. Let's try to get through as many of these as we can, see how we can help. We'll be in Texas actually with Charlie in a moment. We'll start though in Austin, Texas with Lewis. Go right ahead.

Hi. We have a question about faith-based investing. We're in our late fifties, early sixties and in a position to own our homestead free and clear and feel that the time is right to liquidate some long-held real estate investments. And some of that obviously would reduce the last bit of our debt, but we're particularly interested in some faith-based investing strategies, portfolios, things like that.

We have a long-standing relationship with Morgan Stanley, but they don't seem to have any baskets of funds or anything that can kind of point us in that direction. So that's our question, if that makes sense. Yeah.

Very good, Lewis. Well, I'm glad you're thinking about this. This is an exciting and growing segment of the investment landscape. I would say two things with regard to your question. First is, as you liquidate these properties, if you want to do any giving out of the proceeds of this, you may want to check with our friends at the National Christian Foundation to see about gifting even a portion of this property to a donor-advised fund prior to the sale, which could give you some tax advantages and create some funds that could be then given away to ministry or your church. But with that portion that you recognize as proceeds, if you want to redeploy that, I love the idea of you thinking about a faith-based investing strategy. And I would think about it in two ways.

Number one would be the avoid bucket, and the other, the second, would be the embrace bucket. Let me explain those. So avoid just simply says, there are certain companies we want to avoid with our investments because either their primary business activity or their corporate profits are used for things that don't align with your values as a Christian. And so you want to screen those companies out, and that's very possible today. Or embracing other companies. The idea there is that you want to look at the social or the kingdom impact that a company is making as a result of the work they're doing, and you want to specifically invest in or an investment manager on your behalf specifically invest in those companies that are making the world rejoice, promoting human flourishing and the expansion of God's kingdom. I think both of those are available to you and they can be done together. So the next question is then where do you go?

I would say a couple of things. Number one, if you want to begin to read and learn about this space, I would direct you to our website at MoneyWiseLive.org. You'll see there under the learn tab that there's all kinds of articles from some of our content providers like Eventide, Faith Driven Investor, Inspire, Praxis Mutual Funds. These are all fund families, investment families that specifically invest in faith-based type investments. So they have mutual funds and exchange traded funds that are overtly faith-based in their approach and strategy. Now they will differ in terms of how they go about that, but all of these fund families are committed to that work and that's why they're a part of MoneyWise. So again if you click on learn you could begin to read some of their articles and their approach.

Now in terms of how you deploy this, you've got a couple of options Louis. One is you could make direct investments in these fund families that are listed on the site or you could connect with a certified kingdom advisor there in Austin and you'd want to ask the CKA whether he or she is able to deploy a faith-based investing strategy either on the embrace side or the avoid side or both. Not all of them do. Some of them do more traditional type investments, but others are specialists in this type of investing and I will say that some of these fund families that I mentioned are even available at Morgan Stanley. So you would need an advisor who understands that, but he or she should be able to access some of these fund families even on that platform.

I've thrown a lot at you though. Do you have any follow-up questions? Well just one last question and thank you for the information. If I was to transfer, you know, basically close the Morgan Stanley account and transfer somewhere else, does that create a taxable event or is there some kind of a period of time where I can make that transfer without it being a taxable event? Yeah, what type of accounts are these? Are they taxable accounts or are they retirement accounts like IRAs? Well, you know, I've got a SEP IRA and got some Roths and some rollover IRAs, that kind of thing. Okay, so there would be no taxable event occurring inside those accounts because you could open a new Roth or a new SEP or a new traditional at another custodian and then you would liquidate those investments that are currently held in those accounts at the existing custodian, but that doesn't generate any tax because it's inside of a retirement vehicle until you take a withdrawal and you're not going to.

In this case, you would just simply liquidate the holdings and then the assets would transfer from one IRA to another which doesn't create a taxable event and that's the beauty of those retirement accounts. So SEP, Roth, traditional, all would be included in that. Do you follow? Yes, I do. Well, thank you very much. You're welcome. Happy to do it. MoneyWiseLive.org.

Click learn and start reading up on it and then connect with a certified kingdom advisor and I think you'll be headed in the right direction. And you know, this is an area of the investment universe that I'm really excited about because we're seeing incredible flows as Christians are made aware that their values can be reflected in their investments, not just their planning and the decisions they're making with God's money, but their investments too. They're really moving a lot of money into these investments.

We're going to see a lot of impact as a result. Stay with us. We'll be right back.

Thanks for joining us today on MoneyWiseLive, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Phone calls are available, actually phone lines I should say, for you 800-525-7000. Let's head right back to the phones and we'll head back to Texas. Hi, Charlie. How can I help you? Hello there.

Thank you so much for taking the call, Mr. West. I have a property up for sale that we currently live in. It's valued about $600,000.

We want to buy a house between $250,000 and $300,000. How should we take care of the rest of the money? Yeah, very good. Talk to me about where you're at. Charlie, are you in the retirement season? Are you still working? I'm 61 and disabled, so I'm not working anymore. My wife still works. Okay, all right.

We have no debt. Okay, very good. And is your wife's income what you're using to fund your lifestyle, your monthly expenses, or do you have other income sources? Well, I have disability.

Sure. Okay, and the combination of those two covers your lifestyle. What about asking assets that you might have in retirement? So, let's say she stops working at some point in the next, you know, several years. At that point, are you all funding retirement accounts at her place of business or what other assets do you have? She has a 401k. She has a 401k.

All right, and what's roughly in that? Oh, probably about $120,000. Okay, and you know, if you were to look then at other assets that you have, apart from you downsizing and then having these funds available, is there anything else that could be income generating at that point?

Not that I'm aware of. All of our cars are older and paid for. Okay, so basically we need to take this roughly $350,000 that you'd have left over after the sale of the home, plus whatever her hundred and something thousand and her 401k grows to during the rest of her working career and turn that into the income that you all would need to live on alongside your disability? Correct. Okay, and what is her income currently? What would you all need to generate in order to maintain your lifestyle? Currently gets between $2,500 and $3,000 a month.

Okay, all right. So, you know, if we were to say $350,000, let's say, excuse me, yeah, $350,000 would be what's left, and let's say her 401k, you know, grows to $250,000, you know, that would be essentially $600,000 that you all would have available in that season. That would throw off about $24,000 a year at a 4% return, which would be about $2,000 a month before any tax that you'd have to pay.

So we're getting close there. I mean, obviously, the longer she can work and contribute and with some, you know, market growth on that portfolio, perhaps we do even better than that. But I think certainly you're in the neighborhood there and, and perhaps your living expenses come down a bit when she gets to retirement, because certain expenses kind of come off the table, including, you know, what she's putting away for the future.

So I think, you know, what she's putting away for the future. So I think the key right now would be for you to look, Charlie, at investing this money in a way that's going to have some potential for appreciation beyond what you'd get in a straight income based portfolio where you're focused on, you know, bond type fixed income investments. And even though I think we're in for some choppier markets, you know, in the next couple of years, just given how far we've come, and some of the headwinds we have notably inflation, and, you know, the prospects of tax increases, some of those types of things. You know, I still think, you know, having exposure to the stock market, both US and international, with a broad diversified portfolio for at least a portion of those funds is going to give you, you know, over the next 10, 20, 30 years. And if the Lord tarries and you all are in good health, that's how long we need this money to last, that's going to give you some growth to the portfolio. And even if we got into a recession, you wouldn't touch that portion, you'd just, you know, it would go down, and then you'd let it recover. And, you know, historically speaking, that's going to be the best place to build wealth over time. But then the rest of the portfolio would be anchored by fixed income type investments, either dividend paying stocks or preferred stocks or, you know, bonds, that type of thing.

And as interest rates head up, you know, the bond prices will fall, but over time, you should be able to capture a bit more yield. To put all of that together, I would encourage you to connect with an advisor, a professional investment advisor who could understand your goals and objectives, help you plan for the immediate, but then also looking out toward when you're both fully retired, and put an investment strategy together and deploy that on your behalf. Do you have an advisor that you've worked with in that capacity? No, but I'd like to have it be faith-based, for sure.

Yeah, yeah, very good. Well, I would recommend you connect with a certified kingdom advisor. These are men and women who have significant experience as investment and financial planning professionals. They've met real strict character and integrity requirements. They've also been especially trained to apply a biblical worldview to financial decision making. It's a designation that's recognized throughout the industry, and it's our trusted designation for those who need professional financial advice. So what I would do is head over to our website, MoneyWiseLive.org.

You'll see a button that says Find a CKA, and that stands for Certified Kingdom Advisor. I'd interview at least two or three. They don't work for us. They have their own businesses, which means they have their own fee schedules and approaches. They've just met high standards that give us the confidence that there's somebody you should talk to.

Find the one that's the right fit, and I think that will be the best approach for you moving forward to be able to preserve what you have and also grow it so it's there for your future. Does that all make sense? Okay, yes it does. I have one more quick question.

Yes sir, go right ahead. Am I going to have to pay taxes on this sale if I buy another house? So this is your primary residence that you're selling? It's my only house, yes.

Okay, so yeah, you would have as a married couple, if you've lived there two out of the last five years, which you have, you would have up to a half a million dollars in gain in profit that would be excluded without any kind of capital gains. Awesome. All right. Well listen, we appreciate your call today. Thank you for listening and may the Lord bless you in the days ahead, sir, and we'll hope to talk to you again real soon. Let's head next to Indianapolis, Indiana. Hi Diane, how can I assist you? Hi, thank you for taking my call.

I have an offbeat question. I, like a bunch of other people, the Powerball is over 600 million dollars. I bought a ticket, but if you are a Christian, it's a two-part question. Number one, should you even be playing the lottery? And number two, if you did win, what would you do with it?

I mean, what would your first step be to protecting it? Yeah, so to answer your first question is no, I wouldn't be playing the lottery. You know, the Bible doesn't call gambling a sin, but the Gospel of John makes a point to tell us that the Roman soldiers cast lots to see who would get Jesus tunic, and that doesn't present a good image of gambling. I also think as stewards of God's money, we should not be taking a get-rich-quick approach, which clearly is what the lottery is.

We should be doing what the Bible says about steady plotting, which I think is more of a sure and steady approach with proper diversification like we read about in Ecclesiastes. So I just don't see as a steward of God's money, as God's money manager, how we can in good faith take that kind of risk with his money. So I would just stay out. I wouldn't participate in any way, shape, or form. Now, if somebody gave you a lottery ticket for your birthday and you won, well, I'd say look at it as an opportunity to give generously, perhaps get on your knees before the Lord and say, Lord, what would you have me to do?

And I think it could be a great opportunity to redirect that money into the kingdom at that point. But for all intents and purposes, I'd pass, Diane. We appreciate you checking with us though. May the Lord bless you. Hey, more to come on MoneyWise Live just around the corner. Delighted to have you with us today on MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions.

In just a moment, we're going to head back to the phones for some additional questions. But in the meantime, this is Monday, which means during this final segment of the broadcast, we hear from our good friend Bob Dahl. Bob is Chief Investment Officer at Crossmark Global Investments, where investments and values intersect.

You can learn more at CrossmarkGlobal.com. And Bob, good afternoon, sir. And to you, my friend. Happy Monday. Yeah, happy Monday.

I'll tell you, I'm glad you're here today. I've got all kinds of questions. Let me start with you just giving us your latest analysis on what's going on at a macro level in our economy. Yeah, I put out a quarterly piece in Dahl's deliberation today, and the title, Rob, was tug of war between cyclical tailwinds and higher in inflation and interest rates that are headwinds.

And that's what's going on. You know, we've had a number of months where the story was almost all positive and it was hard to find flies in the ointment. Now, as you and I have been talking for the last several weeks, there are flies that are showing up in that ointment, and that is in the form of, hmm, this higher inflation, it's not all transitory, interest rates creeping higher, questions about earnings in the third quarter because of supply shortages and pricing pressure. And so we still still have a good economy and good earnings.

That's the tailwind. It's not going away. I think that prevents us from having any kind of bear market. But we haven't had a pullback of this magnitude. Five percent is what we're down from the high in many, many months, and they're normal. Five percent pullbacks, Rob, happens on average every two to three times per year, and we've not had one for 20 months.

Yeah, yeah, interesting. Now, the growth that we're experiencing is not just domestic. I mean, we're seeing a strong economy globally as well, right?

Yes. Now, the COVID delta has an impact on who's recovering and who's still slowing. But as COVID, and the numbers are getting better in most places, including here in the U.S., as that delta variant hopefully moves its way out, we'll begin to see signs of economic pickup here, there and everywhere.

So, yes, overseas is beginning to do a little bit better. Bob, talk about the supply chain pressures that we're seeing. You know, we're reading all kinds of articles that sound somewhat scary about the fact that, you know, we're seeing a huge increase in the number of container ships off of the coast of California right now, and there's not a near-term solution for what's going on there. How do you think this plays out, and is this largely what's driving the market lower? So, the supply shortages have been around, as you know, for a bunch of weeks, actually a few months now, and are lasting longer and going deeper than most people thought. I think everybody remembers how used car prices went through the roof a couple of three months ago, and that was simply a sign that I can't find semiconductors to build new cars, so production came way down, so if I can't find a new car, I'll go buy a used car, and the demand went straight up.

So, you get those kinds of dislocations here, there and everywhere. There are signs, Rob, it's signs, not trends yet, that things are starting to ease up at many of the ports. It will take weeks, probably months in certain cases, to get back, to have a chance to get back to any semblance of normal, but we're moving in a good direction. Okay, so this is something that we could likely see lasting through Christmas, let's say, but as we head into 2022, most folks thinking, perhaps Q1, we could see some of these supply chain issues resolve?

I think so. Q1, in some cases, will take the Q2, but between here and there, Rob, we have earnings to report. We're going to get third quarter earnings fast and furious soon, and we're spoiled because earnings off the pandemic low have been sensational, and I think they're going to be a little mixed, and among the reasons will be, gee, I couldn't get what I needed to make my product, and therefore earnings fell a little short because of these supply problems. So, that's what has the market a little spooked here.

Yeah, interesting. All right, so I think it sounds like your prospects for the future remain the same. You still believe that equities should be favored, that is stocks, over the next year and beyond, just given everything we know today, is that right?

That's fair to say. I did put in our conclusion, near-term caution is warranted as the global economy downshifts. That's a temporary phenomenon, and it may have further to go. We've talked about expectations on our part that sometime in the back half of this year we get the five to ten percent pullback. Well, we're down five in a small fraction. Could we go down this amount again over the next weeks? Yeah, we could. What I don't think is going to happen, Rob, is that you got to run in tomorrow, and because the stock market's gone to a new high in the next two weeks.

I don't think that's going to happen. We're going to do some backing and filling here, but stocks still better than bonds on a six to twelve month horizon. All right, and clearly the central bankers of the world are providing plenty of liquidity for these economies to continue to run, I guess. Isn't that the truth?

Pedal to the metal. The Fed in particular is thinking about when they're going to slow down the rate of purchases. Well, as long as we're in this pickle, they're not going to do that.

They'll take their good old time. All right, Bob, we'll talk to you next week. Thank you, my friend. Bob Dahl, Chief Investment Officer of Crossmark Global Investments.

You can learn more at crossmarkglobal.com. Let's head back to the phones East Moline, Illinois. Hi, Patty, you're on MoneyWise Live. Go ahead. Hi, thanks for taking my call.

My husband and I are considering buying a vacation home in Florida, and first of all, we were wondering if we should do it, and if so, should we pay cash or pay part of it, you know, in cash and part finance? He is retired. I don't work. I just care my mom, and I'll probably start getting social security next year, and he also gets social security. Okay, and what are you all living off of besides his social security?

His retirement. Okay, and is that a 401k that you're pulling income off of? Does he have a pension?

What is it? He gets the pension, and then, yeah, it would be 401k, and we would probably go to a few different places. I have some stocks, and we would, we have about, he was telling me about 750,000. Okay, and how much would you be looking to spend for this vacation home? It's 140.

140,000. Okay. Yeah. And is this something that you all would just enjoy, or are you intending to make this income producing? Well, I think just enjoy, but we could rent it. It's in a 55 plus retirement place. Okay.

It's a manufactured home on a lot. Okay, very good. Well, I think the the key is, you know, make sure that it fits into your overall plan. So, if you all have ordered your financial life so that you can live basically off of social security, his pension, and then you'll be adding your social security. You're living modestly.

You're debt free. You've got three quarters of a million dollars, and you're really not having to pull much from that in the near term. Then, obviously, you could take this and redirect a portion of it into Florida real estate. Now, the downside is it's highly appreciated right now, but, you know, if you have the ability to buy it, and those are assets that you're not needing right now to live off of, and you could enjoy that, maintain it, and then at some point sell it or move into it and sell your current residence.

You know, I like the diversification that comes with that. I think the key is at what premium are you paying, you know, if any. I assume you will be paying a premium just given what's going on in Florida real estate, although it has in effect manufactured housing quite as much as single-family homes, but you still need to look at that and understand what's happened in that market in the last 12 to 24 months, and, you know, have prices risen dramatically and how much, and, you know, just understand what you're getting into. But apart from that, if you can take part of your assets that you're not relying on right now, especially as you were to take additional social security and redirect that, you know, I don't have any problem with it as long as it fits into your overall plan. And again, they're not making any more Florida real estate, so it's a great place to be invested, especially given the tax favored environment in that state and people moving out of states that are not as tax advantaged.

And so I think you'll continue to see for, based on real demand, an increase in South Florida, or excuse me, in Florida real estate in general. So I'm on board if it fits into the overall plan, Patty, with this idea. We appreciate you checking in with us today.

Let's quickly go to Lincoln Shire, Illinois. Hi, Denise. How can I help you?

Hi, good afternoon. So I just have a very general question. So we're a young couple and just my question is, how would you advise us to, or when to start meeting with a financial advisor?

Yeah, I think there's really kind of two pieces to this. The first would be for a financial plan where you begin to look at, do we have the right insurance coverage? And, you know, are we, do we have kids or are we planning to have kids?

And if you do, what are we doing to save for college? And, you know, what is our approach to retirement and how much should we be putting away right now, given our other priorities that may be shorter term, perhaps buying a home or paying off student loan debt or any other consumer debt that you have. So I think, you know, there's a case even early in your marriage to go and sit down with a financial advisor, perhaps once a year, and, you know, begin to put that plan together and then update that over time just to make sure you're making wise decisions. Beyond that would be at what point do you need an advisor to manage investment assets? And I would say when you, you know, pass about $100,000 in investable assets, I would be thinking about hiring an investment advisor to manage that for me. Prior to that, there's some great options out there, soundmindinvesting.org, or you could use a robo advisor solution, you know, to take care of that yourself.

But even early as a young couple, I'd go ahead and get started with a financial plan and you can find a CKA on our website, moneywiselive.org. And Denise, we appreciate you calling today. All the best to you in the days ahead.

MoneyWise Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and MoneyWise Media. I want to say thank you to my team today, Amy and Dan and Jim. I want to thank you for being here today. We'll be back tomorrow, Lord willing. Hope you'll join us for another edition of MoneyWise Live. In the meantime, may the Lord bless you. Bye-bye.