Gift Giving Ideas

The Christmas season has officially begun, and as things start to get hectic, it's good to keep a sense of humor about the holidays. Hi, I'm Rob West, and to help us do that, Steve Moore joins us today to answer a number of Christmas questions that others, quite frankly, were afraid to ask him, but we're not. So our former cohost, Steve Moore, apparently has plenty of time on his hands in retirement because he's been thinking about Christmas gift giving. Steve, welcome back. Thanks very much.

Always nice to come back and hang out with you guys. Steve, there's some questions about giving that our listeners have been wanting to know the answer to, and I think you're the guy to answer them. So we're going to kind of move through these quickly, get to as many as we can, starting with, is it okay to re-gift a fruitcake?

No, by all means. I mean, what else would you do with it? I've heard that some people actually partake of a fruitcake, but then that requires future dental work, perhaps having your stomach pumped out. Definitely re-gift that. Now, I know our Rich Rossel, our engineer, loves fruitcakes, and there's some special brand fruitcake that I can't remember the name of, but I've just never met a fruitcake that I liked very much. Well, and apparently they age well.

It has something to do with how they're put together, I guess. Well, and you do the same, Rob. Age well. Thank you.

Thank you very much. All right, question number two. Multicolored lights on the Christmas tree or white? Ah, our first argument, the first year we were married. You know, we grew up in different homes. Not you and I. Marsha and you, you're talking about? Oh, Marsha.

Yeah, I meant Marsha, my first wife, and my only wife. She grew up with white lights, little twinkly ones. I grew up with colored lights, the larger size bulbs, and we actually had disagreements about this, not to mention the size of the tree and all that crazy stuff. It's embarrassing to think that we argued over these things, and I was the pain in the neck.

So don't mess up Christmas and the real reason for the season by arguing over those silly things. OK, very good. All right. Question number three. Do you give your four year old granddaughter every gift on her list?

Well, I mean, what business is it of yours, really? Yes, yes. Olivia is my four year old granddaughter that lives just a few miles from me, and she has me wrapped around the proverbial little finger. Whatever she wants, she gets. Now, this isn't biblical, but what can I say?

She's so pretty and so cute, and after we're done, I've got pictures I can show you. OK, I know you always do. All right, so carolers come to the door, Steve Moore. You answer it. Do you give them cookies or say bah humbug? I give them that fruitcake. I get out my chainsaw, I cut it into multiple pieces, and I say, get out of here.

I'm trying to sleep. Get off my lawn. You know, I wish Carolers would get off my lawn. I wish Carolers would come.

I've had it happen a couple of times in my life, but it doesn't seem to happen much. I would love it. I know you would. Let's get serious here before we run out of time. This is serious. We want to keep Jesus at the forefront of Christmas, Steve.

Your best idea to do that. How about really good and quality gift giving? I'm thinking of organizations, ministries that all have gift catalogs on their websites. Samaritan's Purse, Operation Christmas Child, The Salvation Army, Compassion International, Heifer.org, where you can actually buy a live animal, a heifer, a cow, a pig, a flock of chickens, to help lower income farmers around the world establish a business in their locale. This information is all available on the website, and it's a great way to actually maximize your giving and help someone in the process. I think that's great. One other idea would be to give your kids or grandkids a certain dollar amount.

The instructions are they have to give it away and tell you what they did with it. That's going to create some great conversations for you and the kids or grandkids after Christmas. Steve Moore, former co-host, now gift giving expert on the program today. We hope you and the Moore family have a blessed Christmas this year. Thanks for stopping by. And to you as well. Thanks very much. All right. Your calls are next.

800-525-7000. This is MoneyWise Live. We'll be right back. Thanks for tuning in to MoneyWise Live.

Great to have Steve Moore back with us today. My producer Amy and I were just talking during the break. She said we need a little frivolity every now and then.

And certainly Steve provides lightheartedness and some joking along the way. So a lot of fun as we think about Christmas and the Christmas season that is now upon us and how we can focus on the real meaning of Christmas and enjoy family and friends and festivities along the way. We also want to bring our financial wherewithal with us so we don't end up with a bunch of debt in January.

We'll try to help with that throughout the course of the next month as you prepare for Christmas and think about honoring God with stewardship of his resources as well. Hey, we'd love to take your calls today. We look forward to hearing from you with anything that you might want to engage in conversation about financially speaking. Here's the number. 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000.

And whether you're thinking about saving for Christmas or paying for Christmas or anything, retirement, credit scores, debt repayment, perhaps how you can give more generously, whatever's on your mind today, we'd love to hear from you. Again, lines are open. 800-525-7000.

Let's begin today in Memphis, Tennessee. Hi, Kelly. How can I assist you? Hi. Thank you for taking my call.

I have a question for you. I am 61 and a half years old. I'm debt free, thank the Lord. I have two vehicles that are in good working condition and I keep them serviced. But my question to you is I bought a house and it had unforeseen expenses.

So in fixing these repairs, I used up all my surplus. So I'm down to just making my bills, just barely. Even though you're debt free, it costs a lot to live. My question is I have an IRA that will mature in January. It only has about $8,000 in it. But I was thinking about beginning to withdraw from the IRA until I can find a job and get some regular income coming in. Or I have to borrow 1K for retirement. I probably have enough that I could go ahead and retire if I chose to. It doesn't take a whole lot for me to live.

But I am only 61 and a half, but I do want to enjoy my grandchildren. Yes, ma'am. So I'm kind of looking for some guidance there since I don't have any income right now. And like I said, I've just about depleted my surplus. I'm definitely going to have to have some income of some sort.

I need some guidance there. Very good. Well, I understand how homes have a way of bringing, as you said, unforeseen expenses and repairs.

That is to be expected. And I like the fact that you're thinking about how you can build a budget that's sustainable and still enjoy this season of life. And I know how enticing grandkids are. I don't have any yet myself.

My kids are still at home, but I've been around grandparents long enough to know how quickly they can really become enthralled with spending time with their grandbabies. Let's unpack this just a bit more financially. And I appreciate the background. You said you have about $8,000 in an IRA. You have quite a bit in your 401K that you've been saving up for a long time. How much, roughly?

Yes. I'd have to look at it. I know it's over $250,000, but I think it's closer to $400,000 because I have three different ones. And I know you're scattered out. But anyway, I would say, if I had the minimum of $250,000, we'll use that as a base if that's okay. And it's probably more than that, but I agree.

Let's start there. And so you're without a job right now, and yet you're paying your bills. I understand you're living modestly. You have no debt. That's great.

That's going to make this a lot easier to solve for as a math equation. Have you been living purely then, Kelly, off your emergency reserves? Yeah, off of my savings, yes.

And they are the same, one and the same. Okay. And so because that's now depleted, at this point, you either have to get a job or you're going to have to start pulling from one of these retirement accounts, correct? Right, right. And I have begun to look for employment.

Okay, very good. And would your plan be to work just enough to cover your bills and try to delay taking Social Security as long as you can? Or were you thinking you might begin to pull from the retirement accounts regardless, you know, even secondary to these repairs that are needed? Well, I am in good health as far as I know. And so as far as needing to take funds, I think it's just a temporary thing as far as sustaining my income. But at the same time, I do want to enjoy those grandbabies. So I have considered actually retiring. I see. And at that point, would you try to take Social Security as soon as 62 or would you just pull it purely from the retirement accounts?

Well, now that was another question I want to ask you as well at 62. All right. What do you have you done your budget and what do you think you need per month? Probably at top $1200 a month. Okay. All right. Well, if you have $250,000, I think you could comfortably pull 4% a year, as long as you have somebody managing that.

And we can talk about that in a moment. The reason I'd like somebody to manage that for you is an investment advisor who knows that this is an income portfolio where you're trying to preserve the capital first and generate an income second could build a portfolio with a heavy emphasis on fixed income, where you've got a real solid base of securities that are going to generate the income that you need and a smaller portion that's in a growth component where, you know, as the market does well, it'll provide some enhanced returns, let's say. But in the event the market's down, we don't touch it, we let it recover, even if that takes, you know, a year or two. And the idea is that all of that working together should be able to sustain you pulling out 4% a year where over time you wouldn't impact the principal at all. In fact, hopefully there'd be a little bit of growth there. That would throw off about $10,000 a year. Let's say you're wrong and it's not $250,000, it's $350,000, you know, that's $14,000 a year.

So we're just about there. And I would let the Social Security grow because as soon as you take it, if you lock it in at 62, you're going to be, you know, taking about a 25 to 30% haircut off of what you would receive if you wait till full retirement age. So if through a combination of maybe some part-time work plus beginning to draw, you know, a small amount from the retirement savings together would allow you to enjoy the grandbaby, still get out of the house and leverage the fact that you are in good health and you've got a lot to contribute from a work standpoint, combined with the fact that now we're letting Social Security continue to grow so that once you take it, you're kind of locking in this higher payout for the rest of your life.

That feels really good to me. And then when you decide you don't want to work anymore or you can't, you've got, you know, plenty of income there between the retirement accounts and the Social Security to sustain you for whatever God has in store in this next season. Then for the repairs, you know, what are you expecting to have to spend on those? Well, actually, I do have my repairs covered, but that will bring me down to almost zero. All right. Well, very good. Well, so how does that sound then where we would prioritize you getting at least part-time work as soon as you can, if not full-time, just depending on how much you want and then either finding an investment advisor or if you have one beginning to draw.

But, you know, hopefully maybe around 3% a year supplemented by the part-time work that you get. Does that sound like a good plan? Yeah. Yeah. I think that sounds very good.

I do. Now, do you think it matters whether I take it out of the 401k or if I use that, I mean, the IRA doesn't have a lot of money in it. Like, say it's $8,000. I'd probably spend down the IRA just because things are going to be a little bit more, a little simpler with just one account.

And there's not a whole lot you can do. I mean, you could buy some index mutual funds with that IRA, but the 401k with the assets that you have is going to give you a lot more flexibility in terms of how you deploy those investments. So I would probably spend the IRA down until it's gone.

Now, we do need to think about whether you want to roll that 401k into the IRA because I assume it's with a prior employer. Is that right? It is. Okay.

And do you have an investment advisor or professional that you work with? No. Okay. Are you open to that? Sure.

Okay. That would be where I would go. Listen, you've spent a lifetime amassing this money and the last thing you want to do is put it on autopilot. So I think finding a seasoned financial and investment professional to help walk with you to deploy these assets in a way that's consistent with your goals and objectives, understands you and what the Lord's doing in your life. And also that you want to be a careful steward of this and generate some income at the same time could be an invaluable next step. And they'll likely have you roll that 401k into an IRA with whatever custodian they work with. So I'd go to our website, MoneyWiseLive.org, click find a CKA and find two or three certified kingdom advisors there in Memphis that you could interview, find the one that's the best fit. And then I would move forward with getting those invested where they understand that you're trying to generate a very modest income.

I'd make a priority to find that work that is available today, so many people are hiring, and see if you can't between a combination of part-time work and beginning to draw a very small amount from these retirement accounts. Get to a place where you've got your expenses covered and let that social security grow and then we'll just be excited for you to lean into this great season of life that God has you in. Does that sound good? Okay, that sounds excellent.

I appreciate the information very much. You are very welcome, Kelly. We appreciate you listening and calling and all the best to you as you enjoy this Christmas season as we celebrate Christ's birth and we appreciate your call today.

800-525-7000, that's 800-525-7000 is the number to call. We've got some lines open today. By the way, if you haven't checked out our website, we'd love for you to do that, MoneyWiseLive.org. While you're there, create a free account so you can get our MoneyWise Weekly Wisdom email. Much more to come on MoneyWise Live just around the corner.

Stay with us. Thanks for joining us today on MoneyWise Live. Thanks for tuning in to MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions.

In just a moment, we'll go back to the phones for your calls and questions. But first, it's Monday and I'm glad it is because the market has been wild. Joining us for this segment, Chief Investment Officer of Crossmark Global Investments, Bob Dahl, our good friend with his market commentary.

Bob, what do we make of this market? Goodness. Yeah, well, and the fact that it was closed and unchanged on Thursday meant that Friday and Monday we had to sort of make up for that lack of volatility.

Oh my goodness. You know, the fear on Friday was all about the latest variant of COVID, but that's the excuse. I think liquidity on these semi holidays, half days is always low and the market tends to overdo it in either direction and we got the whoosh to the downside. And today we've picked some of it back up and volatile on both days in terms of what's going on.

There's more we don't know about this Omicron variant than we do know. And so uncertainty disturbs markets, as we've said many times. And that's what we have here.

Most wisdom is that vaccinations will keep it from being a big deal in the U.S., but we don't have any conclusions yet. So we're going to be living with this for a little while in both directions. It strikes me, though, that it seems like this market is still very resilient, even to uncertainty and bad news. Would you agree? No question about it.

And it comes back to what we've talked about before. I mean, earnings, I mean, put it in perspective, coming into this calendar year, the estimates for S&P 500 earnings for the full year, $175. It looks like when the year is said and done, it'll be $215 or higher.

$40 more than expected. This is the biggest positive surprise versus expectations ever recorded, period. And that is the I mean, if you have to give one reason why stocks have done so well this year and why they remain, as you point out, resilient, that's it. Yes. Obviously, consumers are demonstrating that they're willing to pay these higher prices with inflation, right?

Yes. Remember, they have a lot of cash from not spending it during the covid days. They have a lot of cash because the government mailed them some checks. And on top of that, a lot of them are earning a bit more money because they've gotten some raises.

You put all that together. Consumer buying power is pretty astronomical. And despite the price increases that corporate America is charging, so far, Americans are willing to pay those higher prices.

They're beginning to not like it. And as we see from some of the consumer sentiment data, like we got from the University of Michigan on Friday, but that's not stopped them from ordering ordering things and go and finding things and buying them. Bob, you said in this week's Dolls Deliberations that you could characterize 2021 as easy money has been made because everything was going up. As we head into next year, where you're anticipating choppier markets for those folks that have their investments in passive index funds. Is this a time to think about active management? You know, when markets go straight up, you don't need somebody who's going to pick stock A versus stock B because all stocks, most stocks go up in that kind of market. But if we have a choppier, sideways, higher volatility market, which is what I'm anticipating. Yeah, all of a sudden being in the right stocks and avoiding the wrong stocks is absolutely key. And that says, yeah, have some more active management than you've had in the past. All right.

Check out Dolls Deliberations at CrossmarkGlobal.com where you can read that weekly. I rely on it every week. Bob, before we let you go, it's December, which means it's the giving season. And as believers created in the image of the ultimate giver, encourage us in that area of our finances.

I'd start by where we just talked about. Markets have done really, really well. And so individuals who have said, you know, I think I should give a little money away, but I'm going to stay in the market. They have now even more money to give away. So take some of the largess that we've all enjoyed from these market returns, not just in 2021, but over the course of the last bunch of years and find some great causes.

They're going to build the kingdom and give that money away. Very good, Bob. Thank you, my friend, for stopping by.

You can learn more about Bob Doll and Crossmark Global at CrossmarkGlobal.com. Bob, we'll talk to you next week. Sounds great. Bye bye. All right. Bless you, buddy. Back to the phones today.

Corda Lane, Idaho. Hi, Haley. How can I help you? Hi. Thank you for taking my call.

I have a couple of questions. I inherited a piece of property about a year and a half ago, and it's going to sell. I'm getting a couple offers on it and I'm going to take a big hit on capital gains. So the one offer is a cash offer to pay it full out, or the other one would be to carry a contract, get a substantial amount down and then carry a contract for, I don't know, maybe 10 years or at least five years on it. So I don't know the better way to go on that. And then I'll throw out that I'm 59, my husband's 61. Do I pay off a mortgage on a home or do I invest this money?

Can I make more investing because the mortgage on the home is 3 percent? Yeah. Yeah.

Great questions. Are you planning to do any giving on it? Because that would be one opportunity to minimize those capital gains is where prior to the sale, you allocate a portion of this property to a donor advised fund. It then creates a tax deduction prior to the capital gains being generated and then you can give it away. So that might be one thing to look at if you were interested in exploring that.

Haley, I'd check with my friends at the National Christian Foundation, ncfgiving.com. In terms of taking the lump sum, I think that's always a great idea as opposed to holding a mortgage or anything like that. Paying off your own mortgage versus investing, I think the first question is not a financial one and it is, do you have either a conviction about being debt-free or would you experience a lot more peace of mind just knowing that you're unencumbered or are you okay having the debt and really just looking to maximize the financial return? And there's not a right or wrong answer there.

I'm just interested in your thoughts. Well, I'm okay with having the debt. I'm still going to work till I'm 65 and I'm okay with having the debt if, you know, the market or the money could make me 7 percent, right? Yeah. Yeah. Than paying off the mortgage.

But I thought, you know, I have a 30-year mortgage on this and it was my intent that this property would pay it off because I don't have 30 years left to work. So I'm open to either or. Yeah. Well, here's what I would say. I mean, you know, if you've done well in the market, you have an investment advisor that's doing a great job, you know, you could certainly put it into the market. I'd want you to have at least a 10-year time horizon because there's some headwinds coming our way. I mean, today it's in the form of inflation and the ongoing pandemic and down the road it's going to be, you know, the debt that we've racked up and just some of the other challenges I think we'll have from a tax code standpoint. And, you know, we're likely to hit a recession here in the next couple of years.

So I think from that standpoint, if your original intent was that this property is there to pay off the mortgage, as you said, you don't have enough time to pay it off on its current trajectory. And I'd love for you to enter retirement completely debt-free. I think that's probably the way to go. I mean, our good friend Bob Doll, the chief investment officer of 30 years plus, managing literally trillions of dollars, he's characterizing the next several years as choppy.

And so, you know, we're not going to see, I don't think, at least most experts agree, kind of the straight line up that we have the last decade, certainly the last couple of years. And so I think from that standpoint, if that was the purpose of it, I'd say pay it off. You know it's free and clear. And then you can focus on keeping your lifestyle at a minimum and taking what you've amassed and investing that wisely. But if you said, Rob, no, I don't have any problem having this debt. I can pay it off at any time. I'd rather see if we can do better in the market. And we've got a plan to do that or an advisor to help us with that. I wouldn't push back on that.

But all things being equal, I'd probably pay off the mortgage. Okay? Yeah, no, I appreciate that.

That makes a lot of sense. So, yeah, thank you very much. All right, Haley, thank you for calling and we appreciate it.

Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Pat is calling today. And, Pat, what's on your mind? Thank you so much for taking my call and all of the good advice you give. I have a granddaughter, one year old, that I would like to give a start, whether it's bonds or property. I just need some guidance. Okay, I think the first question, Pat, and by the way, congratulations on that little granddaughter that I understand is one.

What a phenomenal age and exciting to be heading into perhaps her first Christmas or maybe just barely two. But let me ask, what is your intent for this money? Is it to be able to turn over money to her at a certain point that she can do whatever she wants with? Or would you like to make this specifically for education, undergraduate, and even K-12?

Or what are your thinking? I just want to start a means, a vehicle for saving for her. Probably education would be the end goal. The only reason I ask is my preferred savings vehicle for college is a 529 plan, 529 college savings account. I would go to savingforcollege.com. You'll answer a series of questions and they'll tell you which state's 529 plan is the best for you. You're in Florida, so there's no state income tax.

So you're going to be looking at which state has the best returns, and I'm going to tell you it's probably not Florida's. And then you'd open the 529, you could systematically contribute to that. The benefit is you're going to get that invested, and that money's going to grow tax-free as long as it's used for qualified educational expenses, kind of like a Roth IRA. And there's some real benefit to that, and it's earmarked for college. If you did a custodial account, it becomes her money at the age of majority, and she can use it for anything she wants, even if she's not making good choices or hasn't demonstrated the maturity quite yet. So if you're willing to earmark it for college, at least right now, I'd open a 529 plan.

Again, go to savingforcollege.com, find out which state, you can set it up online, and just set up an automatic contribution. Get that going and it'll be a real blessing to her down the road. Pat, if we can help you more along the way, don't hesitate to give us a call. We appreciate it. Well, that's going to do it for us today. I want to say a big thanks to my team today, Amy Rios, producing, Mr. Dan Anderson, engineering today, Jim Henry on research. I want to thank you to our amazing call screeners as well, and thank you for being here. MoneyWise Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and MoneyWise Media.