Celebrating a Simple Christmas

Christmas is still a few weeks away. There's time to stop, take a deep breath, and get it right this year.

Hi, I'm Rob West. This is just about the time that things get a little frenzied during the holiday season, and we lose track of what's really important. Crystal Payne is here today to help set us straight. Then it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Well it's always a pleasure to have Crystal Payne back on the program.

She's the creator of the amazing website, moneysavingmom.com, which you should only check out if you like saving money and simplifying your life. Crystal, great to have you back with us. It's such an honor to be here.

Thank you for having me back. Well, we're delighted, and we're going to get into a lot of the practical steps folks can take to keep costs down at Christmas. But first, tell us maybe a few of the things your family does to savor the meaning of Christmas. Yes, well there's a lot of different things we do.

We really try to keep it simple, and we'll talk more about that as we get into this interview. But two things that we do, one, we like to have an advent calendar. So this is just usually, we do different things, but we've loved, Anne Voskamp has an advent calendar book that actually has this, the little ornaments and the tree that opens up on the book. And there's just a devotional for every day.

It's really short and easy. And it's great because all ages can get involved. And it's just a good way to start your day or end your day, just reminding yourself of what Christmas is really all about. So that's one thing that we do. And then also we like to have a giving project that we decide as a family, this is something that we're all going to give money towards and kind of, we sort of raise money per se all through December and then kind of see how much we raised and be able to give that at the end of the month.

And it just helps again to remind us of the reason for Christmas. Yeah. And did you say the kids actually choose the project each year?

Yes, they do. They like to choose different things. And then I think that that really gives them ownership, like they've chosen it. And so then they, they will, in fact, they have, you know, created little boxes and been like, put your donations here and you know, put your change here.

And it just helps them to have some buy in for it. Oh, that's so good. Well, those are great suggestions. Now let's go over some of the things Crystal, that most folks feel they have to do at Christmas.

So where do we start? Well, I think one of the biggest things is to really start with, you know, thinking who do you need to buy for? And I, I really don't like the word need because honestly, especially in, you know, none of us really need to buy anything for anyone, but who do we feel like, you know, we should buy for, and then who do we want to buy for? And then really thinking about how much of a budget do we have? And when we look at that list of who we need to buy for, who we want to buy for, and how much budget we have, do we need to pare back?

Do we need to simplify? Or maybe we're going to give family gifts this year instead of giving individual gifts to every member of a certain family, or we're going to give experience gifts and that's going to be something that's going to help us to stay within our budget. Yeah. And I know you're helping with that with a guide you have on your website, right?

Yes. So we put together some of just our very favorite gift ideas. These are things that could be really anybody, you know, there's your, you always have those people that you're like, I don't know, it feels like they have everything, but I want to do something for them. So these are gifts that you could give to anyone. Some of them are things that can be made really inexpensively and really quickly.

Like maybe you don't have a lot of time. You can't do this elaborate project, but some of them are food items. Some of them are just cute little things like a DIY Sharpie marker mugs or movie night in a box or pedicure in a jar. Just some fun things that could people would, you know, find that they're unique and would be something that would bless someone else. But also anybody pretty much could benefit from something in this gift guide that we put together and that's for free on money saving mom.com.

Check it out today. All right. Now you mentioned budget a few moments ago. What is the best way to keep spending in check?

Crystal? Well, there are a couple of things that I recommend. Now we're already into December and so, you know, hindsight is 2020. You can't start this now, but thinking ahead for next year, really ideally saving up for Christmas all year long. So setting aside money each month.

I like to also encourage people. There are lots of ways that you can earn gift cards. We talk about this on money saving mom.com but that you can then set those aside as you're earning gift cards for maybe scanning your receipts or taking surveys. And then at the end of the year, use those gift cards that you've accumulated to be able to buy things for Christmas.

Oh, that's so good. We're talking to Crystal Payne today. You'll find all of her great work to help you save money and simplify your life at money saving mom.com.

You can also download this free Christmas resource that will help you plan for and execute a wonderful Christ filled Christmas. Now when we come back, she's going to help us stretch your Christmas budget and be more intentional. Crystal Payne with us just around the corner. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. Our guest today is Crystal Payne.

She's the creator of the amazing website, money saving mom.com. We're talking about how you can have an intentional Christ filled Christmas this year. And Crystal's got some great ideas. Just before the break, we were talking about how you can keep spending in track. What about stretching that Christmas budget?

Crystal, what ideas do you have for us? So first off, I would really recommend, you know, you got to have a budget. And then also if you want to stick with your budget, one of the best things that you can do is stick with cash only. Now a lot of people, they really balk when I say this and especially because you're like, well, there's such great deals online.

And yes, I absolutely agree with you. Money saving mom.com. We share lots and lots of great online deals, but you can actually stick with a Christmas budget when shopping online by buying a prepaid gift card or Amazon gift card or store gift cards. That way it helps you that you don't go over budget.

And so yes, it's an extra hassle, but I promise that you will be glad that you've stuck with your budget come January. And so really starting with a budget, sticking with cash and then what are some ways that you could maybe, you know, you don't have a big budget this year. So some simple, inexpensive, homemade gift ideas. I love homemade gift ideas and I think most people do.

And it also is something, you know, you put your time and effort into it. It's unique, it's different things like homemade treats and baked goods, cookie dough for the freezer, homemade breads or canola baking mixes and jars or homemade experience gifts like a treat every month. You could give them a calendar that it's like every month on this day, I'm going to make you a treat if it's someone who lives locally or you're going to make them dinner or you're going to provide some laundry help or babysitting, you know, giving gifts of your time. That is something that's really valuable and can be really meaningful or things like photo gifts or a meaningful letter or putting together a collection of recipes or journal entries from a loved one. I just feel like sometimes we always think it has to be something we buy at the store, but making something for someone giving gifts of our time. These can be the things that someone's going to remember for years and years to come. Yeah, it really sends a message around how important that person is to you when you take the time to create something or give a thoughtful gift. All right, what about cooking?

I mean, this comes up at Christmas time. There's so many meals and we want to celebrate, but it's time consuming. So what ideas do you have for us? So I really think about what can I make ahead of time to make hosting more enjoyable if I'm going to be hosting or just that I want to do some fun things with my kids and I want, you know, us to be able to bake cookies together or to build a decorate cookies.

What can I do ahead of time so that we can have those memories but it's not going to take a lot of effort? And so maybe on a weekend sometime, you know, in this next weekend you could just sit down and make a little list and then do the grocery shopping and take a few hours to make some things ahead like cookie dough or rolls, sweet breads, desserts. Look at your holiday menu and things you want to make or hope to make and then plan some time to freezer cook ahead because that is going to save you so much time and also thinking about what shortcuts could you use? Could you buy pre-made cookie dough or bread dough?

Sometimes I found that it's the same price if you add up the cost of the ingredients and it'll save you a lot of time. Those are so helpful and practical. Now of course we want to spend a lot of time together as a family during the Christmas season. We're looking forward to this Christmas in particular because my oldest son went off to college this year so we're going to have him back home. All six of us are going to be together again so how do you encourage family togetherness during the Christmas season?

So something that we have done for years is we call it our December bucket list and we have everyone pick out one to two special things that they want to do during the month of December and I find that as a mom this relieves so much from me because I feel like mom sometimes we feel like we have to be the purveyor of entertainment and memories for our children and sometimes the things that we think that they would really like and want to do and be all excited about that's not what they pick and so letting everybody pick one to two things it means that December is not just packed full of all the things it allows us to really focus on those few things that are important to each member of our family and it simplifies it for us and make sure that we prioritize those things that they really want to do and maybe you're like oh nobody chose the you know going to see the Nutcracker okay I guess that's not an important thing you know and so we we sit down we make that December bucket list and then we just put it on the calendar and make sure to prioritize those things and so another thing that we've done is especially if you have younger kids this is a fun thing wrapping up Christmas books and then every day getting to unwrap one and read it together and Christmas books that you already own you can even get them from the library I've done that before and just wrap them up and it makes it like it's this fun thing and you do it together and my kids my older kids have just loved that and remembering that and I'm excited to do it with our younger kids now and then another thing that we've done is we set aside so we always go back to Kansas where our family is from we live in Tennessee but we have an all-day Christmas celebration that we do just with our kids before we leave to go to Kansas and so it'll be on a day that's sometimes a week before Christmas but we just set this aside and it's been really really special and all of the kids get to kind of help plan parts of it prioritizing what's important to them and it's just a special day that we get to just savor Christmas just with our immediate family and then we can go enjoy it with grandparents as well and not feeling like we have to you know try to fit everything in right on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day yes oh those are great suggestions Crystal alright well one of the things I appreciate so much about moneysavingmom.com is that you help families and moms in particular stay organized so what are some last tips for staying organized during the holidays I am a huge believer in asking yourself the question how can I make this easier and just you know really thinking as we go through things sometimes I think we over complicate things so how can I make things easier and then write every thing down in my book the time-saving mom I talk about how use Google Calendar and a time block to-do list and there is just something about writing all the things down I like to brain dump everything that's in my head I actually put it as all day tasks in Google Calendar and so then it's not just swimming around in my head and I have you know it feels like a thousand things up there in my head and so write it down put it in a safe place and so that you know that you've put it where you can access it but it's not just all up there in your head and then also divvying up the work and letting others help so if you have kids if you have a spouse if you are going to an event or hosting an event you know see how you can help out or ask people to help you out so if someone offers to help if you're hosting take them up on it do not say oh I'm good like yeah can you bring bread or can you bring dessert or you know whatever it is ask for help let other people help you so that it's not all just falling on your shoulders yeah that's real good you mentioned before the break this new resource you put together at moneysavingmom.com that's available for our listeners to go get right now for those that missed that just recap what's available there yes so we put together it's a brand new Christmas guide that has 15 different DIY Christmas gift ideas some of them are food items some of them are just homemade gifts and it's really we want to just help you simplify your holiday season come up with creative ideas for those people on your list that you're like I don't know what to get them but I want to do something for them and also to save you some money this year and so you can go to moneysavingmom.com and right at the top you'll see where you can download that Christmas guide for free we are just here we want to help to save you money and to help make your Christmas simpler and more meaningful Crystal we always love having you stop by you bring practical advice but help us remember why we're doing what we're doing which is critical this time of year during Christmas so Crystal Merry Christmas thanks for being here today thank you so much for having me all right that's family financial expert Crystal Payne if you haven't been to our website moneysavingmom.com you need to check it out today all right we're going to be back with your questions just around the corner 800-525-7000 that's 800-525-7000 this is faith and finance live we'll be right back the opinions offered during this program represent the personal or professional opinions of the participants given for informational purposes only any information provided is not intended to replace advice from a financial medical legal or other professional who understands your specific situation I'm so glad to have you with us today on faith and finance live I'm Rob West all right it's time to take your calls and questions today on anything financial we've got lines open that won't last long but at the moment they're ready for you 800-525-7000 you can call right now again 800-525-7000 give us a call with your financial questions all right let's dive in today we're going to begin in Fort Lauderdale hi Marie how can I help hi thank you for taking my call I'm like 80 years old and I have like $40,000 sitting in a checking account which isn't earning anything for like the past five years and I'm like oh my gosh I can't just do that I have a 401k I have an IRA so I have other monies but this money is just sitting there not earning anything and I am petrified of going online and like investing online what is your opinion about investing online yeah well when you're talking about investing online you probably mean using like an online bank to access a savings account that pays a better rate of return yeah you know I'm comfortable with it I mean I realize it can be concerning especially if you're not comfortable navigating the internet I mean more and more we're doing you know transacting business online I mean it's a common way to pay for things you might be doing some Christmas shopping you know on on Amazon or one of the other online retailers you know you may be doing some online banking where more and more folks instead of writing physical checks or you know using a bank that offers online banking where you can do electronic payments or simply initiate a payment and then your bank is sending the check for you just makes it a little simpler a little easier to do and in some cases it's more secure because now we'd you know you don't have physical checks as many of them at least floating around out there and where that could be intercepted by somebody and it's all handled electronically and the same is true with on you know opening an online bank account with an online bank which just simply means they they operate under the same bank charter they have the same FDIC insurance backed by the full faith and credit the United States government it's just that they don't have the brick and mortar branches and they're able to take that savings from staff and you know the physical operations have one central place that they you know handle customer service but they can pass that along then in the form of fee free savings accounts and they're able to give you a much higher rate of return because again they're able to pass that savings along so you know whereas you might get less than 1% you know still today at a brick and mortar bank on your savings account you know right now if you look at bankrate.com which is where I would direct you to find the right bank for you you know you will see that high yield savings accounts are getting up you know into the fives five percent plus I mean certainly four and a half percent or higher and these are five star you know rated banks some of them very large like Barclays or Marcus which is the retail operation of Goldman Sachs you know American Express savings CIT Bank Capital One I mean these are major institutions that are you know offering you between four and a half and five percent with no fees in some cases no minimums and the way I like to do it is you know you link it to your brick and mortar checking account so you still have your banking relationship with your primary checking account where it's always been you just have this online bank savings account that you set up you'll link it to your checking account electronically and that way you can move money back and forth through the what's called the ACH system which again there's no cost to that it would take you know usually one to three days to move money you know using that system and that way you know you could take and move out that portion that is you know truly your emergency savings get a much better rate of return and then if you need it you could transfer it back into your checking account and write a check from there so you know with that the last thing I'll say Marie and then I'd like to hear your thoughts I would always you know operate with best practices meaning you know you don't ever want to log into this account or any do any financial you know business or transactions using public Wi-Fi so you wouldn't want to go to a coffee shop and you know log into your bank you know you want to use a strong password that you update regularly but you need to do those things anyway anytime you have you know accounts or vendors where you're you know accessing the information online so I've thrown a lot at you there give me your thoughts yeah you did I'm just scared I mean I'm old-fashioned my husband is more old-fashioned if he could put if he could put his money under his pillow that's what he would do that's how old school he is yeah yeah I get it are you all doing any online you know are you buying things online okay so this is very similar to that a lot of money into that category I'm scared like this is you know I'm 80 years old I'm not gonna I'm not working not like I can earn it back again so yeah well I think the thing you're looking at here is you want to be with a major financial institution and you want to make sure there's that FDIC insurance which all the ones that I mentioned would be members of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation which just simply means the US government is in the full faith and credit of the United States government is going to guarantee not only the the your money is protected but that it's it's accessible or liquid so in the case of well the one of the most recent Silicon Valley Bank there was actually brick-and-mortar banks this just happened to be a regional bank they were largely concentrated in the tech space they mismanaged their portfolio of whole of bond holdings and as a result you know there was a run on the banks and the FDIC stepped in protected the depositors made sure they had access to the funds and that wasn't even an online bank that was a local bank so you know I don't have any concern in terms of stability as long as you're going with a major institution like Capital One American Express CIT Marcus Barclays I mean any of these and that's where you'd look for the five-star rating you'd look for the FDIC insurance you open the account online just like you would with an online vendor and then you just electronically move the money and you would be able to log in and see that balance at any time and know that it's protected so I'd head to bankrate.com to research this a bit more maybe sit down and talk to your husband at the end of the day if you guys can't get comfortable I understand that but there is a much better rate of return you could get by going this direction thanks for your call we'll be right back. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance live here on Moody Radio I'm Rob West hey we have some lines open today we'd love to hear from you so if you have a financial question you'd like to tackle it together I'd love to help you process it in light of biblical principles and wisdom you can give us a call right now we've got some lines open our team is standing by that number to call is 800-525-7000 again that's 800-525-7000 you can call right now. Before we do though go back to the phones let me remind you here at year end this is an important time for us to hear from you with your listener support as a listener supported ministry we count on that and pressing toward year end is a really important time as we're trying to achieve our goal at year end of reaching 250,000 dollars in listener support now we're well on our way but not there yet here's why though the impact that we're able to see as we share these life-changing principles is what gets us so excited about the ministry God has called us to in fact let's listen to one of those stories of life change. I just wanted to give a brief testimony what the Lord has done in my life through the ministry I got brain surgery a few years ago and I was practically bankrupt I couldn't work anymore so I was left with a big problem with the debt that I have to the hundreds of thousands of dollars and by following the principle that I learned through your program I was able to pay all of my debt the Lord miraculously totally changed my situation wow that's incredible you know that's what it's all about it's about applying God's wisdom to our financial lives recognizing our role as stewards you know we just heard from a listener the other day she said Rob I started listening to the program I heard you talking about having an emergency fund almost to the day that I reached that six month in emergency fund mark I lost my job and she said I was able to navigate that but there's even more to the story because at that time God started working on me that I was to go on the mission field and would you believe that because I was in the financial position I was in I was able to listen to that call on my life and just want you to know first week of January I'm headed overseas to become a full-time missionary and you know that's what it's all about it's handling our money in such a way that we can hear God's voice that we can live or die give or go and follow the leading of the Lord and that's our hearts desire here at faith and finance so if you consider a gift to the ministry we'd certainly be grateful and a gift of any amount would go a long way to helping us reach our year-end goal you can learn more and give online at faithfi.com when you click the give button at the top of the page you'll see our impact report all the things God has allowed us to accomplish this year where we're headed next year and how we're doing toward our year-end goal again that's faithfi.com and just click give thanks in advance all right let's head back to the phones by the way lines are open and you can call right now 800-525-7000 and let's go to Tampa Florida hi Sheila go ahead hi I'm a new listener so I'm not sure if you've covered any of this before but I got into I opened a it's called a trust wallet which is a personal wallet to store your you know cryptocurrency or and I guess I don't know if it was corrupted or something but the app just disappeared from my phone one when I came on it and I was able to finally figure out how to reinstall it and get my account back open but the money's not there and I can't find it I have tried I've gone over their instructions I've done everything but because it's my own personal wallet I I don't know who to turn to to find find out where my currency is yes well you know unfortunately you know this can be a challenge and we've heard so many stories of folks that have attempted to store their cryptocurrencies in a while while it like this and often what happens is they'll lose their private key or their PIN number and then they're just unable to access it so do you have your private key and recovery phrase I do and that's how I was able to restore the account but it still doesn't show you know the currency and I don't know how to get that back into it yeah okay well have you reached out to their customer support well they all they do is send you a you know a instruction thing here to do I've gone on YouTube I've I've exhausted my possibilities of trying to figure out how to do it but I just have gotten nowhere okay all right yeah I mean it's one of the more popular cryptocurrency storage platforms but is you know it's a decentralized application and storage you manage your own private keys and although they do offer you know support and you know there's tens of millions of people using it you know and they have very strong security and obviously it's there for blockchain storage you know at the end of the day you've got to keep you know your own access credentials but you know I other than reaching out to them if you've used your access credentials you're in your account you're confirming that and all of a sudden you're just not seeing the cryptocurrency there you know that's obviously a concern and and so I would just let them know that you've you know you've been able to access the account but you're just not seeing you know what you believe to be there in your in your wallet apart from that unfortunately I wouldn't be able to give you any other information other than you know this is one of the more popular cryptocurrency storage vehicles I know support is available at support dot trust wallet dot com so I would you know submit a ticket and see if they can help you navigate this okay all right yeah because I mean I'm thinking I don't even know who you go to like locally to help you with that but all right I'll give that a try yeah unfortunately there's really not anybody that yeah would be able to help you apart from them I mean it's one of the challenges in the cryptocurrency space because the security is very high and the ability to be anonymous but with that you know comes lack of oversight you know that you know whereas you would normally be able to have a course of action to kind of follow through and chase something down and get somebody to step in and help you the decentralized nature of cryptocurrency kind of leaves you out there on your own it's a bit of the wild west so let's just pray that they can help you you know not only get in but find out you know what happened to the account that was there prior to you losing the app the fact that the app was deleted should have no bearing on you you know being able to get to your cryptocurrency as long as you can access your account which you say you're doing so that's what's what's getting pretty confusing here so support dot trust wallet dot com and Sheila thanks for your call today 800-525-7000 is the number to call we've got some lines open today and we'd love to hear from you take your financial questions as well you know as we think about this time of year you know we think about God's gift of course Jesus Christ but have you ever read the Bible through cover to cover if you haven't I certainly recommend it you know when you look at the scope of God's Word from Genesis to Revelation you see a lot of themes and one of those is the idea of abundance the Bible defines or excuse me the dictionary defines abundance as the condition of being rich in supply well who wouldn't want to be or to have God's rich supply and fortunately time after time in scripture we see God's people rejecting his abundance and running after worldly pleasures so how should we think about God's abundance and I'll weigh in on that a little bit later around the corner we'll also continue to take your questions today as well we'll tackle some of those right after this next break the number to call 800-525-7000 again that's 800-525-7000 stick around we'll be right back with much more Hey great to have you with us today on faith and finance live I'm Rob West heading back to the phones Thomas in Tennessee I understand you have a comment about our previous caller who was asking about trust wallet go ahead well if she has malware on her cell phone and laptop or computer that malware can grab the address that she puts on her clipboard and then they can use that address in her wallet account to send her money somewhere else oh well she needs to make sure she has cyber security software on her machine okay yeah good to keep the operating system up today but you're saying going a step further and having some cyber security software to really be scanning for this possible malware could be really important Thomas thanks for weighing in we appreciate your comments let's head to Florida hi Bob how can I help you hey appreciate you taking my call listen to you for forever just a couple quick questions yes I'm 66 years old and have several pieces of real estate that I invested in several years ago almost 20 years they've appreciated substantially I'm looking to try to sell these pieces of real estate at the same time get a don't want to get into the capital gains I don't want to experience the capital gains and yet at the same time I want to be able to live off the income as well as donate to my charities and I'm not sure how I can accomplish both yeah where is the money today Bob that you would be using to invest to generate this income I already the money I invested in several pieces of real estate years ago and I'm looking to sell them I'm trying to get out of the management of it so got it yeah I need to and the capital gains is going to kill me so I'm looking for a way to get to a point where I'm not going to experience capital gains yet at the same time be able to donate to my charities and live off the the income from either the interest of those properties that I sell yeah very good you know I think a couple of thoughts here number one is with any portion of this that you plan to use to fund charity which you had mentioned in your question one option Bob is you donate that portion of one or more properties to a donor advised fund prior to the sale so you give it then sell it what does that do well basically by giving it away to your donor advised fund which just think of that like a charitable checking account by giving it prior to the sale that would then no longer be subject to capital gains upon the sale and then when you sold it that portion of the property that was gifted to your donor advised fund prior to the sale would then you know the proceeds for that portion of it let's say it was 25% of a property 25% of the proceeds at closing would just go right into your donor advised fund and not subject to capital gains and then at that point you could distribute it out over you know whatever time period you wanted to and to whatever ministries or charities you wanted to so you know it may be a lump sum that's more than you'd want to give let's say in a year or even a couple of years and then you could give it out over time by initiating a grant request and then the donor advised fund sponsor would would cut the check either in your name or anonymously you know you would choose that so that would be one option that would save you on capital gains apart from that the only other way to kind of kick the can down the road on capital gains is a 1031 exchange but if you're wanting to exit the real estate business so to speak getting out of being a property manager then you're gonna have to go and recognize that capital gain now good news is capital gains rates are very low right now most folks are paying either zero or fifteen percent unless you've got more than $550,000 in adjusted gross income in the year of the sale so that's a pretty reasonable capital gain rate they're probably heading higher in the future now where do you put the money that didn't go into that donor advised fund prior to the sale well I would say you know obviously if you can get it into a tax deferred environment that would be great if you had a small business or you know you know something where you could set up maybe a SEP IRA or something like that apart from that you know I would just say invested in a well-diversified portfolio you know and you would have capital gains along the way but you could create an income stream for yourself the other option is you put it into an insurance product which I'm not typically fond of but if you don't have the way to get it into a retirement account you know that would be a way that you could you know address some of the the tax issues create a guaranteed income stream for yourself either through a guaranteed fixed annuity or a variable annuity that would be another option and I would connect with an advisor because not all annuities are created equal I'd want you to look for one that you know is lower in fees and expenses that kind of thing but give me your thoughts on all that well it's a lot to digest and to try to work through I appreciate your thoughts on that we had contacted the National Christian Foundation to try to help us work through this whole process more complicated than I expected I thought maybe I could find a vehicle a financial vehicle that could just say hey listen we eliminate capital gains and we have a fixed rate of income for you to live off until you both pass and then after that it goes into kind of a legacy for my grandchildren and for my charities but goodness gracious it got so complicated just kind of went over my head and I'm just a little bit confused and I they said you ought to look at a charitable renewable trust and I'm going oh boy I'm just a little bit confused yeah the other option is a charitable gift annuity it feels to me like Bob you're ripe for just some real comprehensive planning here with an advisor do you have an advisor that you've worked with in the past I do not I've been flying up to see them by the seat of my pants for years and here I am looking at an opportunity to cash in but it's gonna be a huge tax consequence who might you recommend yeah so I mean I think NCF is great and for the donor advised fund that doesn't have to be complicated you could open a giving fund in five minutes or less on their website and then they could help you gift a portion of the any one of those properties or a whole property to the DAF donor advised fund prior to the sale and that would eliminate the capital gains on that portion and essentially fund your giving fund that you could then give out over time so that would help to save some taxes but in terms of an advisor which yeah I think would make a lot of sense because he or she could help you really think this through and put a plan in place that that makes sense moving forward in terms of the management of these assets minimizing taxes getting you the income stream you want and honoring your giving desires we recommend the certified kingdom advisor designation so this is the only designation in financial services for men and women who've met high standards and character and competence and experience they've also been trained to deliver biblical financial advice pastor and client reference you can find CKAs there in Florida on our website at faithfi.com that's faithfi.com right there at the top of the page it'll say find a CKA and you could do a zip code search okay hey appreciate you guys thank you very much all right Bob thanks for your call today let's stay in Florida go up to Ocala hi Monica how can we help hi I'm calling because my house went into foreclosure they took about nine years before they went to the option sale so the house sold for more than what I owed to the bank and the surplus money that I might get might be like twenty five thousand dollars so that wouldn't be considered capital gains because I didn't really sell the house it was a foreclosure auction would it yeah like I'm trying to figure out what what taxes I would be like would it be considered just additional income and going I was going to a higher bracket or what how does that work yeah well so normally if there's a canceled portion of your loan that would be part of of your taxable income so was there something available beyond satisfying the loan that came back to you yes that they filed the foreclosure for three hundred and two thousand and the house sold for four hundred and thirteen thousand okay so out of that they're taking like lawyer fees and an interest and whatnot and then left after that might be like twenty five thousand dollars that I could claim yeah it's a good question you know it's an it's a bit of an unusual situation I would check with the CPA but what I would guess and again I would get some counsel on this what I would guess is I mean there is a selling price even though it was sold at auction there is a selling price and if that selling price was higher than you know your your original purchase price then you know you're you are going to have a gain there that would likely be subject to capital gains even though I realize you only get a portion of that after the loan was paid off and then everybody else gets their share including the lawyers so that is something you're going to need to check into if in fact it's sold at auction at an amount higher than what you originally put into it so you just want to make sure that doesn't catch you by surprise down the road so I would reach out to a CPA if you don't have one you could contact a certified kingdom advisor there in Ocala and ask for a referral to a godly CPA or accountant who can help you with this but I suspect there may still be some capital gains here despite how this went down now was this your primary residence it was okay yeah yeah and so you had lived there too out of the last five years yeah I had I had lived there for 11 years okay so that will work in your favor because if that's the case then you'd have as a single person up to 250,000 in gain that would be excluded from capital gains as a married person a half a million so you may be all set but again I'd reach out to a CPA to confirm that thanks for your call Monica we appreciate it faith and finance live is a partnership between moody radio and faith by thank you to Lynn Tahira Amy and Jim couldn't do it without and we'll see you tomorrow bye-bye you