Put Your Principles Where Your Money Is

You can get biblical financial wisdom delivered to your inbox each week absolutely free. Articles, videos, podcasts, and special offers on biblical resources. Over 60,000 people receive our free weekly wisdom email, and you can too. Create your free Faithful account by going to faithful.com and click sign up to begin receiving weekly wisdom in your inbox. If you're tired of living paycheck to paycheck, you can make a decision today that will change your life. Hi, I'm Rob West. All you have to do is put God's financial principles into practice and then wait to see what happens. You'll be amazed at the results. I'll talk about how you can do it today and then it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is faith and finance, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Well, like most things, the first step in making financial changes is admitting you have a problem and then identifying what you're doing wrong. So what's not right with the way you're handling money? Maybe you worry about bouncing a check or you fear the phone ringing because it might be a bill collector, or you're dealing with the gas or electricity being turned off for non-payment. Maybe you argue with your spouse about money or you've stopped giving to your church because you're afraid you won't have enough. Those are all signs that something needs to change and you shouldn't fear that change.

It might be a little scary at first, but nowhere near as scary as living paycheck to paycheck. Following God's financial principles will give you welcome relief from worrying about money. Isaiah 43 tells us, Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old.

I am doing a new thing. I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. So how do you begin to bring about this change? Well, first, by dispelling the notion that God's Word doesn't contain everything you need to transform the way you handle money. Hebrews 4-12 reads, For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Understanding and believing in biblical truth is essential, and the first principle you need to grasp is that God owns it all.

In Psalm 24, we find, The earth is the Lord's, and all it contains, the world and those who live in it. When you fully embrace that principle, everything else can fall into place. You won't be consumed with thoughts about the way you're handling your money because it's not yours. Instead, you'll begin to think about managing God's money because you're simply his steward or manager of the resources he's temporarily entrusted to you. And as his steward, God will never abandon you to fend for yourself. He's always with you and he's promised to provide. Luke 12-24 reads, Consider the ravens, they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, yet God feeds them.

How much more valuable are you than the birds? Once you believe that God will provide, Scripture becomes your guide for changing the way you think and act about money. Instead of running away from God's financial principles, you'll run to them. The Bible says a lot about spending, saving, investing, and getting out of debt, along with contentment and generosity. Everything you need to know for wise money management.

Take just one principle to start. Pray earnestly about it. Ask God for strength, discipline, and the desire to carry it out. Maybe that's setting aside a few dollars out of your paycheck, or paying more than the minimum on your credit card, or putting a little more in the collection plate.

Pick one and stick with it. Then when that's a part of your life, you can go on to the next and the next. This is putting principle into practice. You do that with tools and structure, a budget, a will, a long-range financial plan, and so on. Now if you're not living on a budget, you need to develop a spending plan now. Proverbs 27-23 teaches, know well the condition of your flocks and give attention to your herds. These days our herds and flocks are our bank accounts. And there's no better tool for developing a spending plan than the Faithfi app. It uses the tried and true envelope budgeting system to plan and track all of your spending.

You can download it in your app store today. Just search for Faithfi. That's Faith F-I. It's a modern, simple tool that will give you control over your finances in a way perhaps you've never had. Now, many people find it difficult to change by themselves. They need someone to encourage them and to hold them accountable.

As our friend Howard Dayton likes to say, to hold their fuzzy feet to the fire. You may need someone to keep you on track. It could be a spouse, another family member or friend, but someone to hold you accountable for staying on budget. So those are the tools you need to start putting God's financial principles into practice. And when you do, you'll see big changes in your life. Perhaps not right away, but be patient. It'll happen. And then you can stop worrying about money and we hope you'll get started today.

All right. Your calls are next. The number to call is 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000. By the way, you can call that number 24 seven. I'm Rob West and you're listening to Faith and Finance.

Stick around. What's most important to you when it comes to choosing your financial advisor? Someone who's aligned with your biblical values?

How about someone who will take the time to explain your options? Certified Kingdom advisors are professionals who meet high standards in competence and integrity and have been trained to offer biblical financial advice. To find a certified kingdom advisor in your area, visit faithfi.com and click Find a CKA. We are grateful for support from Soundmind Investing in the Faith and Finance program. For more than 30 years, they've been helping Christians reach their financial goals with step-by-step guidance for investors at every stage, from those just getting started to those getting ready for retirement. Through scriptural principles and practical suggestions, SMI offers financial wisdom for living well.

More information, including the short video webinar on profit and peace of mind, no matter what's happening in the market, is available at soundmindinvesting.org. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance. We're taking your calls and questions today. 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000. Just two lines open, but room for you today if you call right now.

Let's go out to Ohio. Hi, Susan. How can I help you? Well, I want to thank you for taking my call.

Yes, ma'am. I live in a condo association and I'm becoming more discontent with their rules and regulations. And so I've been looking at other properties to maybe purchase, but I can't really find something that I want. So I thought about building and I have half of the cash that I could start building. And then I went to my financial adviser and they suggested that I get a reconstruction loan to have until I sold my house. And I have a required minimum distribution that I give away every year. This year it's twenty four thousand and I give it to charity so I could purchase property that's already built for cheaper than what I can build. But I'm not finding anything to my liking. So I'm just asking your opinion on is this a good use of my money or will I be greedy to build me something? I'm 74 years old.

Yes, ma'am. Well, I certainly wouldn't say you're being greedy here, Susan. I think the question is just whether you want to take on a project of this magnitude in this season of life. I mean, building a home from scratch is not for the faint of heart just because, you know, you're going to have to get in there and design it and work with the general contractor. And, you know, it's building costs are elevated still right now. I mean, they've they've improved since the end of the pandemic, but there's still, you know, some supply constraints that have building materials.

The costs are high, which is why we don't have enough homes in this country and we still have a lack of inventory. And so, I mean, could you go out and get a construction, a permanent loan that you could convert and, you know, take the funds that you have and put it down? Sure. I just wonder if that's, in fact, you know, the the kind of project you want to take on at this point.

Do you have any experience going through this in the past? Have you ever built before? Yes, we did. We built a house before and I enjoyed the process. I love going and picking out all the stuff.

Yeah, I know I'm older now, but I'm still, God has blessed me and I have a lot of energy and I still feel like I'm a young 74. And have you picked out, is it a new construction neighborhood where there's other properties going up and you just kind of pick from a model or several options? Or are you talking about buying raw land and basically building on your own?

No, I've talked to a contractor and the lot is just two doors down from him and I trust him. He's a fine Christian man, which is very important to me because I've already, somebody's tried to take advantage of me twice since I've moved to Ohio. So he's already drawn up a plan. So I'm working with him with that.

It's not, I haven't signed anything or, you know, just at the very beginning. No, very good. Well, I like the sound of that.

It would be totally things that I picked out. You know, he was adamant about that. Very good. Well, I like that you've been down this road before. Now let's talk about the financial side of it.

So give me a rundown. You said you have the funds that you would available for about a half of what you think it would cost to do, purchase the land and the construction. Yes. He told me it would be 320 and I have half of that amount of money and I could use that required minimum distribution, but I want to give to charity too. So my financial advisor said, well, he, he didn't tell me what to do, but he showed me what would happen if I use my required minimum distribution for that. I didn't like that. So I'm going to continue to give my required minimum distribution to charity.

I love that. What would you have available? This wouldn't deplete all of your investable assets, would it? Well, I have a hundred and about 165. I was going to use 150 of it. He said it would take four and a half, five months to build the house. And I think my house would sell pretty quickly.

They sell out here in the condos and I think I could get 200 for that. So I would, after getting that, I would probably have about 40, 50,000 left over after my reconstruction loan was paid off. Yeah. Okay.

Very good. And so you'd have 40 to 50,000 in cash. And what are your income sources?

I have what we call PERF, which is my husband's retirement and my social security. Okay. So I have plenty of funds coming in to live on. Okay.

Very good. And so if you added a $50,000 mortgage on top of your existing expenses, do you feel like you could cover that from the PERF and the social security and still have a little leftover? Well, I'm not going to have a mortgage.

The house is going to cost around $320,000 and I have $150,000. And when I sell my house for about $200,000, you know, I'm going to have it paid off. Yeah, I'm following you now and you'd say you'd have 40 to 50 left over after it's all said and done.

So that makes sense. And what do you typically have in surplus at the end of the month right now, Susan? Probably.

If I don't spend like I really like to, I can have as much as $3,000 sometimes left over. Okay. Yeah, that's great. Yeah.

I mean, I'm certainly on board with this. I mean, you need to recognize and I don't know how he's going to do the contract, whether he's going to give you a not to exceed price that's guaranteed or not. But the average cost overrun for construction projects is between 10 and 20%.

So you need to factor that in. So on a $300,000 home, that could be, you know, as much as 30 to $60,000 that it could go over. So you don't want to spend right up to the limit of your loan if you get that construction loan, recognizing that it could take, let's say he says four to five, maybe it ends up taking six months or more. You just need to be prepared to kind of cover the float there.

The nice thing is it sounds like if you tighten your belt a little bit, you've got plenty there that you could cover the cost of the construction loan while you're waiting for the home to be built and then ultimately for your condo to be sold. And then the key is once it all shakes out, you know, let's say there are cost overruns and instead of 40 to 50, you have, you know, 10 to 20. I mean, I think that would be my only concern is I'd like for you to have at least six months worth of expenses still in reserves. And so I just want to make sure that, you know, if it takes longer and it's more expensive than he anticipates, maybe for reasons even out of his control, you know, are you going to get down to where you just don't have very much cash left? If you can build that up at 3000 a month, then, you know, you'd be in good shape to be able to build that back up to where you want it.

I guess that's my only concern in this is that, you know, you get so low in cash that your house poor, so to speak, because you've got all of your money tied up in your home. I love the fact that you have good income. I love the fact that you're able to keep your expenses modest and you've done this before and you have a trusted contractor that you know personally. So all those are good things. Just make sure you understand what that guaranteed contract is and whether you're responsible for overages and whether that could deplete your cash savings. So other than that, I like your plan here, Susan.

I think it makes a lot of sense. All right, folks, so we're just getting started today. Plenty more time for your questions on anything financial. We'll help you apply the wisdom from God's word to those decisions and choices you're making. Call right now.

I've got a few lines open. 800-525-7000. By the way, if you want some help in your financial life, maybe it's a professional you need. You can find a certified kingdom advisor on our website at faithfi.com or maybe it's budgeting or communicating with your spouse. That's where a certified Christian financial counselor comes in. You can find a cert CFC on our site as well. Just go to faithfi.com and click find a professional. Back with more after this.

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A few lines open at eight hundred five to five seven thousand. You can call right now. Let's head to Texas. Hi, Carol. How can I help you? Thank you for taking my call. Sure. OK. I was one of the stupid people a bazillion years ago that bought a timeshare and I've just been paying the maintenance fees every month. My kids are very happy to use it for the week I have, but it's really not.

Yes. You know, if you're paying sixteen hundred dollars a year in maintenance fees for one week at a OK resort, that's not that great. What I was wondering, is there any way I mean, I know there are people that can promise that they'll get rid of it for you for thousands of dollars or whatever. Is there any way to leave it to a charity? Can they do anything with it? Yeah, it's a good question. And I'm sorry you got kind of roped into one of these.

And the challenge is I've never found it. I'm not saying they don't exist, but I've never found a reputable organization that can actually help you get rid of these like many claim to do. And so I wouldn't be able to recommend you. You go that route without doing a lot of due diligence on any organization that might help you unload it. You know, the best option, but this is often unsuccessful, is to go back to the original organization that sold it to you and see if you could kind of give it back, so to speak, and just get out from under the maintenance, which is the key. You know, most charities aren't going to want to touch it just because the annual cost of the timeshare ownership is problematic. Now, you know, in a few cases where they will take a timeshare donation, essentially they use it to generate revenue by either renting them to donors or maybe offering the vacation week for auction at a charity event, something like that. But the vast majority of them, Carol, are going to tell you they're just not in a position to take it. And it's always going to come down to, number one, the hassle and the work involved in even deeding it over, but then more importantly, just that ongoing expense and burden that they would be assuming with the gift.

And so they have to be really thoughtful and strategic about how to leverage it, otherwise it's going to end up being a cost center to them, and that defeats the purpose. So you would absolutely need to call any charity you wanted to be able to give it to to see, and I suspect what you would probably run into is that they're not interested in taking it on. In terms of where you go from here, typically what we would advise is you go back to the person you bought it from, the organization, see if they'd be willing to take it back and just essentially eliminate the ongoing maintenance fee and then maybe they could resell it. Second is there is a user's group, kind of a marketplace for timeshares on the web at TUG2.com, that's T-U-G and then number 2.com, that stands for Timeshare User's Group. And you could post it there, see if somebody would be willing to take it off your hands or buy it from you, that type of thing. So those are typically the way you would go, you could try to list it on your own, it's going to be challenging because there's, as you might imagine, just far more people that are in your position than there are people looking to buy them.

And those that are looking to buy them, typically they're being sold by somebody who's very skilled as a salesperson and giving a free weekend in exchange for a song and a dance that sounds pretty attractive at the time, but you come to regret down the road. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of great information for you in terms of where you go from here, but I think the idea of a charity, although it's a good thought, is probably not going to yield much fruit. Okay. Well, I'll just see what I can do to get rid of it when I'm dead and hopefully it won't hurt anybody. Yes. All right, Carol. Hey, thanks for being on the program today. God bless you. Let's go to Texas. Hi, Sean.

How can I help? Hi, Rob. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Thank you for your call, sir. Great.

Okay. I've got 100,000 and a 401k plan leftover after I retired from UPS. It's not being used.

It's just sitting there. And I just was approached by somebody on my new job about giving her that money. She would add 30% to it and guarantee 8% return for 10 years. And then that would turn into like 450,000. And I was wondering if that was a good idea, if you had a better idea for my 401k plan and what questions do you think I might ask this woman?

Wow, Sean. I wouldn't go anywhere near that. It's one of those in the too good to be true columns that you need to stay far away from. Let me just make sure I understood what you said. Number one, she wants you to, quote, give her the 401k. How would that happen? You mean let her manage it? And where would it? I think I would just transfer the funds to, she said it was with Nationwide.

Actually, I don't really know. I assume there's things you do with the money to move it somewhere to reinvest it. Well, yeah, sure. You could roll it out of the 401k into an IRA. You could also roll it into a qualified annuity, which is what an insurance company like Nationwide would typically offer.

But let me just then go to the second piece. So she said she's going to give you a 30% bonus on it plus 10% a year in terms of a guaranteed return? Eight percent.

Eight percent a year. Yeah, she said 30%, they'll add 30% to it. She did call it an annuity. She said 30% would be added to the investment immediately, and then she'd guarantee 8% per year, and it would be there for 10 years. And then after that, I could start withdrawing from it. A certain amount of money per month for, I guess, until I die or something.

Yeah, there's no such thing, Sean. That insurance company would go out of business. There's nobody that offers a 30% bonus and a guaranteed 8% return.

If there was, everybody would do that. You wouldn't have anybody investing in the stock market anymore. They'd be giving all their money to Nationwide in this case, I guess.

So yeah, bonuses are not uncommon, not anywhere near 30%. And then there are guaranteed annuities, but they're not paying anywhere near 8%. So there's just too many things that don't add up there that I would probably head the other direction. Now, where do you go with this 401k? Well, what I would typically do is hire an advisor to manage it for you. I would roll it out of the UPS 401k if you're no longer employed there, which you can do, put it into an IRA. And then I would say, if you don't want to manage it yourself, which I typically would say for most folks, they've got other interests.

They're not trained in that. I would hire an advisor, and we recommend the Certified Kingdom Advisor designation. So you could go to faithfi.com, click find a professional, put in your zip code, find the Certified Kingdom Advisors in your area, interview two or three, find the one that's the best fit. But, you know, I'm not entirely opposed to an annuity. They're not my first choice because they're expensive. And you typically in a variable annuity, you might get a portion of the upside, but you don't get the full upside in exchange for downside protection. But, you know, at your age, you still got plenty of time on your side. I mean, you need to be planning for this money to try to last until, you know, 95 or older, which means you still have decades for this money to grow. And that means, I think, investing it.

And I think for most folks, that means outside of an insurance policy. Does that all make sense, though? OK. Yes, sir.

I'll check in with a Certified Kingdom Advisor. OK, great. God bless you, sir. We appreciate your call today. Folks, thanks for being with us today. Thanks to my team today. Devin, Robert and Taylor, we'll see you tomorrow. Faith and Finance is provided by Faith Buy and listeners like you.