Every day, Faith Phi is making a profound difference in the lives of thousands of Christians. We help them integrate their faith and financial decisions, all for the glory of God. Our resources, including Bible studies, devotionals, the Faith and Finance program, articles, videos on FaithPhi.com, and the FaithPhi app, are instrumental in this transformative journey. We are so grateful for your faithful love and support of this ministry, and we'd like to invite you to partner with us in this work. Has God provided financial answers for you through this ministry?
If so, please consider becoming a monthly FaithPhi partner by visiting FaithPhi.com and clicking Give. That's faithfi.com and click Give. If there's one word that defines our culture, it's more. More upgrades, more comfort, more square footage. Yet with all that more, so many of us feel less satisfied than ever.
Hi, I'm Rob West. That's because contentment doesn't come from what's next. It's shaped in the heart right where we are. Today, we're talking about choosing contentment, not as something accidental, but something scripture says we can learn. And then it's onto your calls at 800-525-7000.
This is Faith in Finance, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Let's be honest, we're all tempted to believe the next purchase, promotion, milestone, or change will finally make us feel settled. But this longing for just a little more is as old as humanity itself. Ecclesiastes tells us that King Solomon denied himself nothing his eyes desired, yet he concluded it was all meaningless, a chasing after the wind. Even the richest man in the ancient world discovered that satisfaction cannot be bought, achieved, or accumulated.
It slips through our fingers the moment we reach for it. Paul understood this too. In Philippians 4:11, he writes, I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. Notice that word learned. Contentment isn't natural, it doesn't come from circumstances.
It's cultivated through walking with Christ. And Paul explains the secret to this kind of contentment: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. That verse isn't about achieving goals or maximizing performance. It's about persevering with trust. Paul wrote those words from prison, not from a moment of victory.
He was saying, Christ gives me strength to rest, to trust, and to be content, whether I have plenty or very little. Contentment is the fruit of relationship with Jesus. It's not found in having everything, it's found in knowing the one who is everything. As my new devotional Our Ultimate Treasure puts it, contentment begins with recognizing we have a shepherd who provides. The Lord is my shepherd.
I have all that I need. Contentment starts with identity. We are his sheep. We live under his watch. We live within his provision.
And because of that, we have enough. Hebrews 13, 5 adds another beautiful layer. Be content with what you have, for he has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. In other words, the root of contentment is God's presence, not our possessions. If he is with us, then we're never without what we truly need.
But the devotional highlights something else surprising and incredibly practical. Gratitude is the engine of contentment. Wherever gratitude grows, contentment thrives. When we pause to say thank you, the heart shifts from craving what's next to appreciating what's now, from longing for more to recognizing what God has already given, from scarcity to sufficiency. When we leave everything in God's hands, we eventually start seeing God's hand in everything.
So, how do we begin choosing contentment?
Well, it can be as simple as keeping a gratitude journal, writing down three blessings each morning or evening. Not grand things, just real things. A warm cup of coffee, a quiet moment, a roof over your head, breath in your lungs, a conversation that uplifted you. Let small joys accumulate until they reshape the heart. Maybe it looks like pausing before buying something new and thanking God for something you already have.
Maybe it looks like turning off the endless scroll that feeds comparison. Maybe it means naming God's provision out loud in front of your kids, your spouse, or your own anxious heart. Contentment is not a destination, it's a daily path. It's not discovered in perfect circumstances, but in a surrendered heart. When we learn to say, Jesus, you are enough, we discover that true abundance is not tied to income, it's tethered to our shepherd.
And if you want to go deeper into what that looks like to choose contentment each day, that's exactly why I wrote Our Ultimate Treasure. It's a 21-day devotional designed to guide you toward faithful stewardship. You can pre-order your physical copy or place a bulk order by visiting FaithFi.com and click shop. And you'll be able to access the digital version of our ultimate treasure in the Faith Phi app later this month when you become a Faith Phi partner. Faith Phi partners are listeners who support the ministry with a gift of $35 a month or $400 a year.
Partners receive exclusive benefits, including our quarterly magazine Faithful Steward, premium access to the Faith Phi app, exclusive ministry updates, and every study and devotional we release in the future. To learn more or to join us, just visit faithfy.com/slash partner. That's faithfi.com/slash partner. Friends, in a world constantly whispering more, Jesus invites us to rest in Him and say, I have enough because He is enough. That's real contentment.
And it's available to every believer who chooses to trust the Shepherd who never leaves and never forsakes. We'll be right back with your questions after this. Stick around. FaithFi is grateful for support from One Ascent. One Ascent believes that your values inspire why you invest and how they can inspire how you invest.
OneAssent's goal is to provide solutions designed for every need and invest in businesses that bless the people and places God has made. They want to help investors do well by doing good. To explore a new way of investing that aligns with your values. More information is available at onascent.com and by clicking analyze my investments. Healthcare is complicated.
It doesn't have to be. If you don't love how your health insurance works, maybe it's time to leave traditional health insurance behind. Take charge of your healthcare with Christian Healthcare Ministries. CHM offers you flexibility. Enroll anytime, choose your own provider, and select the program that fits your needs and budget.
CHM is the original faith-based way of taking care of your medical bill costs. Learn more at chministries.org slash faith fi. Thanks for joining us today on Faith and Finance. Let's dive into your questions today. First, Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Hi, Dan. Go ahead. Thank you for taking my call. I really appreciate Faith and Finance and how your entire team ministers to so many people.
Well thank you Dan, that's very kind. You're more than welcome. Let me give you a little background, then I'll ask my question. My wife and I are 62 years of age, and we're planning on retiring at age 65. Our home, our automobiles are free and clear.
We also have $100,000 in liquid cash. And by God's grace, we've accumulated just over $1 million in our IRAs. $300,000 of that is invested in Roths, and the balance is in a traditional IRA. 100% of those accounts are invested in mutual funds at a moderate level of risk. And our question is simply this.
with the market at record highs, tariffs, inflation and just the overall volatility in the market, how concerned should we be of a market correction? And how or should we consider diversifying with bonds? Or should we simply adjust our existing mutual funds with a more conservative approach given our age? Yeah.
Well, it's a great question, Dan, and I really appreciate the thorough nature of it. When you say you essentially with your million-dollar portfolio, I think you said you have all of it in mutual funds. And am I hearing that those are all stock funds? Or do you feel like that some of them at least are balanced, meaning they have some bond exposure? No, they have zero bond exposure.
They're 90%, I think it's 92%, are all in equities. It's in the American Growth Bund, is what it is.
Okay, got it. Yeah.
Yeah, I think this is a great opportunity for you to begin to change your allocation. Because when we get to this point, I mean, you've accumulated quite a bit of a nest egg. And you want to think about not only continuing to grow it, because one of the risks you have moving forward is what's called longevity risk, meaning you're going to outlive your money. And one of the ways we manage that is by making sure your withdrawal rate is appropriate. And we could talk about that.
But you've probably heard me say that, you know, a typical, at least based on the studies that were done by a guy named Ben Gin a few decades ago, is where we got the 4% rule that if you take only 4% a year, so in your case, we'd be talking, you know, 40,000 a year. If we take no more than 4%, you should be able to maintain that principal balance over time and basically have the full amount available to pass on to heirs or give away at death. And he recently revised that. I think his new number in his new book that just came out is 4.7%.
Now, that's just a rule of thumb. It's all it is. It doesn't mean that you're guaranteed anything. It doesn't mean it's the right withdrawal rate for you. I think it's a matter of just really thinking through, you know, what is appropriate for us, you know, given our needs.
But the second way we manage that is in addition to making sure that we have the appropriate withdrawal rate, I think the other piece is just making sure we have the right mix of investments, making sure that we're not too aggressive. And at 60, we used to use 100 minus your age. People are living longer.
So the new rule of thumb is 110 minus your age. That's the portion, the percentage that should be in stocks, and then the remainder in bonds.
So let's call it, I know you're 60 too, but let's call it 60. That would be a 50-50 portfolio where you got 50% in stocks, 50% in bonds. And the nice part about that is, so let's say there was a market crash and usually, I mean, we're talking a 20% decline in the market in a very short period of time. If that were to happen and you're 50% bonds, 50% stocks, you know, all of a sudden that 20% quote-unquote crash only results in you being down 10%.
Now, that's significant. That's $100,000 on your portfolio, but it's a paper loss. And because you're drawing a very modest amount, you're just pulling the income anyway, largely off the bond portion. And you or your advisor wouldn't need to sell any of those stocks that are down during that market crash. And 100% of the time, because we're basically sitting at all-time highs right now, 100% of the time we've had corrections or crashes in the past, whether it's 1929, 1987, the dot-com bubble burst, and 2000, the pandemic, 2008, 2009, the great financial recession.
In every one of those cases, the market has recovered. And what you would be able to do at that point is let your portfolio recover over time without selling anything. And I think that's one of the reasons, especially given where we are right now and all the reasons you mentioned to be concerned about where the market might be headed from here, for you to begin to transition to a more properly diversified portfolio that fits with your age so that, you know, you still get plenty of upside if the market continues to do well, but you're adding some more income with the bonds, you know, and in that bond portion, it may not be all bonds. You could have some laddered CDs. You could have some precious metals.
You could even have, you know, somewhere between 1% and 3% in Bitcoin, you know, because it acts kind of like a store of value. And so there are other ways, even some real estate through real estate investment trusts. All of that could fit into that more fixed income portion that, you know, I think could round out a nice portfolio, take some of the pressure off you. And here's one of the keys is you'd have to just go ahead and accept that at some point. You know, during the next however long the Lord has for us, but it could, you know, easily be three decades or more, there's going to be a major correction, if not a crash.
And the key is you got to be ready for it and know that you're prepared for it. And that's why you've invested the way you have, such that you wouldn't feel compelled to go in and start selling a bunch of things while they were down. You would just need to already be, you know, in your mind settled around the idea that, no, we're taking a rules-based approach to this. We like what we own. We like our mix of stocks and bonds.
And so we're going to weather the storm and we're going to trust that history is going to repeat itself and this market eventually will recover and move to new highs. But give me your thoughts on all that because I know it was a lot. No, it was a lot, but it's fantastic, and it kind of confirms much of what I've been also considering. And it just makes me nervous. I think that I know that God's really blessed us And as far as we're concerned, we want to be able to honor God and all that he has, in a sense, put us in charge of and just to be really good stewards.
So I think diversifying that with, I'll say, a sixty forty or fifty fifty bond at this point in time at age sixty two is probably a good idea. Yeah.
Yeah, I agree. I think that'll serve you well. Also, go back and listen to the interview I did with Mark Biller. You know, he was talking about how he's expecting, and actually, there's a great article on this at soundmindinvesting.org that I think you might enjoy. It's called Bulls and Bears Cyclical and Secular.
And what he's talking about there is really their approach to what he's expecting in the bond market over the next decade. He's expecting the next one to three years as rates are coming down to be good, but perhaps not as good long term. And so there's some ways you can take that bond portion and add some other things in like precious metals and real estate that might round that out. But I think that article at soundmindinvesting.org could be helpful. The other piece is, and by the way, that was November the 20th.
The other piece is you could always connect with a certified kingdom advisor to take over management of this if you'd be at this point happier with.
Somebody else that could take responsibility. You'd be delegating it to them. You'd have to be comfortable with that and you'd pay for it. But I think with this nest egg, you might have a lot more peace of mind. If you wanted to do that, just go to findacka.com.
Dan, thanks for your kind remarks about the program and for joining us today. God bless you. Folks, a quick break and back with our final segment just around the corner. Stay with us. Right now, more people than ever are looking for biblical wisdom to navigate their finances, and you can help meet that need.
When you become a FaithFi partner, you're equipping believers to trust God, steward his resources well, and live with kingdom purpose. Partners receive early access to our newest resources, our quarterly Faithful Steward magazine, and the pro version of the FaithFi app. Become a FaithFi partner with your gift of $35 a month or $400 a year at faith5.com slash partner. Faith in Finance is grateful for support from Soundmind Investing. If you have money in an investment account, you know sometimes the stock market can seem like a roller coaster.
But it's possible to enjoy both profit and peace of mind as a do-it-yourself investor, no matter what's happening in the market. A short video webinar about that is available at soundmindinvesting.org. Financial Wisdom for Living Well.
Soundmindinvesting.org. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance for taking your calls and questions with several lines open, 800-525-7000. You can call right now. We'll see if we can help you think through what's going on in your financial life through the lens of biblical wisdom. Let's go right back to the phones.
Let's go to Ohio. Greg, go ahead. Yes, that was a question about refinancing. I want to refinance my home when it's wouldn't be beneficial to me. Um, I bought the house six months ago.
And I have two years. The bank has offered me free fees to refinance within the first two years the mortgage. Um And with the more ink sprites beginning to drop a little bit. and it may drop some more over the next year. How much should it drop before it makes sense to refinance?
Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. Normally, we would say at least 1%, I think preferably 1.5%. Decline before you would refinance. And you're going to want to make sure that you stay in the home for at least five years beyond that.
Now, what changes that slightly is the idea that the bank is offering no fees if you refinance within two years. And the reason that changes things is, with no closing costs, you really don't need that full 1% drop to make it worthwhile.
So I would say, you know, if you can get down. Half a point to even three quarters of a point with no fees, it's probably worth doing. You know, so if at 6.6%, if you could get in the mid 5% range, even in high 5% range, that's meaningful savings. And because there's no closing costs, you don't need to, quote, earn anything back.
So even a smaller rate drop can save money. And then obviously, once you get beyond what the bank is offering, if that's truly a fee-free scenario, you could look to refinance down the road once you save another point to a point and a half. Although, you know, it may be a while before we see that.
So I think, you know, with the no-cost offer, I'd be looking for at least a half a point or more.
Okay, great.
Well, thank you very much. All right, thanks for your call. Lord bless you. Let's see to Texas. Molly, how can I help?
Hi, Rob. First of all, I want to say thank you for your ministry. It has definitely helped me as I've grown and continue to grow and become a better steward over God's finances or resources.
So I have about fifty thousand dollars in debt, and I want to begin saving. I have not been so great with managing money. I've been living outside of my means and I'm coming to a point where I no longer want to do that. And want to know what's the best step to take. Do I throw all my money towards that snowball or do I try to put away money for the future and do both.
Yeah.
Well, Molly, I love what you're talking about here. That, you know, you've kind of come to the end of yourself and said, listen, this is not working. And I want to honor the Lord with what he's entrusted to me. And despite the mistakes I've made in the past, and we could all say that, you know, from this point forward, I want to be that faithful steward that God has called me to be. And I'm delighted that we could play a very small part in that here on this program each day.
Here's what I'd love to do. You know, I think you getting with our friends at Christian Credit Counselors would be great because we could get that interest rates down for the cards we put in the program. They would be temporarily closed. You couldn't use them anymore. But with the combination of the reduction in interest rate and then that level monthly payment, which is probably going to be around 3%.
So on $50,000, I mean, that could be $1,500 a month, maybe a little less. But I think the key is: let's really dial in your spending and try to get that coming down much quicker. The good news is. On a credit counseling program with Christian credit counselors, on average, you'll pay it off 80% faster just because you'll have that level payment and the much lower interest rate.
So, a lot more of your payment every month is going toward principal versus what you have right now. The other thing I'd like to do, Molly, just because I'm hearing in your voice that you're committed to this, I'd love to cover the cost to give you access to a certified Christian financial counselor.
So, this is someone who's been trained, and really their ministry is helping God's people develop a spending plan, set up a debt repayment plan. And I think the combination of somebody who's helping you put the plan together and providing some prayer and accountability for you alongside the credit counseling program might be the key, you know, on top of your desire to really honor the Lord to getting you moving in the right direction here. Would that be something you'd want to take advantage of? Definitely. Thank you.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, we'll pay for the cost of that. We'll cover the first several sessions of you meeting with the counselor, and that person will walk alongside you and, you know, perhaps give you a fresh look at your budget, help you think about maybe anything you're missing there, and then also, you know, help you get transitioned over to Christian Credit Counselors if that's what you decide to do. You can do this. I believe you can. And I think once you get on the other side of this, you're going to be just so grateful to the Lord.
for the freedom you're going to have as this burden is lifted and be able to use money truly as a tool to accomplish god's purposes which is the way he designed it so you stay on the line molly we'll get your information we'll get you connected to a certified christian financial counselor and then if you want to go ahead and reach out to christiancreditcounselors.org they can start evaluating your creditors and what those new reduced interest rates will be so you stay on the line only thing i'll ask of you is when you get on the other side of this call me back i want to Hear that testimony. Lord bless you. Let's see. We're going to go to Arkansas next. Hi, Lynn.
Go ahead. Hi. Um yeah, I wanted to know, I made a claim on my insurance, it was a new roof. and it was a necessity. Anyway, now they raised my rates, which I've heard they do.
But what they did is they raised it my next payment, I do three payments a year, is due this month, and they notified me this month that it's $163 over my payment, which I don't have this month. Do I have any recourse? I'm going to look for another company, but I wanted to know your advice besides having my current documents and comparing. It's a good question. You really don't have any recourse.
They're allowed to raise that and often do. It's probably time for you to shop it around. Usually, you know, the first couple of years, especially when you're coming in and making the change, you might get more competitive pricing. But I think there's a number of factors to consider.
So you're going to want to look at, you know, what's most important to you.
So USAA could be a great option if you're a military family. State Farms, known for their solid customer service. Amica or Amica is known for their high satisfaction ratings. Of course, you're going to want to check the competitive rates.
So I'd get three quotes with the same coverage limits. Ask about bundling discounts, which can save you as much as 25%. Make sure the company has a strong financial stability and look at the complaint ratios with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. You can also read a lot of reviews about them. But I think shopping and around is probably the best way to go with regard to considering how you might get that overall expense down.
Hope that helps you. We appreciate your call and call back anytime if we can help further. We're so thankful to have you with us today. I couldn't do this without my team, Jim Henry, Devin Patrick, Robert Youngblood, and the rest of the crew here at Faith 5. A wonderful day and come back and join us next time.
Bye-bye. Faith in Finance is provided by FaithFi and listeners like you.
