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Now, let's dive into the podcast. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich. 2 Corinthians 8, 9. Hi, I'm Rob West. It's Good Friday, the day we set aside to reflect on the crucifixion of Christ and what truly happened on that cross almost 2,000 years ago.
We'll talk about the greatest act of grace in human history, and then we'll take your calls at 800-525-7,000. That's 800-525-7,000. This is Faith in Finance, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. For centuries, Christians have called this day Good Friday. And it is good, but not because the events were easy or lighthearted.
It's good because of what Christ accomplished for us. For many believers, this day carries a mix of emotions. There's the sorrow of remembering the suffering Jesus endured and the weight of knowing it was our sin that led him there. And yet, there's also overwhelming gratitude for the love of the Father who gave his Son and for the Son who willingly laid down his life. It's a day to reflect on the reality that Jesus bore the full weight of our sins on the cross, suffering in our place so that we could be reconciled to God.
That's the wonder of the cross. But along with sorrow and gratitude, there's also anticipation. Because we know what Sunday brings, the resurrection of Jesus and the promise of eternal life with Him. Good Friday is not the end of the story, it's the turning point, and that's why we call it good.
Now here on faith and finance, we often talk about money, how to steward it well and use it for God's glory. But the Bible also uses financial imagery to describe spiritual realities. In fact, scripture is full of words like debt, ransom, redemption, and inheritance, because those terms helped people understand the profound truths of the gospel in everyday language. Take Romans 6.23, for example. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Or Mark 10.45, where Jesus says, For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. And 1 Corinthians 6.20 reminds us, You were bought with a price, so glorify God in your body. These verses speak of something far deeper than finances. They describe the cost of sin and the beauty of God's grace. Our sin didn't just lead to guilt.
It separated us from the very presence of God, cutting us off from the One who is the source of life and love. Left to ourselves, we had no way to bridge that gap. But Jesus came to restore what was broken. As Jesus breathed his last on the cross, the Gospel of John records him saying, It is finished. In the original Greek, the word is telesty.
In ancient times, this saying was packed with meaning. It was spoken by servants who had completed their assigned tasks. It was used in legal documents to verify that the requirements of the law were met. But most significantly, archaeologists have found this word written on ancient tax receipts and business documents to indicate that a debt had been fully paid. No remaining balance, nothing left owed.
So, when Jesus declared it is finished from the cross, he wasn't simply marking the end of his mortal life, he was proclaiming the completion of his atoning work. The price of our redemption was paid, the debt of sin was canceled, the great chasm between God and humanity was bridged not by our effort, but by his sacrifice. And here's the beauty of Jesus' final words: they remind us that we don't live in a state of spiritual deficit, we live in the overflow of grace. Jesus didn't make a partial payment on our debt. He paid it in full.
We don't have to strive to earn God's favor. No good work can add to what He has finished. We simply receive it by faith and live in the freedom it brings.
So on this Good Friday, as we reflect on the cross, we're invited to hear those final words of Jesus, Tetelesty, with awe and gratitude. It is finished. The debt of sin has been paid in full, completely, forever. There is nothing for us to earn, prove, or repay. And that changes everything.
We are free, free from guilt, free from striving, free to live for the One who gave everything for us. Obedience isn't a transaction to purchase favor, but a joyful response to His grace. In light of the finished work of Christ, we now live to follow Him, not to gain life, but because in Him we've already found it. All right, your calls are next. That number?
800-525-7000. I'm Rob West, and this is Faith and Finance on Good Friday: biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Stick around. Mm-hmm. If budgeting feels like a second job, the new Faith Phi Pro was built just for you.
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This institution is not federally insured. Um Yeah. Thanks for joining us today on Faith and Finance. Taking your calls and questions today at 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7,000.
Let's head to Michigan. Peter, thanks for your call. Go ahead. Yeah, is that a question? My wife and I, we bought a house in 2024.
800 square foot two bedroom house and The Lord continue to bless us with two beautiful daughters quickly. And we... Just feel a call that We want to continue uh and have many kids.
So I want to provide a comfortable spot. for our kids to grow. And fortunately, we've got good margin in our monthly budget. But we just feel like maybe it might be better to find something that has a better interest rate. Right now we got a high yield savings of about three point two five and I'm worried the interest rates might come down and and it might be better to maybe Put my money in something like the SP 500.
What would you suggest? Yeah, it really just depends on your time horizon as to where you want to go with the money and how much risk you're willing to take to get a better return and whether you have the time horizon to wait out any kind of pullback related to a market downturn. I love the way you're thinking here. I love the idea that you're going to be fruitful and multiply and continue to grow your family. That's amazing.
We had four in four years incredibly. I had a three-year-old, a two-year-old, and then we had twin girls. And it was a busy time, but incredible blessing. And I know it sounds like the Lord has given you an incredible blessing there as well.
So, in terms of kind of thinking about where to position this money, you know, we really need to put it in buckets and then define the purpose of it. And then, along with that purpose, kind of when you plan to use it from a time. Horizon standpoint.
So, what do you have in that high-yield savings account right now? I have sixteen thousand dollars in there.
Okay.
So that would be what I would consider your emergency fund. Is that right? Or or do you have that separate from this? That is what I consider my emergency fund, yeah.
Okay, great. And what do you all spend on a monthly basis, typically? $3,100.
Okay, got it. And you've got a budget and you track it and that's pretty consistent month to month. Yes, sir. Yep.
Okay, good.
So, you know, we typically want to have at least three to six months' expenses.
So, you know, three months' expenses would be $9,300. Six months would be all the way up over, you know, about $1,850.
So, you know, you're pretty much there in terms of being fully funded, but, you know, we would want to try to hang on to that for the unexpected, not things we can plan on, like we know tires are going to wear out and we know, you know, the home's going to have some basic maintenance along the way and those kinds of things. We need to be planning for that. But something truly unexpected. We have all of a sudden a disruption in your income or a lost job or a major medical event or, you know, just something you couldn't have anticipated. And that's where this emergency fund comes in.
So fortunately, we've got some decent interest rates right now. I think they're going to stick around, you know, and we're not going back to 1% or anything like that anytime soon.
So if this truly is your emergency phone, we want it liquid and safe. You know, even though you could do better. What we wouldn't want is you put this in an SP 500 and all of a sudden, you know, we hit a speed bump. I mean, we're way overdue for a recession.
Now, I like a lot of what the Trump administration is doing with regard to deregulation and just positioning this economy to continue to grow, but we don't know what we don't know. And if the market were down 20 or 30 percent from some event, whether we could anticipate it or not, you wouldn't want to have to tap into that and liquidate those funds and sell at a loss because your emergency fund is not available and you didn't have a choice.
So I would say we leave this right here.
Now, the extent to which you're wanting to buy a bigger home, you could just roll the equity that you have from this home into that next home. And if you've got the margin to take on a bigger monthly payment, then perhaps we don't have to come use any of this cash for that. You would just want to make sure it still fits within your budget. We usually use 25% of your take-home pay as kind of. A good gauge there, but it sounds like just based on the income you have, you know, you've got room to see that continue to grow.
You just want to put everything else in there as well: the increases in the utilities and the property taxes and future increases in property taxes and just the additional costs that come with having a bigger home and make sure all that fits into the budget before you make this move because it's really expensive and difficult to unwind that if you get overextended. But in terms of this emergency fund, you know, I would leave it right where it is and let's do your investments in maybe a retirement account, whether you have one at work or one on your own. And then beyond that, if you need to save for other things, let's do that in addition to the 16K. Does that make sense? That does make sense.
So once I have my Emergency savings like fully funded. You would say to put the extra monthly margin elsewhere like the market or no? Yeah, but I would proba I would want you to do it in a retirement account. Let's talk about long term savings. Are you putting anything away in a retirement plan?
Yes, yes. My wife and I just talked about upping it. It was five percent while she was pregnant because we wanted to have some more money for her when we were going through that. But we upped it to ten percent Uh and we're kind of s Leave it there, would you recommend higher or lower? I think 10 to 15 percent is great.
I mean, you guys are young. I think if you put 10 percent away, somewhere between 10 and 15 throughout your working career, you'll be in really good shape.
So, I think that's a good place to be. If you have additional margin, I think you could go all the way up to 15 percent, but certainly that's a good spot to be. What other goals do you have kind of in between emergency, which needs to be available right now, and retirement, which is 35, 40 years down the road? What else would you have? Any other goals that you've identified?
Yeah. I guess the reason why we're talking about the bigger house and wanting to make it affordable As well as comfortable, is because I I'd like my wife to continue to have the option to stay home. Sure. As well as uh possibly home school or if if that's You know, if she decides she wants to do something else and not homeschool, then be able to afford a private school education. Yeah.
So I'd really like to keep. The monthly margin is good. And also, I think it's worth noting that the $100,000 is quite a lot of overtime hours. And I'd like to be able to cut back and deal with kids as they grow and stuff. Yeah, that sounds great.
Well, I mean, I think what you're talking about here makes a lot of sense. I think anything you would be putting in the market at this point, let's do that in a tax-deferred environment.
So if you've got additional margin that, at least temporarily, while you're waiting to decide, you know, what are we going to do about schooling, private, or homeschool, and your ability to cut back a little bit, which is going to reduce, you know, your income slightly, while you're still kind of have plenty of margin, let's bump up, you know, that 401k contribution, you know, up to maybe even closer to 15%. You can always dial that back at any point. I think, you know, anything you have beyond that, I would just continue to pile away in that emergency savings. And that way, you know, when you need to replace an automobile, maybe you're not having to take on a car payment or, you know, something. Like that, but I think let's look with an eye toward you being able to maybe not work as many hours, be more available to the family.
And, you know, I think you're in really good position here. It's really smart for you to just kind of build in some of these pieces that you're thinking about because that's going to lead ultimately to quality of life. And I think that's the name of the game.
So I wouldn't change a thing here, but any investments you're going to do out of any of this surplus, I would direct that into higher retirement plan contributions before I'd put it in the SP 500 and a taxable account.
Okay, Robert, thank you so much for taking so much time. Absolutely, Peter. Lord bless you. Thanks for being on the program. Folks, we'll take a quick break.
Back with a lot more great questions right after this on Faith and Finance. Stick around. Faith in Finance is thankful for support from The Good Investor, a book by Robin John. In his book, Robin shares his journey from an immigrant child struggling in school to co-founder and CEO of Eventide Asset Management, a faith-based investment firm. This Faith and Work memoir seeks to inspire readers to view their work and investments as opportunities to honor God and bring blessing to the world.
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We'll go out to Idaho and welcome Maureen. Go ahead. Yes, hi, Rob. I just want to thank you for your financial service to the Christian community. We've been blessed to.
time and time again. I just wanted to yeah, I wanted to ask a question. Maybe it's trying to find the needle in the haystack, but my son and daughter-in-law have adopted four Ukrainian children. They're now all pretty much all teenagers. And so they are now looking for scholarships because several of them are definitely going on to colleges.
So some time back, somebody had called into your program. And they had a place or a number that they refer to you in terms of where you could get or apply for scholarships that have never been applied for or taken. And I don't know if that rings a bell with you, but I definitely remember I'm perked up and didn't write down the number at the time. Yeah, no problem. I don't recall a phone number.
I will give you a couple of websites that I think could be a great resource for your son and daughter-in-law because you're right. I mean, this college is expensive, and I love the fact that they adopted from overseas and want to take advantage of anything that's available. And there are so many, but you're to your point earlier about a needle in a haystack, you're right. I mean, it really comes down to your willingness and ability to put the time in to find the scholarships and grants that are out there. There are certain international adoption scholarships, there's state and local scholarships, there's even private scholarships, and then certain scholarships that are available by school.
So many universities offer tuition waivers or specific scholarships for adopted children. And so it's worth inquiring directly with the financial aid office of any. College or university where the children may be interested in attending to see what they have as well. Just in terms of general websites, Maureen, to look at, I would send you to fastweb.com. Fastweb.com.
They have essentially a free scholarship search platform that allows you to search a whole host of scholarships and you can refine your criteria and find a number of tools there. Petersons.com would be another one. Peterson's is a great resource for these types of things and again provides a helpful search tool that you could use. And then scholarships.com would be another one. But I would also, you know, don't hesitate to do some searches on the web for just specific scholarships that are tailored in uniquely to the country that they've been adopted from to see if anything turns up.
So I think those could at least get the Them pointed in the right direction as they start to look at what options exist.
Okay.
Well, that's wonderful. That's more than I expected. We'll certainly give it a try. And thank you again, Rob, for all you do. You're very welcome.
We appreciate you, Call, and thanks for your kind remarks about the program. That means a lot. Let's go to Texas. Will, go ahead. Thank you.
I'm 79. I still work as a bivocational pastor. We've been living in the parsonage for a number of years, but about eight years ago bought a house. We only owe about seventeen thousand on the house 'cause we I've really been working on that. I caught the end of a program you had a few weeks back and really didn't get to understand.
What do you your recommendation on reverse mortgage? You know, I love the idea of getting out of debt completely and staying there. I think there's a lot of wisdom in that. And if we can sync up the payoff of the home as close to a transition into whatever the retirement season is going to look like, it is helpful because it takes that largest expense off the table. But for a lot of folks, you know, they just haven't saved enough.
And so they're just really squeezed in this season of life. Many of them still have a mortgage. You know, two-thirds of retirees now are bringing a mortgage payment into retirement. And with people living longer, there's just a lot of longevity risk. And so, you know, the reverse mortgages of today are not the reverse mortgages of a couple of decades ago that got a bad rap.
These are different products. What's called a home equity conversion mortgage, you know, in part is not, you know, it's non-recourse, meaning you're not even signing for it personally. The only thing that's serving as collateral is the home.
So even if the home lost value for somebody, Some reason, and you never made a mortgage payment, which you don't have to on a reverse mortgage. It's optional, and that loan continued to grow, whatever amount you took out at your death or when you move, the FHA, the Federal Housing Administration, would cover any gap there. But you retain ownership of the home, and whatever you take out of the home equity, which comes to you tax-free because it's your money, it's your equity, and you can get that as a line of credit. You can get it by paying off a forward mortgage and eliminating the payment, or you can get it as a monthly check. Most people get it as a line of credit.
Whatever amount you pull out, it's going to grow over time with interest and fees. Interest is variable. It's going to be close to whatever the prevailing rate is of the day. And so it will grow over time, but your home will appreciate over time as well. And when you both pass away, you and your wife or you move out, whatever that balance is gets paid out of the proceeds and the rest is available for your heirs or charity, just like if you had a forward mortgage.
But often, you know, having that reverse mortgage, you know, to supplement your income or for major expenses like renovations or, you know, a big trip every couple of years or something like that is a game changer for people in this season of life who just don't have a lot of other income, don't have a lot of other assets. And this is the difference in them being able to live a little more comfortably. Does that make sense? It is. Our we only have one child.
She was killed about nearly twelve years ago in a car accident.
So we received along with our son in law and grandson, we received a little bit of a settlement. Our grandson is is really our only heir. He does not need anything from us because his He'll start receiving, he's been receiving some, but next this year, he's going to receive a huge amount of money. Three different times.
So he doesn't need anything that we have. Yeah. Yeah. We bought the house for about $97,000 and I think it's valued at about $150,000 now, only owes $17,000. I really believe.
I talked to my wife the other day. I believe in the next year and a half to two years at the most, we're going to be out of debt completely. Yeah. House paid off, everything. Yeah.
Because we're working. Matter of fact, I've made a huge payment on her car. Yeah, I believe we'll have her car paid off in the next couple of months. Yeah. So that's what I was wondering about the reverse mortgage.
Yeah, and so that's the idea is that you're going to be sitting on this massive asset called your home that's you know just going to sit there. It's going to grow over time as your home appreciates. And when you all pass away, you know, it'll be a part of your estate. And if there's no heirs that need the money, then it can be given to charity. But you also have the ability right now to tap into it via a reverse mortgage where you never have a payment for as long as you live.
It's always optional. And you could use it for additional giving. You could use it to just enjoy this additional asset that you have. You almost kind of look at it like I've got an IRA, I've got home equity, I've got savings, and I'm gonna tap into these and use them while the Lord has me here. That's kind of the idea.
Stay on the line, we'll finish up off the air. Big thanks to my team today, Dev and Robert, and Taylor. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye. Faith in Finance is provided by Faith Buy and listeners like you.
Yeah.
