Money touches nearly every part of life. But for many, it still feels stressful or overwhelming. Faith Phi exists to change that. The FaithPhi app is the leading Christian budgeting app, integrating biblical wisdom with practical financial tools to help you build habits rooted in scripture and guided reflection. With just a few minutes a day, we'll review your spending, anchor your heart in God's Word and take simple steps forward.
Weekly and monthly reviews help you stay on track, gain clarity and celebrate how God is shaping your financial story over time. The new Faith Phi Pro adds powerful automation, smart categorization, personalized insights and budgets tailored to your real life spending, so you can spend less time managing money and more time living with clarity, contentment and purpose. Over seventy thousand believers already use Faith Phi to steward God's resources wisely. Start your free thirty day trial and get twenty five percent off at faithphy.com slash app. Jonathan Edwards once said, True legacy consists not of what we leave behind, but of what we instill in others.
Hi, I'm Rob West. We often think about leaving behind money and assets, but scripture calls us to think bigger. What we pass on isn't just wealth, but wisdom, character, and a legacy of faithfulness. Today we'll talk about how to prepare the next steward and why it's crucial to intentionally pass on wisdom before wealth. And then we'll take your calls at 800-525-7000.
This is Faith in Finance, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. There's a natural desire in all of us to provide for the people we love. Whether it's children, grandchildren, or others God has entrusted to our care, we want to leave them in a better position than we were. And that's not a bad desire. In fact, Proverbs 13:22 says: a good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children.
But here's the tension. The Bible never defines inheritance as merely financial. In fact, when wealth is passed on without wisdom, it can become more of a burden than a blessing. That's why Proverbs 20, 21 says, an inheritance gained hastily in the beginning will not be blessed in the end. The goal isn't just to transfer assets, it's to transfer stewardship because ultimately your heirs aren't just recipients, they're future managers of what belongs to God.
That changes everything. You see, throughout scripture, inheritance is deeply tied to identity and responsibility. In the Old Testament, land wasn't just property. It was tied to covenant, calling, and faithfulness. Families didn't just receive something, they were entrusted with something.
And the same is true today. If we pass on wealth without preparing the heart, we risk setting someone up for confusion or even harm. But if we invest in their spiritual formation, their understanding of stewardship, and their trust in God as the true provider, then what we leave behind becomes a tool for kingdom impact.
So, how do we prepare the next steward?
Well, first we model it. More is caught than taught. The way you handle money right now, how you spend, save, give, and trust God, is shaping the next generation, whether you realize it or not. Your financial life is telling a story. Is it a story of fear or faith?
Of accumulation or generosity, of control or surrender. Because long before your children or grandchildren receive anything from you, they're learning from you. Second, we must communicate intentionally. One of the biggest mistakes families make is avoiding conversations about money, values, and legacy. But silence creates confusion.
Deuteronomy 6:6 and 7 reminds us to talk about God's ways when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way. That includes how we think about money. Talk about why you give. Talk about how you make decisions. Talk about what you hope they'll carry forward, not just financially, but spiritually.
Help them see that money is not the goal, it's a tool. Third, we train, not just transfer. Psalm 78 reminds us to tell the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord, so that they should set their hope in God. Faithfulness is learned over time. That means giving the next generation opportunities to see, practice, and participate in stewardship now, not just some day.
It might look like helping a child budget their allowance, inviting a teenager into family giving decisions, or walking alongside an adult as they navigate financial choices. We're not just preparing them to receive, we're preparing them to steward. And finally, we trust God with the outcome. This is where it gets deeply personal, because even with the best preparation, you can't control what someone else will do. At some point, we release what we've taught, modeled, and invested, and we intrust it to God.
That's true not only of money, but of the people we love. Psalm twenty four one reminds us The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. That includes your resources and your legacy. you are not the owner, you're the steward, and the same will be true for the next generation.
So instead of asking, How much should I leave behind? maybe a better question is how well am I preparing the one who will receive it? Because the greatest inheritance you can leave isn't what's in your accounts. It's a heart that treasures God above all. It's a life that says, God owns it all.
I am His steward. And everything I have is meant to serve His purposes. That's the kind of legacy that impacts your children and your children's children. And that's exactly what we unpack in my new devotional, Our Ultimate Treasure: a 21-day journey to faithful stewardship. You can pick up a copy for yourself or receive a discount when you place a bulk order for your church or small group at faithfy.com/slash shop.
That's faithfi.com slash shop. We'll be right back. Stick around. We're grateful for support from Guidestone, whose diversified suite of investment solutions align with Christian values to create positive change in the world. More information is available at guidestonefunds.com/slash/faith.
Investing involves risk, including potential loss of principal. Carefully consider the investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses of Guidestone Funds before investing. They're distributed by Forsight Funds Distributors LLC, which is not an advisory affiliate, a registered investment advisor, nor do they provide investment advice. Are you feeling overwhelmed by credit card debt? As followers of Christ, we are called to be good stewards of what God has given us.
That's why our trusted partner, Christian Credit Counselors, is here to help. Their debt management program can help you pay off your debt 80% faster while honoring your commitments in full. Take the first step toward financial freedom today. Visit faithby.com slash CCC or call 800-557-1985. 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. All right, let's begin with that first caller and go right ahead. Hi, I have a 78-year-old brother, and he has a mortgage on his home, and the mortgage rate is like 2.2%.
So I wouldn't know if I should pay off his mortgage. Or should we keep this in such a low interest rate? and invest in something else. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, you know, here's what I would say: it's never a bad idea to pay off debt. And if you have a conviction from the Lord to be debt-free, I would say go for it and don't look back. But if we start with the math, because really this is both a values and a stewardship conversation, not just a math equation, but let's begin with the math. At 2.2%, that mortgage is extremely inexpensive debt. Historically, a balanced investment portfolio might do seven percent over time, at least five percent to seven percent with a balanced portfolio, I mean stocks and bonds, which is meaningfully higher than two point two percent.
So, from a purely financial perspective, it would usually make more sense to keep the money invested. At the very least, just keep it in a high-yield savings account, continue to make the mortgage payments because the investments could outpace the cost of the loan, and you retain the liquidity, the flexibility, because you still have access to the money, which it's a bit harder to get to once you put it into the home. You're going to have to borrow it. Back out or sell the property.
Now, at this stage of life, you know, it's 78. The key priorities often become simplicity, liquidity, having access to the funds, peace of mind, and estate planning.
So the question really becomes, is the mortgage a burden? Or is it just another manageable monthly bill? And, you know, if again, you have a conviction, or he does to be debt-free, if the payment is stressful. you know, if his uh you know, he just wants to simplify things, then paying it off might make more sense than trying to squeeze out a little bit of extra return. But let me stop there and just get your thoughts on all that.
It all makes sense. I mean, because he's debt free other than the mortgage on his home, he has an emergency fund already. But I've always heard it's good to pay off your mortgage. That's what I think will likely you know, but it's not a problem. It's not like squeezing into any of the other funds and stuff.
He's managing to pay off pay his mortgage. that Sue meet is daily. our needs and stuff. But does it put people up? I'm sorry, go ahead.
Sure. No, no, I'm sorry to interrupt. I was just going to ask, where how does he feel about this? Would he like to be debt free or is he comfortable just continuing to pay this off over time?
Well, I'm his caregiver, so right now he doesn't have really The capacity to make those decisions. I see.
Okay, so that's really your call. Yeah, so I think, you know, here's the reality: is it wise to pay off debt? Yes. Is it something that, you know, a priority that we should ultimately be completely debt-free, including our homes? Absolutely.
But in this case, given the fact that you're giving care, the money's there, meaning you could pay it off at any time, it's a very low interest rate. He's living modestly with everything else because there's no other debt. He's living simply. And for you, it's just kind of a simple monthly payment with a very low cost of debt, meaning a very low interest rate. Then I don't think I feel compelled to you going and paying this off immediately, especially because as soon as you do, that money is now illiquid, meaning you can't get to it if you needed it for something else related to his care.
And so I think that might kind of skew in the direction of, let's just keep paying this out over time at this very low rate. But if it gave you more peace of mind or he had a conviction around it when he had the capacity, you know, to think about these things, or you're just looking to simplify things, never a bad idea, and just to get completely out of debt, including your home. All right, I have one more question for you. Is that okay? Sure.
The same brother has property in another state. I want to sell it, but it's next to our like family property. and they want us to sell it back to them. I'm thinking we'll make more of an investment if we sell it to the investment company approach to selling it back to family. Yeah.
Well, yeah, I mean, that can be a little sticky. And, you know, I think really clear communication about this. That's kind and objective is really important.
So, I would start with the principle here, Ann, which is as his caretaker, you have a responsibility to act in his best interest. And that naturally means selling the property at what's called fair market value, just as you would with any buyer.
So, you might say something like, Hey, because I'm managing my brother's finances, I need to make sure that anything we sell is done at fair market value. We'd love for you to have the property if you want it, so it stays in the family, but we need to treat it the same way we would with any other buyer. And then you would use an objective process to determine the market value, not just something you come up with, but you want to point to what's called an outside valuation because that's going to remove the emotion involved here, especially because there's family dynamics involved. And I would emphasize fairness to everyone as you know, making sure that you're doing the right thing to serve him and making sure that your family member doesn't overpay beyond what anybody else would be expected to pay if they were to buy it.
Now, could this family member think that because it's in the family, she's entitled to a discount? That's possible, but I think that would be inappropriate in the sense that it's very reasonable for you to expect to get the fair market value, especially given the role you serve in as his caretaker and his fiduciary. But does that all make sense? Makes a lot of sense. I didn't know the verbiage to use, so I was writing down what you said, and it makes a whole lot of sense.
to approach it that way. Very good. Last thing I'll say is to get that appraisal done, you're probably going to want to contact a local real estate professional in the area where the property is located and just ask for their recommended appraiser. And they'll all have one, and that would be very easy. And then you've got an objective.
Third-party professional evaluation of the property value and whatever it is is what you would be expected to receive from your family member or from someone else.
So, and thanks for your call today. Call anytime if we can help. Lord bless you. Let's go to Mississippi. Hi, Jackie.
How can I help? What I was wondering uh I was trying to set up a trust, and I was wondering what do I look for as far as pricing. a trust, is it a a certain fee or? Do I look at something different than that? Yeah, so if you have an attorney, do this.
And of course, you'll see a lot of advertisements on television that you can use an online resource to draw up a will or a trust. I would prefer you use an attorney just to make sure that it's done properly according to the laws of your state. And, you know, if you have a godly estate planning attorney, they can ask you other questions just to help you think through kind of the wealth transfer decisions, including is the next steward chosen and prepared? And that goes beyond the financial capital. But in terms of your specific question, yeah, once you find an attorney to do this, it's just going to be, you know, a fee that you'll pay.
It's typically going to be around $2,000 for a fairly simple trust without a lot of extenuating circumstances or conditions.
So it really is fee-based. And you certainly could shop around and talk to a couple of different attorneys, find someone that you feel like you have a good rapport with, and obviously you can ask them what the fee would be. But expect to spend somewhere between $2,000, $3,000 on the high end. Jackie, thanks for your call. We'll be right back on Faith and Finance.
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That's faithfi.com/slash app. Faith in Finance is grateful for support from Sound Mind 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. This is Faith and Finance, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. I'm Rob West. Looks like we have one line open today: 800-525-7000. You can call right now.
Let's go to Indiana. Christy, go right ahead. Yeah, I just had a question. My husband and I sold our previous home. And we weren't sure if it would be better to pay off Our new home.
or combine it with we already have around 169,000 in a C D. plus the three hundred thousand that we made from selling the home.
So we were thinking it might be better to put that money, combine it and put it somewhere to grow money, or should we just pay off our home? Yes. Okay. And d do you know the interest rate that you have on it? Actually, I don't right offhand.
I'm sorry.
Okay. Yeah, no problem.
So you have $169,000 in a CD. You got $310,000 from the sale of your previous home.
So you've got about $480,000. What did you pay for the new home? $280,000, I think, is what or two hundred and ninety thousand, but I think we owe two hundred and eighty.
Okay, so you only put $10,000 down. Right.
Okay. And this is your new primary residence, is that right? Right.
And are you planning to stay in this property for a long time? Yes, we do.
Okay. Yeah, I would. I mean, I would just kind of roll this into the next property and pay it off. For one reason, until you get to a 20% down, and right now you're quite a bit less than that with only $10,000 against a $290,000 home, you're paying private mortgage insurance, PMI, which is 1% of the mortgage balance, which doesn't do anything for you. It's just an added expense that you have to pay to the mortgage company because you only have a little bit of equity in the home.
But beyond that, if you're at prevailing rates, let's say you're at 7%, and maybe you were a little less than that, but at 7%, With this money not being in a retirement account, which it's not, it's in a taxable account. If you were to go invest that, Even if you were to your investments were long-term capital gains, you would need to get 8.5%.
So that after tax you would just break even. in terms of covering the cost of the mortgage. And that's quite a bit that you would need to get consistently over time.
So, I think for that reason, I'd probably rather you just go ahead and pay it off, get rid of that mortgage payment that you have now, save 100% of that interest, which, even if it's 6%, that's not a bad rate of return guaranteed, which is what you'd have as soon as you pay off that loan. And then you get rid of the mortgage payment, which means now if you want to invest beyond what you would need, I mean, so if you've got you owed 280 on the house and you've got 480, you'll still have 200,000 invested, 40,000 or 30,000 more than you have now in the CD. And if you want to keep adding to that, well, take 100% of that mortgage payment that you were sending to the mortgage company and send that to your investment account. and invest that every month. But, you know, that gives you added peace of mind.
It gives you a guaranteed return equal to the interest rate. You know, it really saves you from taking a good bit of risk so that you could pay the taxes and still break even. And I think at the end of the day, it's just really going to simplify things and set you up so that when you get into retirement, and we haven't talked about your work status, maybe you're already there, but it's just going to take your largest expense off the table, which just makes it a lot easier to balance the budget and live modestly. But give me your thoughts on all that. Yeah, that sounds good.
We were kind of thinking that, but we just weren't really sure 'cause my husband's getting ready to retire. Um, he's you know, so we just was thinking that might be the better thing to not have the monthly mortgage anyway. Yeah. And if you said to me, listen, I've got 480,000 in 401k, well, that'd be a whole different ballgame because in order to get it out, you would have to pay a big tax bill on it. But that's not what we've got.
We've got money sitting in a taxable account after tax dollars that would have to be invested and then pay more tax on it. When, you know, especially as we're entering retirement, that's really the ideal time to be completely debt-free, including your home, because it just really dials down what you need on a monthly basis to fund your lifestyle. Which hopefully the lion's share of that will come from Social Security and, you know, any other retirement accounts and potentially this roughly $200,000 that you would have remaining.
So I think that's a good plan, Christy. It'll give you guys plenty of flexibility, and I think you'll be in pretty good shape here. But if we can help further, don't hesitate to call. Let's go to Winter Haven. Manny, go ahead.
Yes. Rob, um, I just gifted my uh sister. thirty five thousand dollars so she can purchase a new car. And I wanted to find out if either her or I need to report this to the IRS. Ah, yeah, great question.
Are you married? I'm single. You're single.
Okay. So you are not able to give that amount, quite that amount.
So for twenty twenty six, the annual gift limit Is I believe it went up. Let me just double-check to make sure I give you the right amount. I believe it went up. Yeah, it's $19,000 per recipient.
So you can give any individual up to $19,000. And you can do that for as many people as you want for 2026, but if you go over that, which clearly you did, to get up to 35,000, then you have to file a gift tax return for the amount that's above $19,000. And You'll report that to the IRS.
Now, you won't owe any tax on that because you're able to give based on the current laws all the way up to $15 million over your lifetime in total giving. But the IRS does want to know about it because they're going to start applying it toward that lifetime tax exemption for gifts. and the state.
So, you do have to file that gift tax form 709. Do you have to file it? Yes. Is there going to be any tax owed? No.
It's just going to apply toward that lifetime exclusion. Does that make sense? Yes, thank you very much. I appreciate the information. You are very welcome.
What you're going to want to do is just make sure you let your CPA know, or if you do it yourself using some tax software, when you check the box saying you made a gift this year and you type in 35,000, it'll just automatically pull up that gift tax form and include it in the package. But don't leave that out of the information you provide to your CPA if, in fact, you use a tax preparer. Manny, thanks for your call today. We appreciate you being on the program. Hey, by the way, if you'd like to find an advisor who shares your values and can bring a biblical worldview to their professional financial advice that they offer you, well, that's why we have the Certified Kingdom Advisor designation.
You'll find one at findacaka.com. Folks, I hope today's been an encouragement to you. I'm so grateful you've been along with us. Thank you to my team today. Robert Youngblood, Devin Patrick, Jim Henry, and the rest of the team here at Fake Buy.
Have a great day and a wonderful weekend. See you on Monday. Bye-bye. Faith in Finance is provided by FaithFy and listeners like you.
