Kingdom Advisors equips Christian financial advisors to bring their faith into their practice with the industry-recognized Certified Kingdom Advisor designation. We bring those advisors together with other industry leaders to form a vibrant network. And through that network, we give them the resources, tools, and encouragement they need to serve clients like you, helping you align your values with your financial decisions and investments. To learn more, visit kingdomadvisors.com. If you need wisdom, ask our generous God and He will give it to you.
Hi, I'm Rob West. When we think about financial decisions, we often turn first to budgets, spreadsheets, or expert advice, and those tools can be helpful. But for followers of Christ, wisdom begins with prayer. Today, Sharon Epps joins us to talk about inviting God into our financial lives and seeking His guidance with trust and humility. And then we'll take your calls at 800-525-7000.
This is Faith in Finance, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions.
Well, it's always a treat to have Sharon Epps back in the studio. Sharon is president of FaithFi's parent organization, Kingdom Advisors. With her leadership experience and deep commitment to faithful stewardship, she brings a valuable perspective to the financial decisions we all face. And Sharon, great to have you here. Good to be here.
Thanks, Ron. When people think about managing money, prayer may not be the first thing that comes to mind, but as followers of Christ, why should prayer be central to the way we make even financial decisions?
Well, you know, as believers, we are really managing God's resources, not our own. And so think for a minute. Can you imagine being asked to care for someone else's home while they were away on an extended vacation? Would you let them leave without asking for specific instructions on how they would like for you to handle their home while they're gone? Sure.
No. And since everything we own is God's, we want to ask for his instructions.
Now, prayer reminds us that we don't have to carry financial decisions alone or lean only on our own understanding. It also helps us approach money with dependence and trust and humility. And finally, it shifts us away from control and toward faithful stewardship. Yeah, those are great points. We want to invite God into our financial lives.
So let's talk about what this looks like in practical, everyday terms.
Well, it starts by bringing financial decisions to the Lord before we act. Our friend and mentor, Ron Blue, shares the most powerful question we can ask God. God, what would you have me do with your money? And we can pray about everything, whether it's spending, saving, giving, investing, or career decisions. I remember fervently praying about my oldest daughter's college tuition.
We had not saved enough money ahead of time to pay for her education in full, and we were committed not to go into debt. And it was during prayer time that God led me to consider that He had provided for her college tuition, but that we had earmarked it for another purpose. And so once Joel and I sat down to talk about it, we were just giddy because God showed us something we had never considered. And prayer also just gives us the opportunity to shape our desires, our priorities, and even our motives, because over time, Prayer builds the habit of seeking God first instead of reacting in the moment. Oh, wow, I love that story.
One of the challenges, Sharon, many people face is discerning how much is enough.
So, how can prayer help us to bring that question before the Lord and align our desires and our lifestyle with His purpose? Our culture constantly pushes us to want more, but Scripture points us toward contentment. As Paul states in Philippians, contentment is something that we learn. It doesn't come naturally. Prayer helps us examine our hearts and see whether our desires are driven by needs, wants, fear, or trust.
So remember the prayer of David in Psalms: Search me, God, know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there's any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. I want that to be my prayer. Yes.
The Holy Spirit guides us towards a healthier understanding of what enough really is. And when we're content with God's provision, we're often freed up to be more generous. That's a great reminder. Sharon, I'm sure there's some listening today who maybe have just faced a major financial decision or they're in the middle of one, they're uncertain about the next step. What counsel would you offer?
Well, turn to prayer before you turn to spreadsheets and ask God for wisdom. Remember James one. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. You also want to seek wise counsel from trusted believers who share your commitment to biblical stewardship. And finally, trust that even when the path isn't perfectly clear, God is faithful to guide his people as they seek him.
So good. Folks, prayer turns financial decisions into opportunities to trust God more deeply. Sharon, what an important reminder. We're out of time, but really grateful for your wisdom today. My pleasure.
Thanks, John. That's Sharon Epps, president of Kingdom Advisors. Remember, finding an advisor who shares your faith and values doesn't have to be difficult. Just go to findacka.com, answer a few questions about what you're looking for, and you'll receive a list of advisors in your area who can help you take the next step on your stewardship journey. Again, that's findacka.com.
Back with your questions after this. Stick around. 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. Feeling burdened by credit card debt? As faithful stewards, we are called to manage our finances wisely. Christian credit counselors can help with a debt management program that allows you to pay off debt up to 80% faster while honoring your commitments with integrity. Don't let debt hold you back from the life God has planned for you.
Take the first step toward peace and financial freedom today. Visit faithfi.com slash CCC or call 800-557-1985. Um You know, when God is your ultimate treasure and money is a tool to accomplish God's purposes, it changes everything. You know, money is one of those things that intersects with our lives. Every day, we're always spending money, but I think we often fail to miss the connection between our money and our hearts and really what God's doing to form and shape us into His likeness.
Money can be a key part of that journey. We've got to get it into its proper place and recognize that it can compete with our devotion to God, especially here in the most prosperous nation in the history of the world. Be on your guard. It's not something to be fearful of, it's not a bad thing unless it becomes an idol in our lives, which it can easily do. Each day on this program, we want to help you think about money in light of biblical wisdom and then help you answer those practical questions and decisions you have each day.
The number to call to get in on the conversation today is 800-525-7000. We've got some lines open. We're ready for you. Call right now: 800-52577777777770000000070 5257000. The Pittsburgh PA.
Kanye, thanks for calling. Go ahead. Hi. Yes, my question is about some money that we just got from selling our house. We bought a new house, but then we sold our old house kind of after the fact.
And so now we got a lump sum payment sitting in a savings account and trying to figure out what the best route To go would be with that. We originally thought, like, hey, we want to put a large majority of this towards recasting the mortgage.
so that our mortgage payment at the new house is not as high. But then as we thought about things, is it smarter to You know, do like a half and half, put some in savings, or, you know, is there another smarter way to invest that money? Just trying to figure out what would be the best way to steward that money. Yeah, it's a great question. If you had sold the old home before you bought the new one, would you have just automatically rolled it in?
I think we would have rolled in most of it. We probably would have looked at not taking out as big of a mortgage. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's the key here: that was probably your intention.
It's just that the timing didn't work out.
So you've got to be careful to stay with that strategy unless there's a reason to do that. And you're right. You could go with a partial recast where you keep a strong cash reserve or you even invest it beyond your emergency fund and then use part of the proceeds to lower the payment and improve flexibility both ways in terms of liquidity, but also the safety around a lower obligation on that mortgage payment. Usually with a recast, we're talking about where you can preserve the interest rate, although that may not be an objective, just given the environment we're in right now. But it also usually doesn't affect the loan term where we're extending it or restarting it.
That's a good thing.
So you'd keep the same mortgage, same interest rate, same payoff date. You just get the mortgage monthly payment recalculated lower because you have a lower. Lower principal balance. And so that's good. The pitfalls are the reduced liquidity.
Once the money goes into the mortgage, it's tied up in home equity. And then, number two is opportunity cost. If the mortgage rate is relatively low, you know, it could earn more elsewhere. What is that interest rate? 5.99.
Yeah, so it's not great. But, you know, so you probably would do best getting a guaranteed 6% return on your money and locking in that lower monthly payment obligation. You could still send more if you have the ability to do so, you know, and prepay that mortgage, but it's going to put you in a stronger position where if something goes sideways, you don't have to make that higher payment. And again, every dollar of principal you pay is a guaranteed 6% return, which is not a bad guaranteed return. You're certainly not going to find that in any other guaranteed product.
If you did put, let's say, virtually all of this against the mortgage like you had planned to originally, would you still have an emergency fund? And are you contributing to retirement? Yes, we'd still have three months worth of an emergency fund of our expenses and contributing towards retirement. And in some ways, we're trying to explore what else we need to do with that. I'm a teacher in Pennsylvania here, and so my retirement is pretty well set.
But for my wife, she has her own business, and we're trying to figure out what are good options with that, but we haven't gone down that path too long yet. All right. Yeah, so I'm on board with the plan as you had originally planned it. And I don't think that anything changes just because of the timing of when you sold that old house, especially because we're not in a 2.5% interest rate environment like what you were a few years ago.
So, yeah, I think all things being equal, Conlin, I'd pay it down.
Okay, great.
Well, that's really helpful, and I think that's where we were leaning. But it's good to hear an expert advice like yours.
So I appreciate you, Rob. Absolutely, Colin. Thanks for your call. Call anytime. Let's go to Nebraska.
Pam, how can I help? Yes. I have a twenty three year old granddaughter who has difficulty managing her money. Wondered if you could suggest a budget plan that she could work on. Yeah.
Do you think she's looking for more of like a workbook that kind of explains the concepts? Or would she rather something that, you know, a lot of the younger generation enjoys, which is something more like an app based solution? I think the aft would be okay.
Okay, great.
Yeah, so the FaithFi app is our mobile application that she could have on her smartphone, Google Play or Apple, and would basically help her to set up a budget. There's three different styles of budget depending on whether she wants more of like the old envelope system, but in a modern digital version or more of just a straight tracking system. I'd be happy to give her a free pro subscription to the FaithFi app and if you want, get you connected with one of our certified Christian financial counselors to help her set up the budget. Do you think that would be something she'd be interested in doing?
Well, I hope she just had a difficult time, you know, coming up with enough money for everything.
Well, listen, we'll work through you, Pam.
So, I'm going to have you hold the line. We're going to get your information. And here's what I'm going to offer: we'll give her a six-month pro subscription to the Faith Vi app just to see if that's going to work for her and get her started. We'll also get her connected through you if she wants, and she's got to make this decision with a certified Christian financial counselor to walk alongside her as she gets it all set up. It's not going to cost her anything because we're going to pay for it.
And let's see if we can get her pointed in the right direction and maybe set her up for success as a steward of God's money well into the future. Oh, that sounds wonderful. Awesome.
Well, you stay right there, Pam. Our team will get your information. You'll talk to Tahira here in just a second. And may the Lord bless you. Call anytime if we can help you to Chicago.
Gladys, go ahead. Hi, Rob. I appreciate your program so much, and I pray that the Lord will just bless you. Even more tremendously than he already has. That's very good.
And my question, I've heard you speak about qualified charitable deductions, and I wanted to know, I am 70. And I wanted to know if with my time that I can use that, can I use it for tithes? But exactly, what is it? Yeah. So once you hit 70 and a half, and you do have to get to that point before you're able to do this, you can do what's called a qualified charitable distribution.
And here's the benefit.
So are we talking about an IRA, an individual retirement account that you have? Yeah. Okay, yeah.
So with the IRA, the only way you can get that money out without paying tax on it is through a qualified charitable distribution.
So let's back up. When you put that money in, whether you put it into a 401k and then rolled it to an IRA or it went straight into the IRA, in either case, you got a deduction on that money.
So it was excluded from your taxable income and then it grows tax deferred and then you pull it out after 59 and a half and you add it to your taxable income at that point.
Well, the qualified charitable distribution is the only way to get that pre-tax money in the IRA out without ever adding it to your taxable income. And so it's a huge benefit there and you can use it to send money to any charity, including your church, because that's a not-for-profit organization.
So yeah, if you're tithing to your church out of after-tax money and you're checking your savings account, if you were to replace that with money coming out of your IRA and just give the same giving, now you're getting it out without adding it to your taxable income, a huge benefit.
So let's do this. I've got to take a break. We'll talk a bit more off the air. We'll be right back. As the leading advocate for the Christian financial industry, Kingdom Advisors serves the public by promoting the integration of a biblical worldview across every aspect of the financial services industry.
And we serve a growing network of thousands of Christian financial professionals, equipping and empowering them to carry biblical financial wisdom to their clients, peers, and community. For more information, visit kingdomadvisors.com. That's kingdomadvisors.com. 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.
One Ascent'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 slash FaithFi. I'm so glad you're joining us today on Faith and Finance. We've got a few lines open today.
We're taking your calls and questions. The number 800-525-7000. You can call right now. Let's head right back to the phones to Illinois. Antonette, thanks for calling.
How can I help? Thank you for taking my call. I just want to briefly give you my situation. My husband and I are one year apart difference in age.
So my husband will be turning sixty five in about a year and a half. Um I'll be uh sixty-five in uh two years. But my question is, we have some investment And if we when we retire, our retirement monthly income will be roughly five thousand, between five thousand and six thousand dollars. If we do equidate every asset that we have, the property debt to we will be living and will be paid off for no mortgage. The second, it would be eighty at least eighty thousand dollars in cash for emergency.
The other would be I was thinking to Um maybe at least a thousand a hundred. to two hundred thousand dollars that will be still available. I wanted to see what do you recommend to invest this money and something that if my husband and I later on me to Utra monthly. as a dividend or some kind of type of thing if needed as extra emergency cash.
Now when it comes to credit cards, I've been paying my credit cards once every month for since I've been having credit cards.
So It's just I and I have fifty thousand dollars in a stock which is um which is NASDAQ and SMP five hundred.
Okay.
So now is my question is I know that there's some kind of I heard heard that actually, I talked to an advisor at a bank that he was also talking about like uh stock markets or like um they pay dividends, monthly dividends, that would be very um conservative. Yeah. Or to put it in a long term seven year C D. or um the uh government bonds. Got it.
Yes. I'm, yeah, so I just want your advice. I'm a Christian myself, so I want to be. You know, taking your advice. Great.
Well, I appreciate this background, Antonette. And it sounds like you all are in a really strong position. A mortgage nearly paid off, about $6,000 a month in retirement income, $200,000 sitting in the bank. You've got some stock investments. I mean, that's a pretty stable position financially.
And, you know, what we need to recognize is that inflation. The rising cost of goods and services over time is slowly eroding the value of that cash over time.
So, I would agree with you, putting it to work makes sense. The question is: where do we put it to work? And let's say at roughly age 65, you know, you'd probably want maybe 60 percent of that, 200,000 or 120,000 in what I'll call fixed income type investments.
So, that what fits into fixed income?
Well, you mentioned a few of them: treasuries, you know, right now, 30-year treasuries are about 5.2%, not bad. CDs, money market, bonds, high-grade corporate bonds, things like that would fit into that fixed-income category. And then maybe 40% of that, 200,000, or roughly 80,000. And this is just a starting point. You could get more conservative or more aggressive in either direction, but 80,000 in stocks.
Now, you could have. Absolutely do what that advisor said, where maybe you're prioritizing stocks that pay dividends, but you'd have a mix of international, but largely domestic, small and large and mid-cap stocks. And together, that portfolio should be much less volatile than just a straight stock portfolio because the bonds and the fixed income investments are going to kind of temper the volatility. But it should allow you over time that if you needed, to your point, to start pulling some additional income out of it on 200,000, you should be able to pull 10,000 a year and never get below 200,000. You should be able to support a 4% to 5% withdrawal rate pretty easily over time, not in any given month or quarter, but over the years, you should be able to support a 4% to 5% withdrawal rate, which on 200,000 is 10,000.
And maybe between now and when you need to start pulling something out, you could see it grow. Rather than doing that yourself, my preference for somebody in your situation where you've spent a lifetime kind of building up this nest egg would be to find an advisor who shares your values as a Christ follower, who could build the kind of portfolio I just described and take the responsibility of managing it. You could even have an advisor who really screens the investments to make sure you're not investing in industries like abortion or tobacco or alcohol, maybe that are misaligned with your values, if that's a conviction. And I think that would be a great way for you to go. But and I'd be happy to connect you with someone, but give me your thoughts on all that.
Yes, I believe exactly what you're saying. That's what I'm trying to find an advisor that's advising me not for its own whatever quota that they have to have, but you know, whatever they get paid at the end of uh, you know, doing this. That's right. Because I'm I know they want to make some money too on advising me in some things that they're going to get some money back to which okay, everybody is making money. But I just want to trust some have somebody that I trust and work with me and exactly what I need that I can trust in that way of not just looking for benefit of how much I'm going to get back from what I'm having.
That's right. That's well said. And I think that means what you're looking for in my terminology would be a certified kingdom advisor who's a fiduciary. And that's just a fancy term that means the advisor is legally obligated to put your interest above their own.
So they can't recommend a product or an investment because it generates more money for them. It has to be the very best thing for you, the client. And that's the term fiduciary. Certified Kingdom Advisor is the designation, it's the only one in the industry for advisors who've met high standards around character and competence and experience, but also shared Christian values. And if you're comfortable using the internet, I would go to findacka.com.
That's findacka.com. You could do a zip code search there in Illinois, and I'd interview two or three CKAs and find the one that's the best fit. If you're uncomfortable on the internet, I could have one of my team members help you do that search.
Okay.
Yeah, which would you prefer? No, I'm okay with the internet.
Okay, yeah, findaca.com is the place to go, and I think that will give you everything you need.
Okay, thank you for your help. All right, Antoninette, thanks for your call today. Yes, and you too. Bye-bye. Boy, what a great program today.
So appreciate your questions and your calls. Thanks for being along with us today. I hope we've encouraged you in your role as being a faithful steward and managing God's money. I couldn't do this without my team, Sandy Dickinson, Jim Henry, Taylor Stanrich, and Devin Patrick, and everybody here at Faith Fi. Have a great day and come back and join us tomorrow.
Bye-bye. Faith in Finance is provided by FaithFy and listeners like you. And then
