Top 5 Mistakes of the Wealthy

We tend to think that wealthy individuals always make the right financial decisions, but is that always the case? I am Rob West.

The truth is folks with a high net worth can sometimes make financial mistakes just as easily as the rest of us, and perhaps with even worse consequences. Cole Pearson shares several of them today, and then it's onto your calls at 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Well, Cole Pearson joins us again today. He's president of Investment Solutions at One Ascent, a family of companies seeking to help folks align their investments with their Christian values. We're also proud to say that One Ascent is an underwriter of this program. Cole, great to have you back. Thanks, Rob.

It's a pleasure to be back and One Ascent's honored to support the program. Cole, as you know, in the past we've reported on some of the smart decisions the wealthy make that we can all learn from. I guess it's only fair to talk about some of the mistakes they make as well, huh? I'd definitely say so. I think it's also a lot easier to learn from the mistakes of others, right?

That's right. Even the wealthy or high net worth individuals, they make the same common mistakes that most of us make that undermine our financial success. For most people, wealthy or not, having a financial advisor can help you avoid some of these mistakes we'll talk about in just a moment. Well, let's dive into those right now.

What is the first one? The first one would be not updating estate plans regularly. Again, this applies not just to the wealthy. As people accumulate wealth, their estate planning needs change and failing to update those plans can lead to unintended consequences. That could be probate, unforeseen taxes, legal challenges for heirs, among other problems.

The greater the estate, the greater the need to keep the estate planning up to date. No question about that one. Now I know the next one relates to tax strategy.

Share that with us. The mistake that high net worth individuals make is not having one, not having a tax strategy. Everyone should be aware of the taxes that they'll have to pay and take advantage of tax minimizing opportunities.

But again, all the more so for wealthy individuals, they're subject to a variety of taxes and proper tax planning can help minimize those liabilities, but also maximize after tax income and the opportunity to be generous during their lifetime. That's really helpful. Now I know this next one, Cole, is something that a lot of folks might miss and it's not diversifying their income. Explain that. That's true. People often tend to accumulate wealth through a single source of income.

Most of the time that's their full time job. And so a lesson we can learn from wealthy individuals and mistakes potentially is thinking about the business or the investment portfolio. If we don't diversify our income streams, that can leave us vulnerable to market fluctuations or other economic risks. But anyone could benefit from thinking of ways to diversify income. Again, proper diversification is biblical.

We learned that from Ecclesiastes. Diversifying our income can help people weather economic storms and ensure financial stability. Yeah, that's a really important idea. All right, the next mistake is one that of course anyone at any income level can make, but the wealthy are more prone to it. Wouldn't you agree, Cole?

I would. The wealthy are always in danger of lifestyle inflation, which is the tendency to increase spending as income increases. So while the wealthy may have more disposable income, increasing spending at any income level can quickly erode wealth and jeopardize long term financial goals. It's important to set a finish line out there for ourselves and control our spending.

Yeah, your spending will always rise to your level of income unless you protest to the contrary. All right, we've got time for one more. Share it with us.

Sure. The last common mistake that we see that undermines financial success is passing on not just the valuables, but the wealthy fail to pass on the values to the next generation. So many times families, we pay close attention to all the things that we've just discussed, the planning for the estate, the taxes, the diversification, even our spending. But we completely neglect an intentional approach to the values, the legacy that we hope to pass on to our children, our grandchildren. And so as Christians, we know that our financial decisions are stewardship decisions and that the resources God's entrusted to us, they can be used as a tool to make an eternal impact. So one of the ways we can intentionally prepare to pass on values and not just the valuables is by incorporating them into our planning, into our investing and our giving decisions and teaching our children and grandchildren to do so early. You know, when you think about it, our values, they inspire how we live, how we spend our time, who we spend our time with.

At One Ascent, we think that you ought to allow your values to inspire how you steward your wealth as well, including the types of companies you invest in and own. I love that. So much great information there, Cole. We really appreciate you stopping by, my friend. Thanks, Rob. Great to be here. Folks, if you want to explore a new way of investing that aligns your values with your faith, just go to OneAscent.com and click on Analyze My Investments.

That's OneAscent.com. Back with your questions after this. Stick around. The opinions offered during this program represent the personal or professional opinions of the participants given for informational purposes only.

Any information provided is not intended to replace advice from a financial, medical, legal, or other professional who understands your specific situation. Great to have you with us today on Faith in Finance Live. I'm Rob Lass. It's time to take your calls and questions today.

We'd love to hear from you. 800-525-7000. Again, that number, 800-525-7000. You can call right now whether you're thinking about dialing in or reining in that spending in light of high inflation or maybe it's paying down debt. What's the best way to get out from under credit card debt? We're certainly at all-time highs right now with credit card debt, over $1.1 trillion. And with these high interest rates, it's really squeezing the average family.

We certainly would love to help you create a plan to get out from under that debt. Maybe it's giving more wisely and effectively or navigating the market. We had the NASDAQ hitting an all-time high today, a record close. The Dow Jones adding more than 100 points. Seems somewhat counterintuitive despite all the challenges we have out there, both domestically and abroad. So how do you think about that in terms of your long-term investments?

Well, any of that is in play today. You can call again at 800-525-7000. We'd love to hear from you. All right, let's dive in. We're going to begin in Pittsburgh, PA. Sue, you'll be our first caller. You go right ahead.

Hi, thank you for taking my call. I just wanted to ask you, I'm 60 years old and I want to do an early retirement at 62 and I'd like to pay off my house before I do that. Is that advisable?

Yeah, it certainly can be. I love the idea of you being at a place where ultimately you can pay off that house prior to retirement. That's going to get your lifestyle down as low as possible. It used to be that folks in this season of life, about half of them would have their homes paid off. Now it's only about, well, it's about a third that actually do that and it creates a real challenge because this is your largest expense and it just makes it more difficult to balance the budget.

I guess the big question though is just always where are those funds going to come from? So why don't you just give me kind of a quick rundown of where you're at in terms of let's start with the house. What is it worth and what do you owe on it? So it's worth like $3.50 and I owe $2.50 on it.

Okay, all right, very good. Actually like $2.30, $2.30 on it. Okay, and when is retirement for you based on what you know today? In two years I'm hoping.

Okay, two years. And what is the interest rate on that mortgage? Three, I think it's $3.7.

Okay, very good. Yeah, so you got a nice low interest rate. Now give me a rundown of kind of the retirement assets you have that you're going to be drawing from in retirement.

So I already have that. I started at $55. So I'm pulling from that as well as I'm using that and I'm using part of my paycheck as well. Okay, so what do you have in that retirement account today? Right now, I'm just socking it away.

So right now I have almost I have $5,000 in it right now. But when I get a lump sum of like $10,000 or $20,000, then I just put it towards it. Okay, and so what type of retirement account is it that you're building up assets in? That's my pension. Your pension, okay. And do you plan on taking an income stream at retirement or getting a lump sum?

Oh, no, it's just an income stream. Okay. And so you've already started collecting that or that's going to come when you retire? Yes, at 55.

Okay, got it. And and so what other retirement assets do you have beside the pension? Oh, I have my 401ks. I have, you know, I'm in I'm in good shape. Other than that, I mean, I'll be still continue to be getting my pension until I die.

So sure. When you put all the other retirement accounts not including the pension together, what do you think you have in there roughly? Hmm, probably three. Okay, 1000. Total assets, though 300,000? Oh, I don't know the answer.

Okay. Well, I guess what I'm looking for is you got a pretty substantial mortgage here at 230,000. And you're looking to pay it off in two years. So where would that money come from? Oh, my part of my pen, my pension, and also my salary part of myself most of my salary. Okay, so you have surplus income because you're still working and you're drawing the pension right right now.

Is that right? Yes. And so you're going to try to pay it off out of your surplus income every month over the next 24 months?

Yes. Okay. And what do you have in the way of surplus income?

How much? What do you mean like my regular paycheck? So after all your bills are paid, how much extra do you have left over that you could apply to the mortgage principal reduction? 2000.

Okay. So if we do that for the next two years, 2000 a month, that's only going to give you $48,000 toward the $230,000 mortgage. So we've got, you know, we'll still have 182,000 left on the mortgage. Where's that going to come from? I see. Okay, then I might have to work till I'm 64, then 65.

Yeah, I mean, it's gonna it's gonna take quite a bit more than that. Because if we take 230,000, and we divide it by 2000 a month, it's going to take 115 months, that's about nine and a half years more at an extra 2000 a month. Now that doesn't factor in the scheduled mortgage payment, if you're continuing to make that, obviously, some portion of that is going to go toward principal reduction. And as you get later in the mortgage, although with this balance, you still are you in the is this a 30 year mortgage, and you're still in the first half of it?

Yes. Okay, so the majority of your scheduled monthly payment that amortized payment is going toward interest, and a smaller portion is going toward principal now every month, you get a little bit more toward principal and a little bit less toward interest. But in the first half of that 30 year mortgage, the majority of it is going to interest.

So even if we were to cut that 9.6 years down to seven years, I mean, you're still a good ways off from being able to be able to do that. So I think what you might want to do as a next step would be to just go into a search engine on the web, and search for mortgage payoff calculator, you'll find 100 of them, and they're all free. But what you're looking for is one of them that would allow you to say, Okay, here's my balance today. Here's my interest rate. Here's my scheduled monthly payment. And it will automatically calculate the amortization and factor in how much goes to principal and how much interest. And then here's my additional payment of 2000 a month straight to principal.

And it will tell you exactly how long it's going to take to pay it off. And you can move those numbers around to say, Well, what if I put 1500 a month? And what if I put 2500 a month, but once you figure out what that is, let's say I'm going to guess it's seven years, well, then that's going to allow you to decide, Okay, do I want to continue to work for till I'm 67? It would allow you to if you're eligible for social security would allow that to grow. And number two, it would allow you to enter into retirement, you know, completely debt free because now your home's paid off. But it also may mean that you're having to extend the amount of time you're working by, you know, instead of two years, maybe you're going out six or seven more years. Does that make sense? Yeah, I mean, isn't it best to be debt free by the time you retire?

Absolutely. I was just trying to solve for your goal of being able to retire two years from now. And I'm just saying that's not going to work. So yeah, as long as you're willing to work longer, that's great.

But I would get a plan and you're going to need to use that mortgage calculator to do it. Thanks for your call, Sue. It's a great question. God bless you. We'll be right back. Thanks for joining us today on Faith and Finance here on Namudi Radio.

I'm Rob West. We're taking your calls and questions 800-525-7000. We've got some lines open. We'd love to hear from you today. Let's go to Freeport, Illinois. Hi, Lorraine. How can I help?

Hi, Rob. I have a question regarding partnership in a business. Wondering if there's any biblical reasons or any red flags for not going into partnership in a business. Yeah, you know, here's the big thing I always counsel folks when it comes to partnerships.

I think the end result is you never want a partnership to get in the way of your testimony. And so in that regard, you know, you have to think about this being just like a marriage. I mean, in a partnership, there's give and take, there's negotiation, there's undoubtedly going to be conflict.

And I think that's really the key here. And so this idea of being unequally yoked, which is spoken about in the Bible, I think we've got to consider that as we, you know, consider whether or not we, you know, can go into a partnership situation, especially with a non-believer, because we're going to have a perhaps a misalignment in values there. And I think the other key and this is where it differs from the marriage relationship is you want to make sure if you do decide to go into a partnership that you decide in advance before you do it about a realistic and equitable exit strategy. And so you go into it knowing that, okay, if at any point this partnership is going to get in the way of my testimony or there is a misalignment in values, I've already defined in advance or we've defined in advance in writing and everybody's agreed to it on exactly how we're going to exit this partnership. Because this in that regard, it's not a marriage.

We're in a marriage relationship where before God, you know, for better or worse, you know, committing to one another for the rest of our lives. That's not the case with a business partnership. And so I think in that respect, although you may decide not to do it at all if you're unequally yoked, regardless, when you go in, you need to define that exit strategy on the front end.

And I think that will alleviate all kinds of problems because that gives you now the freedom at any point to say, okay, we've already decided in advance how we're going to value the business and how we're both going to exit if either of us want to exercise that opportunity at any point along the way. Does that make sense? It does. Yes. Yeah. Okay.

And does that get to the main questions you have or was there anything else specific? Yeah, I just wanted to make sure there wasn't anything biblical that we should be aware of to maybe stay away from it. But I understand you compared it like a marriage, but then there is a little difference too in the other aspect of deciding in advance, you know, the things.

Yeah. I think at the end of the day, if it were me and there's a mismatch in values, you've got a believer and a non-believer, I would probably pass on it just because of the situation. But I don't think that's prohibited in God's word. I think we just need to go into it understanding that we're never going to allow it to affect our testimony. We're going to have to deal with the give and take and in the management of it. And we absolutely have to define the exit strategy on the front end.

And if you do that and you still decide to go ahead with it, then I think you've at least put yourself in a position, you know, to be God-honoring in that relationship. Lorraine, I hope that's helpful to you. Thanks for your call today. Let's go to Longview, Texas. Hi, Gail. Go ahead.

Hi, Rob. Thanks for taking my call. I'm 67 and I just went part-time last week and I'm taking my Social Security and I'd like to establish a stable income stream. I've got $58,000 in a 403b. And one of the options on taking that was if I could do an annuity. If I took it now, it would be $400 a month. If I wait till I'm 70, it's $586 a month. Do you think an annuity is a good investment?

Yeah. And so this currently is in a 403b and you'd be rolling it into an IRA annuity. Is that what's or are they offering an annuity option inside your retirement plan or what is it you're looking at? I'm not sure exactly what the how that works, but it is one of three options that I have with my retirement plan, because I see my company will not contribute to it anymore. So it's Oh, got it.

Okay. And so they're saying you can either get the 400 a month now the $580 a month in three years when you're 70 or the third option is to take a lump sum. Is that right? Take a lump sum.

Yes. Or I could take it monthly. They would just divide it by however much it is monthly and they pay me out till I kill it.

The balance is zero. Okay, you could take the lump sum monthly until they've eventually paid you out. That's correct. And do they give you any interest on that?

Or is it just an equal distribution over time? Yes, I think it's earning either three point 4% or either 6%. I'm not quite sure.

I didn't look at that. Yeah, you would you would want to know that because depending on what they're going to give you that would you know, would that may eliminate that option? What is the lump sum that they're willing to give you?

Oh, the total the 58,000 58,000. Okay. And are you married?

Gail? I am not my widow. Okay. All right. And where you said you're working part time, do you need this income stream today to make your budget balance?

I do not. All right. And is that because you're working part time?

I have other income, but it would be nice to be able to manage that. Yeah. And would you mean is it conceivable that you could wait the three years to be able to get this this higher payout for the rest of your life? Yes. Okay.

All right. You know, the nice thing about taking the lump sum is that you know, you could invest in and have access to the full amount. And we would typically say you'd pull you'd want to pull, you know, maybe 4% a year.

The challenge is, that's only $193 a month. Now, you'd always have access to the 58,000 if it was invested with a long term, but that 580 seems pretty attractive. Now, do you know if that just goes away at your death? Or is there a portion that would be payable to your heirs? It is, I don't think it's payable at death. I would have to check into that to see if there was a survivor benefit to it. Yeah, got it. Okay.

I'd want to know if there's a survivor benefit and also what the interest rate is on the on the monthly payout over time. Why don't you check those and give me a call back or connect with an advisor in your area at faithfind.com. God bless you, Gail. Thanks for calling. We'll be right back. Thanks for joining us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West. Hey, I've got cut short with Gail's call.

Gail, I hope you're still listening. You know, at the end of the day, this lump sum versus annuity or monthly payout is one you have to consider and take your time in doing so. I mean, there's a number of factors. Number one is do you really value the guaranteed income stream for life? I mean, that's a big factor because, you know, so often folks will find themselves with a shortfall in terms of what Social Security might provide or other guaranteed income sources and having this monthly check for the rest of your life or if you're married, the rest of your life plus a spouse gives you a lot of peace of mind. So you've got to factor that in. You've also got to factor in your longevity and none of us know the day or the hour the Lord will call us home.

But are you relatively healthy? Do you have longevity in your family? Because obviously the longer you live, the more value you can place on that annuity or that monthly income stream for life. I think you also have to consider, you know, just which gives you more peace of mind and are you willing to take the risk or do you like the guarantee? I took Gail's scenario and just kind of run it through quickly through a calculator and here's the way that comes out. So if Gail waits till age 70, she'll get $580 a month. That is the equivalent of, you know, if we run this out to, you know, age 86, you know, that is going to give her a pretty phenomenal rate of return in the sense that she would have to, in order to offset that, she would have to get about 7% a year on the money in order to be able to have the same level of payout or return on the lump sum. And so, you know, it's pretty attractive, the $580 a month versus the $58,000 that she would get. Now, she's got to wait an additional three years, but that's, you know, that's a pretty attractive return, you know, for this situation. So, you know, I think at the end of the day, having an advisor kind of run through these scenarios with you and help you understand, you know, what that looks like in order to be able to calculate what the best thing is for you makes a lot of sense. But in this case, that $580 a month, if Gail takes it at age 70, is going to, you know, result in pension payments of about $125,000 between now and age 88.

So, something to factor into the thinking there, but again, an advisor can help you work through all of these numbers and help you make the best decision. All right, let's head back to the phones to Missouri. Jim, thanks for calling. Go ahead.

Yeah, thanks for taking my call. We've had some commercial solar companies inquire us about putting up a solar farm. And we were trying to find out if there's any pitfalls that we should be aware of.

We have about 40 acres of farmland that would be, that this would turn into a solar farm and just trying to find out more information. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think this is, I'm glad you're taking your time to kind of do some due diligence here. The developer has approached you on this, is that right? Yes, but we have spoken to our local attorney, there was like three different companies that were initially talking to us. And we're just relying on our attorney's advice right now. He's working with them with the contract.

But I asked the attorney just the other day, I said, Is there anybody else here locally that has this happening? Because I would love to talk to them after the fact and say, Hey, is there anything that you guys missed? Yeah, and that's, that's really what I'm looking for.

Yeah, I think that'd be a good idea. I mean, just kind of generally, when these deals come up, I think it's always good to start with your own goals and priorities and really just clarifying your objectives. You know, what is it you want out of the deal? Are you looking for a lump sum payment?

Are you looking for long term income? Are you wanting to retain some control over the development? I mean, I think those are the kind of big overarching questions you need to answer first. And then depending on the answer to that, it will lead you into whether or not this is even something to consider. I think you also need to understand and assess your land's value.

And so getting an independent appraisal to understand the fair market value of your land is going to be an important part of this process. I think secondly would be the due diligence on the developer. Who is this developer? What is their reputation? Do they have past projects that they've worked on?

What about financial stability? Can you find reviews or any past legal issues? Those should be pretty readily available with just a quick internet search. And, and then I think to your point, speaking with other landowners who have dealt with this developer, and perhaps that's where the internet can help. Also, I think in terms of hiring the professionals, that's going to be another key part of this engaging a real estate attorney and a financial advisor to kind of help you review the deal, the legal aspect, but also the financial aspect as well to make sure that your interests are protected, and then understanding the tax consequences of the deal as well. And so you'll probably want to talk to a CPA to be able to look at that. And then, you know, there's some other aspects of this. Of course, there's the deal structure itself.

How is that being put together? Is that coming to you as a lump sum or installment payments or a percentage of profits? You know, what is the fine print on this?

What is their plan for the land? You know, those types of things are always important to make sure that your interests are protected. And then, obviously, at that point, we get into all the zoning and regulatory compliance. And that's where the attorneys will have to make sure that everything's done properly.

So, you know, I think at the end of the day, you always need to be prepared to walk away. You always need to have everything in writing. But starting with your goals, making sure you have competent professionals to walk alongside you to help you understand all the implications of this.

And then to help you with the deal structure as well as the negotiation is probably the biggest things for you to consider. Okay. All right. I'll definitely look into that prior training goals and trying to find out. I would love, I wish they would create like a pool of people that have done this and then they could maybe perhaps on Facebook or something like that. I can research that as well.

Absolutely. Yeah, I think that would be time well spent, especially if you can find some activity from this developer with others. So you can find out, you know, what their experience was like in working with this developer and what is their strength and longevity? How long have they been around?

What kind of financial strength do they have? All those things will will need to play into this. But we'll ask the Lord to give you some wisdom on this, Jim. We appreciate your call today, sir. Let's go to Nashville. Hi, Lori.

How can I help? Hi, Rob. Is there a no fee credit card that would be at low risk of canceling its clients who are conservative and or Christian? I'm looking to change my credit card.

Sure. I would check out the Christian Community Credit Union and you'll find them at JoinChristiancommunity.com. They have a cash rewards visa that not only has cash back, but there's no annual fee. And with, you know, every use of the card, not only are they trying to make it really competitive for you and do you, you know, you'll know that they share your values because they were built for Christians, but they're also sharing a portion of what comes into them with Christian ministries around the globe. So I would check that out. It sounds like it may be a great fit for you, Lori.

Again, that website is JoinChristiancommunity.com. OK. OK, great. Thanks. You're welcome, Lori.

You're welcome. Thanks for your call today. All right, folks, we're going to take a quick break.

Can we come back? We've got a few more great questions and Bob Doll is going to stop by. We're looking forward to catching up with Bob today. We'll find out his take on the bull and the bear case in the market. Plus 80 percent of the S&P 500 companies have reported earnings. How is that going?

What are those earnings telling us about where the market might be headed from here and today's inflation data? All of that and more with Bob Doll just around the corner. We'll be right back on Faith and Finance Live here on Moody Radio.

Stick around. Hey, great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live before we head back to the phones here in our final segment. We're joined by our friend Bob Doll. Bob is chief executive officer at Crossmark Global Investments, where investments and values intersect.

And Bob, Dow Jones or no, excuse me, the Nasdaq at a record close. So it sounds like all of our problems are behind us. Everything must be hunky dory with the world, huh?

The world is perfect and what's not perfect will be settled by the election in November. Don't worry. Yeah, exactly.

Or maybe not. But seriously, Bob, I mean, where where are we at with this market that I mean, all indications are everything is really looking good and yet there's some real challenges out there, starting with today's inflation report. Agreed. I think that, look, the market's moving up based on the fact that the economy is doing reasonably well and so are earnings.

And you can stop right there if you're a bull. If you're a bit more concerned, you point to you just mentioned it. So we got an inflation report, a PPI producer price index.

It was worse than expected. The bulls say, but wait a minute, they were advised last month down. So if you put the two together, we're OK.

So you can slice it lots of different ways. Fed chair Powell came on today and said, we think rates are restrictive enough to slow the economy and bring inflation down. But you have some doubt, maybe not opening the door for potential rate hike.

So loss across currents, as you point out, Rob. But markets tend to these days to look at the positives and ignore the negatives. Yeah, there's no doubt about that.

And we're certainly see that play out. I know it's a lagging indicator, Bob, but you had some comments in your deliberations this week about the fact that 80 percent of the S&P 500 has reported earnings. What do you take away from those reports? Yeah, that the economy, to repeat, is doing well. And as a result, companies are reporting good earnings.

Again, if I want to take the other side of the story, I'd say two things. One, revenue growth was a little weaker than expected. Not as many positive surprises. And estimates for the full year aren't going up. If we have better earnings in one quarter, you would think the full year numbers would go up.

No, they're not. So which quarter are we going to take the earnings out of by exceeding them in the first quarter? So lots of crosscurrents. But the the good news is the economy and earnings are doing well and the markets are satisfied to focus on that these days.

Yeah, that's for sure. But what about the macro trends, two in particular that you were commenting on in this week's deliberations? One is around the great wealth transfer.

I've seen numbers recently that we're talking as much as sixty eight trillion dollars. And that's, of course, already underway. But the second is this bigger theme of artificial intelligence, which is just dominating the headlines. Talk about both of those and their impact on the economy moving forward.

Certainly. So the generational wealth transfer, which we've known about for some time, as you point out, is underway. But you can't see it. It's sort of like the aging of the baby boomers. It's so slow. It's like watching paint dry. The issue with the wealth transfer is that it is very concentrated and it is primarily in residential real estate.

So it's not so much, you know, grandma dies and pass off the kids or grandkids lots of money. It's here's the house grandma used to live in. Now, what are we going to do about it?

So that's going to be a slow one. The A.I. theme here and now, as we pointed out in our calls before, Rob, A.I. is not new.

It's been around for a while, but it has accelerated and we're paying more attention. Every time I turn around, I hear another company, whether it's in information processing or in health care or energy or consumer companies, all taking A.I. and making their business more productive and a more productive economy means better earnings.

And you get into that virtuous cycle. And that's part of what's driving this market as well. I should have mentioned earlier.

Yeah. Is it enough, though, Bob, to offset some of the larger macro trends that are negative, such as the fact that we're not replacing the workers that are retiring because we're having fewer babies? It certainly is an offset in the near term could be more powerful than the negative you just mentioned. But long term, our population is shrinking, not as fast as China's population, but ours is shrinking for the very reason we're not replacing ourselves. And that is a big deterrent to growth that we're going to have to address somehow. There are two ways to do it.

Have more more babies or bring more people into the country legally or illegally. The case. Yes.

Yeah, exactly right. All right, Bob, let's finish on values based investing. I know you're speaking today actually at a conference for advisers on this topic. What's your message to our audience about the opportunity they have to align their values with their investments?

To take a good hard look at it. It's, you know, what part of your life is not related to, in fact, your values and your faith? Oh, well, you should line that piece up and investments tend to fall between the cracks. The number of even financial advisers, for example, at the conference I'm at that come up to us. Oh, we didn't know you were faith based firm. By the way, what is faith based investing?

These are advisers. It's an education process. So I think that growth in this little part of the world, if you will, that we're in is going to continue to take share and to grow and for the benefit of the kingdom. Yeah. Amen. Well, we're certainly all about that. And we appreciate the work you're doing, my friend. And thanks for your time today. Have a great rest of the week. All right. That's Bob Dollies, chief executive officer and chief investment officer at Crossmark Global Investments.

You can learn more at crossmarkglobal.com. All right, let's head back to the phones as we round out the broadcast today to Chicago Heights, Illinois. Hi, Nina. How can I help you? Hi, Rob. How are you? I'm doing great. Thanks for your call. Good.

I just have a quick question. So I'm a newlyweds and we're expecting our first child. And we have been looking to do the whole house hunting situation. I just wanted your opinion on what would you recommend either a mortgage broker or going through like a bank?

Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, I like using a mortgage broker, you could also compare what you're getting from a mortgage broker to some of just the online tools, you could also check with your local bank. I think the big mistake people make Nina is they just, you know, get one quote from one lender and take it. And with this being the largest transaction that you and I will ever have, and that's the same for just about everybody, we should shop around and make sure we're we're getting the very best rates and terms, you're probably going to want to look for a conventional loan, they require a good credit score and a stable income and a down payment somewhere between three and 20%. And I like for you to be at the 20% area, there's a flexibility in terms and as long as you have at least 20% down, you could avoid that private mortgage insurance, which, you know, that's going to be a requirement if you get an FHA loan, and that's going to be about 1% of the mortgage value annually, and it doesn't do anything for you. It's all for the lender. So if you can avoid that by having that 20% down on a conventional loan, that's going to be your best option. So to answer your question, though, I would seek out a mortgage broker, but you could also go, you know, online and or, you know, check with your bank, you may also want to check with our friends at Movement Mortgage, they're a nationwide lender, they're an underwriter of this program, and they're believers and really are focused on not only serving God's people with wonderful loans, but building the kingdom at the same time, you can learn more on that at movement.com slash faith, but is that helpful to you?

Yeah, wow, that really helped a lot. Yeah, so you do recommend shopping around, though, because we did we've gone through like one mortgage broker, he did like a softball, we weren't ready to do a hard pull yet, just because I don't know that he's persuading us to just go with him, he's the best one we can get. But, you know, there are a lot of other options out there. So maybe we'll look more into that. Conventional is what we're leaning towards as well. So that's probably better for us, rather than the FHA.

But and then one more question. We need help with like budgeting, like, is there any advice or wisdom you can give us through just like starting obviously, you know, having a baby and you know, all that stuff. It all comes with budgeting.

And with this economy, it's obviously crazy. Sure, sure. Yeah, I certainly can. I think a starting point would be to download the faith by app. We just came out with the brand new faith by 4.0 yesterday, and it's amazing, you'd be able to set up your budget in there, be able to connect all of your checking and savings accounts, your credit card accounts securely using the third party aggregator plaid, which is the biggest in the world. And you could use the envelope system, but in a really beautiful, simple interface on your smartphone, you and your husband would both have logins. So you could see at any point what's left in each of your envelope so you can stay on budget. And I'd be happy to give you a six month pro subscription just as our thank you for being on the program today, my wife, Julie and I use it, we're in our faith by app every day. And here's the key is that once you take the time to set up your budget, and then you connect all of your accounts, then all your transactions flow in automatically. And so at any point in the month, you see what's left in each of your envelopes, just by opening the smartphone, you can say, Hey, honey, we've only got, you know, a little bit left in the eating out, I guess we're, you know, eating at home tonight, or, you know, what our gift category is getting a little lean, maybe we need to wait until next month, or, you know, whatever it is, but having the real time information, I think is really key, Nina, in terms of you not waiting until the end of the month to look back and see where you went over, but actually making course corrections along the way.

You can find it in your app store, if you just go go to either Google Play or Apple and search for faith fi. And if you hang on the line, we'll get your information and get you that six month pro subscription. Okay.

That's huge. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you.

You're welcome. I also want to send you one other thing because you guys are newlyweds and you're just trying to figure out how to manage money God's way. I'd love to send you Howard Dayton's book.

It's called money and marriage God's way. And it'll be our gift to you. So here's what we're going to do.

We're going to give you a six month in the faith fi app, and we're going to send you that book money and marriage God's way from Howard Dayton and you guys, uh, just seek the Lord and, um, lean into this area of having really good open and honest communication and invite God into your financial life through prayer. And let's see what he does. I can't wait to hear the rest of the story. Call back any time. Thanks for being on the program today. Well, that's going to do it for us today. Folks. I want to say a big thanks to my team. Uh, Amy, Dan, we're also thankful for Gabby T as well as Taylor. Couldn't do it without them.

Faith and finance lives a partnership between moody radio and faith. Fine. We'll see you tomorrow. Bye.