The following program was prerecorded, so our phone lines are not open. By some estimates, the average household spends an astonishing 40% of its food budget eating out. That's a lot to digest.
Hi, I'm Rob West. After housing and transportation, food is probably the next biggest item in the budget. It's also a place where you can easily make changes that will save you a lot of money.
And we have some great calls lined up, but we won't be taking your live calls today because we're prerecorded. This is Faith and Finance Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Okay, obviously, I'm talking about cutting back on eating out and preparing more of your meals at home. I know that a lot of families have two working parents or maybe mom or dad's busy driving vans full of kids to soccer or baseball practice, and that it's difficult to avoid the convenience of fast food.
But there's always a cost for that convenience and not just with money. Fast food tends to pack on the pounds, and when you eat out, you have less control over nutrition. So those are all good reasons to eat in more often, and it starts with planning. In this case, menu planning.
How many times have you looked at something in the cupboard and thought, why did I buy that? You can avoid that by planning out your meals for the week, breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks before you go to the store. This also allows you to choose healthier options like fruits, vegetables, and nuts. When you're making up your menu plan, choose meals that you can make ahead of time over the weekend. It takes the guesswork out of what to eat during the week and all that last minute scrambling.
Once you have your menu plan, you can list all the items you need to make those meals. Then, take an inventory of your fridge and cupboards, crossing off stuff you already have. What's left is your shopping list, and when you go to the store, stick to your list and you'll start saving money right away. That can be hard to do, especially if your stomach is grumbling from all that meal planning, so maybe have a snack or eat a meal before you head out to the grocery store. That's one way to prevent impulse buying.
Here's another one. Try to avoid the middle sections of your grocery store. That's where they put things like cookies, candy, and chips. If you're shopping after work with a low energy level, it's hard to resist those things. But if you concentrate on the outer sections of the store, you'll be able to pick up a lot of the items you need for your menu plan. Things like meats, vegetables, fruits, and yogurt.
Obviously, you'll have to duck into the middle for certain items, but do a quick surgical strike and get back to the safe outer zone. You'll also want to stock up on staples when you can get them at a good price. Cereals, rice, corn meal, and oatmeal are often sold in bulk at bigger stores. You also want to choose lower price options for protein in your meal planning. Hamburger costs less than steak. Chicken costs less than hamburger. And working a meat-free dinner into your weekly menu plan will also save you some hard-earned money. And it almost goes without saying, making coffee at home and taking it to work is a lot cheaper than buying designer coffee.
The same goes for water. Bring a bottle from home instead of buying it out. Another great idea is to take advantage of the free pickup option that many larger grocery chains offer now.
There may be a minimum order required, but it's not difficult to meet. Just go to the store's website, sign up for curbside pickup, and check the items you need. That way you're not tempted to buy unnecessary items while pushing a cart around the store. And you can keep a running total of what you're spending, making it easier to stay on budget.
Curbside pickup is also a great option if you usually have little ones hanging on the cart yelling, buy me this! Here are some other ways you can avoid overspending on groceries. Be careful where you shop because prices vary. Generally the bigger the store or chain, the lower the prices. The service may not be as great in warehouse stores, for example, but you can make up for that with savings. Of course, some of the big box grocery stores have membership fees, so that's an added cost. But if you shop there even once a month, it's probably worth it. One thing to consider though, the packages at those stores tend to be gigantic, so make sure you can use up the item before the expiration date and that you have room in the fridge for that two gallon jar of pickles. Now there's one more way to save on your grocery shopping, and that's by not leaving home at all. You can buy a lot of household necessities online from sites like Amazon and other online merchants, so try to take advantage of offers for free shipping.
So those are some things that can help you eat more of your meals at home, saving you a ton of your hard earned money in the process. Well folks, we're going to head to a break, but let me remind you, we're out of the studio today. Our team is not here, so don't call in, but much more to come just around the corner on Faith and Finance Live. Stick around.
Great to have you with us. This is Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West. We're away from the studio today.
This is prerecorded, so don't call in, but we'll get right back to the phones here in just a moment. Before we do, let me remind you of how simple managing money God's way can be. Once we recognize God owns it all, we apply simple principles to our financial life to be a wise and faithful steward. Here's five big ideas.
Spend less than you earn, avoid the use of debt, set long-term goals, have some margin, and give generously. And if we do those over a long period of time, we'll put ourselves in a position to experience God's best. Hey, here's what we want to do. We want to be an encouragement to you, a source of hope as we direct you back to God's word, pull out the big ideas and themes so that we together can be wise and faithful stewards of God's money. It's a high calling to be a money manager for the Lord himself. That's the opportunity we have because everything belongs to him. And so we want to look to Scripture to say, how should we think about living our lifestyle, giving that which we give away to be generous and connect with the needs in others' lives and the heart of God?
Owing, debt and taxes. What about growing God's money as well on a short-term and long-term basis? We'd love to help you do that as well. Now, we always love to hear stories of how God is working in your lives as you apply these principles and as we're able to come along stewards like you and encourage you, but also connect you to other resources from time to time, whether that's a certified kingdom advisor or one of our certified Christian financial counselors. And today, I'm so excited for you to hear the story of Mr. Charles from Georgia. Charles, thank you for calling today.
I understand you want to give a praise report. Is that right? I do. Yes, sir. And I don't know if you remember my call, but I called asking for advice about whether or not I should use one of those tax services that claim they help you with the RRS if you owe back taxes. And for multiple, multiple years, I mean, I've always been a faithful tither and giver. I just was, in my addiction, I never pay income taxes. And so I got clean and learned the principle of giving and tithing and fresh fruits and did that, but just afraid to deal with the RRS and it went on and on and on for years. So I was reading the word one day in that scripture where Jesus had rendered the seasons with Caesars and gods to gods. Well, I had been doing God's part, but not Caesars. And it really convicted me. So I decided, okay, I'll do something about it.
And I called your program and you told me, no, don't mess with any of those. And you put me in touch with a wonderful brother in the Lord, Kevin Cross, who's a Christian certified public accountant. And I'd like to say that I actually paid my taxes.
And I can't tell you, it's probably the first time I've paid money where I was actually enjoying doing it, of a bill that I owed. I was just, I felt so blessed to be able to do it. And it was because of this ministry and your advice that I'm going to get back on track with the RRS and finish up the rest of my days in obedience to the word.
What a blessing, Charles. I'll tell you, this is such a picture of the Lord at work. You know, he's in the restoration business and I love that he has restored you and brought you out of that addiction. I love that you've gotten back on track in terms of just pursuing Jesus with your life. And that includes your giving and your money management and your participation in the local church and just pursuing him. But this area that was always kind of outside of that, this area of your tax burden, to be able to now know that that has been brought in line with the admonition of scripture and that you're current on your taxes. What a blessing.
And I'm so thrilled that Kevin, who's a dear friend and just loves the Lord and loves to help God's people, was able to walk alongside you, Charles. Now, are you still working on some of those back taxes years? And are you all working on a payment plan or how are you going to handle that? We're working on a payment plan. He's going to represent me before the RRS and I'm going to get all the back taxes taken care of.
He just got me current right now. That's great. What a blessing.
I'm happy to do it. And here's the great part. God's providing the finances.
Wow. Well, I have to believe, Charles, God is your provider. He said, I'll never leave you or forsake you. He said in his word, if he's going to provide for the birds of the air, how much more is he going to provide for us? And I have to believe that as you've been faithful to bring everything under the Lordship of Christ, including your money management of God's resources, that he's honoring those decisions that you're making and you're right standing before him through the shed blood of Jesus.
And Charles, I am just absolutely thrilled for you, my friend. You know, we can look at the payment of taxes with Thanksgiving. And here's what I mean by that. You know, especially here we are just past the filing deadline of April 15th. And some people might be saying, really, how do we pay taxes with Thanksgiving? Well, we realize, I think, first and foremost, that taxes are symptomatic of income.
You don't have to pay any taxes unless you have income. Well, what does that mean? Well, that means that God has provided. And so we can look at our taxes as something we rejoice in because it's evidence of God's provision in our lives. And then we take it a step further and we say yes, and we're being obedient, as you said, Charles, very well, that we're being obedient to Christ because he's made it very plain.
We're to render unto Caesar what is Caesar and to God's what is God's. And so we're being obedient. And then thirdly, we get to celebrate that we live in a wonderful free nation under God. And I realize we have our challenges here in this country, and we need to lean into that and engage. But we can also rejoice in the fact that we have the blessing of living here. And we are afforded many privileges that others around the world who aren't free to express their religion and so much beyond that do not have.
And so we can pay our taxes with thanksgiving. And you've certainly given testimony to that today, sir. Anything you'd want to share just as we wrap up? Again, thank you. I really appreciate it. I'm so blessed that I'm able to hear, be led by the Holy Spirit that they have called your program and to start this process.
I believe if I had not probably be in a mess or wouldn't have paid them at all again. Thank you. I really appreciate you and your ministry in helping me in aligning obedience with God. Well, I'm delighted to do it, Charles. I'm so thankful for you.
Hey, you stay on the line. I want to send you a book that's just our gift to you. It's a book called Master Your Money. And it's one of the books, Charles, that I read early in my own journey to really see God's heart in this area of finance. And it was really significant in my life. It's written by one of my mentors, Ron Blue. I think it'll be an encouragement to you now as you look to get really continue to build out your understanding of God's way of handling money.
It'll cover just a host of issues from how we think about lifestyle to budgeting to saving for the future, to investing, certainly paying our taxes with integrity. So you stay on the line, Charles. We'll get your information and I'll get Master Your Money in the mail, okay? Thank you so much. I appreciate you.
All right. God bless you, Charles. Wow. What a testimony today. I'm just so delighted to hear how this ministry has been able to work in people's lives. It's not about us. It's what the Lord has done. And we're just grateful to be a part of his work and to encourage you to pursue him with everything.
Because you see, folks, when we make God our ultimate treasure, everything else falls in the line. All right. We're going to head to a break.
So don't go anywhere. Still a lot more to come even though we're away from the studio today and you shouldn't call in. We have some great questions that you're really going to enjoy as we continue to apply God's wisdom to your financial decisions. We'll be right back. You're listening to Faith and Finance Live and you can find us online at faithfi.com. However, today we are not live. So if you hear that phone number, please don't call.
But do stay with us. There's lots of good information ahead. A study out by Ameriprise Financial found that, well, 95% of couples agree they are honest and transparent with each other about their finances. And 91% said that they share the same financial values. Most have not put an estate plan in place. Now, the survey pulled more than fifteen hundred American couples with a hundred thousand dollars or more in investable assets, primarily between the ages of 45 and 70 who have retired within the last decade or plan to do so in the next 10 years. And while 93% of couples share similar retirement goals and agree on when to retire, 24% of them said they have not come to an agreement on how much they will need to save or how much they should spend on their children and grandchildren both today and as a part of their estates.
Alarmingly, though, and this is what stood out to me, more than half, 52% of those surveyed have not taken the crucial step of setting up an estate plan, potentially leaving their financial future and the distribution of their assets uncertain. So what's the takeaway from that? Well, number one, we need to be communicating as husband and wife. We need to be on the same page. That's one of the big ideas that helps us overcome conflict in marriage around money.
Second, we need to have a plan. You know, that last stewardship decision you will make is around the distribution of what God has entrusted to you. And here's the key question. Who is the next steward? And are they chosen and prepared?
And here's what I mean by that. It's one thing to choose them and you absolutely need to do that. And these 52% of these couples surveyed in this study had not made that decision of choosing the next steward. But then there's this second piece of this and that is, are they prepared? Of course, if that's a ministry or charity, you want to have confidence that this is a ministry that's doing work in the name of Jesus, that it's run efficiently, and that they're exercising good stewardship.
And there's ways to do that through an ECFA certification, ECFA, or you could look at, you know, a number of rating services, Charity Navigator, Ministry Watch, and others. But if it's an error, the preparedness part comes into, what is the trajectory of their lives? And, you know, are they both in their lifestyle as well as their money management, exercising maturity? Are they operating out of a biblical worldview? Could a significant inheritance actually propel them in the wrong direction?
How do we discover that? Well, I think one of the questions is asking ourselves, what do we hope would happen when we give this amount of money? And then replace the word hope with expect. What do we expect would happen when they received this money?
And then a third way to ask the question replaces the word expect with fear. What do we fear would happen when we leave this money? And let's have an honest conversation about the potential impact, positive or negative, in their spiritual life, in their marriage, because it may undermine the heirs' ability to provide for their family. What about financially?
You know, where will it be used there? And obviously, if it's in any way, or at least we believe it will in any way get in in the way of their spiritual journey, especially if they're really struggling right now spiritually, then perhaps that's not the best idea. And remember, it can change over time, but at least for right now, maybe that's not the plan to make.
Maybe you focus on giving the money away now or in the future. But we don't want to, at least at this point, have a plan to give them a large sum of money when we think it could accelerate their journey spiritually and with their lifestyle away from the Lord. So anyway, some things to think about. The operative question here is, is the next steward chosen and prepared? And we need to really think through that before we make that decision. But in conclusion, and coming back to this study, we've got to have a plan. We don't want to be one of those 52% of those surveyed in this study that haven't taken that step of setting up an estate plan, which means the person that's going to decide where that estate goes is ultimately the probate court. And that's not what we want. So put a will in place, especially if you have minor children. That's where you're going to name your guardian.
And then obviously you can build from there. I hope that's an encouragement to you today. It's certainly something we all need to think about. All right, let's head back to the phones.
Let's go to Tennessee. Hi, Mary, go ahead. I was listening to the program today and I had a similar story to the, I think it was Charles that was speaking earlier about taxes and other past debt. I've been in recovery now for seven years, but I have years, probably 30 years of wreckage behind it, but I've got to clean up a lot of past taxes and debt. I'm not sure where to start.
Yeah, yeah. Well, first of all, Mary, is exactly where you're at. And that is to say, I want to get my relationship with the Lord back on track, starting with surrendering your life to Jesus and getting in a Bible-believing church, getting in God's Word.
I think the extent to which you've had an addiction, making sure you're beyond that and continuing to engage in ongoing community that's going to reinforce that and treatment if necessary. And then with regard to the finances, saying, you know what, I want to get this on track. I may not be able to do it overnight, but I want to get right before the IRS. I want to pay what I owe and nothing more. And if they're willing to work with me either through an offer in compromise where maybe you'd end up paying back less than you owe and the IRS would agree to that, or a payment plan like Charles is going to get on to his current, that's often what it will take. And they're very willing to work with you on that.
Now, I recommend you work with either a CPA or an enrolled agent who specializes in this area of offers and compromises representation before the IRS. I do have somebody I could connect you with if you want somebody to walk with you. You can do it yourself. I just think it's better to have somebody who's skilled in that area. Does that make sense? Yeah, that'd be great. I appreciate the help. Thank you.
Yeah, absolutely. So let's do this, Mary. You hold on the line.
We'll get your information and put you in touch with a certified kingdom advisor who has a particular expertise in this area of offers and compromises and back taxes. May the Lord bless you. I'm so delighted to hear the Lord is working in your life in that area of the addiction. Thanks for your call. Well, folks, we're going to head to a break, but let me remind you, we're out of the studio today. Our team is not here, so don't call in, but much more to come just around the corner on Faith and Finance Live. Stick around. This is Faith and Finance Live with Rob West. Hey, if you hear a phone number mentioned today, please ignore that number and don't call us because today's broadcast was previously recorded. But we think the upcoming information will help you and make you a wise steward of what God's given you.
So please stay tuned. Our goal on this program, that God would be your ultimate treasure. What does that mean? Well, you know, if we see God as our ultimate treasure, that means nothing rivals that. Certainly not anything in this world. Money becomes a tool to accomplish God's purposes. It's no longer an end. It's a means to an end. We realize God is our provider and our longing for abundance and fulfillment and purpose is found in God alone, not the things of this world, the things that money can buy.
Those are fleeting. Now, it's to be enjoyed. It's to provide. It's to give. It's a good gift and creation from the Lord, but it's not something that's going to satisfy our longings for fulfillment and significance. God alone should do that.
And so when we pursue him as our ultimate treasure, well, it puts everything in perspective, including our money management. All right, let's go to Ohio. Matthew, thanks for your patience, sir. Go ahead.
I just had a question. Recently my father-in-law passed away and my wife and her brother is trying to get his house in their name. And there was no will, so I know he has to go to probate court and stuff. So we're just, I know we probably are going to have to get a lawyer from probate. We're just trying to figure out the next steps for that and how likely it is to get his house in their name or how unlikely it is since there was no will. He's only got around 45 grand left or so and the house is fairly cheap, so we're just wanting her brother to be able to take it over. Yeah, I certainly understand that and it's going to take some time. It will happen.
You're just going to have to be patient. You know, since there's no will, the probate court will follow your state's what are called intestate laws to determine the beneficiaries and distribute the assets accordingly. Intestate succession varies by state, but generally the property will pass to the next of kin, so it would likely go there. And then what happens is because the property cannot remain in the deceased's name, it will transfer through the state's succession law. And so to get the new deed for the property, you know, you'd have to submit a death certificate and the probate court statement to the county recorder's office once that has worked itself through the probate court according to the intestate laws. So you're just going to need to, you know, get that process started as soon as you can. If you haven't already, let that work its way through just based on the laws of the state of Ohio, assuming that's where it was.
And then once it's complete, then that probate court statement would be provided to the county and they would give you a new deed. Okay. So it's fairly common then for that stuff to happen? Oh yeah.
It happens every day. Absolutely. Okay. That's what we were just worried about because we didn't know if like, if the bank would just require a loan due immediately if we would actually transfer into their name because we can't have a will.
Yeah. So normally what you do is from the assets, you would keep that current. I mean, you'd obviously want to let the bank know what's happened if you haven't already, the lender.
But normally out of the assets of the estate, you know, the representative, which would normally be named in the will in this case, it'll be assigned by the probate court, would continue to pay the mortgage until the probate court process is complete. And you know, that would, you know, can take months, unfortunately. That's true. Well, I appreciate the answers and stuff. That's basically all we was wondering.
We just didn't want to end up doing all this. And then they say, oh, no, we require a loan, get out of here type thing. So we were just wondering how that worked and I appreciate it. And I listen to your show a lot.
So I always tell my wife the financial advice. So I appreciate everything. I'm delighted, Matthew. Well, thank you for calling today and being on the program. We appreciate it.
May the Lord bless you and call any time. This email came to us recently at AskRob at FaithFi.com. Steve writes, I want to give a gift to my church for a building program and I've sold about twelve thousand six hundred dollars of stock to help with this. If I give all of the money from the sale of the stock to our church, will I owe any taxes on it?
It's a great question, Steve. Now, let me use this as a as a teaching opportunity not to in any way tell you you should have done something different. But in the future, if you want to do this and for the benefit of others, we want to give then sell, not sell then give.
And here's what I mean by that. If this is appreciated stock and typically that's what you're you're giving away to your church or a ministry, you at the sale are going to pay capital gains, either short term or long term capital gains on the gain that you have. A way to avoid that is you give the gift of the appreciated stock directly to your church in this case or the ministry like AFA and they sell it.
Why would you do that? Well, you get the full amount of the market value of the appreciated securities as a charitable deduction and assuming you itemize and maybe this gift will help you get up above the standard deduction, then you get the full deduction of the market value. You don't pay any capital gains tax because you never sold it. The church gets to sell it and get the full benefit of the value of the shares of stock that you transferred to use for their purposes and no taxes paid and you get a bigger tax deduction. So it's just a great opportunity for you to make a gift but to do it prior to the sale, which just means more money into the kingdom, more tax deduction for you and certainly no capital gains tax paid.
Now, that's one way to do it. The second way to do it instead of sending directly to the church or ministry is to use a donor-advised fund. Think of it as a charitable checking account.
It's a way where you're able to make the gift of any asset, be it stocks, cash, property, even a business interest, piece of real estate, livestock, whatever you might be. You essentially make the gift of that to your donor-advised fund. You get the immediate charitable deduction right away and then once it's sold inside the donor-advised fund by the donor-advised fund sponsor, then you recommend at the time into the ministry or charity of your choosing when it's granted out. And so that grant request originates with the donor and then the donor-advised fund sponsor, and I would recommend the National Christian Foundation, ncfgiving.com, would then carry out those wishes, that recommendation or grant request, and then issue the money. Why would you use a donor-advised fund versus just giving the gift directly on the front end?
Only if you wanted to get the full deduction, let's say this year, but you didn't necessarily want to give the money away right away. Maybe you want to, you've got a big portfolio of stocks, you want to donate to your donor-advised fund, but you want to distribute it over the next couple of years, and you want to distribute it to multiple charities. Well, one of the benefits is you can take your time and grant it out over whatever time period you want, and you're not getting charitable receipts from all of those ministries. You already got the deduction when you put the money in the donor-advised fund, and now you're just granting it out and you're not at tax time showing up with, you know, 15 charitable contribution receipts. You got one from the donor-advised fund sponsor, and then it makes its way to those ministries that you're choosing, and it can be done similar to online banking, where you log into your account, make a couple of clicks, and that money shows up a few days later at the ministry.
You can do it anonymously or in your name. If you want to open a donor-advised fund, it's called the Giving Fund at NCF, just go to ncfgiving.com. That's the National Christian Foundation. Well, folks, we're going to take one more quick break and then back with our final segment today, but if you need assistance from a financial or legal professional, we'd love for you to visit faithfi.com and click Find a CKA. Again, that's faithfi.com, and click Find a CKA.
That stands for Certified Kingdom Advisor, our preferred designation for financial advice from the biblical worldview. We're back with much more just around the corner. Stick around. This is our final segment of a Faith and Finance live program that we previously recorded. Thanks so much for being with us today, and we hope you'll stick around and enjoy the rest of the program. Hey, if you'd like to support our work, maybe you've found some value in this, you've been encouraged, or you've been helped by some of the principles or advice we've been given, or you just want to help us serve people like Charles that we heard earlier, who's been impacted by the ministry to be wise and faithful stewards, we'd love to invite you to be a FaithFi monthly partner. You can learn more at faithfi.com.
Just click Give. For those who are a partner at $35 a month or more, we will send you our quarterly update. You will get a pre-release of all of our new studies when they come out four times a year. Our newest study is Rich Toward God.
The next study is In the Works and will be out in July. We're so excited to put it in your hands. You know, these are the folks that have said, We're with you. We're on board. We want to be a partner. We love what you're doing, and we want to get updates on the ministry and all the newest in the way of resources from FaithFi. Well, we'd love to have you on board as a monthly partner. You can learn more again at faithfi.com. That's faithfi.com. Just click the Give button at the top of the page.
Thanks in advance. All right, let's round out the broadcast today with as many questions as we can get to. Let's go to Virginia. Hi, Margaret. Go right ahead. It's a blessing that I got through. I'm so glad you did. I listen to you all every day, and I want to thank you for connecting me to a credit union three years ago. But I have a problem now. It's probably correct, but I was looking for a C, what it's called, CKA law, insurance. My life insurance policy.
I've been had it for about 40 years, 35, 40 years. But I don't understand why now, all of a sudden, I know things are changing rapidly now. I understand why. Well, it's going up another $50 a month, which I probably could reason that. But then they're saying I had to get paid them $385. And I was looking for a CKA to try to explain to me whether I should be paying this money or am I up? And I'm pretty sure I'm up to date. I don't know whether I'm up to date or not, but I've been paying it for years. Yes, yes, very good. I need someone to sit down and explain it to me if I owe them or they owe me or what's going on at this point in my life. Yes, policy.
Very good. Well, you're exactly right. Life insurance premiums tend to increase as you age due to several factors primarily related to the increased risk and shorter time span insurers have to collect the premium. So it's the increased risk of what they call the mortality, which the primary reason it becomes expensive or more expensive as you age is the increased risk of death, of course. And so they base their pricing models on the likelihood of having to pay out the policy, which is the mortality rate, higher health risks, shorter accumulation periods. So the insurance company often invests the premiums to offset the cost of future claims.
Well, when they're purchased at a younger age, there's longer for these investments to grow. Conversely, if they purchased later, which doesn't sound like that's your situation, there's less time and then decreased insurability. But I think it's a great time to your point, Margaret, for you to sit with an advisor who can look at what you have, determine whether you still need a death benefit.
Is that even necessary? Have you built up some cash value in this policy, assuming its whole life that you could pull out and redeploy other places to shore up your emergency fund or invest for the future? But the biggest opportunity may be, and I'm not saying you should cancel it tomorrow, I'd want you to sit with an advisor, but you may decide, I don't need the death benefit anymore.
And the biggest benefit to you would be you could get rid of the premium altogether, which would increase your cash flow. So I think it's worth talking through all of these things and determining what's the best step to go from here. Now, I would reach out to a certified kingdom advisor there in Virginia. Fewer of our 1500 CKs around the country are insurance specialists or professionals, but every certified kingdom advisor will have an insurance specialist who's a godly professional that they can refer you to. So I would just call and say, listen, I listened to Rob West on faith and finance. I need a godly insurance person around the area of whole life insurance. And Rob said, you could make a referral to me.
And I can pretty much guarantee they will. So that's what I would do. Margaret, are you comfortable using the internet?
Not at all. I was going down to the insurance company. I hadn't gotten down there yet. They said they have all of the insurances, you know.
Well, what I can do is have one of our team members call you, find out where you're at in Virginia and give you the phone numbers of a few CKs in the area, if that would be helpful to you. Oh, that would be great. Yeah. Okay, good.
All right, perfect. So Margaret, you stay on the line. One of our team members will call you later today or tomorrow.
They'll do the search for you based on your zip code and can give you the names and phone numbers of some folks for you to reach out to. May the Lord bless you, Margaret. Thank you for calling today.
Let's talk to Hollis in Georgia next. Go ahead. Yes, sir. We have a farm and I have three children and I have two that farm and we're trying to get a wheel fixed up and I have life insurance to pay off the debt on where we put up some irrigations and my boys have helped me with that.
I kind of knocked that out of the picture when I go to figuring land value up and I've got three children and I got a rental house which I was going to give it and a hundred acres to them and the rest of it to my boys because they have invested and they have done a lot of work. Yeah. Is this of an active farming business Hollis?
Uh, yes sir. They farm, it's in there. They rent my farm from me. Okay. And uh, because I got another business and uh, yeah, we all live on the farm. Sure. Uh, are close to it and I didn't want to use a trust cause if I die first, my wife will be in charge of it.
As of right now, I have about $2 million worth of life insurance. All right. All right. Why did you decide against a trust? All the expenses and uh, all right.
Yeah. Well I get that it's, you know, there's some expense, but I think the, the benefit of the using the trust in combination with the will is to help ensure an uninterrupted transfer of this farming business to the farming air. And so that's where an experienced attorney can really help ensure, first of all, the assets are distributed according to your wishes, but there's a plan, a continuity plan. So the farming operations can continue and it's an uninterrupted transfer, which is where the trust really shines. Yes, it's a little more expensive, but it can ensure that if you're incapacitated even prior to your death or at your death or at the death of you and your wife, if you want her to, to remain in control until then, then you're not waiting for the probate process, the probate court to get involved. It can immediately pass to the heirs based on how you want the assets divided and that's where a combination trust and will can be very effective, especially in a situation like you're describing.
Yes, sir. My thing is it's kind of a, my wife winds up with everything when I die. She knows how I want it done. If she doesn't do it, her children are not going to be very happy with it. She don't want to stand that chance.
Do you see where I'm coming from? I do, but all of that can be spelled out in the trust. The decisions that you and your wife make now can all be spelled out in the trust and really decided in advance on exactly how this is going to go down, regardless of whether she passes before you, you before her, and ultimately how it gets transferred to the boys. And I do have, I had some term insurance, which my insurance man converted to universal insurance. Okay. I have enough when my, my $2 million term runs out to pay all of the irrigations and stuff like that.
So she won't be with a bird. Okay. I rent them the land now. All right.
Very good. Well, it sounds like a very well thought out plan. I just think that the expense of a trust is going to be worth your while because so much of this can be put in place in, you know, in advance. And it's just a little bit more flexible than a will will be, and it avoids the probate costs and time of the probate court. And so you can decide again, before your death, if you're incapacitated, how this has handled at your death, even beyond your death, how this, uh, the assets are to be distributed and, uh, what the instructions are for the trustee, uh, whether that's, you know, you or your wife or the boys, after both of you pass, how they're to distribute the assets, including continuing the, uh, the farming operation. So if it were me, Hollis, I'd take all this great work you've done and all this planning and work with the boys and all the decisions you've made. And I'd visit with a godly estate attorney who can build off of your will, add a trust and make sure that all of this passes, you know, according to your wishes.
And I think you'll be glad you did. If you need a godly estate attorney in Georgia, just contact a CKA in that area and ask for a referral. You can find one at faithfi.com. That's faithfi.com. Just click find a professional right there at the top of the page. May the Lord bless you, sir.
Thanks for calling today. Hey, before we wrap up today, let me remind you, you know, financial decision-making can often seem overwhelming, seemingly endless decisions about money, but we can boil it down into something perhaps a bit more simple. All we can do with money is live, give, owe and grow. There's the money we spend on our lifestyle, the money we, uh, owe for debt and taxes, the money we grow for the future and the money we give to the Lord's work. And all of those are addressed in scripture. Every one of those have principles that we can pull out of God's word, our hope and prayers that we can help you do that on this program each day.
Faith and Finance Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and Faith File. Let me say thank you to my team today, Amy, Dan, Jim and Gabby T. Couldn't do it without them. Thank you for being along with us as well. So thankful for your calls and your questions. Have a great rest of your day and we'll see you next time on Faith and Finance Live. Bye-bye.
