This faith and finance podcast is underwritten in part by Christian Credit Counselors. If you're struggling with credit card debt but don't know where to start, our trusted partner Christian Credit Counselors offers a debt management program that can get you out of credit card debt 80% faster while honoring your debt in full. Contact them to get out of debt today at ChristianCreditCounselors.org. The data shows that personal debt is rising and folks are worried about their financial future. So what's the solution? Hi, I'm Rob West.
There are some things we can't control like inflation and a slowing economy, but we can do some things, especially when it comes to managing and eliminating debt. Neely Simon joins us today to talk about the solution to fretting over finances. And then it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000.
That's 800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Neely Simon is our guest today. She's a certified credit counselor with Christian Credit Counselors, an underwriter of this program. Now, we sometimes refer to them as CCC, not to be confused with CERT CFC, another great program that helps people control their finances.
But today, we're talking about Christian Credit Counselors. And it's always a treat when Neely joins us because she has such great ideas for people who need help with debt. So, Neely, it's great to have you back with us. It's great to be here, Rob.
Thank you so much. Absolutely. Neely, credit card debt, as you know, is at an all-time high. And we put that alongside the fact that the gross domestic product is falling. That means our economy is slowing. And just recently, we had a disappointing jobs report. It feels like kind of the perfect storm is brewing here.
Would you agree? It really is. And much of the worrying is about debt.
We've all heard of it, and most of us have it. Debt has really become an unavoidable reality for life, and it can be very consuming if you have it. So, at Christian Credit Counselors, we just really want to help. We want to come alongside and help you with your financial challenges because they're not meant to be faced alone. And we really just need to start talking about our finances so that we can reduce the stigma around debt, which is so common for us. You know, often people don't want to reach out and get help because there's some shame or guilt associated with the debt. But today, we're really going to provide you some solutions of overcoming credit card debt the right way.
Oh, that's great, Neely. I'm looking forward to diving into that. But first, I'd love for you to unpack some of the stats that really give us a view into the fact that folks really are worrying about this area. So in 2024, the Wells Fargo Foundation put out a survey and it talked about what some of the personal finance worries are for most people. And what they found is that roughly six in 10 people feel that the US economy is not really going to benefit them once the improvements start happening. And then more than half agree that the uncertainty in the economy makes achieving their long term financial goals impossible. And then lastly, at least a quarter of Americans are concerned that their money won't last or feel like they'll never have the things they want because of their situation.
I think what's really important is that you have to understand why people are feeling this way. And some of the other statistics are that one in three people don't pay their bills on time, which is up 27% from last year. And only two in five Americans have a budget and keep track of their spending. And then nearly 39% of people are concerned that the money they have or will save won't last. So I think what's really important to understand here is that we can really lessen the amount of anxiety and worry if we start saving and if we start spending less than we make.
Well, that really makes the case, Nealey. All right. So how do we begin to secure our financial future? So if you do have credit card debt or any type of debt, that's where you really want to start. And if you have credit card debt, it's really important you get connected with a certified credit counseling agency because they can help reduce your payments, creating more disposable income, lowering your interest rates so you're able to get out of debt faster. And typically it's about 80% faster while honoring your debt in full.
That's great. We also talked about spending less than you make, creating a savings and then increasing it whenever possible really helps to create some financial peace and stability. And it also will allow you to give generously and find contentment. So at Christian Credit Counselors, we really want to help you get out of the credit card debt by educating you on your options. Keep in mind, our consultation is free and it's confidential. What we want to go over is a comparison estimate outlining all the benefits and the fees, walk you through a budget and provide a plan to get out of debt.
Oh, Nealey, that sounds great. And by the way, this is my preferred way, folks, for you to get out of debt. Just go to Christian Credit Counselors dot org today. That's Christian Credit Counselors dot org. Nealey, thanks for stopping by.
Thank you so much. Back with your calls after this, 800-525-7000. Create your free Faith Buy account by going to Faith Buy dot com and click Sign Up to begin receiving weekly wisdom in your inbox. If the heavy burden of debt is robbing you of freedom and peace of mind, Christian Credit Counselors can help. We're a nationwide nonprofit credit counseling organization that has helped over 300000 individuals in the last 27 years get out of credit card debt 80 percent faster while honoring that debt in full. To learn how Christian Credit Counselors can help you visit Christian Credit Counselors dot org.
That's Christian Credit Counselors dot org or call 800-557-1985. Helping you make God your ultimate treasure. This is Faith and Finance.
I'm Rob West. You know, if God is our treasure, our life will reflect God's character to the world. We were called to be the light to the world, Matthew 5 14 or a light to the world, I should say. And as such, our finances really can be a powerful testimony of our faith in Jesus. You see, the way we earn money, our lifestyle, our generosity, our financial priorities, even our perspective of money and possessions can become a reflection of who we are in Christ.
And when our abundance is found in the person of Jesus, we become open handed with our finances as we seek his kingdom and his righteousness. And that's our goal for you on this program each day. If you have questions today, we'd love to hear from you 800-525-7000. Laura is our call screener today.
Our team is standing by and ready to hear from you again, 800-525-7000. Let's go to Akron, Ohio, to begin today. Hi, Deborah. Go right ahead. Hi, Rob. I just need something clarified.
I know I've listened to you pretty much every day. And we talked about capital gains tax when you sell a home and you have to live there two of the last five years. Is five years that you have to own the home or is there any exclusions to that? No, you could own it less than five years. But as long as you live there as your primary residence for two out of the last five years, so even if you only owned it for two years but you've been there the entire two years and it's been a full 24 months, then you would qualify for that exemption for it being your primary residence. And that exemption is that as a single filer, you'd be able to exclude up to 250,000 in capital gains.
And then if you're filing, married filing jointly, up to 500,000. But the requirement is only two years. You don't have to be there or you don't have to have owned it a full five years. Okay, so why do they say two of the last five years? Well, it could be that you live there, you haven't lived there recently, but you did live there for two out of the last five. So maybe you've owned it for three years and you lived there for two years and then you've been living somewhere else.
As long as you only claim this once every two years and you've lived there for two out of the last five, even if the most recent months or years you were not there as your primary residence, you can still use this exemption. Oh, thank you so much because I was just confused on all that and that's very, very helpful. Thanks very much. You're very welcome, Debra. Thanks for calling and for being a faithful listener. We appreciate that.
Lines are open today. Your questions on anything financial, living, giving, owing or growing. What is that? Well, it's really the four things we can do with money. We spend it on our lifestyle. We spend it on our giving. We give it away. We owe it for debt and taxes or we grow it short term or long term. So live, give, owe and grow.
God's word speaks to all of them. We'd love to help you tackle whatever questions you're considering today in your financial life. So call right now. You'll get right through with lines open. 800-525-7000.
To Davenport, Iowa. Jan, thanks for your patience. Go ahead. Hi, I am 76 years old. I am going to sell my house. I have the possibility of getting 30 to 50,000 profit. I am planning on renting, going to like a senior housing place, but I don't qualify for any subsidies.
I'm still working. I work in ministry and I'm wondering, given that I should get some kind of profit, I'm planning on talking to a Christian financial counselor from my church to see if I can make this profit work for me. Yes. And you're speaking about specifically the 30 to 50,000 you'll clear from the home sale? Yes.
Yeah, very good. And do you have what I call an emergency fund, Jan, separate from this 30 to 50 from the home sale in savings? I do have probably fifteen, sixteen hundred in savings that I could leave in there given I don't have any major problems between now and the sale of the house.
Yes, ma'am. What are your total expenses over a one month period on average? Probably closer to three thousand. I wish I had just done your cash flow thing, so I should have had that answer. That's okay. Do you think it's maybe more like four thousand?
No, it wasn't that. I've got an eight hundred and fifty seven dollar mortgage. Okay, very good. Well, here here's the thing is number one, I kind of like you not investing this money because, you know, I'd really love for you to have a minimum of twenty thousand in savings just because that would give you six months worth of expenses. And if you had come in something coming out of left field, that was a major expense that you were not anticipating. I don't want you having to pull out of investments on a short term basis because, you know, we may find ourselves a year from now in a recession and the market may be down 20 percent or more. And, you know, we really only want to invest money that we have at least a ten year time horizon on.
And, you know, in this case, I feel like especially in this season of life, I'd just love for you to have a little bit more liquid and safe. And so I'd probably take, you know, if you've got fifteen hundred now, I'd probably take another twenty thousand, fifteen to twenty thousand and add to that. Put it in a high yield savings account where you're earning four and a half percent with FDIC insurance, meaning it's backed by the U.S. government.
You may need to use an online savings account to get it, but that would make me feel a lot better. And then if you wanted to invest the rest of it, I might look at some CDs or I mean, you could put it in a in a growth and income mutual fund, what they call a balanced mutual fund. But you're probably going to struggle to find an adviser who can make those decisions for you with an account that size. Because once we pull, let's say we pull fifteen out of this, you're probably only going to have fifteen to twenty thousand left. And, you know, oftentimes in order for that an adviser to manage it, they've got to have a good bit more than that. And I wouldn't want somebody to sell you an annuity because you really need this money more accessible. So I'd probably just, you know, put twenty thousand in high yield savings and then take the balance, whatever that is, and maybe buy a cup.
Maybe take half of it and put it in a six month CD and half of it in a one year or half in a one year, half in a two year, something like that. How does that sound, though? Well, yeah, I mean, I'm so glad I got through because, yeah, I think you're probably right. I don't I don't know much. That's why I had to call you.
Well, listen, you know a lot. And I'm but I'm delighted that you did get through because, you know, I think in this season of life, the key is we just need you to have access to the money you need. So you've got flexibility and that's what margin and, you know, and reserves do for you. It allows you to kind of handle the unexpected. And we know the unexpected will come. Right. Right. How do I know if a online savings account is safe?
I mean, what criteria? Yes, ma'am. The main thing you're looking for is what's called FDIC insurance. That stands for Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
And that's a government that's backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government. And so if as long as it's FDIC insured, then you're good. But where I would go is bankrate.com. Are you comfortable on the Internet?
Well, someone can do that. All right. Bankrate.com. Click on high yield savings and you'll get a list there of all the banks that are often the most competitive rates right now. They're all going to say FDIC, but you're going to want to confirm that. And then you'll want to look for the one that has as close to a five star rating as possible.
And some of them will. And any of those, I would feel comfortable with you opening an account. OK. All right. Very good. Well, thank you. You are so welcome, Jan. And thanks for your call today. We appreciate it.
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We do that by helping you each day think about your financial questions and your role as a steward of God's money in light of biblical wisdom. We're going to head back to the phones. Let's get to as many questions as we can.
We'll go to Florida next. Hi, Mark. Go ahead. Hey, how are you? I'm great, sir. How are you doing? I'm working and I'm retired. Okay. Anyway, my question is I am a retired air reserve technician, so I have dual status.
I worked as a government employee and on the weekends I worked as a reservist. Anyway, I retired two and a half years ago and I have a TSP account with a roughly $200,000 in it, maybe a little bit more. And my question is, should I take that money out of the TSP account and reinvest that in a money market or something like that, or should I just leave it be? Yeah. Well, I may have a third option for you.
I mean, because I like you rolling it out. I guess I'm just wondering why the money market. So give me a sense of what is your total investable retirement assets? I think it's $210,000. Right, but that's your TSP, but do you have other retirement savings? When I turn 67, I'll draw Social Security. I'm pulling in for my government and military retirement about $2,500 a month. Okay.
And my part-time job, I'm bringing in about $2,000 a month as well. Okay. And then what other assets do you have? So you don't have any IRAs or any other retirement funds, correct?
That is correct. All right. And what about emergency savings?
About $30,000. Okay, great. And are you able to live within your means on that roughly $4,500 a month before Social Security? Yes. I'm doing quite well, actually.
Okay, that's great. All right, so tell me why are you thinking money market? Why not get that invested? I work on airplanes. I don't know anything about investing, so that's why I'm calling you.
Yeah. Well, when I get on an airplane, I rely on people like you to fix them and pilots to fly them, which is why if you work your whole life and you save a couple hundred grand, which is a lot of money, I like the idea of you hiring somebody to manage that. And here's why. I mean, what is your age, Mark? I'm 62 and a half.
All right. So let's say you lived age 95. I mean, we don't know if we have another breath, only the Lord does, but if you're relatively healthy and the Lord tarries, I mean, you could live another 30 plus years, and so if you did, we want this money to last.
And even if you're able to live comfortably on your two retirement checks, prior to Social Security, you're going to have even more when you get Social Security, and that's great, which means you could continue to save and maybe even start giving some more away. But I love the idea of this $210,000 continuing to grow into the future because if you needed long term care, I mean, maybe you rely on the VA, but depending on what your needs are, you could end up needing to tap into these assets. And so I think, sure, there's something to be said about protecting it, especially while rates are up where they are now, where you could get five percent in the money market, but that's not going to last. And I think the idea would be that, you know, typically we'd say somebody who's roughly 60 years old, you know, we'd probably say you should probably have about 50 percent of this $200,000 in stocks and maybe the other 50 percent in fixed income like bonds and CDs and then maybe a small portion in money market. But I think because this is not your area of expertise, just like airplanes are not mine, I'd hire an advisor to manage that for you. I would roll it out of the TSP and once you separate from your service to the government, then you can do that rollover from the Thrift Savings into an IRA. And then that advisor could take over managing that money with an eye toward protecting it, but also growing it to offset the effects of inflation. How does that sound, though?
That sounds good. My wife says she wants to do the same thing with roughly $80,000 she's got in savings. So we would probably combine that money and our home is paid for.
We've got about $400,000 in equity on it, but we're not going anywhere because of that. So we're just trying to figure this thing out. Yeah, well, it sounds like you're doing a great job. I mean, you got plenty of income sources. You got some retirement assets that you built up. You wouldn't combine them.
You'd need to keep yours separate from hers because retirement accounts are individual, not joint. But a single advisor could manage all of this for you, and I think that would be a great way to go. So what I'd do is I'd head to our website at faithfi.com. That's faithfi.com. And right there at the top of the page, it'll say find a professional.
And I would interview two or three advisors there in Florida and find the one that's a good fit. But I think that's a great plan for you as you think about the future. Sounds good. Thank you so much and God bless. Hey, God bless you, Mark. Thank you for your service to our country, sir. We're grateful. Thank you.
Absolutely. You know, Mark mentioned something. He said he was debt-free. And by the way, I love the idea of setting a goal to have all your debts paid by the time you retire. Fewer and fewer people are in that ideal situation.
Listen to this study I came across today. Twenty-five years ago, half of Americans between the ages of 65 and 74 were debt-free. It's about a third now. And debt hems us in, especially when the economy slows down like it is now. And, you know, the stock market declines and that's going to happen if we get into a recession. It certainly has happened before.
It'll happen again. And so if you can get out of debt by the time you retire, like Mark and his wife have done, you'll be glad you did. Because here's what that's done for them. It's put them at a position where, with these guaranteed income checks they're getting through his retirement and his part-time job and eventually his Social Security, by getting the house payment off the table, it takes that biggest expense out of the equation. It just makes the ability to balance the budget so much easier. So really work toward that, even if it means you've got to work a little bit longer to kind of sync up your retirement date when you switch to whatever God has next for you. With your payoff of your mortgage, it'll make all the difference in the world. Let's go to Mississippi.
Hi, Jackie. How can I help? What I was wondering, I was trying to set up a trust and I was wondering, what do I look for as far as pricing a trust? Is it a certain fee or do I look at something different than that? Yeah, so if you have an attorney do this, and of course you'll see a lot of advertisements on television that you can use an online resource to draw up a will or a trust, I would prefer you use an attorney just to make sure that it's done properly according to the laws of your state. And, you know, if you have a godly estate planning attorney, they can ask you other questions just to help you think through kind of the wealth transfer decisions, including, is the next steward chosen and prepared?
And that goes beyond the financial capital. But in terms of your specific question, yeah, once you find an attorney to do this, it's just going to be, you know, a fee that you'll pay. It's typically going to be around two thousand dollars for a fairly simple trust without a lot of extenuating circumstances or conditions. So it really is fee based and you certainly could shop around and talk to a couple of different attorneys, find someone that you feel like you have a good rapport with.
And obviously you can ask them what the fee would be, but expect to spend somewhere between two or three thousand dollars on the high end. Well, folks, that's going to do it for us today. A big thanks to my team today, Dr. Robert Youngblood, Jim Henry, Taylor Stanrich, and always grateful for my producer, Devin Patrick. You have a wonderful day and we'll see you tomorrow. Bye-bye. Faith and Finance is provided by FaithFi and listeners like you.
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