What's most important to you when it comes to choosing your financial advisor? Someone who's aligned with your biblical values. How about someone who will take the time to explain your options? Certified Kingdom Advisors are professionals who meet high standards in competence and integrity and have been trained to offer biblical financial advice.
To find a Certified Kingdom Advisor in your area, visit faithfi.com and click Find a CKA. Statistics show that many people aren't saving for retirement. Others may have far more than enough.
How do you find the right balance? Hi, I'm Rob West. Yes, it is possible to save too much for retirement, although many more folks aren't saving a thing enough. What does Scripture tell us about responsible savings? Brian Holtz fills us in today, 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 journey. Well, it's great to have Brian Holtz with us again. Brian is the Chief Executive Officer at Compass Financial Ministry, and we'll get into that name change in a minute, but Brian first, welcome back. It's great to be back, Rob.
Thank you. So Brian, this is an intriguing topic because we're always warning folks about not saving and investing enough for retirement, but it's just as misguided to make that a priority above all others, isn't it? Yes, it is. And the Bible gives us clear direction and wise counsel in both cases, all of course with the goal of finishing well. We find God encouraging us to save in places like Proverbs 21, Proverbs 30, and Genesis 41, just to name a few. But like everything else, saving should be intentional, and it should always have the goal of being a good steward, like Joseph did in Genesis, rather than living a life of excess or becoming less dependent on God, like we hear about in The Foolish Man in Luke 12.
Yeah, no question about that. We encourage our listeners often to ask the question, how much is enough? And that includes both your lifestyle, but certainly your accumulation as well. So what are some ways then, Brian, to ensure we're saving responsibly? Well, first, we need to discern what God is calling us to do. He gives us these financial resources for a purpose.
What is that purpose? And that guides us on where we should save. Next, we determine what the cost actually will be. And now a lot of this is estimating, but we can pretty well ballpark what it's going to cost to start a business or to retire well or to pay for college. Then we do the work by saving a little bit at a time for a long period of time towards those specific things and those specific goals. And finally, when you've saved enough to fulfill God's purpose, we then turn to him and ask him where he would have us shift new financial resources, rather than just saving more and more than we need.
Yeah, that's really helpful. It's not about the mindless accumulation of wealth at all. I would also say, though, it seems like it's important then to know what you're saving for, isn't it?
It absolutely is. I recommend never having savings set aside that doesn't have an actual purpose. You know, if it's an emergency, call it an emergency savings.
If it's for kids or grandkids college, call it that. Or if God has just put it on your heart that someday he's got something big for you and you're going to need some money, call it God's Big Idea Fund. But giving it a name helps you remember the purpose God has called that money to so you can remain faithful in your stewardship, not saving too little, but also not too much.
That's really helpful. What about retirement savings, though, Brian? It's really no different, Rob. In your retirement savings, we simply want to figure out how much money we expect to need to care for ourselves and our spouse in a life with limited income and then faithfully work towards that goal. When we reach that goal, we shift additional resources to another one of God's priorities in our lives. And with so many unknowns in retirement, it's easy to assume we can never have enough. But over saving can have two big negative outcomes. First, it can lead us to adopt a lifestyle that's inconsistent with our values. We can all point our fingers at the celebrities who clearly have way too much money, but we tend to do the same thing, even if it's to a lesser degree. But if I've already determined how much I should save in order to do what God's called me to do in retirement, I'm far less likely to get off track in my spending decisions.
And second, and I think most importantly, is a point Ron Blue makes often. When we over save, we miss the opportunity to financially participate in the work God is doing right now. While we keep this extra money in our personal accounts, earning five, ten, maybe even fifteen percent a year, it's not being invested in God's work. And we know in our heads and our hearts that God will always outperform the market. We're better off investing as much as possible, as soon as possible, directly into the kingdom.
But we can't do that if it's sitting in our personal accounts. Boy, those are great reminders, Brian. Now you've undergone some changes over there at Compass. I want to finish by allowing you to bring us up to date. Yeah, we've recently done some rebranding to help better communicate who we are and how we serve. We are now Compass Financial Ministry, Well-versed in Finances, and you can find us at compassfinancialministry.org. I love it. Brian, thanks for stopping by, my friend. Always a pleasure, Rob. That's Brian Holtz, Chief Executive Officer at Compass, Well-versed in Finances.
I love that new tagline. Go to compassfinancialministry.org. Your questions are next, 800-525-7000.
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That's faithandinvesting.com. Hey, great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance. We're taking your calls and questions today, though, on anything financial. The number to call to get in on the conversation, 800-525-7000. We'd love to know what you're considering, wrestling with, thinking about in your financial life.
Maybe it's keeping you up at night or maybe you're excited about what God's doing. You're just wanting to know what's the best next step to take. In either case, we want to help you make a wise decision rooted in a biblical worldview and help you do that in an encouraging and hopeful way. So you can call right now with lines open 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000. You can call right now. Let's dive in today. We're going to begin in Virginia. Charles. Go ahead, sir.
Yes, sir. I was wondering. I had been heard that somebody left me some money and I was wondering, would that cost my Medicare premium to go up? I know a couple of years ago I was paying like $500 a month for my Medicare because I had made over $118,000 and now somebody left me some money and I was wondering, would that cost my Medicare premium to go up? It's a great question, Charles.
I have good news for you. No, this would not affect your Medicare premiums through what's called IRMA, the income related monthly adjustment, and here's why. Those Medicare Part B premiums are pegged to what's called your modified adjusted gross income and inheriting assets per se will not affect the premium because those inherited assets are not a part of your modified AGI. Now, if you take that money, that $300,000 or so, and invest it and that generates income, well, that could then affect your premium moving forward.
But the inheritance itself would not trigger the IRMA because it doesn't factor into your adjusted gross income. Does that make sense? Yes, sir. Thank you. I appreciate it. Happy to do it, Charles. Call anytime, my friend.
God bless you. 800-525-7000. We've got a few lines open today. We'd love to hear what's on your mind and your financial life today. We'll help you think about that in light of biblical principles. Let's go to Wisconsin. Glenn, thank you for calling.
How can I help? Well, my question has to do with regarding the sale of real estate. My wife's parents both passed away in the last eight months or so, and we now have inherited a farm. We had an appraisal done to establish our tax basis, and we're looking at selling probably a portion of it, at least the house and the farm buildings. And my question is if we should sell that based on the opinion of the appraiser or if it would be better to hire a realtor to do that for us.
Yeah. Well, I would encourage you to consider hiring a real estate professional. I think they could do a couple of things. If you're going to have a realtor sell it for you anyway, and I think that's always a good thing because they can help open you up to other opportunities in terms of a greater pool of potential buyers. They can help you work through not only the showing of the property, but the contract, the negotiations, all of those pieces that you want to get right, and certainly having somebody that does that every day would be helpful. But if you're going to do that anyway, they can take another look at the market value, and I would encourage you to do that. I think that's a pretty important step as you consider this sale because you may find that the appraisal is actually low compared to comparables in the area. Now I realize that an appraisal is based on comparables, but depending upon the appraiser and the method that was used, the agent may help you justify a market price that's higher. And remember you can sell it above appraisal if the market will bear it. Now the buyer is ultimately going to have to get an appraisal and depending upon whether they're a cash buyer or not, that may affect their ability to go through with the purchase. But I think having a real estate professional, especially one who's particularly knowledgeable about your area and property type, given that this isn't just a single family home. This involves multiple structures and involves farmland. Having a realtor who understands that and maybe is experienced in not only your area, but that type of property, I think would be really helpful in helping you determine, okay, where are we going to list it?
What might we expect to sell it at? How does that relate to the appraisal, which may be very closely in line with the appraisal? It may not be, but then you get all of these other elements as well.
Somebody to kind of shepherd that process through all the way to the closing table. Does that make sense? Sure.
It does. And that helps a lot. Okay. Very good, Glenn. Well, listen, I appreciate your call today. Thanks for listening to the program. I'm sorry to hear that your wife's parents passed away.
I'm delighted though, that you took the step of getting that appraisal done because you're very astute in that, in that you want to establish that market value as of the date of death that is going to be the driver ultimately of whether you pay any capital gains upon the sale. So thanks for being on the program today, sir. May the Lord bless you.
Let's go to May in Arkansas. And by the way, we do have lines open 800-525-7000. If you have a financial question, you can get through right now, 800-525-7000. Hi, May. How can I help you today? Hi, Ron. Hi, Bob.
Thank you so much for taking my call. And my question is, I keep hearing so much about purchasing Bango coins and I want to know what your opinion is on that. You know, I like that a lot, May. I talk often about this allocation of two gold of between five and 10%.
I think for that first 5% and this is just kind of my approach doesn't mean it's the right one, but for that first 5%, I like to think of that as a forever allocation where you'd buy it and hold it forever and not plan on selling it and, you know, passing it down to your heirs. And I like the idea of that being in physical gold, whether that's gold bars. You know, Costco has been selling gold bars recently.
They've been in the news about it. They can't keep them in stock. They're selling one ounce gold bars and, you know, they're 24 karat gold and people are buying them up as fast as they can. So you could do something like that. You could buy gold coins, but I like the idea that you'd buy it and hold it. And then if you wanted to go up beyond that, maybe as much as 10% of your investable assets, well, I think then, you know, you might want to look toward either increasing your physical gold or using one of the tracker stocks. So essentially think of this like a stock that moves in directly in line with the price of gold at every tick and there's gold backing it in a vault, but you don't have to hold the gold.
They're going to do it for you. And the nice thing is you can buy and sell it like a stock. So as long as the stock market's open, you can put in an order and liquidate your position in a moment's notice and not have to work through a dealer that may have a markup on the sale, that kind of thing.
But how does that sit with you? Yeah, that sounds really good. Okay. So if you did the stock, how do you find out what stock to buy? Yeah. If you just type in gold ETF trackers, you'll find a whole host of them, you know, that are out there.
TLD is probably one of the most popular, but there's probably a half dozen of them that you could look at that track, not the mining sector, but track actually the price of gold itself. Thanks for your call. May may the Lord bless you before we head into our break. Let me remind you, you know, as we look at God's word and think about our role as managers of God's money, we can pull principles out of scripture that are practical, but they're also timeless. For instance, the big ideas that we want to communicate is first that God would be your ultimate treasure. But then as we get into money management, we want to spend less than we earn because that's the key to every financial success.
We want to avoid the use of debt because debt mortgage is the future. We want to set longterm goals because the longer term your perspective, the better your financial decision today, we want to have margin to fund those goals that God has given us and we want to give generously because giving breaks the grip of money over our lives. Well, I hope what we're sharing today is an encouragement to you and above all else. I hope it draws you into a more intimate relationship with the Lord. We'll be back with much more just around the corner as we apply God's wisdom to your financial decisions and choices.
More calls right around the corner. This is Faith and Finance, and we'll be right back. Have you downloaded the faith by app yet? You need to do that today because this is going to make your life easier. Yes, you can manage your money through the in app envelope feature, but also plan out future goals.
I want to buy a house in five years and I'm on track to do that. Here's also what I like. You can connect with people around the country. It's like social media, but better. Ask a question, get an answer and share what you're learning about money and investing. So why don't you grab your phone right now and download the faith by app? Faith by is grateful for support from one ascent. One ascent believes that your values inspire why you invest and how they can inspire how you invest. One ascent goal is to provide solutions designed for every need and invest in businesses that bless the people and places God has made. They want to help investors do well by doing good to explore a new way of investing that aligns with your values.
More information is available at one ascent.com and by clicking analyze my investments. Thanks for joining us today on faith and finance. Let's head right back to the phones. By the way, here in our final segment, I've got room for one or two more questions. Eight hundred five two five seven thousand. You can call right now. Let's go out to Texas. Hi, Robin.
How can I help? Hi. I have a question about money market accounts. My husband and I have several thousand dollars in a regular savings account and wanted to move it to an online bank where we get higher interest. But my son was saying, well, he knows we have a Schwab account. He said, why don't you just put it in a money market account through Schwab? It's the same thing. And I tried to read up on him, but I don't understand the difference. And I was wondering if you could clarify that.
Yeah, I'd be happy to. You know, they are very much the same in the sense that, you know, these are basically a type of account, a money market account is offered by a bank or a credit union. And you know, like deposit accounts, they're insured by the FDIC or NCUA up to two hundred fifty thousand held by the same owner or owners. And so they typically pay a higher interest rate than a typical brick and mortar saving more akin to a high yield savings account. And a money market account, though, is different from a money market mutual fund. Money market mutual fund is a basket of money market accounts. So that's considered an investment and not a savings account. And it doesn't carry the FDIC insurance. But as long as you're in a money market account that has the FDIC insurance, then you're going to have the same protections and backing that you would want as a safe investment and with a very competitive interest rate.
And then often they will even, you know, offer you debit card or check writing privileges on the account as well. And so, you know, if you're already at Charles Schwab and the money market rate that Schwab's offering through their traditional money market or their government money market is competitive to what you would get in a high yield savings, I would say, you know, I have no issue with you using that at all. Are they time things like is that interest rate good for six months or a year or does it just change every day according to what's going on or how does that work? Yeah, it does change every day. And so it's more like a savings account versus a CD. The benefit is you get full liquidity so you can get in and out as much as you want or they may limit the transactions, you know, the number of them per month, but you can essentially get to your money. But yeah, you are going to see that money market interest rate move with interest rates, the broader Fed funds rate.
But yes, you're going to see that move all the time. Okay. So that was my other concern is how easy is it to get to your money? It's pretty, I mean, it's very easy because Schwab will probably even give you a debit card or a check writing privileges on that money market. So you could literally go in and swipe it at a terminal and you get it right out of the money market. Okay.
Well, we were thinking of using it more like, you know, our emergency savings and, you know, not using it as our main account, but sometimes, you know, you have an expense and you need to get that money transferred. That's why we don't want to put it in a CD. So anyway. Okay. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Well, you're welcome. And make sure you do check on those, you know, I think the way you're planning to use it does make sense and would work very well because many of them do limit the number of transactions out per month. And so you, you know, in other cases they don't, so you're just going to want to understand that based on, you know, how often you plan to use it. But yeah, having the higher yield, having the deposits insured with easy access to your money compared to savings is a nice feature. The only downside is the potential withdrawal limits. You need to understand any fees that are being imposed and then you need to check and see if there's a minimum balance. Usually they're a bit higher than the typical savings account and compare it to other high yield banking products because what you may find is you can do better in a high yield product like a high yield savings account than you can in the just general Schwab money market. So you are going to want to compare those and make sure that you're not giving up some potential yield that you could get elsewhere.
And a good place to compare whatever Schwab's going to offer you is, you know, at bankrate.com just click on high yield savings and you can see who's offering the most competitive high yield savings rates today. Okay? Okay. All right. Great. I really appreciate it. Absolutely, Robin. Thanks for your call. God bless you. 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000. Let's go to Michigan and welcome Carol to the broadcast. Go ahead.
Hello. In July, it will be two years that I opened an I-Bond. When I did that, it was over 9% and I went online.
I'm trying to look at it. I'm having a hard time understanding what the current interest rate is and then depending what that is, if I should just cash that out. I think that I was told you can cash those out without losing any money after a year. Yes.
You're exactly right. So you have to hold them for a year. If you liquidate them in less than five years, then you could have a penalty or you will have a penalty. The penalty of selling it after a year but less than five years is three months of interest.
And so that's just the penalty that everybody pays. Now, you may still be riding that higher rate because it has to do with when your six-month anniversary comes up. So the date you bought it, you get the prevailing rate for a full six months until you change to the new rate and you get that for a full six months.
What you may want to do is wait until that point to liquidate and you could look and see what is the penalty that's going to be imposed. But I would agree with you, Carol, in the sense that you can do better elsewhere and the feds, part of their dual mandate, the Federal Reserve is to get inflation down. So they're working very hard to get inflation down, which means as they're successful, that composite rate is going to continue to fall. And so you could likely do better elsewhere, if that makes sense. It does make sense. I appreciate it. Thank you for your help. Okay. Very good. You're welcome. Thanks for being on the program today. Well, folks, we covered a lot of ground today.
I'll tell you, it's always a joy to come alongside you and encourage you. And you know, as we think about managing God's money, I mean, there really are some simple principles. Now I say they're simple and they are, they're harder to live out. Nevertheless, they're simple and we find them all in God's word. And I think, you know, if we understand God owns it all and we're stewards and that God should be our ultimate treasure and money is a good creation and a tool, and then we apply these principles over a lifetime, I think we put ourselves in a position to experience God's best. It doesn't mean we'll be without the hardships. We'll have those.
We're in a fallen world, but we'll be in a position to experience God's best. What are those principles? Well, spend less than you earn because that's the key to every financial success. Avoid debt because debt mortgages, the future, uh, number three is have some margin or some liquidity because that's ultimately what allows us to fund our goals for a set longterm goals.
And you know, by doing that, we're going to make a better decision because the longer your perspective, the better your decision today. And then finally, number five is give generously because giving breaks the grip of money over our lives. If you do those five things over a lifetime, I'll tell you, you'll be calling me and sharing a testimony of how the Lord has been able to use you as you've been able to respond to the leading of the Holy Spirit and aligning your finances with his word. Hey, this is going to do it for us for today, but let me say thanks to my team today. Devin Patrick, Robert Youngblood, Jim Henry couldn't do it without him and the rest of the team here at Faith Buy. May the Lord bless you. We'll see you tomorrow. Bye-bye Faith in Finance is provided by Faith Buy and listeners like you
