The Value of Moms

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Create your free FaithFi account by going to faithfi.com and click Sign Up to begin receiving weekly wisdom in your inbox. She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed. Her husband also, and he praises her.

Hi, I'm Rob West. Sunday is Mother's Day, and I'm really looking forward to it. That passage from Proverbs 31 describes some of the ways moms faithfully support and serve their families. So we'll brag on moms a bit today, and then we'll take your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Okay, so most of the time when we think about the value of moms, it's about things you just can't put a price on like love, tenderness, guidance, and wisdom that moms naturally pour out for their families. But what if we did put a monetary value on what a typical mother does for her family day in and day out? What would her paycheck look like if that were a, quote, paying job? Well, we checked out the latest data from Survey.com to find out what mothers are doing in terms of a workload. The survey calculates how much a mother's efforts would be worth in salary given all the hats she wears during the week. Apparently, working moms are putting in an average of 54 hours a week on the home front, just keeping things humming in addition to their outside jobs. Other moms choose to stay home with their children, either working from home or homeschooling or being full-time moms. According to the Salary.com survey, the average stay-at-home mom is working up to 15 hours a day, seven days a week. Her duties often include chief financial officer, media administrator, educator, cook, babysitter, driver, psychologist, loan officer, interior designer, hazmat contractor, nurse, laundry expert, event planner, and sometimes referee.

I know, it's a great list. For all that, the annual base salary of your typical mom should be, are you ready for this? $185,000 given all the jobs she does on a regular basis. Now, that does not include pay premiums that companies may offer to retain excellent employees, such as bonuses, overtime, and hazard pay.

Factor in those perks and your average stay-at-home mom could earn more than $200,000 a year, and I think we can all agree they're worth every penny. Still, some folks have asked why God included honor your father and mother in the Ten Commandments. It goes without saying that this is a very good thing to do and that it's natural to love, respect, and honor one's mother and father. But does the Fifth Commandment really carry the same weight as the other nine? Is it as important as not taking the Lord's name in vain, or stealing, or even murdering someone? Well, apparently it is to God, otherwise it wouldn't be in the Ten Commandments. So we should probably ask ourselves why. Theologians have come up with a number of reasons, and it's good to consider these when we head into Mother's Day on Sunday.

The first reason is because of life itself. God is the author of life. Genesis 1-27 reads, So God created man in his own image. In the image of God he created him. Male and female he created them. Life is precious to God, and mothers and fathers are the instruments God uses to bring new life into the world. Mothers, of course, bear most of that burden in childbirth. In Psalm 139 we read, For you created my inmost being.

You knit me together in my mother's womb. We are to honor our mothers and fathers because they gave us life. Another reason for the Fifth Commandment is relationship.

God puts a high value on them. He wants a relationship with each and every one of us. He created the family and wants us to enjoy the relationships that only a family can provide. The full text of the Fifth Commandment, Exodus 20 verse 12, recognizes that unless children have good relations with their parents, rightly honoring them, the family can't prosper as it should. It reads, Now, what exactly does it mean to honor mothers and fathers?

Here's a clue. It's more than sending a card on Mother's Day. The term honor means to hold in high respect or treat with significance. To do that, children must obey their parents and care for them. The only exception being if a parent asks for something that goes against God's Word.

Obviously, we must obey God first. To honor their parents, children must carry their name into the world in a principled and righteous way, not bringing shame or reproach on the family. So, as we honor moms this weekend, remember that we can never put a value on what they've done and continue to do for us because it's priceless.

We should really make it Mother's Day all year long. All right, your calls are next. 800-525-7000. I'm Rob West, and this is Faith and Finance.

We'll be right back. Every day, we hear life-changing stories from listeners just like you who see money and possessions as tools to invite more people into God's kingdom. Instead of chasing wealth, you've chosen to embrace God as your source of love and provision.

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Hey, great to have you with us today. Hey, have you found something along the way that's been helpful to you on the program? Maybe you've been able to apply something in your financial life, or you've just been encouraged by the broadcast. Well, as a listener-supported ministry, we'd like to invite you to support our work with a gift one time of $25 or more. We'd love to send you a copy of our brand-new FaithFi study, Rich Toward God, a study on the parable of the rich fool, as our gift to you. You can just head to faithfi.com and click Give. You can also learn how you might become a FaithFi partner. It's those who support the ministry at $35 a month or more, and we provide exclusive quarterly ministry updates, early release copies of all of our FaithFi studies, including our new one coming out this summer that I'm so excited about.

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You can learn more about all of it, again, faithfi.com slash give. All right, we've got some lines open today. We're going to hear from you at 800-525-7000. Let's go to St. Louis. Hi, Pam. Go right ahead.

Hi. I'm calling to just get some advice on retirement funds and investing those. Currently, I have a couple plans from companies that I no longer work at, the ones with the same company, the other one I had rolled into a Wells Fargo plan on my own. And I had heard on the radio, Christian Radio, about this company that helps you invest in where it keeps your nest egg safe by using call options. And I'm just wondering about that option versus annuities versus some other option and what makes sense.

Yeah. Well, my general rule is if you can't explain it, don't invest in it. And calls get kind of complicated and they have unusual risks with them. So in my view, I would not go that direction. I think that's a little bit more complicated and potentially, and I realize some people will say, no, we're doing it in a way that eliminates the risk. Well, the complexity of the options contracts make them risky.

And so you have to actually know how to use them really well. And so I would just stay away from that. What do you have in these retirement accounts in total, Pam?

About $207,000. Okay. And are you retired currently?

No. I probably retire sometime next five to seven years or so. Okay. And are the assets with previous employer's retirement plans or your current employer? Oh, I have another probably $11,000 with my current employer.

So most of it's with a previous employer, but one, I just rolled into my own separate account. Got it. Okay.

But it's still in a tax deferred environment, like in an IRA or something? Right. Right. Okay. Yeah.

Very good. And the total is a little over $200,000. Tell me why it is you're thinking about a guaranteed product. What is it about the safety that really is concerning you? Actually, my husband told me about this program he heard about.

On the radio. So they talk about keeping your money safe. And I went to a seminar with him. But that didn't get you thinking, well, I'm not that far from retirement. I need to keep my money.

Yeah, no problem. And I can certainly understand that. I think the idea is we want to invest for the long haul. And as we get closer and closer to retirement, even though I think retirement should look differently for the believer than the non-believer.

I mean, this is not about your calling expiring or there being a date where you just cease productive activity. We're into service to the Lord to cultivate the earth for as long as we're here and have breath, asking the Lord what context that is. And it's going to change over time and may involve you stepping away even from paid work so you can even devote more time.

So I love that idea. But I think alongside that, we need to think about how do we take the assets we've accumulated and use them, protect them, trusting the Lord, but growing them wisely so that they're there either to provide a source of income, perhaps alongside Social Security, you know, or growing so that it could be given away, perhaps even left as an inheritance. And those are all very appropriate things to think about. But I will say that, you know, just because people are living longer and obviously we don't know whether we'll have another breath, only the Lord knows that. But we have to assume that if the Lord tarries and you're in good health, you know, even at 65, you need to be thinking in terms of this money lasting for three decades or more, you know, out to age 95, which gives you, even in retirement, even well into your retirement, still a long term perspective.

So what is the right mix? Well, we used to say you'd take the number 100, you subtract your age, that would be how much you'd want in stocks because people are living longer. Now we do 110. So if you take 110 minus your age, let's call it 65, I realize you're still a couple of years from that, that would say that, OK, we should probably have somewhere around 45 percent in stocks.

Where's the rest? Well, that other 55 percent would be in bonds and fixed income type investments. So government bonds, corporate bonds, maybe some CDs, some money market. And the idea there would be that growth component, the stock portion. Yes, it's going to have more volatility. I mean, even though we just hit all times highs in the last few weeks, we could be in a recession next year, maybe it's down 20 percent.

But again, we're taking a one to three decade approach. So we're saying I'm not concerned about that, I'm not pulling that money out anytime soon, even if I needed to start drawing an income from it, I could leave it alone because I could pull, you know, the four percent a year or so that I'm taken out of that to supplement Social Security from the fixed income interest. And so I don't have to touch the stocks. And what that does is it keeps a component in there that's growing that even though it has more volatility and yes, some risk allows that portfolio to offset the effects of inflation, which have been very apparent as of late. A basket of groceries is 21 percent higher over the last three and a half years.

And so that's real. So because of that, what I would say to the average person is let's stay invested throughout your whole life, but let's just get more conservative over time. And unless you have the time, the training, the expertise to do that yourself, I'd hire an advisor to manage that for you. And he or she could take discretion over that couple of hundred thousand and manage it with your goals and risk tolerance in mind. Now, other folks will say, no, I don't want to take any risk. I want to transfer that risk to an insurance company. And even though there's nothing that's risk free, that dramatically reduces the risk.

Now, what do you give up for that? Well, you give up access to the money because now you have surrender charges and penalties if you needed to get to larger sums of the money. You also give up some of the upside. And that's how they give you that downside protection is they make it up by taking back some of the upside, the potential gains.

And so that's why I'd rather you keep full access to the money and just manage the risk with the investment allocation and not go into one of these guaranteed products and certainly not into a complicated option strategy. But give me your thoughts on that. Well, that makes sense to me. So I think what they were saying, I guess, is I don't know. It's like some kind of a group. They put it in together with a bunch of others who are doing these call options.

So they take care of that part of it. So it's not me figuring it out, but still. Yeah, I just got to tell you that just doesn't sit terribly well with me just because I've been around this space a long time. And again, it just that's a very complicated strategy. And so you're just going to have to trust somebody that you heard on the radio.

And I'm not saying don't trust people listen that you hear on the radio because we're talking on the radio right now. But at the same time, I would just stay with a more simple strategy. If you said I want to get rid of the risk, I'd say an annuity can make some sense. Other than that, I'd hire an advisor to manage it. Perhaps that's your next step. I'd love for you and your husband to sit down with a certified kingdom advisor. You'll find some at faithfi.com and click find a professional.

We do have some lines open today. So if you have a financial question, you'd love to wrestle with it. We'd love to talk to you about it.

You can call 800-525-7000. We want to help you see God as your ultimate treasure and money, a tool to accomplish God's purposes. Let's do that together as we talk about a biblical worldview of money right after this break.

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Principal loss is possible. Foresight Fund Services LLC. Great to have you with us today on Faith in Finance. We're taking your calls and questions today on anything financial. Eight hundred five two five seven thousand. That's eight hundred five two five seven thousand.

Let's go to Tampa. Hi, Lily. How can I help? Hi. Thank you so much for taking my call.

Yes, ma'am. I needed some advice. My husband passed away over 10 years ago and I was left with maybe I have left from the inheritance about $150,000.

That five years ago, I put maybe like 40 in a CD and the five years are almost up. And then I have like one hundred thousand sitting in a savings account making zero interest because it's in a savings account. And I just wanted to know what you can advise me on it. I'm 65 years old, so I don't want to do a high risk, but I feel like it's just sitting there and it's not making anything.

And I just wanted to know if you can advise me or what. What can I do to make at least something in interest rather than it just sits there and I use it. And I can't have a toll because I also if I have emergency, I sometimes go in to use that money because I'm living on Social Security and my retirement. Yeah, very good. So with the hundred and fifty, are you drawing any out currently just for regular routine monthly expenses or only when you have something unexpected?

Only when I have something unexpected. I have two retirements in the Social Security and that seems to keep me afloat. Good.

OK, great. What do you think you spend on a monthly basis, roughly? Probably about three thousand. OK, let's say it's thirty five hundred. OK. And let's say we wanted to keep six months worth of expenses liquid. That'd be about twenty thousand twenty one thousand.

Let's say we bump that up to twenty five just to be safe. What I'd love to see you do is take twenty five thousand as your emergency fund. Leave it in savings, but move it to a high yield savings account. You can get four and a half percent on high yield savings right now with FDIC insurance backed by the U.S. government. You'd probably have to use an online bank.

And I'd go to Bankrate.com if you click on high yield savings, you'll see a list of the five star rated FDIC insured banks that are offering the best interest rates right now. You could move that twenty five thousand, which would be your emergency savings to that account. And then what I do is take the hundred and twenty five thousand and connect with an investment adviser who could invest that for you. It'd be very conservative. The goal would be to probably have the majority of it in bonds or fixed income type investments that are very conservative and then a smaller portion in stocks that could grow over time. And, you know, if you wanted to, I would be comfortable with you pulling out of that, you know, about five thousand a year. But if you didn't need it, you could just let it continue to grow. Now, if we got into a recession, it could pull back because you're invested in stocks and bonds, but you do it in such a way that it'd be conservative.

And you've got to take a long view. Even though you're in retirement, you, the Lord, Terry's and you're in good health. You need this money to last for decades.

And the way you overcome inflation is by investing it with a properly diversified portfolio. So I'd head to our website, faithfi.com, click find a professional to find a C.K.A. To Lee in Pittsburgh. Hi, Lee, thanks for calling. Go right ahead.

Hi. I want to make this precise general recommendations to me on 75 widow on the house. It's probably worth paid all three hundred fifty four hundred thousand. I heard you talk about high yield accounts without locking your money into a CD or something like that. I want to ask about that.

It was recently sent to me because it wasn't five thousand I paid nine hundred and two taxes when I put it. And, you know, I think all told, I have everything about one hundred seventy five thousand CD cash and whatever. OK. Yeah, very good.

Yeah. You heard me talk about high yield savings. And so, you know, right now, if you were to look at some of these online banks and we can talk about what that means, you will see that with high yield savings, with FDIC insurance, so backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government with a online bank that's very highly rated five, you know, nearly five out of five stars that you can get five percent or more annualized, you know, on your liquid savings without any fees and you have complete access to the money. Now, if you want to tie it up in another CD, you can actually even do better than that with some of the online banks. And so but not a whole lot more, actually, which is really interesting just because of the environment that we're in right now where rates are going to start heading down. But you might be able to get, you know, perhaps as much as five point three, five point five percent.

But there's not a whole lot of reason to do that at this point other than just to lock it in. In terms of what, you know, the implications of it being an online bank, it just means that, number one, there are no brick and mortar locations if it's an online only bank. So you access them through either the Internet or through probably a network of ATM machines.

You do everything through the phone, the computer or the, you know, through the mail if you have to. But because they don't pay the expenses associated with those brick and mortar buildings and as much staff as you need to maintain that kind of operation, they're able to pass that along in the form of no or low fees and much higher interest rates, which is how you get the five percent plus on the savings account with FDIC insurance. So I think, you know, with that kind of money, I mean, that's serious, because if you're talking about one hundred and seventy thousand dollars at five point one, I mean, you're talking about eighty six hundred dollars over the next year.

And that money is completely liquid and backed by the U.S. government. Is that helpful, though, Lee? That is helpful. The bond with the government treasury, I have ten thousand in there. I heard somebody say four point six. Would you recommend putting anything more in that?

Yeah. You know, I think you could begin buying some treasuries. The nice thing is that the 10 year treasury today is paying four point six. But as long as you hold it to maturity. So in this case, it's 10 years. You're going to get, you know, on one hundred dollar investment, you're going to get one hundred dollars back and you're going to get four point six percent annualized for those 10 years. That's not bad with a U.S. Treasury, a 10 year treasury. So I think that's a great option. A lot of folks are not comfortable buying individual bonds. And so they have an advisor do it for them. But, you know, if you understand it and you can buy it, I think that makes a lot of sense. Because, again, we're in an elevated environment right now.

You don't get much safer than the U.S. government. And that's a pretty attractive yield. The one I have, you have to hold it for a year before you can take it back out. But maybe something different. Well, that is that a CD? You know, I'm not good at that.

OK. Yeah. Well, I think just given the assets that you have, Lee, perhaps your next step is to sit down with a certified kingdom advisor and just get some professional advice. Perhaps even have them manage it for you, because this is a big nest egg.

You've worked a long time to build it up. We want to take care of it, get a good return on it, but also have wise counsel. So if you'd like to find a certified kingdom advisor in your area, just head to our Web site, faithfi.com. Click find a professional at the top of the page. Thanks for your call today, folks.

That's going to do it for us. Hope you have a great weekend. I'm Rob West. I hope you found something today helpful and encouraging. I want to say a big thanks to my team today on behalf of Taylor and Pat and Devon. I'm Rob West. I hope you'll come back and join us next time for another edition of Faith and Finance. May the Lord bless you. Faith and Finance is provided by Faithfi and listeners like you.