This faith and finance podcast is underwritten in part by Christian Healthcare Ministries. Are you finding it increasingly challenging to find affordable healthcare? Christian Healthcare Ministries is a budget-friendly, biblical, and compassionate healthcare cost-sharing alternative that aligns with your Christian values.
And it's available in all 50 states and around the world. Learn more at chministries.org slash faith buy. Do not cast me off in the time of old age or forsake me when my strength is spent. Psalm 71 9.
I am Rob West. God's word encourages us to care for those in their so-called golden years, which aren't always golden, by the way. Today, I'll talk with Lauren Gydeck about a healthcare option that's designed to help seniors. 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, we're delighted once again to have Lauren Gydeck on the program. Lauren's vice president of communications and media at Christian Healthcare Ministries, an underwriter of this program. Lauren, great to have you with us. Thank you so much, Rob.
I'm delighted to be back with you. Well, Lauren, we've heard about your Senior Share program, and we've wanted to talk to you about it for some time. But before we do that, give us just a quick overview of how cost-sharing works at CHM.
Sure, I'd be happy to do that. So when we say cost-sharing, what we're referring to is Christian Healthcare Ministries is not a health insurance company, but what we do is help people with their medical bills. So the end result to what you get with insurance is similar.
It's just the process is a little bit different. So it's a biblical model that we think works even better than insurance, and we are member-based. So you join the ministry, you have medical bills, you submit them to us. We work with your health care providers and get discounts on those bills. And then we do what we call sharing the bills, where we remit the payment back to you, the member, and you pay your health care providers. And we have been in existence for more than 40 years and have shared nearly 10 billion, billion with a B, dollars in medical bills.
Absolutely incredible. Folks, it's a values-based solution. You don't have the network restrictions. You can enroll anytime. It's an alternative to health insurance that's faith-based. Now, the saving opportunities you've offered, Lauren, have been great all along, but you all have made them even better for seniors. So take a moment and tell us about Senior Share.
Yeah, I'd be glad to do that. Senior Share is our program for those who are 65 years old and older. And what you can do with Senior Share is, you know, you'll have to be on Medicare Parts A and B or have a Medicare Advantage plan. But CHM works with insurance to help pick up the costs of what the insurance does not pay.
So we want to make sure that, you know, if you're 65 or over, we don't want you to get stuck with unpaid medical bills, you know, once Medicare is done paying for what they pay. Yeah. So how does this then affect current CHM members and also, Lauren, folks who might consider becoming a member?
Yeah. So for those who are already members, you know, you can continue your membership uninterrupted with Senior Share. It's a really easy transition once you turn 65. And if you're not a CHM member, you know, you just need to make sure you have Medicare A and B or the Medicare Advantage plan, and then you get the benefits of our BEST program, which is our gold program, at a discounted monthly price of $115. So what does this sharing eligibility look like? Well, what we do is share medical incidents totaling above $500. So as long as your medical bills are eligible, according to our guidelines, anything over $500, you can send that over to us. And we also have an additional program called CHM Plus, which you can add to Senior Share. It's $22 per person. So if there's two of you, there's $44 a month. And what this does is it enables us to share healthcare expenses for you that total more than $125,000 per illness.
Yeah, and that goes to an unlimited amount, I know, as well. Now, open enrollment starts next week, Lauren. A lot of folks making healthcare decisions right now, but that's never an issue when it comes to becoming a member of CHM, right? Right, that's correct. So there are some limitations as far as pre-existing conditions are concerned, but you can enroll in CHM any time throughout the year with no waiting period. All right, and this is really, as you said at the beginning, a biblical solution based on Galatians 6-2, right?
Yes, yep. It's always the right time to enroll here at CHM if you are looking for a biblical solution to your healthcare costs. Very good. Well, we're out of time, but Lauren, we're grateful for our partnership with Christian Healthcare Ministries, and thanks for stopping by.
Thank you so much for having me on. They've shared nearly $10 billion. $10 billion.
Incredible. You can find out more about this terrific medical cost sharing ministry at chministries.org. That's chministries.org.
We'll be right back. God has entrusted his finances to you, and we at Faithfi have designed our Faithfi app to help you live, give, owe, and grow with that perspective. Our Faithfi app is the leading biblically-based finance app. You can manage your money, get top biblical financial resources, and interact with a community of like-minded believers where you can ask questions, get answers, and share what you're learning.
Go to faithfi.com and click the word app to get started. 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. Welcome back to Faith and Finance. I'm Rob West. All right, it's time to dive in. 800-525-7000.
Again, that's 800-525-7000. We'd love to hear from you with your financial questions today. All right, let's dive in today. We're going to begin in Ohio. Susie, you'll be our first caller.
Go right ahead. My question is regarding an annuity, which is up for renewal. It was $25,000. My advisor is recommending putting $100,000 to get a higher interest rate into a five-year annuity, which would give me a 5.3% interest rate. And I do have the funds. We have no debt, and the assets that I have to work with are a few hundred thousand. So I don't need the money anytime soon for anything that I know of. So I'm just really cautious. I'm kind of just apprehensive about actually pulling the lever. And the same institution that I meet him through, I mean, he kind of works through that institution, their current five-year CD rate is 5%. So I'm thinking, okay, yes, I know there's an interest difference, but I feel like if I had to withdraw the money from either, wouldn't the CD be a lot easier?
Am I just guilty of cold feet? And I'm just kind of looking for your advice. I know you're not a fan of annuities. This is just fairly simple, as far as I understand it, and I don't understand a lot, but it's just a deferred annuity. I don't need it for income. It's not set up for income. It's just set up to grow.
Yeah, very good. Yeah, I think you just need to define what your objective is. I mean, you're right. Without the complexity and the lockup periods, meaning the surrender charges to get your money back, you could take and earn right now a little better interest rate, or at least an equal interest rate in a CD and not have all of the fees and surrender charges that are associated with the annuity. So why wouldn't you do that? Well, if you didn't want to take any risk, and you were to say to me, Rob, I just, you know, I don't need the money, and I don't want to try to grow this more than I would expect to with a guaranteed product, meaning I don't want to put it into a very small allocation in stocks, a larger allocation in bonds, and maybe try to do six or seven percent a year, or at least five or six for the long term, but with complete access to your money, but assuming some risk beyond a CD or a guaranteed annuity. You know, if you didn't want to do that, then the annuity is a fairly attractive option, and here's why. Because although you can get that rate today in a CD, you're not going to be able to get that rate for much longer than 12 months, because the bank knows they can't give you five, five and a half percent for five years or longer, because Fed, you know, the Fed funds rate is going to start dropping probably sometime next year, because they will have successfully slowed the economy, inflation will be under control. And obviously that, you know, the reason the market's under pressure today is because there's still lingering inflation woes, but they will finally get that on top of that. And then they'll find that the economy's sluggish, and they'll want to stimulate it.
And the way they do that is by bringing those rates back down. And as those rates fall, well, CD rates will as well, which means the bank doesn't want to lock you in to, you know, 5% plus on a CD for the next 10 years, because, you know, they're going to be struggling to be able to pay that as rates come down. So the benefit of the annuity is they will give you that guaranteed rate for a longer period of time. So if you're saying to me, Rob, I like the idea of transferring the risk away from myself, either in the case of a CD to the US government, because they're backing that or to an insurance company, because they're guaranteeing the return on the annuity, well, then that's where you might want to look at an annuity.
Why are they not my favorite offering? Well, for the reasons, you know, I mentioned, you're losing access to your money, you know, they're complicated, they tend to be expensive. So I think for that reason, you know, as long as you had other assets, so if you said to me, Hey, we've got 300,000, and I'm talking about putting 100 in this, well, you got 200,000 left, and you know, if your bills are covered, you might feel good about having 100,000 that's locked up for 10 years at 5%. But again, I think you just need to make sure you understand the trade offs largely, that you're just losing access to this money if you all needed it for something unforeseen medically or otherwise. Does that all make sense? Yes, yes, the CD actually, for five years, it would be 5%.
So it's, it's close to the same. But I just don't know if I'm, you know, and he does have some assets that are in a brokerage account. And I'm becoming a little more comfortable with the idea of all that. But yeah, if, if my only problem is cold feet, does an annuity even make sense? Well, how long would the the term be on the annuity? It would be for five years.
Oh, it's five years also. Well, if you can get the same thing without having the, you know, to go into that annuity product, you know, I'm seeing typically not I'm not seeing CDs beyond five and a half percent for five years. But if you could get five and 5% and a CD for five years, I don't know why you would opt for the seat, you know, for the annuity option when you can do the same thing. And you're right, the the breakage on that CD is going to be a lot less expensive and easier to do than trying to get that money back out of the annuity, you're going to pay some pretty hefty surrender charges, because they need to make sure they can make up the money they're using to pay the insurance salesman who's, you know, talking you into buying this, and that's going to be a pretty big commission he's going to earn.
And so they offset that through this surrender charge. So if you if all things being equal, I'd prefer you go the CD route with this money, then getting the same guaranteed return in an annuity contract. Yeah, the annuity is a little bit more, it's 5.3.
But it's, I don't know how to quantify the difference. But that does, there is a tangential question, which would be, how do I actually find out the fees that are associated with an annuity? So I can ask him how he is compensated.
And he gives me his answer. But it seems to be so layered in nuances, that I'm left with not feeling any more knowledgeable than... Yeah, and you're not probably going to get to the bottom of that, because what they're going to say is, well, it doesn't really matter to you what we get paid. This is what you're going to get, you're going to be guaranteed this return over five years. And so how they are able to take your money and invest it and pay you that return and pay his commission, they're going to do that by investing it and through these lock up periods and surrender charges and so forth. So there's multiple fees embedded into this product. But at the end of the day, what you want to compare is the actual internal rate of return that they're promising against what you could get in another guaranteed product outside of an insurance product. And that 0.03% difference is $300 a year on $100,000.
So it's not that significant. So I would say all things being equal, I'd probably go the CD route just because it gives you a little added flexibility and liquidity. I hope that helps you, Suzy. We'll ask the Lord to give you some wisdom as you make this decision.
We'll be right back. My grocery bill went up 11% this year, gas, utilities, rent, all went up, but my paycheck the same. I also pay for my own health care, a huge expense. A friend recommended Christian Healthcare Ministries as an option to insurance and CHM helps pay for medical needs while allowing some breathing room in my budget. Open enrollment is here.
So make the switch today with potential cost savings up to 40%. Christian Healthcare Ministries at chministries.org slash faith buy. We're grateful for support from Eventide Investments on the faith and finance program. Eventide's approach to values-based investing is grounded in the belief that humankind was created in the image of God with intrinsic dignity, value, and worth. Eventide calls this investing that makes the world rejoice. More information is available at eventideinvestments.com. That's eventideinvestments.com.
Welcome back to faith and finance. I'm Rob West. We've got a few lines open, 800-525-7000 to Cleveland, WCRF. Hey Linda, thanks for your patience. Go ahead.
Well, thanks so much for taking my call. It's a two-part, please, if this is possible. Sure. The first thing I wanted to ask about is that I have a 17-year-old granddaughter who's been working and this is her senior year and we were wondering if it would make sense that she might put her money into a Roth. And then the second question that I have is, I'm looking for resources to help educate high school girls about money basics so that they would understand compound interest and things necessary to buy a home and financial terms that apply to different experiences they're going to have, if you know of such a resource.
Yeah, very good. So let's take the first one. I think, yes, I like a Roth IRA. She's, of course, has to have earned income and she would be able to contribute up to the earned income she has or the limit for the year, which is $6,500 for 2023, whichever comes first. Now, what money would she not want to put in a Roth IRA? Well, there really should be money that she wants to invest for, the long term, to get a jumpstart on retirement and if she could put in a couple of thousand this year and do that into her early working years and when she gets married, if she and her husband really stay focused on that and then add a 401k along the way, eventually they're going to have to soon start asking the question, how much is enough? Because they'll be so far ahead in terms of what they'll ultimately have through the power of compounding over 50 years of compounding that they're going to have more than they need, which is a great problem to have because they can really accelerate their giving along the way. But this would be a great discipline and habit to start and the Roth IRA is the perfect place to do it because she pays the tax now, which is going to be next to nothing because she's not making a whole lot and then it grows tax free until retirement for, like I said, maybe 50 years or so.
So that's great. The only key would just be, the only key would just be keeping money aside that she needs in the short term for spending money in college or if she needs to buy a car or an apartment. Now, of course, with the Roth IRA, you can always get your original contribution back without any penalties or taxes.
You just can't touch the gains. But I wouldn't go into it with thinking of it as a savings account. I would really put money in that she plans to leave. In terms of where to go for a teenager, college student to really help them understand how to handle money, there's a phenomenal program at the, it's called Open Hands Finance. And if you go to openhandsfinance.com, Open Hands Finance, there's a good friend of ours that has put this together.
We need to have her on the program sometime. It's a small group course, essentially, for college students to establish a firm financial foundation based on biblical wisdom. Every week's lesson has a podcast that goes with it and it's written in a language that would just be really appropriate for college students. But it's biblical at its core and it's just as really helpful content. So I think that would be a great resource for her.
Again, Open Hands Finance and I love the Roth IRA. Okay, thank you so much. What a blessing. Thank you so much. You're welcome, Linda. Thanks for your call today. To, let's see, Cletus in Carpentersville, Illinois.
Go ahead, sir. Hi, Rob. So my father-in-law just passed away recently and we're in a kind of a unique situation. So his primary means of income was through the sale of illegal substances. And so after he passed, we found a considerable amount of cash. So we got about $8,000 in cash and then close to another $8,000 in gold bars. And there's a safe that we haven't gotten into yet. So we're just looking for some biblical wisdom on, should we keep this money?
Should we donate it? Can you can you direct me to some areas of scripture that would maybe give me some wisdom and direction on what to do? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know, I think this is ultimately a conviction matter. Obviously, this was, these are what the Bible would call ill-gotten gains. You can read about that in God's Word.
And you know, the Bible says that has no lasting value. Clearly, we're to work honestly as unto the Lord. By legal means, work is something that was ordained before the fall of man. And so we were created in the image of God, the ultimate creator-worker, to be creators and workers. But we're to do that honestly and with integrity and, and by way of legal means.
Now, obviously, he's deceased. And so you are the next steward of these resources. And so I think handling these wisely, based on prayer and establishing your own convictions around that, there wouldn't be anything in I don't think in God's Word that I would point to to say, you as the next steward, with him having now passed away, and they're not being an issue of you having to, you know, report this or disclose these ill-leads these illegal activities, because he's deceased, I think you're now the steward. So these resources, God has placed in your hand, and you're to use them for God's glory, despite how they were derived.
Remember, money is not morally, you know, positive or negative, it's morally neutral. It's a tool to accomplish God's purposes. And you are now the steward of this tool.
And the question is, how do you want to use it? And I think perhaps given the knowledge of how it was derived, even though we know the Bible is very clear, even the power to create wealth comes from the Lord. So it all belongs to him. This wasn't your father-in-law's money. This was God's money. And it happened to make its way into your father-in-law's hands through illegal means, but it still belongs to the Lord. And now the Lord has entrusted it to you. So my counsel to you would be to say, you all come together and pray and say, Lord, give us a conviction as to how we're going to, how we should use this. And perhaps the very best way to honor him is to take those ill-gotten gains and to use them to spread the gospel, and to redeem that money for the sake of the glory and the gospel being proclaimed of Jesus Christ.
I love that idea. But I don't think there's a right or wrong answer here. Again, money is a tool. And I think ultimately, you guys need to pray it through and decide how the Lord is leading. And whichever way he leads, I would say you follow that leading and do that as unto the Lord, and you'll be glorifying him in the process. That's my best advice for you, Cletus. We'll ask the Lord to give you some wisdom as you seek him in that. Thanks for your call today.
And that's going to do it for us today. I really appreciate your taking time to listen to this program and to committing the principles we talk about each time to your financial life. You see, God's plan isn't difficult, but it does take discipline. And I hope we can encourage you along the way as you listen to this program. Incidentally, if you've been helped by what you've heard here, would you mind helping us? This broadcast, the Faithfi app, and the other great resources we provide wouldn't be possible without the financial support we receive from listeners like you. If you're not yet one of our financial partners, but would like to be, would you visit our website, faithfi.com. That's faithfi.com. And then click the give button to sign up. We'd certainly be grateful. In the meantime, please set an alarm on your phone and make plans to join us again next time. I'll be here and I hope you will be too for another edition of Faith and Finance. Faith and Finance is provided by Faithfi and listeners like you.
