The Giving Heart With Sharon Epps

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Go to faithfi.com and click App to get started. There are only four things you can do with money. The question is, are you doing them in the right order? Hi, I'm Rob West. We say it often. When it comes to money, there are only four things you can do with it. Live, give, owe, and grow. Well today, Sharon Epps joins us to talk about the giving part of that equation. 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. Well, we're always blessed when Sharon Epps takes a short break from her duties at Kingdom Advisors, where she serves as president, to join us here on the program. Sharon, it's great to have you back. It's the favorite part of my day today.

Well, I'm delighted to hear that. You always have a great way of explaining the idea of live, give, owe, and grow. And you do it in a way that dessert lovers can certainly relate to because you describe it as a pie. We like to call it the live, give, owe, grow pie. And the unique thing about the pie is when one slice grows, another one is smaller. And that happens not only with the pie, but in the areas of money as well.

When one allocation takes a bigger slice, another area has to shrink. Now most of the world makes money decisions or cuts up their pie in this order. They live first, they owe, then they grow, then they give. And that puts pressure on giving because it comes last. God's order is different. And have you noticed that his ways do tend to be opposite of the world's ways in every area of our lives? So God's order for money decisions is that we give first, we grow, owe, and then we finally live.

Yeah, that's really helpful. Now, how is giving different from the other three money decisions? Well, even though when we talk about finances, giving is expressed as an amount, giving is actually a matter of the heart. And giving breaks the power of money in our lives. And so there's something different about giving that it's important to realize.

And it can become legalistic if the focus is only on the amount and not on the attitude. So let's talk about the heart. There's three things. First of all, understand the purpose of our wealth is for giving. This scripture was breakthrough for me. 2 Corinthians 9, 8. God is able to bless you abundantly so that you can be generous and share with others.

So the whole purpose of our wealth is to be generous and share. Next, we need to understand the purpose of the tithe. There's four things that the tithe does. And my favorite one I discovered in Deuteronomy 14, 23. Back in the Old Testament, God said that when you tithe it so that you may learn to revere the Lord your God always. We learn to revere or to cherish him.

What a joy. That's such an amazing purpose for the tithe. Secondly, it does help us discipline ourselves to put God first and give him our best. Thirdly, tithing can be a meaningful guideline to help us as we make decisions on our giving. And then finally, tithing gives a roadmap or a pathway on how to give.

That's so helpful. It really allows us to understand the heart behind our giving. Now, how does giving then relate to the other uses of money, the live, the owe, and the grow? Well, let's take each one briefly.

Let's think about live. First of all, lifestyle decisions can actually hinder my giving. When I have a lack of margin and time and money, those are my two greatest barriers to giving, according to research done by our friends over at Generous Church. And let me give you a quick practical tip. If you'll take the Big Three assessment at faithfi.com slash live to determine whether your living expenses might be limiting your giving opportunities.

Let's see if those are out of line. Now, let's think about, oh, we know that the borrower is slave to the lender. Proverbs 22 seven tells us that when I've overcommitted to debt, my hands are tied in giving decisions. So my money has to go to the lender instead of the option of giving to others.

And then finally, grow. Now, you might say, how can my savings hinder my giving? Well, first of all, savings is important. It's biblical. But am I relying on my savings more than God?

Are there times when he might call me to actually give from my savings? So the bottom line is the order matters. Give first whatever is left until the last is going to receive the leftovers. And if you leave giving to last, it gets leftovers. And we certainly don't want to do that.

We sure don't. Oh, Sharon, that was so good and so helpful. I know we've just scratched the surface. We'll have to have you back real soon to do it again. Thanks for stopping by.

It's great to be here. That was Sharon Epps, president of Kingdom Advisors. Well, your calls are next.

Eight hundred five to five seven thousand. By the way, you can call that number 24 seven. I'm Rob West. And this is faith and finance biblical wisdom for your financial decisions.

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Eight hundred five to five seven thousand. We'd love to hear from you. All right.

Let's head to Minnesota. Hi, Tina. Thanks for calling. Go right ahead. Hi, Rob.

First of all, thank you so much for you doing this for those in the background as well. My question today is you. My question today is we bought a second home.

And so the question is, would it be wise to start paying on the principal or is it better to invest that money? My husband is sixty four. I'm fifty nine.

He's planning on retiring next year. It's a 30 year mortgage and it's at two point seventy five. OK, so it's two and three quarters. And you said this is your second home. Does that mean you have you're free and clear on your first mortgage or excuse me, on your primary residence?

That is correct. Great. And then are you all planning to move into this home when you fully retire, both of you? Or is this always going to be a second home? This will probably always be a second home as it is kind of big for the both of us. It is rented at this time. I see. OK. And are you able to cover the the mortgage with the rental income? Yes. OK. And do you plan to continue to rent it enough each year to do that, to cover the mortgage in full, and then you'll just enjoy it, you know, a few times a year?

Or do you think that that will change? The plan is to have it full time rented. All right. Now, talk to me about retirement.

You said, you know, it's not very far away for both of you. Do you have enough in retirement savings such that that plus Social Security would be able to cover your expenses? According to our financial advisor, yes.

OK, great. And what kind of surplus do you have right now that you're considering applying toward paying down this mortgage? Probably anywhere from between $10,000 to $20,000.

Per year? No, that's what I have right now to put toward it if I need it. Oh, I see. OK. It would be a good investment.

Got it. And then what about do you have additional liquid savings beyond the $10,000 to $20,000? We have a fancy savings account and then we have our regular investments like our 401K and the Roth. OK, very good. How much do you have total in savings outside of those retirement accounts and investments?

Probably close to $30,000 right now. OK. So if you were to put $10,000 to $20,000 toward the house, you'd be down to only $10,000 in those investments, right? Or not in the investments, but in savings.

That's correct. OK. All right. And what are your monthly expenses today, roughly? Well, we don't have any debts, any credit card debts or anything.

We do pay that off. So it really depends on how much we spend on going out. And other than that, I would say probably about we don't have any car payments. So just the regular bills, electric, gas. Yeah, maybe a couple of thousand a month? I don't even think we would spend that much a month.

But yeah, let's say $10,000 a month. And do you normally have something left over, Tina, that you're putting into savings each month? Yes. Right now I am investing 25% of my income and my husband is probably doing about the same. OK. All right.

Yeah. You know, I'm not feeling the urgency to pay this mortgage off just because the interest rate is so low and it's a rental property that's essentially paying for itself. If it was your primary residence, I'd say, absolutely, let's pay it off as soon as we can so we can get rid of that mortgage payment and get your monthly expenses down, especially as you head into retirement. But given that it's cash flowing well and you've been able to cover all the expenses, I look at it as a business and just saying, hey, that business is doing what it was intended to do, which is every month you're building equity through the use of the rental income. And so I think the better question is, what is the priority use of this money? I think number one would always be we can increase our giving. Number two would be just to double back with your advisor to say, you know what, do we need to continue to build this retirement nest egg up a little quicker than we are right now?

If not, well, that's great. Then number three would be, are there any other savings goals that we have? Do we have a car that's going to need to be replaced in the next, let's say, you know, year or two? And we'd rather do that with cash and we don't want to pull from our investments. So let's move that over into the car fund. Do we want to take a big vacation that we haven't planned for, don't have the money for?

Something like that. If all of those are no, like, you know, we've got all of that covered, then absolutely. It's never a bad idea to pay down debt.

But given that this thing is covering itself, I think making sure you have adequate emergency reserves, making sure you are in fact on track for retirement, and then making sure you've covered your short and medium term savings goals, like my example of replacing an automobile. Those would come first unless you said, Rob, we just feel a real conviction from the Lord to be debt free 100%. And if that was the case, I'd say go for it and don't look back. So I know I'm not giving you a definitive answer here, Tina, but does that all make sense? It absolutely does. And actually, you answered my question because my husband is looking at a new vehicle. He would love to have a new vehicle before he retired.

And we also are looking at a vacation we have never taken. So you've definitely answered both. Well, I think that makes a lot of sense. You're so welcome, Tina. We appreciate you calling today and grateful for your testimony of being a faithful steward. You guys are very well planned and God certainly has been faithful.

It sounds like you've managed his resources quite well. So we appreciate you being on the program today. God bless you.

To Indianapolis. Hi, Sally. Go ahead. Hi.

I am wondering what the best investment option would be for my child just to set up her own investment account to use when she's older. Okay. So this isn't specifically for college. This would just be to have it more widely available? Exactly. Yes.

Okay. And the only thing I would consider is whether you want to keep this in your name, even though it would be a separate account earmarked for her, and therefore you can control when she gets access to it, or you want to go ahead and put it in her name in a custodial account. The only thing you just need to be aware of there is that, you know, at the age of majority in your state, typically 18, it's her asset.

If she wants to buy a sports car, she can. So which do you feel like would be the better option? The first option. So I would keep it in my name. How would I include her in that?

Yeah. So basically, you would just have it in your name individually, or if you wanted to do joint with your husband, if you're married, then you could do that. But you would have it in a completely separate account. Legally, it's your asset, not hers.

But you all would just know that you've earmarked this money for her. And then you've got a couple of options in terms of how to approach the investments. If you want to really help her learn about investing, one approach would be to say, I want you to go out and pick the companies that you'd like to invest in. They may or may not be the best ones. I mean, you want to make sure they align with your values.

But in terms of performance, they may or may not be the best. But it allows her to take an interest in it and to start to watch the companies and see how they're doing to learn how investing works. The other option is through probably a robo-advisor that's going to build a diversified portfolio. So let's do this. I'm going to give you both of those options, but I've got to hit a break. So we'll do that offline. You stay on the line and we'll talk a bit more off the air. I'm Rob West. You're listening to Faith and Finance, and we'll have more of your calls and questions on the other side of this break. We'll be right back. You're listening to Faith and Finance, where we talk about how we handle God's resources.

How are you using God's resources? We're talking about it, and the lines are open to take your calls and questions. 800-525-7000 is the number to call. Let's head to Pennsylvania. Hi, Kevin. Go right ahead. Hi.

Thank you so much for taking my call. I just had to retire early. I'm only 58.

I had to retire due to medical reasons, and it came as quite a shock. The situation with us is we don't have anything saved for retirement, but I will receive a state pension, and I do receive disability from the Veterans Administration. I'm trying to get a disability pension. If I get that, then I'll get my pension at the normal retirement rate. But if not, even with a reduced rate, I would still be at the income level I am now, like when I was working. I won't be able to collect Social Security until I'm 62, but my wife now is 61, and she'll be 62 in December. She has a teacher's pension, and then she'd be able to draw Social Security.

I don't know. I guess I'm just worried about our situation. I do have a 503B. There's not much in it, and I was considering just taking a lump sum because then I can pay off my truck, and that's a $300 monthly payment that's gone. And I'm going to save about $300 a month in commuting costs from not going to work. So just looking for your advice.

Yeah. Well, I think the starting point is to kind of lock into your spending plan. What does it take for you to fund your lifestyle every month in retirement, and then look at the income sources you have, which prior to taking Social Security is, I guess, only the pension. Is that what I'm hearing, plus potentially the 403B? Well, I have the pension. The 403B I was going to take a lump sum to get the truck paid off, and then I receive VA disability compensation each month. And with just the VA disability and the pension, it'll put me at my current income level.

So that won't decrease. All right. And so you've got the income, and obviously at some point down the road, and I'd wait as long as you can once you and your wife start collecting Social Security, plus her teacher's retirement, and you're saying she's eligible for both teacher's retirement and Social Security. Is that right? Yes, because with our pensions, we both paid into Social Security.

Okay. So if you can cover your bills through your disability and your pension, then that's key, and then you'll just add more income as you take Social Security. So I'd delay that as long as you can. How much do you owe on the truck?

About $3,000. So that'll pay that completely off. So that's great. So just that'll be taxable, but that makes sense. That'll further reduce your monthly lifestyle expenses.

And I think you're in pretty good shape there. I mean, you've got guaranteed income, and it's only going up. So I would hold off on that Social Security as long as you can, because you're going to take 30% haircut plus if you take it at 62 versus full retirement age.

Every month or every year you wait, you'll add 8% up to your full benefit. Hopefully that's helpful to you, Kevin. Thanks for calling today, my friend. God bless you. To Marilyn. Hi, Ann.

Go ahead. Hey, I have a question about investing. My husband passed away last year, and I had never handled much of the finances, but now I have a significant amount that I need to invest. And I've heard you talking about the CKA advisors, and I've gone online and looked at them, and one of them close to me, in fact, I have talked to on the phone, works with Merrill Lynch and Bank of America. But there's another one or two that works, I guess, with private or personal, whatever companies, investment companies.

Is there a preference between the two? Does working with one with Merrill Lynch limit for my fund to be invested? It's a great question, and I'm delighted to hear that you're interviewing at least one CKA and considering others. I don't have a preference on whether that CKA is with Merrill Lynch or an independent firm. In both cases, including the Merrill Lynch option, that advisor would basically have a full range of investments. It wouldn't just be proprietary investments. They'd be able to essentially buy any stock bond or mutual fund that you could possibly want, and they would build a portfolio that would make sense based on your goals and objectives. So I think the key is finding the advisor that you feel like you have a good match with, just in terms of temperament, how they're going to communicate with you, whether or not you fit into their target client and you'd be working directly with them, the fee schedule and experience, those kinds of things, whether they're with Merrill or, you know, John Doe Financial Services or Ameriprise, that's not really of a concern to me.

I think the main thing is that you've interviewed a few and you find the one that you just really feel like is the best fit for you. To Idaho. Hi, Jesse, go ahead.

Hi, Rob. I was recently, well back in January, came into some serious health complications, which left me with sepsis and ongoing neurological issues. Because of that, I have been able to continue my business that I've been running for years. A term life insurance agent contacted me and told me to apply for the monthly policy waiver, since I'm unable to work right now. He also said that there was a built-in policy in mind that states if I am unable to work, I can actually cash out my term policy. He said it would be the amount of six to seven figures would be the full amount of my policy. I don't know if that's something I should pursue, if I should just leave it alone. Yeah, so this is a complicated issue. I'm sorry to hear about your health status.

I would certainly look into it. Is this death benefit needed? If the Lord were to call you home, and none of us know how many days or hours we have left, so he were to call you home tomorrow, is this provided, needed death benefit for a loved one that's depending on your income? Yeah, my husband and my children.

And I'm only 38. How many years do you have left on this term policy? That I would have to look further into.

I think it does shut off a couple decades from now, but it does eventually. Is it the life insurance agent that sold this to you that's recommending it, or someone else? Yes, it's the agent that we got it from.

Yeah, I would sit down and look at that, and then I'd probably get a second opinion on it as well from a certified kingdom advisor. Let's do this. I'm out of time, but stay on the line. We'll talk a bit more off the air, and we'll go from there. Thanks for your call today.

Well, that does it for us today. I'm Rob West. Thanks to our amazing production team, and to you for listening. I hope you'll join us again next time, right here on Faith and Finance. Faith and Finance is provided by Faithfi and listeners like you.