Counter-Cultural Finances

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Hi, I'm Rob West. You have a choice to be worldly or kingdom-minded with your finances. But beware, God's way is definitely countercultural. We'll talk about that 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. Most people like to fit in, follow the crowd, and keep up with the Joneses. But if you're a Christian, God calls you to live with a different set of values than the world has. This kind of countercultural thinking is just what Jesus demonstrated during his ministry, and it applies to every part of your life, including money. The question is this. Do your actions and attitudes around money reflect the world's values or God's?

Imagine that I've got a piece of paper with a line right down the middle. On the left side are the world's messages about money and possessions. On the right side is what God's Word says about the same issues. In most cases, the two mindsets are like night and day.

Let's consider a few of those examples. The world claims that God is dead and that nothing, including what you do with your money, really matters. On the other hand, the Bible says our God is living, he is love, and you are his workmanship. What you do does matter. The culture says keeping things brings blessing. God's way says giving produces blessing. Another worldly ideology is the DIY philosophy.

Do it all yourself because you're on your own and there's no accountability. But the Bible tells us that the creator of heaven and earth is always with us and that he is our best source of help. The world believes that the goal of life is to get more, more money, more influence, more security. But God's Word tells us those things will eventually disappear. What has eternal value is knowing and loving God.

Seek God first and everything else falls into place. Today's culture tries to convince us that wealth or success justifies pride. Conversely, God's Word warns that pride leads to destruction and humility is the source of victory. Another worldly assumption is that if someone cheats you or steals from you, it's okay to take revenge. A biblical worldview says just the opposite. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing so that you may inherit a blessing.

That's from 1 Peter 3.9. The world says you can own things. But the Bible says things always end up owning you. What sets people free is not having possessions but knowing Christ. There are lots more examples of how far apart the secular and Christian worldviews are, but I'll offer just one more. The world says it's okay to love money, even if you're a Christian. However, the biblical worldview is that it's impossible to love God and money at the same time because you can't serve two masters at once. As Christians, we're supposed to be different because we have a different Lord than the world does. As James 4 says, friendship with the world is enmity with God. Does that mean we find a bunker somewhere and avoid all contact with anything or anyone who isn't Christian?

Far from it. Look at how Jesus did things. During his earthly ministry, he served the people around him, demonstrating a kind of love that changed lives. He also had a knack for challenging cultural attitudes about relationships and possessions.

He was a revolutionary, both in his time and ours. So if we're going to be followers of Christ, we have to learn from his example. We'll do things differently than the secular culture might expect. That means replacing greed with generosity, exchanging disrespect for love, and being a countercultural giver of our time, care, and resources. In light of all this, your financial choices are critical. First, your attitude about money reveals a lot about your heart.

Second, how you handle money can be an example to others. They'll see the blessings that come from honesty, faithfulness, and generosity. The Apostle Peter calls us sojourners and exiles for a reason. We're on our way home, but we have a job to do in the meantime.

We should love and serve others counterculturally as Jesus did, and when we do, God gets the glory. Our hope and prayer is that this program each day will recenter you on God's truth, give you hope, and allow you to be a testimony to the world in the process. Well, we want to tackle your financial questions today. You can get in on the conversation when you call 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000.

I'm Rob Weston. This is Faith and Finance, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. FaithFi 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's 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 OneAscent.com and by clicking Analyze My Investments. Faith and Finance is grateful for support from Soundmind Investing. If you have money in an investment account, you know sometimes the stock market can seem like a roller coaster. But it's possible to enjoy both profit and peace of mind as a do-it-yourself investor, no matter what's happening in the market. A short video webinar about that is available at SoundmindInvesting.org. Financial wisdom for living well.

SoundmindInvesting.org. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance. I'm Rob Weston. All right, the phone lines are open. We're ready for you. Whatever you're thinking about today in your financial life, we'd love to tackle it with you. 800-525-7000 is the number to call. Again, we have some lines open, at least at this point, so this would be a great time to call. 800-525-7000. All right, let's dive into your questions today.

We're going to begin in Florence, Oregon. Hi, Maria. Go right ahead. Hi, Rob. How are you doing?

I'm doing great. I appreciate your call. I'm curious if there's a certain timeframe when you should actually think about paying a financial advisor to take care of your IRAs, or if you should just let someone look at it that isn't really paying a whole lot of attention to it. Yeah, it's a great question.

You know, Maria, the Bible's clear. Wise counsel is something that's absolutely affirmed, and I think when it comes to a host of issues, especially in our financial lives, whether it's the largest transaction we'll have in hiring a realtor to sell or buy a home, getting an attorney versus using an online template to do a will or a power of attorney to make sure it's in line with your state and the laws, or preparing your taxes or managing your money, I think there does come a place where you say, you know what, it's going to cost me something, but it's worth it to have somebody who's skilled and has professional expertise and especially somebody who shares your values as well. I think with investment management, there is a point at which you have enough in the way of assets under management to hire an advisor, often below those typical levels, you might have trouble finding an investment advisor to actually take it on for you. And typically, that number is around 100,000 in total investable assets. Now, certain advisors might have a 250,000 minimum, others might have a half million or a million, but there are certainly advisors out there who will take accounts 100,000 and up. And I think the idea is, you know, when we're building wealth earlier in our working years, we're buying good high quality mutual funds, meaning properly diversified with a good track record, relatively low expenses, perhaps screened for our values, and we buy it and forget it, so to speak.

I mean, we obviously keep oversight over it. But the goal is just to capture the broad moves of the market that's consistent with our age and risk tolerance. But as we build a more sizable nest egg, we have more complexities, maybe we need some tax efficiency, maybe we want to add some planning into the equation. You know, when you work the bulk of your working life and build up several hundred thousand dollars in investments, you know, we don't want to put that on autopilot. I mean, we're counting on that money, both to preserve it, and to continue to grow it, especially in light of inflation. So we can depend on that to supplement our income and retirement. And so I think, you know, once you get into that 123 hundred thousand dollar range, now, I think you ought to seriously consider having an advisor oversee that just because they're able to be less emotional with their buys and sells following a more rules based approach, they bring a particular expertise, and they kind of wake up every day thinking about it, as opposed to, you know, you are busy doing whatever God has called you to and this may not be your area of expertise. But is that helpful?

Yeah, it's very helpful. I'm curious because I have Fidelity has most of my accounts. And do you just go with someone?

Like, I guess I don't know how to go about starting that. Yeah, it's a good question. So is it one IRA or multiple accounts? Multiple. Okay, and what would be the total investable assets across all of them roughly?

Probably about 500,000. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

And so it's there and you're invested in some Fidelity investments, but other than the call in center, you don't really have anybody designated for it. Exactly. Okay.

Yeah. So what I would do is, you know, we recommend the Certified Kingdom Advisor designation here at Faithfi. So this is the only industry designation for financial professionals who've met our high standards and experience and character and competence. They've had pastor and client references. They've been trained to bring a biblical perspective of money, but in each of the categories investments and planning and taxes, they've met stringent requirements to be able to be a CK in that category. So I would interview two or three CKs in the investment area there in Oregon, and then find the one that's the best fit.

To do that, you just go to faithfi.com and click find a CK and they would likely be able to allow you to leave it right there at Fidelity. Thanks for your call. Let's go to Lewiston, Idaho. Hi, Helen, go ahead.

Hello. I have some pretty simple stuff. I don't do stuff in stocks or anything because I'm very senior, almost. I'm getting close to 80 and I have quite a large amount of money that I have in just CDs, like $300,000 and maybe $100,000 in money market. And that's extent of my monies.

You know, I have a lot of property I can't sell because I have, you know, I'm just paying it to taxes and stuff. So my question to you, is there something better than CDs that I should be putting in? I know that's probably pretty safe. So that's why I do it.

Yeah. And I think that's really always the question, Helen is, you know, there's risk and reward. And the question is, how much risk are you willing to take for how much reward and as we age, we certainly want to over time get more and more conservative.

But the idea is, number one, we don't want to take more risk than we have to, if you really have what you need. But we also recognize that the effects of inflation are such that it erodes our purchasing power. And so over time, especially and we've been reminded this of this more and more lately, because inflation has been elevated a couple of years ago was at 9%.

We're now at 3%. But that's higher than where we've been on average for the last couple of decades. And so what that means is, every dollar is going to buy less over time. And one of the ways we offset that is by investing. Now, on that risk spectrum of investments, we can stay on the most conservative end. And right now, the great opportunity that you have is you can be rewarded pretty handsomely for staying very conservative, still getting an appropriate rate of return that even offsets inflation. You know, you can get a five year CD right now for four and a half percent, you can get one higher than that if you go even shorter on the duration.

So that's great. The challenge is those aren't going to be available forever. Because as the Federal Reserve works to keep our economy from slipping into a recession, while they're also fighting inflation, they're going to be forced to and they've they've already said that it's pretty much guaranteed that rates are going to start to fall before the end of the year, which means over the next couple of years, these, you know, 5% CDs that you're enjoying aren't going to be there anymore. They might be four or three or, or less than that.

So I think the question is always, where should I invest given the fact that I want to try to grow the money, but I also and more importantly, want to protect what I have. So let me ask you this, are you living on any portion of this roughly 400,000 between the CDs? No, no. Great. All right. I don't have any bills. I have my home pay for everything. Great. I don't know.

And I have an income that takes care of that me. Okay. And you want to stay I'm hearing on the most conservative end of the spectrum, right? I think so. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. So I mean, I think CDs are great. You know, this is a great way to go, you know, with what you've got between the money markets of the CDs, just make sure you're getting an appropriate rate of return. I mean, there's no reason you shouldn't be getting more than 4% a year interest on that. And if you aren't, you might want to look at some other options.

You could look at U.S. treasuries. You could also connect with an advisor who could look over this for you and perhaps give you some other ideas. But I would say at the end of the day, given that your bills are covered, you're living modestly and this is money you don't need. And you want to you know, your paramount goal is just to protect what you have and then grow it in a reasonable way. I think the approach you're taking is perfectly fine.

So I don't I don't have any concerns over that whatsoever. And I hope that's helpful. Thanks for your call today. We've got some lines open. We're taking your calls and questions on anything financial. Whatever's going on in your financial life will help you think about it in light of biblical wisdom and make a practical decision to move forward. So number 800-525-7000. We'll be back with much more just around the corner.

Stick around. As the leading advocate for the Christian financial industry, Kingdom Advisors serves the public by promoting the integration of a biblical worldview across every aspect of the financial services industry. And we serve a growing network of thousands of Christian financial professionals equipping and empowering them to carry biblical financial wisdom to their clients, peers and community. For more information, visit Kingdom Advisors dot com.

That's Kingdom Advisors dot com. Great to have you with us today on faith and finance here in our final segment today, we're taking your calls and questions on anything financial. We'd love to hear from you. I've got a few lines open. Autumn, our call screener standing by 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. A couple of emails. This came to us from Robin.

Here's what Robin wrote. I'm 58 and I earn $98,000 a year. I'm currently renting, but it's very expensive. I want to buy a home. But I'm wondering if I'm too old at this point.

What do you think? I want to make a biblically sound decision. Robin, it's a great question. You're not too late to buy a home by any means.

I think the challenge is going to be finding one that fits your budget. We know home prices are very expensive right now. I just read a study just this past week from First Trust that said housing prices nationally are up 47% since 2020.

Just pre-pandemic. I mean, that is significant. We've had a 6% year-over-year growth just in the last 12 months. And that's despite even these high interest rates that continue to linger here. So home affordability is challenging.

And then when you put the interest rates on top of it, it just really makes it difficult. How do you position this in your budget? Well, I would say you really want to have, Robin, 20% of the sales price for a down payment.

That's going to do a couple of things. Make sure you go in with equity on the front end and you're going to miss the private mortgage insurance, the PMI, which is going to run you about 1% of that mortgage balance. And that's not an expense that's going to do anything for you. It's just for the lender. The second thing is let's try to make sure that your housing expense related to the mortgage, principal interest, taxes, and insurance, that monthly payment with taxes and insurance. Try to keep that at no more than 25%, I would say 30% at the absolute max of your take-home pay. If you go beyond that, you're going to have some trouble meeting your other obligations. But if you can get those two things in line, Robin, I don't have any problem with you buying a house at 58.

Just be really thoughtful about it. All right. Let's head back to the phones and try to get one more call in before we round out the broadcast in North Carolina. Hi, Ron. Go ahead.

How are you doing? Me and my wife have around roughly around $300,000 saved up. And we are thinking about buying the property at the beach to just enjoy life with what we saved up with our grandkids. I'm just wondering if that's a good idea, a good investment, because I know I can sell it at any time.

Yeah. I mean, the challenge is you're just going to be highly concentrated because if you're taking essentially what is 100% of your retirement and putting it in a beachfront house, which I love real estate, so nothing wrong there. Obviously, we've been talking about how well it's performed. Now, we also have high prices right now. We're seeing growth moderate.

I don't think we're in a bubble situation like 08 and 09. I think housing prices, because they're not creating any more beachfront, but even bigger than that, we just don't have enough inventory of homes in this country for a variety of reasons. Post 08, 09, the home builders really slowed down to try to get rid of the glut of homes. And then because of regulations, government regulations and the pandemic and a variety of other things, supply chain constraints, we just never got back up to the place where we had enough home starts, home building projects to meet the demand, especially in light of the millennials Gen X, which now needs single family homes.

They're starting families. We're seeing more and more people move out of densely populated areas, move into suburban areas because they're working remotely. So all of that has kept housing prices up, and I think it will, but I think the pace is going to moderate. Now, we also expect the stock market to moderate over the next 10 to 20 years.

I think we'll be more in the kind of six, seven percent range with those market analysts that I talked to versus nine plus, like we saw in annualized returns in the stock market over the last 20 years. So what do you do with all that? Well, I just think, A, you've got to realize you're going to be highly concentrated, so you're not diversified. So you've got a lot of eggs in one basket there, depending on one real estate market. Number two is there's a lot of expenses that come with that. So with a beach property, now you're adding inexpensive homeowners policy, especially if you're in a hurricane zone. You're adding all the costs of maintenance and upkeep and property taxes, which are high. So you've just got to count the cost, and then you've got to look at your bigger retirement plan, meaning when you stop working, what assets do you need to generate income, which this may or may not be income generating, especially if you're using it.

And will that be enough to offset what you're going to get from Social Security and cover your bills? So I think there's a lot of things just to think and pray through. I don't mind you having real estate. The only concern I have and what you described is I just think, given that it would require almost all, if not all of your retirement assets, it's just too highly concentrated.

It violates the diversification principle. So think about that, pray through it and make a good decision. But we appreciate your call today and being on the program. God bless you, sir. Let's go out to Texas. Hi, Daniel. Thanks for your call, sir. Go ahead.

Hello there. My wife and I have a revocable trust, as well as investments. We are thinking about moving to Illinois to a senior living facility. We wonder if Illinois will have any way that they can get their hands on that money and that property. Yeah, no, unless there was some sort of judgment against you or unless you spend down all of your assets and ultimately go on Medicaid to pay for a nursing home, let's say, in a Medicaid approved facility, and then they try to recover some of that money out of your estate. Now, a revocable trust does not provide protection against creditors like an irrevocable trust does. The only challenge is with an irrevocable trust, you lose control over it. So I like the revocable trust for efficiency and transferring those assets to the next generation. Not going to do a whole lot for you, though, in terms of creditor protection. And yes, the state can recover or the government Medicaid expenses if you end up on Medicaid.

But for the rest of your questions, I'd seek out the counsel of an attorney. Thanks for your call. Let's go to Chicago. Hi, Tina. Hi. How are you, Rob? Thank you for taking my call. Sure. Your show has been a blessing to me.

I've been listening for years. Well, thank you. My question is, I have been overpaid Social Security SSDI. I have been paid an overpayment and I'm paying it back. And I wanted to know, do I have to have all that repaid before I retire and get my retirement benefit? No, they'll put you on a payment plan and it can be extended into your retirement benefits once you switch and it wouldn't prevent you from receiving retirement benefits. It will just reduce your benefits equal to that payment plan that you have until it's all repaid fully. Does that make sense?

It does. Thank you so much. You're welcome.

Yeah. So I think the key is just make sure you know what that payment plan is. If you don't have one, you're going to want to talk to them to get on a payment plan to ultimately repay it back, since you can't do that in a lump sum.

And whatever that amount is will just be reduced from your retirement benefits when you get to that point. So hopefully that helps you. We appreciate your call today. Thanks for being along with us today. Big thanks to my team today.

Devin, Pat and Taylor couldn't do it without them. I'm grateful you were along with us as well. Hope you come back and join us tomorrow. We'll see you then. Bye bye. Faith and Finance is provided by Faith Buy and listeners like you.