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Learn more at Praxismutualfunds.com. As Christmas Day draws near, we often hear stories of generosity, kindness, and the spirit of giving. But perhaps no story has inspired these virtues more than the tale of Saint Nicholas. Hi, I'm Rob West. Today we'll explore the story of a man whose life was a testament to selfless love and generosity and whose actions echoed the true meaning of Christmas. 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. Nicholas was born around 280 AD into a wealthy Christian family in Patara, Turkey, a busy trading hub on the Mediterranean coast. From an early age, he was taught to follow the teachings of Jesus, especially the call to care for the poor and downtrodden. His parents, devout believers, lived out these values daily, planting seeds in Nicholas' heart that would later bear incredible fruit. But tragedy struck when Nicholas was still a boy. An epidemic claimed the lives of his parents, leaving him orphaned but with a considerable inheritance. In his grief, Nicholas found solace in his faith. Rather than clinging to his wealth, he saw it as a means to serve others, a tool to live out the gospel message of love and generosity. Nicholas began to use his wealth to quietly help those in desperate situations. His most famous act of generosity involves a poor man and his three daughters. In those days, a dowry, a financial gift, was required for a woman to marry. Without one, the daughters faced the grim prospect of being sold into slavery.
The father, though heartbroken, could do nothing to change their fate. Moved by their plight, Nicholas decided to intervene. Under the cover of night, he secretly delivered a bag of gold to the family. When the father discovered the unexpected gift, his joy was overwhelming. The eldest daughter's future was secured, but Nicholas didn't stop there.
On two more nights, he returned with gold for the other daughters, ensuring that each could marry and avoid the dangers of poverty. Though the father eventually discovered his benefactor's identity, Nicholas humbly urged him to give thanks to God alone. This act of secrecy reflects Jesus' teaching in Matthew 6.
When you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Nicholas didn't seek recognition. His only desire was to serve God and bring hope to others. Later in life, Nicholas became the Bishop of Myra, a role that allowed him to further his mission of compassion and justice. As a church leader, he was known for his deep love for his people, his unwavering commitment to the poor, and his courage in defending the innocent.
He risked imprisonment during the persecution of Christians under Emperor Diocletian and later attended the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, standing firm for the truth of the Gospel. But what set Nicholas apart was not just his position or influence, it was his Christ-like love. He lived out the Gospel message in every breath, reminding people that true wealth is found in a personal relationship with God himself. His acts of kindness pointed others to the greatest gift of all, Jesus Christ, who came into the world to save sinners and offer eternal life. After Nicholas' death on December 6, 343 AD, stories of his generosity continue to spread throughout the centuries.
In time, he became known as the protector of children, the patron of sailors, and a symbol of selfless giving. His life inspired the figure of Santa Claus, but behind the red suit and cheerful laughter lies the legacy of a man who lived to glorify God. The story of Saint Nicholas challenges us to reflect on the true meaning of Christmas.
His life wasn't about giving extravagant gifts or earning recognition. It was about embodying the love of Christ, a love that is sacrificial, humble, and freely given. This Christmas, as we exchange presents and celebrate with loved ones, let's remember that the greatest gift has already been given. Like Saint Nicholas, we're called to share that gift with others. Whether through acts of generosity and service or kind words of encouragement, we can reflect the light of Christ in a world that desperately needs hope. After all, as Jesus said, it is more blessed to give than to receive. May the story of Saint Nicholas inspire us to give generously, love deeply, and celebrate the true meaning of Christmas. After all, it's not the gifts we receive, but the love that we share that makes this season truly special.
On behalf of our entire team here at Faithfi, Merry Christmas! All right, your calls are next. That number, 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000. I'm Rob West, and this is Faith and Finance, biblical wisdom for your financial journey.
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Financial wisdom for living well, soundmindinvesting.org. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance. All right, it's time to take your calls and questions today. 800-525-7000. That's right, we've got lines open. We're ready for you.
The rest of the program is yours. 800-525-7000. You can call right now. Let's dive in today. We're going to go out to Albuquerque to begin today. Cody, you'll be our first caller, sir. Go ahead.
Hey there, Rob. I guess my question was that I'm a newlywed. I'm only 26 years old, so I was looking to invest in something, whether it be real estate. But my main question was on the topic of cryptocurrency. And if you had any perspective on, you know, where it's going to go, maybe in the future, like if it's, you know, when stocks first came out, everyone thought it was a big gamble and whatnot. But I mean, I know cryptocurrency is pretty new to the general public, but I mean, I don't know if you had any fresh perspectives. That would fill my mind, you know, maybe if it's good, bad, you know, if you're warm about it, kind of just asking about that, I guess.
Yeah, makes sense, Cody. So some thoughts generally about crypto and then we can get into your specific situation. First of all, I don't think it's going anywhere. I mean, this is a new form of computing technology. We're thinking about it most often these days in the form of a new digital financial system. But it will have far more applications than just that in terms of the technology behind it.
And it's not going anywhere. Now, as it relates to a new form of money, we most often think about Bitcoin. And that kicked off in 2008 with an anonymous white paper that interestingly was only nine pages long.
Anyone can download it and read it. But the vision was a peer to peer currency outside the control of any government. And it checks all the boxes of functional money.
You know, these you might have learned about these in economics class, durability, portability, fungibility, scarcity, divisibility and recognizability are a few of them. And more importantly, and in direct contrast to the inflationary monetary policies we're seeing around the world today, Bitcoin was designed from the beginning to be sound money. So unlike government currencies, which are constantly being devalued and by printing more, there's a fixed cap of bitcoins at 21 million that can ever be produced. And so it has a lot of the same, quote, sound money appeals that have attracted people to gold. And that's why you'll often hear it called digital gold. Now, the value of Bitcoin raced ahead at an astonishing pace, and it's had quite a bit of volatility along the way. But the big idea is that the technology, which runs on something called block chain, which is that record of transactions that are maintained on a decentralized network of computers, are pretty appealing. Because in this age right now, where people are questioning, you know, the Federal Reserve and global health institutions and what they're telling us and big tech companies that are deplatforming people. There's quite a bit of appeal here because it doesn't require this blind trust in an institution that's controlling the ledger. And so with cryptos, it takes something we're already familiar with, currency, saving, lending and so on, which normally requires us to interact with a big institution. And it redesigns that function using a computer code in a way that enables groups to accomplish it in a trustless, decentralized way.
So that's the technology. But as it relates to an investment, it's still pretty speculative. And so because of where we are still very early in the development of cryptos, we're in that speculation phase, like you might have thought of the dot coms and, you know, 99 in 2000.
AI is in a similar place now. And so there's a lot of volatility in crypto. And in particular, because, you know, number one, we just don't know still today which cryptocurrencies are going to survive and which ones are going to end up worthless. We've already seen a few of them fail. And then secondly, we don't totally know how the governments around the world are going to react to Bitcoin and other cryptos as they threaten their stranglehold over money, frankly.
And so they, you know, governments get a lot of benefit from controlling their currencies and giving people a way to opt out of the official money via something like Bitcoin could ruffle some feathers and has been. So I think for those reasons, I would keep it in the most speculative category. And when we're dealing with speculative investments, we need to have all of our other boxes checked first. So I would want you to be out of consumer debt, namely credit cards. I would want you to have that emergency fund. I'd want you to be saving in your retirement account.
But if you had all of those pieces in place and you said, I wanted to take 5%, certainly no more than 10% of your portfolio and put it in something like Bitcoin, I would be OK with that as long as you understood the inherent risks along the lines of what I just described. Does that make sense, though, Cody? That makes complete sense. I guess it's just I'm just trying to find something, I guess, along the lines of either like real estate or something, just because I'm self-employed. So that's kind of the reason that I don't have, you know, I'm not accumulating any 401K or anything like that right now. And just for the fact of, I guess, I make more money doing being my own boss, I guess, in a way, you know what I mean? Yeah. Do you have a SEP IRA, SEP, SEP IRA?
I don't. OK, that might be something to look into, because that's going to allow you to put away a lot more money than you would be able to in an IRA, for instance. So the SEP IRA is going to allow you to put in $69,000 or 25% of your compensation and then you could invest it in a crypto ETF. But I'd make that a very small portion and put the bulk of it in a properly diversified stock and bond portfolio.
And then when you're ready, I love real estate as well, but I think getting that money in a tax-deferred environment in a SEP IRA would be a great next step for you. Cody, thanks for your call, my friend. God bless you. Let's go to Holland, Michigan. Hi, Betty. Go ahead.
Hi. My husband recently passed away. I am not 62 yet.
I'm 61. Is there a negative side effect or penalty if I were to wait till I'm 62, click on my Social Security, then switch over to his survival spousal benefit two to three years down the road? Yeah, there is not.
No. And so, you know, this is something you can do with survivor's benefits, Betty. And by the way, I'm so sorry to hear about your husband's passing, but your survivor's benefits versus your benefits are in two different buckets. So you do have the ability to pick and choose what you want to take and when. That's not the case with spousal benefits. You don't have that same opportunity to choose.
So, yes, you're right. So what you could do would be start collecting your benefit as soon as 62. You will have you will lock in that reduction of your own benefit, probably 30 percent or so, based on your work record, and then it'd be reduced from there based on your full retirement age benefit.
That you could begin collecting. And then at a point of your choosing, you could switch over to your survivor's benefits, which would be equal to what your husband would have received as his primary benefit. But reduced by the age you start taking it, which obviously will be less of a reduction if you're now 64 or 65 and perhaps his benefit check was higher to begin with. And so you would then jump up to that higher amount at that point. But you absolutely have that option to kind of pick and choose between the two. Does that make sense?
It does. You know, he his would be almost like three times as what mine was because I never made much. Yeah, and that's right. And you would get that. And that's the purpose of survivor's benefits is you get to take not both, but you get to take the higher of the two and you have the option to collect your husband's retirement benefit. It will just be his full retirement benefit, but then reduce based on the age you begin collecting it.
But to your point, if you can wait on taking that by taking yours now and then switching to his later, it'll be less of a reduction off of his starting point, which was already three times higher. Let's talk a bit more off the air. Stay right there.
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This is faith and finance. Let's go right back to the phones to Chicago. Barbara, thanks for your patience. Go ahead. Hi, Rob.
Thank you for taking my call. I have a savings account saved up for my grandchildren and I was wondering if in a credit union account. OK, just a savings account. Yes, just a savings account. And I was wondering if I should put them in individual CDs for each child or what. Yeah.
Yeah. You know, from a an efficiency standpoint, they really don't need to be in multiple accounts. I mean, as long as you have put a beneficiary designation on the account and then named each of the grandchildren and determine the percentage that each one gets. There's not really any benefit to you having individual accounts, especially if you're not going to go ahead and give them the money.
And your plan is to give it to them when you pass away. So then the next question is, is the savings account the best place for that money? You know, if you know, the benefit of a savings account is it's flexible and it's liquid. You can add more to it or take money out at any time. And the beneficiaries, your grandkids would be able to access it without any penalties or issues that you're passing. The downside is it earns a lower rate of interest.
So you could look at a CD. Similarly, you know, you would get basically a guaranteed return or as close to it as you can, because if you're under two hundred fifty thousand, you'd have FDIC insurance from the US government and you might get a little bit of a higher rate of return than a savings account. But the only downside is you're locked in for a set term. So, you know, there could be some penalties for early withdrawals. But I think the bottom line is keeping it in one account makes sense. I think you may want to consider either just leaving it there, moving it to a CD or, you know, because this is money that, you know, potentially is going to be there for quite a while before it's transferred to your grandkids, you know, do you want to think about investing it? And although you'd be assuming some risk, you'd have a much higher potential for this money to grow so that ultimately they'd have more.
But that is just going to come down to your personal preference on how much risk you're willing to take for a potential higher return. Does that make sense? Yes.
Makes a lot of sense. Yes. OK. Yeah. Very good.
Yeah. Barbara, I appreciate your call today. If we can help in any other way, don't hesitate to reach out. Let's go to Indiana. Hi, Caitlin. Go ahead.
Hi. So I was just wondering what kind of impact I would expect from closing a credit card on my credit score. So in college, I got a secured card and because at the time my credit score wasn't very good, I didn't have anything like to my name. And I've had that card for about nine years, but I've tried to get it unsecured multiple times and they've denied me. And since then, I've also gotten a different card with a much higher account, like balance that I could use.
And I've had that one for almost six years now and I've just gotten really frustrated. So I'm really thinking about closing this card that I had in college. But the banker told me I dropped my credit score to 300 points and I didn't think I was accurate, but I just kind of wanted to verify.
Yeah. No, you won't get a 300 point drop. So here's what happens.
Here's why you will likely see a drop, although I would expect to be very minimal, is, number one, credit utilization. Now, let me ask you a question. Are you carrying a balance on any of the cards that you have right now? So the one that I've had for nine years, I just don't use anymore.
It just kind of sits there. So I don't have a balance on that. And then the other one I pay off regularly as much as I can. It's like it won't let you pay the pending charges to have to wait for those to go through.
But once they're in, I pay those. OK, so you end up paying it in full, correct? Yes. OK. And what is the limit on that card?
Do you know? On the other one that I have or the secured one? Not the secured one.
The one that you use every day. Six thousand. OK. And what do you typically, on a typical month, how much do you charge on it before you pay it off? Probably a thousand.
OK. Yeah. So you're in good shape there. The only issue you might have is, see, right now, even though you're not using that secured card from college, the total available credit from that card is added to the card that you use every day. And, you know, you might have six thousand on that card.
And then let's say you have another five to ten thousand on the other one. You might have a total of ten to fifteen thousand in available credit. And if you were carrying a balance on that card that you're using actively, when you close the older card, the secured one, that availability is going to go away, the limit that you're not using. And so what it would do is it would make the balance you were carrying a higher percentage of the total available credit because we eliminated the available credit of the older card. But that's not really a factor for you because really the threshold you want to be focused on is 30 percent utilization. And you're not you don't have 30 percent utilization because if you're charging a thousand dollars on six thousand, you're never getting above 16 to 20 percent of the credit utilization on that card. So you're in good shape. The only other factor would be the length of credit history, because that's an older card and you're eliminating it when it comes out of the credit scoring algorithm.
You're now your oldest card is six years old instead of nine years old. It's not quite as much and that could cause you to drop a little bit. But I think that probably the maximum impact you could be looking at is probably somewhere between 20 and 40 points.
And I think it would only be temporary probably for two or three or four months and it'd be right back up where it was. So I wouldn't be concerned about it. And if you're not using it, I like the idea of you getting rid of it. OK. So with that, so my secured card is only for three hundred dollars. OK. So then the credit utilization is totally not a factor. So we can eliminate that. So the only potential issue is that you're getting rid of what was your oldest card and now your oldest card is three years younger.
But again, that's going to have a very minimal impact on your score and it's going to be very temporary. OK. Yeah. And are you looking to go out and buy anything that involves credit? Are you going to get a new car or anything like that anytime soon?
Not in my foreseeable future. OK, good. Because if you were saying to me, Rob, next month I need to go out and buy a new used car and I'm going to borrow, you know, I'm going to need to get a loan. It's probably not the month to close the account, because even if you drop 20 or 30 points, you could still go from the best tier to the next lower tier. And you just wouldn't want to have that going on right at that time.
But if you're not planning on going out and trying to open a new credit account or get a loan, then you don't need to even think about that. I'd close it immediately. OK, awesome. Thank you. You're very welcome.
Thanks for your call today. Hey, as we round out the broadcast today, let me finish by encouraging you to think about prayerfully partnering with us here at Faithfi. You see, we have a vision that Christians would see God as their ultimate treasure. And we do that through this broadcast every day, through our Faithfi studies and devotionals, through our new publication that's coming out in the first quarter of next year in January. 52 page publication that will have really thoughtful articles to equip you as a steward. That and so much more is what we're doing here at Faithfi.
And it requires you. The good news is between now and December 31st, every gift doubled until we get to 150,000. If you'd like to be a part of it, go to faithfi.com and click Give. A big thanks to my team today, Amy, Jim, Dan and Anthony. We'll see you tomorrow. Bye bye. Faith and Finance is provided by Faithfi and listeners like you.
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