Shareholder Engagement Success Stories

In Luke 21 15, Jesus says, For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. We're now seeing this more than ever with faith-based investing. That's right, Christian shareholders are making their voices heard in some of the world's biggest companies, changing policies that oppose biblical principles. Host Rob West talks about this and more with investing expert Robert Netzle than it's your calls on anything at 800-525-7000. I'm Steve Moore, shareholder engagement success stories, next right here on MoneyWise Live.

Rob Robert Netzle is CEO of Inspire Investing and underwriter of MoneyWise Live, where they've taken the battle for biblical principles right into the boardroom. Well, and no doubt, Steve, our listeners will be inspired by the stories of success they've been having. Robert, it's a delight to have you back with us on the program. Pleasure to be here.

Thanks, guys. Robert, concerned investors often take the approach of avoiding so-called sin stocks, screening out those companies who are misaligned with somebody's values. And that's perfectly fine if that's where your conscience leads you. We've often said this is a conviction matter. But shareholder engagement is a much different approach, almost radical, you could say. So explain that for us.

Absolutely. And certainly it's important to, you know, avoid companies where your conscience just doesn't let you sleep at night, you know, companies that are involved in abortion, drug manufacturing, pornography, things like that. But there's a huge opportunity to engage with corporations as shareholders, where you can really speak directly into the company with biblical values and have more influence than you might think.

Yeah, exactly right. And I'd love for you to give us some examples, Robert, of how companies typically go off the rails with their corporate policies and help us understand why they do it. Well, certainly they can have products services that are, you know, in direct opposition to biblical values. More of the time when we involve ourselves in shareholder engagement, it's around issues such as philanthropy or legislative support. The companies might be involved with, you know, getting money to Planned Parenthood or sponsoring LGBT activist organizations or events or things of that nature, where they're really just taking a stance and promoting a certain viewpoint that is, you know, not associated with their business, and really opposing to biblical values. So those are a couple of areas that we typically engage with. Yeah, so essentially, they're taking corporate profits, and they're using those to advocate for certain causes or issues.

Is that right? Yeah, and oftentimes, it's more of the, you know, the pet projects or the ideological stances of the executives or the board and really not representative, certainly of their shareholders at large. And it's really unfair, and it's, we feel a wrong use of corporate influence, and doesn't really give a very inclusive approach to their to their stakeholders, such as people of faith who own shares in these companies. Yeah, well, and the idea here is that as an owner of a company, albeit very small percentage owner, and yet still an owner, the investors can have a voice. And in fact, what you're talking about here is leveraging that voice either as an individual investor, or in the case of Inspire on behalf of your investors to make the values of the investors known and hopefully influence what's going to happen.

We'll get into some success stories after the break. But give us an idea of what this looks like. How might you go about letting the values of your investors be known to the company? Well, it's really as easy as picking up the phone and calling investor relations, you know, or shoot an email, those numbers and emails are publicly available. And, and it's their job to listen to shareholders big and small.

Or you can invest like with a firm like us with Inspire Investing and know that our team is methodically and intentionally reaching out to these companies on your behalf. Yeah, just a few seconds left, Robert, the good thing is that all of this data is available now and you all are actually scouring the web and other resources to know where these corporate profits are going. So you actually have visibility into this, don't you?

We do. Yeah, we've made that publicly available at Inspire insight.com. Anybody can go there and type in a ticker symbol at stock or mutual fund or ETF and see all the good, bad and ugly that's going on. Well, we'll get into some examples of success stories where shareholder engagement has actually made a big difference right around the corner.

That's right. You're listening to MoneyWise Live. Our guest is Robert Netzle, CEO of Inspire Investing, and we'll be back with more, including your calls at 1-800-525-7000, 800-525-7000.

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Ma'am, you have an opinion? The good has to outweigh the bad or you're not getting in. I know I need to start giving up some of my bad habits. I try not to think about it very much. There are too many things I need to change about my life.

I just hope I make it. Maybe you're like these two people. You think you have to change and become a better person before you'll get to heaven.

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You can give quickly and safely by clicking the donate tab when you visit MoneyWiseLive.org. Your host is Rob West. I'm Steve Moore and our guest is Robert Netzle, CEO of Inspire Investing. If you're a shareholder in a company that's doing things you don't really approve of, how can you impact who they are and what they do? That's what we're chatting about today.

Rob? Well, I'm excited to talk about this largely untapped approach to investing, specifically using your voice and influence as a shareholder to let your values be known and influence how the company is using their corporate profits and Robert, we've had some exciting success stories. I know Inspire has been involved in many of them, so let's get into some specifics where using shareholder engagement that is actively challenging policies that go against God's word has been effective and let's start today with Chevron, one of the world's biggest oil companies. Yeah, Chevron had a long history of corporate donations to Planned Parenthood. They're headquartered up in the San Francisco Bay area near our headquarters for Inspire Investing over here, so kind of even a local presence and obviously using shareholder dollars to sponsor Planned Parenthood and all that they stand for is troubling, to say the least, for many investors. We had partnered with some other friends and investors in the industry and filed a shareholder resolution with Chevron and it ended up being successful to the effect that Chevron stopped donating money to Planned Parenthood, plain and simple. In this example, it's good because even though the shareholder resolution didn't actually pass, these hardly ever get enough votes to actually pass, but it causes PR issues, it causes noise to be generated around a certain issue that the corporations just kind of have to sit up and take notice. In its regard, God was gracious and gave us this win.

Yeah, I love to hear it. Costco, Robert, is another huge company that has riled in Christian investors in recent years. Talk to us about what's taken place there. Yeah, Costco had been in our investment portfolios for some time, good stock that we like to hold, and then through our annual updates of our screening data on inspireinsight.com, we noticed that they had begun donating money to a few gay pride parades around the country.

It's the first time that they had done that. Obviously, it's not in line with the values that we're looking to support. So, we just reached out. I reached out myself on this one and gave the investor relations department a call, got their voicemail, and within a half an hour, I had a call back from their chief financial officer who was getting on a plane in the airport, and yet he made time to call me. We're not like this huge business. We're not like Vanguard or BlackRock or one of these trillion dollar organizations, but he called me and started a conversation that lasted on and off here for a couple of months as we were able to share the concerns of Christian investors around this issue. Like, look, we want to be inclusive and tolerant, but it doesn't mean that you have to take sides and use our investor dollars to support things that are opposing to our viewpoints.

Can you just do your business and kind of stay neutral on these social issues? We really appreciate that. And so it was a very winsome conversation. He was very receptive and said, he actually thanked me for calling, saying, you know, we've never, ever heard from faith-based Christian conservative shareholders on these issues. Thank you for calling and sharing this input, and it resulted in them deciding as an organization not to make those types of donations anymore. Well, it's incredible that you took the time to engage.

He obviously is receptive and the fact that he's highlighted the fact that he's not hearing from others says there's a huge missed opportunity here. Let's move to another example. Obviously, a very well-known company, Amazon. They've used extremist Southern Poverty Law Center to determine which nonprofits can benefit from its Amazon Smiles program that resulted in many faith-based charities being denied access. But you're seeing signs, Robert, that Amazon is willing to change that policy. Its founder, Jeff Bezos, said as much in a recent appearance before Congress when questioned by Congressman Matt Gaetz about the SPLC's treatment of Dr. Ben Carson, the former HUD secretary.

We have a clip of that. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Bezos, we were cut short in our last discussion. I just wanted to give you the chance to clear this up. You don't believe Dr. Ben Carson is an extremist, do you?

No, sir, I don't. So help me understand why you would partner with a group that labels him as someone worthy of an extremist watch list. Well, I want you to hopefully appreciate when we're trying to make it possible for people to donate to any number from millions of different charities and we need to have some source of data to use. And while I accept what you're saying that the Southern Poverty Law Center and the U.S. Foreign Asset Office are not perfect and I would like a better source if we could get it, that is what we use today. Robert, I'd love for you to react to that comment by Bezos.

How significant is that? It was a huge watershed moment, you know, from our perspective. For Bezos to say we would like a better option are words he's never uttered. And this has been a longstanding issue for going back several years, where many conservative faith-based organizations have been very engaged with Amazon, pointing out the egregious problems with the Southern Poverty Law Center. And Amazon has been completely dogmatic in their embracing of SPLC and defense of SPLC, never wavering on that. And we had earlier this year, prior to this congressional hearing, we had been involved in a cohort of other Christian investor groups and organizations where, again, we filed a shareholder resolution with Amazon directed at this issue regarding the SPLC.

And by God's grace, we're able to get enough, you know, interest and signatures so that actually made it to the shareholder ballot. So every shareholder of Amazon worldwide got to vote on this issue. And the board of Amazon, including Mr. Bezos himself on the board, had to come up with a response to this issue and look into this issue. And so there was pressure prior to where, you know, I wrote an op-ed in the Christian Post, basically that companies even the size of Amazon, you know, one of the largest companies in the world really cannot afford to just ignore offhandedly the voice of Christian investors. You know, and we're not here to make problems for people, but we do want to express our viewpoints and we would appreciate if the companies that we own listen to those viewpoints and respect those viewpoints. And so for Bezos then to sit before Congress and confess that they would like to have a different option is enormous.

Yeah, incredible, Robert. Well, we're so grateful for your partnership here at MoneyWise Media and it's clear that shareholder engagement is having an impact on some very big companies. And we appreciate you stopping by to share some of those exciting success stories with us.

I know there's another side to faith based investing, not just the avoiding and the engaging, but really embracing companies making a positive impact in the world. So we'll have to have you back sometime to tell us more about what you're doing in that particular space. But we appreciate you stopping by today. It is my pleasure, guys. Thanks for having me. Robert Nestle has been with us today.

You can find out more about inspireinvesting.com right there and check out their free tool for evaluating companies at inspireinsight.com. We'll be back with more. Your phone calls to 800-525-7000, 800-525-7000. I'm Steve Moore.

We'll be right back. This is MoneyWise Live. Many people adopt an attitude toward marriage and finances that it'll all work out somehow, but sadly it often doesn't. Financial woes can devastate a marriage, but there is a better way. God's Way. Money and Marriage God's Way by Howard Dayton will help you discover God's approach to growing your finances, strengthening your relationship with your mate, and cultivating Godly joy.

Money and Marriage God's Way is available when you click the store button at moneywiselive.org. Hebrews 4-12 says, For the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. Here's Beth Moore with a quick word. I started thinking about God's perfect will because we talk about God's permissive will and his perfect will. Now we can just flat not do God's will. Now God's going to do his own will. The question is, are we going to be engaged in that? Are we going to be part of what God's doing in our generation? Then there's the permissive will and the perfect will. Here's what occurred to me.

I don't know if this is right, so I don't really take this down. But I thought to myself, I would believe that the perfect will of God is his chosen means to the chosen end. In other words, he's after something, and the perfect will of God is the perfect way he wants that to happen in your life to get you there. Permissive will is when we still get to that end, but, boy, was it ugly.

We came around on him, but, boy, boy, was it ugly. Now you may say, well, but he ended up doing either way. Now, again, I want to say we could have just not done the will of God. But I'm saying if we really want to do the will of God, we want to get to that achieving end, that purpose in that situation. Was there an easier way? Oh, I have to believe.

Yes, Lord, please, yes. I have to believe that. Did he not bring us to that end anyway? Then what was the difference? The difference is unnecessary pain. That's it.

Unnecessary discomfort, unnecessary irritation that nearly turned us inside out on the way. You've been listening to Beth Moore with a quick word for today. Beth is dedicated to encouraging people to come to know and love Jesus Christ through the study of Scripture.

Why wait? Click online today. Pick a podcast or television teaching or both. Just visit BethMoore.org. That's BethMoore.org or download the living proof app. Glad you could join us for a quick word with Beth Moore. Would you like your life to be infused with joy? Would you like to interject an eternal dimension into even the most ordinary day? Author Randy Alcorn says you can when you discover the Treasure Principle. In a concise, power-packed style, this newly revised and updated book offers a six-step plan to finding the immediate pleasure and eternal rewards of the Treasure Principle.

And once you discover it, life will never look the same. The Treasure Principle is available when you click the store button at MoneyWiseLive.org. And welcome back to MoneyWise Live. Rob West is your host.

I'm Steve Moore, and this is the place where you're welcome to join us. Give us a call to talk about anything financial that might be on your mind. Let's do that. Here's our phone number, 800-525-7000. We have at least four open lines right now, so this would be a great time to call and to get through.

800-525-7000. Rob, what do you say we begin, okay? That sounds great.

Let's go up to Northern Idaho. Colleen, thank you very much for contacting us today, and what's in your mind? Yeah, hi, thanks for taking my call. I wanted, I had a little bit of an inheritance, not that much. It's like $60,000, and I wanted to invest it into the land here, but the prices have gone up so much. So I was just wanting to know, like, would it be best just to keep it in the bank, and if so, do you think the banks are safe?

Just with everything that's happening in our world right now, if there was like a EMP or whatever, all this stuff that people talk about, you know. But I just, it was from my grandpa, and he invested into land and property, and so I want to do the same thing in honor of my grandfather. So I just was wanting some wisdom on that, and I can hang up to listen to your, the call. Well, if you don't mind, hang on, because I might have just a couple of questions if that's okay, and I appreciate you calling, Colleen, and I also appreciate what you said there at the end, which is you want to honor your grandfather's legacy with how you use this money. I would also say, though, that he's entrusted this to you, and so you're the steward, which means that as you consider this prayerfully as to what you would do next, I want you to really think through that in terms of you now being the one responsible before the Lord for this money. And I'd like to explore this idea that you want to honor your grandfather a bit more. Did he ask you specifically to use it in a certain way, or do you know that he just happened to be fond of real estate, and so you feel like that's a way just to allow his legacy to continue?

Tell me a bit more about that. Yeah, well, I tithed. The first thing I did was I tithed 10%, you know, right off the bat. And so I said it, I have a specific, I felt like I prayed about it, and I felt like his Holy Spirit directed it to a certain situation he wanted me to tithe to, so I set up a separate account until that situation is ready. And so then that leaves me with the amount that I have, but it's not, well, it's like $70,000, but I don't really have a lot of options here in northern Idaho because things are so expensive. But I do feel like I'm out of debt, and so I just felt like the best way too would be to have like, you know, land or some, you know, a house.

We built a little house that we can move it to our land. So, but yes, I'm just trying to like, think of the best way to use it. Yeah, very good. It's out, it's dwindling, because it, you know.

Yes. Well, that makes complete sense. And so that would be the first thing I would do is really ask the Lord to give you wisdom, which clearly you've done, to think about any giving opportunities right off the top. You've already done that. That's great. The next thing I would do is look at this money in light of not only biblical principles, but your God-given goals and objectives.

And typically, I would kind of run through the list. Do we have consumer debt? You said no. Do we have an emergency fund? If not, this might be a start to that.

Is there any other kind of short-term goals we're trying to accomplish? And if not, then I think investing this for your future is a great opportunity. In terms of considering land versus other investment types, you know, land can be a good investment, but it can also be more challenging in the sense that there's just so many factors to consider.

It doesn't always increase in value. It could lose value, actually, because of rezoning and other factors. You have to consider whether raw land is capable of accommodating building plans.

What is the water availability, road access? You know, what is the plan for selling it down the road? You know, there's easements on the property. So it tends to be a little more illiquid, and there's a bit more risk just because of some of these factors as opposed to a real estate investment that would be income producing like buying a duplex or buying, you know, a small home that you could rent out or a more passive type investment like just a well-diversified stock and bond portfolio where you're not having to get the calls that the maintenance is needed and the plumbing and, you know, you don't have to market it and make sure somebody's renting it. You know, you can just be properly diversified and let that grow over time, which obviously takes a lot of the burden and stress off of it. So considering that land and some of the challenges that I mentioned versus real estate where you'd look to be a landlord versus a stock and bond portfolio, just react to those options and what your thoughts are. Oh, um, so with the real estate, like I wouldn't, I was trying to be debt free as well.

Um, that we've, my husband and I have done the Dave Ramsey book and we, that's really helped us have financial freedom. And so, but my sister did mention like, you know, getting in on like a house, like if you could do a down payment on a house, even though like you might be in a little bit of debt. Um, I don't know how you feel about that. Like a down payment, like on a real estate that already has a house on it.

Yes. Well, I'm, I'm not opposed to that. And I think there are some rules that we can look at when we're borrowing.

First of all, I don't think borrowing is prohibited in God's word. I do think as husband and wife, you need to be in complete agreement before you take on any debt. Number two, we want to use it for economically productive purposes. So we want the economic cost to be less than the economic gain, meaning, uh, we would want to make sure that there's a reason to believe this is going to increase in value over time. We want to make sure it doesn't put too much stress on your budget. We also want to make sure that you have a guaranteed way of repayment, which just simply means it's collateralized so you could always sell the property and pay off the loan. So if all those things are in place, I would be okay, but I think you've got to start with, do we have a conviction around being debt free and are my husband and I in complete agreement? And if the answer to either of those is no, I would pass on it.

Apart from that, I would just strongly consider connecting with a financial advisor, somebody who shares your values, who could perhaps put this to work for you in a stock and bond portfolio. Let's do this. You hang on the line. I want to answer that last question about are the banks safe? And then we'll wrap up today.

We will indeed 800-525-7000. This is MoneyWise Live. How should we as Christians think about investing? What if we could invest our money in a way that aligns with what we believe? At Eventide, we believe it is possible to love God and love our neighbor in the very practice of investing. We design investments for performance and a better world so you can invest for the future with a sense of wholeness and purpose. We call this investing that makes the world rejoice.

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You'll find it all in Master Your Money. With SRN News, I'm John Scott. Americans lining up to vote on Election Day. President Trump and Democrat Joe Biden will await the results, which due to mail-in balloting, may not be finalized as soon as in past elections. A federal judge in Washington, D.C. has ordered U.S. Postal Service inspectors to sweep more than two dozen mail processing facilities for lingering mail-in ballots and for those ballots to be sent out immediately.

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The Dow up 555 points, the Nasdaq gaining 203. This is SRN News. Hey, we hope it's a great day wherever you are.

It's a great day here. It's made all the better when you give us a call and we have an opportunity to chat just a bit about anything financial that might be on your plate. So here's our phone number again.

Jot it down. 800-525-7000. 800-525-7000. Let's go back to our phones.

Boynton Beach, Florida. Hello, Shirley. Do you have a question? Yes. Hi. Hello.

I do have a question. I sold my home about two years ago and I wanted some ideas on how to invest the proceeds from that property. I'm looking for a biblical, profitable, safe way to invest that money because I do have two small children and I'm also in the process of a divorce. So I really want to be very careful how I invest that money. I see.

Well, I appreciate that background, Shirley, and I'm sorry to hear about the divorce. Let me ask you, are you planning to reinvest this in another home or is this money that will not go back into real estate? Part of it will go back to real estate as a home for us to live in and some of it, most of it, I would like to invest. Okay. So tell me what the proceeds were and how much you're looking to put into your next home.

The proceeds was about $38,000 roughly and I'm looking to put about $10,000 down on a new home. Okay. And what are you planning to spend on that home total purchase price?

Purchase price about $275,000. Okay. And why only $10,000 would you put down? Just because you want to be able to invest some? Exactly.

Yeah. You know, I would consider, I mean, I'd want to understand kind of what your other goals and objectives are, but assuming you don't have consumer debt like credit cards or student loans and you have an emergency fund in place, I'd really prayerfully consider Shirley going ahead and putting 20% down if you can. At the very least, put a full 10% down, which would be $27,500.

And I realized that would eat up a good bit of this money. The key though, is we want to try to get to 20% equity as quick as you can so you're not paying private mortgage insurance. I also don't want you to get into a situation where you buy the housing prices, which don't always go up long term, they have, but you know, in any given cycle you could see a dip in the housing prices and at some point you could be upside down if you just put just a little bit of money in there in the sense that even if you sold it, you wouldn't be able to pay off the mortgage. And so I'm hesitant for you to only put $10,000 down on a home of nearly $300,000. Are you contributing to a retirement plan at work of some kind?

No, I'm not. I'm actually self-employed. I have not put anything away for retirement yet, but I do have some savings in place for me and the children.

Yeah. So I might consider, you know, assuming you have three to six months emergency funds, if not, I would shore that up with this $38,000 or whatever's left of it that you have. And then beyond that, I'd consider putting the $27,500 down on the house. If you have anything left over, then you could use that perhaps to get your retirement account started.

I'd look at either an individual 401k or a SEP, S-E-P-I-R-A, and you'd probably want to connect with a certified kingdom advisor or another professional there in Boynton Beach just to see, you know, somebody who could advise you on getting this set up and getting started because now is the time to systematically start putting some money away for retirement. And this could be, you know, a few thousand dollars after the down payment and after you shore up your emergency fund to get you going, then the key will be to really dial back your spending in such a way that you have margin every month so you can systematically contribute to that retirement account moving forward as best you can. I realize as a single mom, money's going to be tight. I've counseled enough families in that situation to know that that's a real challenge.

So I think the key is just to really stay vigilant about spending on a plan and not letting your expenses get away from you. And I hope that's a help to you. Shirley, thank you very, very much. Let's continue on. Canton, Georgia. Hello, Beth. What's on your mind today?

Hey, thank you very much. I have a friend. She doesn't have an emergency fund. She's in a big house. She's going to downsize so she can be debt free. She's already got all that set up, the house she's found and everything.

But she, like I said, has no emergency fund, but she did inherit some silver coins and she needs badly to upgrade her kitchen so that she can get a better price when she sells a house. Yes. What about the silver coins? Yeah.

Number of things going on there, Beth. And I appreciate your help to her in this process. You know, your friend needs to have, as a starting point, these coins appraised to get an idea of their value and potential for increased value.

And depending on what her goals and objectives are, she may just want to go ahead and liquidate them, meaning sell them so she can get those resources and redirect them toward things that will be better suited for her long term. You want to look for an appraiser registered with the American Numismatic Association, Numismatic speaking to collectibles and coins. You could even look for somebody with even better pedigree at the Professional Coin Grading Service.

The website for that is PCGS.com, PCGS.com. They also have a pricing tool to get an idea of the coin's value just as a starting point. But to get a real accurate estimate, she's going to need to have an appraisal done.

I think that's key. And then she's going to want to prayerfully consider the value of that asset, just like she would if she inherited cash or stocks and bonds. It's just an asset that she needs to look at in light of her overall objectives, shoring up that emergency fund you were talking about and preparing the home to sell. Now, I'd be careful about updating the kitchen just because you can put a lot of money into the kitchen that you're not going to get out.

So I would have her connect with a real estate professional who can really advise her on the best uses of any money that she has as to preparing the home to maximize the selling price before she kind of launches into a major expense on that kitchen, get some counsel by at least one, if not two real estate professionals before she makes that decision. Beth, I hope that helps you. We're glad that you called today. And obviously, Rob, that's always a tough one because when we start talking about silver, sometimes people mean silver bars or silver coins just for the value of the silver. Then there's the numismatic value of a silver coin.

And it can be all over the map. While you were chatting, I was just online. This was the price of silver in 2011, $25 an ounce. In 2016, it dropped to $14. In 2020, it was $13 up until around April.

And then with the COVID concern, it's now jumped up to $28 today. But if you look over the last 10 years, it's been all over the map and there wasn't any real strong increase in value for the last 10 years if you had held it back in 2011. Well, I think that's right, Steve.

And I think just from a volatility standpoint and overall performance, she's going to be better off with a stock and bond portfolio over the long haul, especially just given the fact that when you go to sell silver coins, whether they're collectibles or just for the pure silver, often you'll have a markup for a dealer and there's just security issues when you're trying to secure these coins in your home or somewhere else. So I like perhaps moving out of these and thinking about another way to redeploy that money. Okay. And we like chatting with you. In fact, after the break, we'll come back and say hi to Tony in Brentwood, Tennessee, also Frank in Palmetto, Florida, and some others who were currently working their way through our phone system.

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Brentwood, Tennessee. Hey, Tony, what can we help you with, sir? Hey, guys, thanks for taking my call.

I'm calling because it's actually a two-part question. I have a young son and he's getting to the age where I think he can start picking up on, you know, investing and learning. And so I wanted to do something that I thought we could both be interested in. Collectibles came to mind.

I was thinking like baseball cards, stamps, coins, stuff like that, or maybe a hot toy. And then we sit on it. And by the time, you know, he's an adult, they may have appreciated and valued greatly.

You know, I guess everybody's got that bug now after watching shows like Pawn Stars. And then the second part of my question was, have you ever heard an old investor of mine told me that she had like 20 acres of playing a black walnut and 40 years you would have a couple million dollars from the timber and stuff. And that's something I was thinking for for my son, like long term, you know, if nothing changed in our lives, we could just sit on that.

And by the time he's trying to build his family, he might be able to take advantage of that. And I'll just listen. I appreciate it. Absolutely, Tony. And a couple of things come to mind as I hear you talking.

First of all, I appreciate so much you wanting to just walk alongside your son as you explore these opportunities to really teach some important lessons and to show them him the value of being diligent and saving, but also seeing a return on God's money. You know, a certain collection of beanie babies comes to mind. A certain collection? I'm sorry to interrupt. All right. OK. Yes. You remember the beanie baby craze where people would buy them and sell them? I have no idea why anyone would do that. Yes, we did that. And yeah, it was not a good idea.

There was eons ago. But here's the thing. You know, I think, first of all, one of the most important things you can do, Tony, is really teach him God's heart as it relates to his money, starting with the fact that God owns it all and that money is a tool to accomplish God's purposes, which makes us his money manager, his caretaker, and begin modeling those biblical principles and really beginning with that key idea, but also just the importance of being generous, holding everything loosely, living within your means, living according to a plan. And when we're done here today, I'd like for you to stand like, because I want to send you a book called The ABCs of Managing Money, God's Way that you could work your way through with him to begin teaching some of these valuable principles. But then to your point, I think showing him the value of investing, taking margin, meaning surplus beyond what you'd need for your expenses, which obviously as a child is, you know, most of his is going to be margin and putting it to work is really key. But I think doing it in something that has a proven track record, perhaps with less volatility and that is not, you know, that really is time tested in terms of being able to increase over time in value is something that I think will serve him well over time. And so I would tend to move more toward a stock and bond portfolio, probably a stock portfolio as opposed to things like baseball cards or coins or something that you would hope that would increase in value.

But in the end, you know, just don't perform very well. You know, historically speaking, you're just not going to do as well there, even though it might be fun for you all to get into it. I would look at it as a hobby, not as an investment. If you truly want to teach about investing and seeking a return, I would perhaps the two of you begin to partner together to explore some investment options, get involved in researching some companies and perhaps even introduce him to the faith based investing space where you can look at companies that are not only having a getting a great return, but they're making a difference in the world socially or even from a kingdom standpoint. So these are the things I would be looking at, Tony, as you look at an opportunity to walk alongside your son.

And I would think that you could have just as much fun with stocks and really set him up for the future in terms of some education that will serve him well down the road as opposed to doing something that I would akin more to a hobby. And Tony, we're going to leave you with that because we had some other callers lined up, but we wish you the best with that. Give that some prayerful consideration. And with the black walnut trees, we don't have a lot of time to get into that.

But of course you'll need a very, very, very large chainsaw down the road. Thanks for your call today. Palmetto, Florida. Hello, Frank, what's cooking? Hello.

Thank you for taking my call also. I'm almost 62 years old. I'm a widower for five years and I've also retired five years ago. I now receive my wife's social security. I have my pension and also I have savings in the background that I play with. And I also get my wife's retirement. So we both work for the government and we both had three savings programs and I combined them and that money is just sitting in the big nest egg up there. And I don't foresee that I will ever need it because I've been living five years on what I make now.

I know there are things that might come up, but what do I do? I want to give that money to my children. They're adult children.

It'd be like an inheritance. Yes. What do I do with that TSP account for the next 10 years?

Yes. You know, what I would consider, Frank, and I appreciate that background, I would consider rolling both TSPs or perhaps you've already consolidated them into a new IRA, an individual retirement account that could then be managed. If you don't have an advisor, you could connect with a certified kingdom advisor in the investment area at our website, MoneyWiseLive.org.

Just click find a CKA. Inside that IRA, you could invest it, which then you could leave as an inheritance. The other thing you could do is you could do some giving, some tax advantaged giving out of that, perhaps even get the kids involved in that now to really model a generous life and use the qualified charitable distribution to gift money directly out of that IRA to your church or other charities or ministries that are on your heart. And you don't have to realize any of that is income. So you get the deduction on the full amount of the value of the investment that you transfer and the ministry gets the full value for their purposes and no taxes paid.

So I think between the inheritance opportunity and the qualified charitable distribution, the IRA would serve you very well. Frank, thank you very much. We appreciate that phone call today.

And quickly, the Tampa Bay area in the state of Florida. Eli, we have just a couple of minutes. What's the situation there? Hey, how are you? Thank you for having me. Sure.

Yeah. What I have here is basically I'm trying to consolidate all my debts and using my home equity. Right now I'm estimating I have somewhere around the neighborhood of $170,000 equity on my home and around $140,000 in debt.

So what's the best way for me to go about this? Tell me about that debt, Eli. What type of debt is it? Well, the debt would be a second mortgage that I have on my home and then automobile debt and then some actual credit card debt on top of that. And how much of it is the credit card debt?

I'm sorry? How much of this $140,000 is credit card debt? I would say probably like $10,000 to $15,000 is probably credit card debt. All right. You know, are you living on a spending plan right now and are you able to live within your means currently? So far I am. I have a pension. I retired once. I'm 59. I'm going to be 59 Christmas. And I have a pension but I'm still working. And tell me this.

I see. And your current mortgage, what rate is it? What's the interest rate? It's at 4.25, I believe. How many years are left on it?

I would say probably 18, 19 years. Okay. And yeah. All right.

I think I've got the information. Here's where I'd go from here. I would be really hesitant. In fact, I would just encourage you not to roll the car and the credit card into the new mortgage. I think if you have good credit, if your credit score is good, and you've got documented income, I could see you refinancing and get, you know, on a 20-year mortgage 2.6, 2.7%, a much better rate that would save you money over time. Roll that second mortgage into the refi but keep the credit card debt and the automobile debt out because it just is too easy to roll that in and run it out over 20 years. And even though you're going to get the interest rate down, you're going to end up paying a lot of money. And I'd rather you go through the hard work of paying that off out of margin. With the credit card debt, I would put that in a credit counseling program. I'd visit with our friends at christiancreditcounselors.org. They'll get the interest rates down. But we want to be able to pay off that house over time. And if we put all this down on the house, string it out over 20 years, it's going to be with us for a long, long time.

So I'd go back to your spending plan, get the credit cards into a credit counseling program, try to get that auto loan coming down and refinance the first and the second with a new first mortgage. Eli, we're glad that you called. Thank you very much. And if you have a question or had a question for today, how about trying again tomorrow? We'll be back. Our phone number is 800-525-7000. My thanks to our team behind the scenes, Amy, Clara, Dan, and of course Jim Henry, who does our research and takes care of the stand of black walnut trees here at MoneyWise Live.