Planning for Financial Success

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Not licensed in Alaska, Hawaii, Georgia, Massachusetts, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah. Proverbs 21, 5 reads, The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty. Put another way, aim at nothing and you'll hit it every time. Do you have a plan for your finances? It's the only way to make the most of the resources God's entrusted to you. Today, financial expert Ron Blue joins host Rob West to talk about what goes into a financial plan. Then it's your calls on anything at 800-525-7000.

800-525-7000. I'm Steve Moore planning to succeed. That's next right here on MoneyWise Live. Rob, our old buddy Ron Blue has written a treasure trove of books on biblical financial principles, and today we're looking into the financial planning chapter in Master Your Money, a step-by-step plan for experiencing financial contentment. It's one of our favorites, Steve, and Ron, delighted to have you back on the program. What our listeners may not know is for all intents and purposes, you really are the father of Christian financial planning, taking biblical principles and applying it to financial planning at a professional level. So this is something you've really dedicated your life to, isn't it? That's another story, Rob. When I did start in financial planning, there was no such thing as financial planning.

That was in 1979. So I had to learn a lot and create a lot, and God has really blessed. And now we've got thousands of Christian advisors that are integrating their faith into their advice and millions of dollars being released for the kingdom purposes because people plan, and when they plan to give, they give more.

So I've been blessed. Well, we want to say thank you for your leadership, for your vision, because what's happening today is a direct result of what you set out to do a long time ago. I want to get into this topic because this is really an important aspect of stewardship, financial planning, that is. But it's one that often folks don't pay enough attention to, or maybe they just kick the can down the road and put it off as long as possible, and that really leads to a missed opportunity, doesn't it? Yeah, it really does, and I think to put it into perspective, all of us can look at our financial lives, and we tend to react to the moment, if you will, the situation, and we don't do a lot of planning. And it's even, with the increase in technology, I think it's become more unlikely to plan. But I know this, in the practice that we developed, when we helped people plan, they were able to do far, far more than what they thought they could do because they had a plan. You know, my counsel was, if you aim at nothing, you'll hit it every time, so.

That's exactly right. Well, there was a story from the book that you told about your children that I think illustrates this idea of financial planning. Yeah, and you know, I can still remember vividly that experience. It was, I used to give to my kids at Christmas a list, each one of them individually designed, and this is something that you can do with me over the next year. And there were six or seven or eight things on that list, and each of them were different. And my third daughter, who was, I think, nine at the time, on her list was go to the mall and spend $25 and spend four hours with me.

Okay. And I'll never forget it. We walked into the mall and immediately on our left was a shop that sold, I would call them knickknacks, things that had no long term value, but they were fun to look at and maybe play with. And so we stopped right there. Karen went in, looked around, picked several things, and she had spent her $25 in about 30 minutes. And I said, Karen, remember, we still got the mall, we still got lunch, what are we going to do? And she said, Daddy, I'll love these for the rest of my life. Of course.

And the next day they were all gone, used up, eaten, broken, whatever. And I shared with her the principle that the longer term, the perspective, the better the decision today. And that was such a vivid illustration of the perspective of that mall, just walking through the mall, a longer term perspective to see what was available to her. I know this in decision making, your decision can never be any better than your best known alternative. And so if we get caught and not thinking long term and what other options there might be, we're very apt to be sorry later on.

I love it. Steve, when your dad is the father of Christian financial planning, there's always a lesson to be learned. Well, whether you want to learn it or not, that's Christmas planning for financial success with Ron Blue. This is Money Wise Live.

We'll be right back. Welcome back to Money Wise Live. Your host is Rob West.

I'm Steve Moore. And joining us today to talk about the importance of planning. Yes, even budgeting, financial planning at a very early age and then progressing upward. Well, that guy is Ron Blue, who's written lots of books on this very subject of managing your money well and managing it according to biblical principles.

Ron, we're only a couple of minutes into the broadcast and you've already shared two gems. And those are that financial decision making is only as good as the best known alternative. And the longer term, the perspective, the better the financial decision today. And those are key ideas, aren't they? Yeah. And they are ideas, Rob. And they're not rules. They're principles, really, and they're wisdom.

And it's God's wisdom. I mean, think about God's long term perspective. I mean, you think about managing your life. And if I have an eternal perspective, everything falls into place. That's a long, long term perspective. Yes.

Well, it puts everything in the proper perspective for sure. In the book, Ron, you talk about with financial planning, people fall into one of two traps. They're either planners or most often responders. Draw the distinction between the two. Well, financial planning, the way I would define it is the allocation of limited resources to unlimited alternatives. And no matter how much you have, you have limited resources. And reality is that the more you have, the more options that you have and the more confusing, complex and hard life becomes. So, more doesn't give freedom.

More gives more choices, therefore more complexity. And so, those that are planners think through where I am, where I want to go and how I'm going to get there. Those that are responders just react to the situation of the moment. Maybe they react to advertising.

They may react to somebody's— I heard this in the locker room at the golf course or my friend that I was having lunch with said something to me and I react to it. So, you're either a planner or a responder. I'd love to come back to thinking about God. God is a plan. And he said, I have plans for you that you don't even know. And so, the challenge for us as believers is to discover the plans that God has for us. And if I don't stop and think about where I am and where I want to go based upon what I know about God, then I can never be sure that I'm making the right financial decision. And God's plans tend to be so much bigger than our plans. I read it this morning in my quiet time, Ephesians 3.20. And I've quoted and had quoted many, many times that in the book, I think it's Jeremiah, he says that you'll hear a voice behind you saying this is the way, walk ye in it. So, planners are trying to discover the way that God would have them to go.

And when they discover the way God would have them to go, the end result will always be far better than if I am after my own plans. Boy, there's so much in what you just shared. Two things jumped out at me. Number one is, I can't think of a time where we've had a chance to be on the radio together where you haven't referenced your quiet time, which means you're in God's Word every day.

And I love that. But secondly, you mentioned something that I believe you call the paradox of prosperity. And that is, the more you have, the more choices you have, the less real freedom you have. And that runs contrary to what most people believe about prosperity, but it can be something that can cause some challenges.

Well, it really does. And the paradox of prosperity that you just described is, we tend to think of it as the American way, that if I have more, I will have more freedom. But the paradox is that the more that I have, the more choices I have, and therefore the more complex my life becomes. I was very fortunate that I had two homes at one time, and when I sold the second one, I all of a sudden had more freedom.

And I had more money also. So, the paradox of prosperity is real. And I'll close with this. God says, be content with what you have, in Hebrews 13.5. Paul said, I've learned to be content through both prosperity and poverty. So, when we think of planning, how much is enough?

What I have, by definition. Well, let's pick up on that. You mentioned how much is enough, and understanding why we want to accumulate wealth through planning is a part of that decision-making, not only defining the amount, but the purpose? Absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, if you believe that God owns it all, and he does, then every decision that I make financially is a spiritual decision. And I can come back and I should be able to say when I look at my checkbook or my credit card statement or whatever, this is what God wanted done with his money. Now, that doesn't mean I can't spend it. I look at money as a tool. It's a tool to accomplish God's purposes. That $25 that I spent in the mall or that I gave to my daughter was a tool.

I used $25 and it taught her a life lesson. So, the money, it was spent on things that were not spiritual, but it was used to teach her a spiritual lesson by the grace of God. And that's the way God uses money in our life. And we need to ask the question not why God, but what God.

Yeah. Ron, we've got just a couple of minutes left. I know you take those unlimited options in terms of how we allocate God's resources and distill them down into some very simple short-term and long-term objectives. Let me say this really quick. A biblical worldview approach to money and money management has three characteristics. It's really simple.

It's always relevant to wherever I am under whatever circumstance. And it's highly repeatable so I can repeat it to my children, my grandchildren, my peers, whatever it may be. And we call it the 4-H financial wisdom.

All behavior comes from the heart. There's only five things you can do with money. There's only five habits you need to master.

And the only way to get ahead is to spend less than you earn and do it for a long time and you'll be just fine. Wow, that does sound simple. That's amazing.

We'll put that 4-H tool in our show notes today so you can download that, review it. And Ron, you've taken all of this and turned it into curriculum that universities across the country are using. Well, we're in literally hundreds of high schools now with this curriculum.

We're in universities. We've got a lot of church curriculum that we've developed. And what God did over my 50 years in this financial services world is give me the opportunity to now spread this message. And I think, Rob, of MoneyWise.

MoneyWise didn't even exist a few years ago. And now you're reaching millions of people with these principles. And they're the same principles they don't change over time and they don't change relative to circumstances either. And that's the message that you're bringing to a vast audience. And if you can convince them that God's word speaks to their financial decisions always with relevance and it's pretty simple, you'll have changed thousands and millions of lives and gone a long way to accomplishing God's kingdom purposes. Well, you've led the way, Ron, and we're incredibly grateful. And folks, go check out the 4-H tool.

You can download it with a link in our show notes today. It will give you a conceptual model for how you apply God's word to financial decision making and planning. And by the way, if you want to learn more about the work of the Ron Blue Institute for your high school or your Christian university, go to RonBlueInstitute.com. Ron, thanks. Thank you for having me. A real honor and a real pleasure to have Ron Blue with us today.

You can read more about financial planning in his book, Master Your Money, available at MoneyWiseLive.org. Your call is next at 800-525-7000. We'll be right back. A real pleasure to have you with us today.

It's MoneyWise Live, a program where we do our best to help you find God's plan for your financial life. So whatever it is you're wondering about, struggling about, just want to chat about, we'd love to hear from you at 800-525-7000. We'll be right back with Rob West here taking your calls. I'm Steve Moore, and let's dive in, Rob.

We begin by going up to Cleveland, Ohio. And Ellen, thanks for your patience. What's on your mind? Hi, my sister's credit score has always been over 800, and then she just recently checked it, and it's just like 709 right now. And she's clueless what would have made it drop like that.

She had a couple ideas that she wanted me to ask if you thought that this could do it. So they have no mortgage or car payments or anything. They did take out a home equity line of credit like three years ago.

And then in 2019, they put $35,000 on that to do a city water line and a septic system. And then last year, in 2020, they paid back 30,000 of that, so there's still $5,000 on there. So she was wondering if that could have affected her credit score, or she also just recently got a 1099 that she had like $1,440 of unemployment this year, and she never was unemployed. She never applied for unemployment or got that money. So she didn't know if that could be affecting her credit score or what could make it go down 100 points. Yeah, a lot of things going on here, Ellen.

A couple of things. Number one, let's start with where you finished, and that is related to that 1099 for unemployment. This is a pretty common scam right now with so many people unemployed due to the pandemic. You know, thieves are applying for unemployment benefits in someone else's name. And so if you have reason to believe and this would certainly be an indication of this, that or she has suspects that there was some fraud with regard to unemployment. You want to contact your employer, you want to contact the state unemployment benefits agency and the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission at this website identitytheft.gov and let them know that it's a good idea to keep a record of the communication. The second thing I want her to do is to go ahead and pull a copy of all three credit reports.

She'll want to do that. I'll give you another website annualcreditreport.com. So the first one I gave you was identitytheft.gov.

This one's annualcreditreport.com. She can pull one from each of the three bureaus, Experian, Equifax, TransUnion. I wanted to check that those reports and see if there's any activity on there, any accounts that she doesn't recognize that would indicate. And this may not be the case, but it's certainly given what you're describing here, something she needs to check out to see if somebody inadvertently or just based on fraud, fraud has opened an account in her name that she's not aware of. So it will show up on the credit report and she'll want to go ahead and get that taken care of.

So that's the second thing. Third thing I'd like for her to do, given what you're describing about the unemployment 1099, it'd be good if she went ahead and put a fraud alert and a freeze on each of these three bureau reports. Basically, that's going to be a four digit PIN number that will be assigned to each of the bureaus so that if anybody attempts to open a new account for any reason in her name, they won't be able to do so without providing that four digit PIN number.

And that's going to go a long way toward protecting her moving forward. Now, with regard to the credit score, I think there's a couple of things. If, in fact, there are no fraudulent accounts out there that are, let's say, past due and delinquent and thereby pulling her credit score down. If everything looks good on the credit report, then the likely reason that she's seen this kind of drop is, number one, probably a lack of credit. So, you know, you mentioned she really doesn't have any open accounts and the one that she does, you know, only has 5000 on it. So the mix of credit, you know, do you have revolving accounts, installment accounts? Do you have a mortgage? She only has that that one installment account, that home equity line of credit, and that's going to work at her to her disadvantage.

The second thing is just there's not any active negative history, but there's not any real active positive history other than this one HELOC. Meaning, you know, when you don't have active accounts where you're demonstrating you can be an online payer or excuse me, on time payer, that over time is going to work against you because you just don't have a lot of new positive information that's being reported. Does that mean she should run out and open some new lines of credit or take out a credit card?

Not necessarily. I certainly don't want her paying interest. It's just one of the byproducts of being out of debt, frankly, which we advocate here at MoneyWiseLive. So, you know, I think she's got to take those steps to see if there's something going on there that she needs to take care of. But if not, I would say just stay the course, recognize, you know, one thing she could do, and I'll finish here, is open a credit card either secured or unsecured with her bank or somebody who's not going to charge her any ongoing maintenance fees and just put an automatic charge for a budgeted item on there every month. It could be a small dollar item, but something she's already planned for and it hits the account, she pays it off every month, and that's just going to add some positive on time payment history related to a revolving account, which is what a credit card is. So I've given you a lot of information there. Does that all make sense? Yeah, actually, I mean, she does have it.

They have a credit card that they use, but they pay it off all the time. Okay. All right. Well, that's good. So that's showing some active positive history. But I think it's certainly not as a result of paying down this HELOC, if anything, that helped her because, again, it's on time and it's bringing the credit utilization down, meaning the amount she owes versus the limit, assuming that line is still open. So if anything, what's hurting her is a lack of credit.

But were you going to add anything else? Well, yeah, I mean, they had a mortgage that they paid off a few years ago, too, and I don't know, maybe it is a lack of credit. One more thing, how do you put the freeze on your credit? Yeah, the instructions will be there on the website.

You just go to each of the three bureaus, Experian, Equifax, TransUnion. You should be able to do it online and just let them know you want to put a freeze on the account. They'll have a process by which you do it. It's now free by law as of 2019. They can't charge you for that. So it's a free service and it should be pretty easy to do. Ellen, we appreciate your phone call today.

Thanks very much. When we come back, we'll chat with Dave. His church just sold a parsonage.

They want to know what to do with the money. 800-525-7000. This is MoneyWise Live. It's wonderful that you're out there today because it's a call-in program and if you weren't there, there wouldn't be any calls and then Rob and I would have to take the bus home today. So again, here's our phone number.

800-525-7000. Let's go up to coastal Maine and say hi to Dave. Dave, are you really near the coast? I mean, can you see the water or anything like that? Yes, actually. Yeah, I'm right on the coast.

Really? So the coast of Maine in February, I mean, what's it like? Are there whales? Are there icebergs? Are there people frozen who are trying to clean the parking lot? What's it like there, Dave?

Give us the panorama. Actually, it hasn't been that bad. We did have some snow yesterday, but it's melting.

It's near 40 today and it's not been a bad winter weather-wise, really. Sounds like Atlanta. My goodness. I will tell you, Dave, a couple of years ago, we took the whole family and went to Acadia National Park and that was spectacular. It's beautiful.

I try to go there at least once a year. It's gorgeous. Oh, wow. It is gorgeous.

And then, let me just say, the lobster rolls. Unbelievable. Yeah, you're right. That's all I have to say. All right.

Your cardiologist will be calling in shortly. Hey, Dave, what's going on? How can we help? So, the church I belong to, we recently sold a parsonage and we want to invest the money, but we're kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place because we don't want to invest in corporations that may support groups that aren't following Biblical principles. So, we're kind of trying to look around to see what we can find for groups to invest in and we're wondering about a resource to do that. Yeah.

Yeah, very good. Well, Dave, I mean, there are some wonderful investment options that are, in fact, faith-based. Some phenomenal mutual funds and exchange-traded funds that do both screening out. We call that avoiding certain companies because they're able to screen them out based on the fact that either they use the corporate profits to support things that would be not in line with Biblical values or their primary business activity is something that's not in line with Biblical values. Or they embrace certain companies specifically because they make a social or even a kingdom impact.

So, that's a really exciting growing space and so if that's what you were looking for, I could certainly point you in the right direction. But before you even think about the investment fund family or the investment options, I would just question as a church whether or not investing for a return and taking risk with the money is appropriate. You know, the first thing I would always want to do is look at whether the church has adequate emergency reserves and liquid savings.

I'd love to see you have at least six months. You know, the pandemic has shown us that churches, as well as individuals, need to have funds available in case giving is interrupted. And so having that kind of reserve account that's really thought through and prayed through both the pastor as well as the lay leadership, developing a plan, having a rationale for the amount they've settled on, I think is really key. And that would be over and above any mandatory reserves that the mortgage company would require.

Assuming you have a note on the property, you may not. And then beyond that, I would say the question would be is there a ministry activity to the extent you have resources beyond that that you should put that into to further God's kingdom and activity right now? Could you increase giving to missionaries that the church supports?

Could you add summer youth activities that might draw in the unchurched? I mean, any number of things come to mind, but I'm just wondering if we might not want, you know, to go ahead and get that into ministry activity now as opposed to putting church resources at risk. Because, you know, I know when I was the head of the finance committee at a number of churches that I've been in in the past, we just said absolutely never would we do that. Because either it was to fund the current activities of the church or to fund the sinking fund or to pay down debt or to get it into ministry now. And we just didn't feel like that based on the giving that was being done that the givers were intending for us to put that at risk and have the potential for a principal loss.

So give me your thoughts on that. Well, as far as the note on the church, fortunately, people in the past who are no longer with us gave their, you know, their inherit, not inheritance, their, you know, what they what they they passed on to the church when they passed away money to pay off and actually a fairly good building this within the last I think 15 years. And we are fortunate that we've been smart with money as far as, you know, any projects we need to do and we are doing a lot in the community to try to bring the church in, and with COVID you're right, everybody's taking a hit. So, I think we were looking to try to invest it so down the road. If we needed to build another parsonage because the pastor we have now has his own home and doesn't need to live in the parsonage so you know down the road when he when he leaves if we needed another another building for somebody to live in or a building allowance or living allowance that we had that so that's kind of we're just trying to kind of look forward to the future to make sure that the church is still there and active. And I can certainly appreciate that the only thing I would say there Dave is just make sure that the time horizon is right because, you know, obviously no one knows what the future holds in terms of, you know, when the Lord is going to call your current pastor home or when he might move him on to another assignment or whatever that might be but if you don't have a 10 year time horizon just prudent investments would say, we probably shouldn't put it at the risk of the market because you may be forced to sell it when it's down. So I would just really pray and think through that as to whether or not there's current ministry activities that should be funded or whether or not it's even appropriate to take risk with it. If you do in fact want to proceed and everybody's comfortable with that, I would check out eventidefunds.com.

I'd look at Inspire Investing and I would also look at the Praxis Funds, P-R-A-X-I-S, all three of those really focused on faith-based investment strategies exclusively. How's that sound Dave? Oh that sounds great, thanks guys. Okay, God bless you. God bless you, stay warm up there. 40 degrees in Maine today, I'm a little surprised and they're probably reveling in it up there, don't you think?

Oh I bet, yeah, but it's, I bet it's gorgeous, I love it. Alright, let's see if it's 40 degrees in Chardon, Ohio. Hi Kathy, how are you today? Real good, thank you, thank you for taking my call. Yes ma'am, is it 40 at, 40 degrees at least? No, no, it's 20s and you know, early 30s, no. Alright.

We don't have a lot of snow though, but very cold, yeah. This too shall pass. Hey, what's your question today? Well the bottom line is, I just took out a home loan over a month ago and in the loan is my mortgage which is about $55,000 and also my home equity. That's down to $306,000, $306,000 and so anyhow I'm trying to get it down and I have an interest of 3.3%. So what I'm trying to do, I pay $515.49 a month and what I'm trying to do is lower that, I'm on a fixed income and what I'm trying to do with my loan officer, she said that she could write a letter and get it down farther.

I got some money from my sister, over $7,000 or so and I'm going to apply that and I was just wondering is that sufficient to just have her write this letter to the bank or wherever I have my loan and then go from there that they would take care of this then with the money extra? Yeah, so a couple of questions there. You said $55,000 on the first mortgage, Kathy, is that right?

Yeah. And then how much do you owe on the home equity? Did you say $3,000? No, let's see, what is it?

$1,000. Let's do this. We got to hit a break here so I'm going to ask you to hold because I want to help you kind of think through this and where we go from here.

So you hold the line, soon as we get on the other side of this break, we'll come right back to you. Welcome back to MoneyWise Live. We've been chatting a little bit with Kathy in Ohio. She has a home equity loan and a mortgage. She's trying to get these things paid down, perhaps reducing her interest rates in some form or fashion. Rob?

Yeah, Kathy. So first mortgage at $55,000, a home equity line of credit at $106,000. Sounds like you put them together, perhaps refinancing. So you've got one loan now, I guess at roughly $161,000, paying $515,000 a month on it. You believe your interest rate for all of it is at 3.3%. Do you know how many years are left on that mortgage, Kathy?

Well, I took out a 30-year loan. Okay. And how long ago was that? And that was just a little over a month ago. Oh, I see.

Okay, very good. Well, I think the key here is, I mean, that's still a good rate, even though rates have come down. Assuming you do in fact have one mortgage with both of these together now at 3.3%, you may want to call a mortgage broker in your area or in your church or check with your bank, have them review the docs, make sure that is in fact the case that there's not a portion that's separate at a home equity line of credit with a variable rate. But if it is at 3.3%, it's probably not going to make sense for you to refinance just because of the cost of it.

So the question would be, given this lump sum potentially you could put down, they may be talking to you about a mortgage recast, which basically just when you make a lump sum allows you to re-amortize the loan and therefore reduce the monthly payment. That may be one option, but typically that doesn't affect the term or the interest rate. The other option would be if in fact, despite what you believe to be the case, if they are still separate, and you've got a portion that's variable, and you could get that rate down at 2.5%, 2.6%, you could look at potentially refinancing, but you're right on the edge there where it might be cost prohibitive because you're not saving a full point on that interest rate.

So I'd try to get a bit more information. If your current mortgage company is willing to work with you to bring that rate down, that's probably going to be the most cost effective way. But let's just verify that in fact all of the money that you owe is in fact at 3.3%.

And if it is, I'd leave it alone or work with your current mortgage company to improve your situation. Thank you, Kathy. Appreciate that. Let's go to Indiana next. And Cheryl, you've got a situation that's a little crazy here. How can we help you? Hello. Hi. Go right ahead. Hello. My name is Cheryl. Yes, ma'am. Go right ahead. Okay.

My question is now, I'm Lurie. I'm a victim of identity theft in 2011, so I received a letter from the Department of Treasury, and it was a gray letter, and it said my name on it, and it said something about stimulus payment. Well, on the back of the letter, it had like numbers.

It had lists, columns like from $1 to like $200 or $300, then $300 to $400, up to $9,099. And I was on impression that this letter is trying to get me to join or to get another credit card. So I don't know if that was my stimulus payment, but it did mention stimulus. However, when I got my other one, I got it through check, and I do know that they're going to issue it with credit card or check this time. Last time I got it through check, it was like a white letter, and it was just simply, here is your stimulus payment. We hope that you submit, you know, and that you appreciate it, blah, blah, and that's it.

Yes. But this letter I got. So I just told, I said, I kept it for a couple of days, but I said, you know what, I'm going to just tear it up and go, and I cut the card because I was afraid. I said, no, this is going to be some fraud. So, Cheryl, was there a debit card of some kind in the envelope?

Yeah, yeah, it was attached. Yeah, but I don't know people's debit. I didn't even look at it.

Yeah, do you know if by chance it said Medabank, M-E-T-A? Oh, I don't even know there. Okay. All right.

Well, here's what I'd like you to do. Could it be something, you know, that you should be suspicious about? Possibly, but about 8 million people are receiving the second round of stimulus payments from the Treasury Department as prepaid debit cards. You know, and many people are reporting that the letters and cards look like a scam and unfortunately throw them out. The money on the debit cards is issued by the Treasury's financial agent called Medabank, M-E-T-A, and it can just be transferred to your bank account or you can get the cash out at the ATM.

But here's what you want to do. The IRS has a stimulus payment hotline, and I think I would give this a call. It's not going to be a live person, but you'll get a recording that helps you figure out what steps you need to take if in fact, you know, this was the payment that you've thrown away, and they will tell you how you can go about getting that reissued. Here's the number. It's 800-919-9835.

This is the IRS stimulus payment hotline, 800-919-9835, and they can tell you where you go from here. But I appreciate so much you calling today, and I hope you can sort this out. If you have other questions, give us a call back. Cheryl, thank you very much. You're not the first person to call and ask about this. We hope it works out well for you.

Pikeville, Tennessee. Hi, Susan. What's on your mind? Well, I have two-fold of questions to ask you.

The first one is home warranties, whether they actually are worth doing or not, and what to look out for and how I'd find the most reputable different companies. And the other one has to do with the budget. I believe you guys have someone that helps you set up a budget. I tried to do that through every dollar counts. When I got it done, it looked like I was about $300 short paying my bills, but we're pretty frugal. We were forced into early retirement, but we do have money set aside for retirement, and we do have disability coming in for myself and Social Security for my husband.

So we're not destitute, but we're living on a fixed income, and we just know we could do better for the Lord. Yes. Yeah.

Very good. Well, number one, with regard to home warranties, there'll be obviously many in our listening audience that have them and love them. I'm not a big fan of them. I think what they provide, oftentimes the fine print either takes away or makes more difficult to access in terms of the various contractors you need to use to make repairs as to whether or not they will actually replace something or try to repair it, depending on whether it's at the end of its useful life or not. The cost of them, what many folks will say is that they're a form of insurance that cover appliance repairs, but at an average cost of around $500 a year, you're better off insuring yourself with your typical emergency fund. So if you have that three to six months expenses that we talk about, and if you don't, if you're on your way toward it and you take the same amount you would be putting toward that home warranty and put that in emergency savings, that's probably going to really help you retain your funds and be ready to deal with things the way you want to deal with them. If issues arise, consumer reports is mixed on them.

I've read reports where they're just not big fans and I know Clark Howard, the consumer expert is not excited about them either. So I would probably pass on it just based on everything I've read and take the same amount of money and sock it away and just continue to build up that emergency fund so you're ready to cover repairs on certain items like the home warranty would typically cover. As to where you should go for your spending plan, we do have a phenomenal resource and we're getting rave reviews about it. It's the MoneyWise app and one of the three core components of the MoneyWise app is the digital envelope system that we've created. The big idea that we did with this is we didn't want people to get tripped up on the technology. We wanted to make it easy to use so you could focus on what really matters and that's making the right decisions for your family. By the way, every week we do a great workshop to help people get set up and use it well. So here's where you go to download the MoneyWise app.

Just go to your app store, either Apple or Google Play, type in MoneyWise Biblical Finance. And by the way, if you stay on the line, Susan, we'll get your information and I'll make sure you get a six-month pro membership at no cost. Susan, glad you called today. You stay on the line there. We'll get right back to you.

Chicago, Illinois. Kevin, two and a half minutes. Let us have the high points here, okay? Hi, Steve.

Hi, Rob. Thanks a lot for you guys. You guys make a great team. Thank you. You are filled with wisdom, understanding and knowledge and I really appreciate it. Thank you, Kevin. That's very kind of you. And Steve Moore's comic relief. How can you beat that?

That's for sure. I usually drive home chuckling myself. I have to ask my brother to stop calling. Kevin, we're almost out of time. Give us the high points, my friend. Here's the high point. We're in the middle of refinancing a mortgage.

Rob would be proud of me. I talked to three lenders to get feedback from three different people. They're all probably pretty much the same and they all go to increments of five years, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30. Now, our mortgage is at about 14 and a half. So most of them, we can't afford a 10 year.

The rates to the payments too much. So we're going to go to 15. But that means we kind of lose out on six months. You kind of have to go backwards a little bit.

Yeah. My question is, even though the rate is much better right now, our rate for the current mortgage is 4.25. They're offering 2.5 with no points. To me, that's very attractive. But because of losing six months, I still think the wide angle tells me I'm going to be saving.

Yes, I would completely agree, Kevin. I like this plan. Yes, you're adding six months to the term, but you're almost getting, not quite, but you're almost saving two points from 4.2 down to two and a half with no points. You shop the mortgage. If you're planning to stay in this home a while, you will more than pay for those six months. So I am on board with this. I would say proceed carefully and prayerfully, but this sounds like a great decision. Kevin, we're glad that you got through today. Thank you very much for the kind remarks and the check is in the mail and we're glad you called today.

Thanks very much. There are no checks. Well, maybe that check we talked about earlier with the other caller, but that's different. Yeah, that's right.

A whole different thing. He was a Steve Moore fan. He's the president of the Steve Moore fan club. I didn't know there was a president.

Newly elected, maybe. I didn't either. MoneyWise Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and MoneyWise Media. My thanks to our technical crew today, Amy, Deb, and the call screening team of Gabby and Eric. For Rob West, I'm Steve Moore. Thanks for listening. Join us again tomorrow.