How to Find More Joy in Giving

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Not licensed in Alaska, Hawaii, Georgia, Massachusetts, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah. Second Corinthians nine seven reads, Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. Do you feel joy when giving to your church or those in need? Did you know there's a way to increase that joyful feeling found only through generosity? Well, today host Rob West welcomes Kendra VanderMulen of the National Christian Foundation to talk about that. Then it's your calls on anything at 800-525-7000. I'm Steve Moore. How to find more joy in giving.

That's next right here on MoneyWise Live. Well, Rob Kendra VanderMulen is president of the National Christian Foundation's Northwest office in Seattle. She and her team help families and individuals across the Pacific Northwest to create innovative giving strategies.

Well, that's exactly right. And it's all a part of a growing generosity movement in that region. Steve Kendra, great to have you with us on the program today.

Thank you so much. And I really am pleased to be here. Absolutely. Well, you work with faithful people, Kendra, who want to be wise stewards of what they have to give, to do so with more purpose, with a hope to experience God's joy in their giving. And I'd love to start there because this idea of joy in giving is such a big foundational idea. Why does joy matter when we give?

Thanks for asking. I think that is a really key question. Joy really helps to sustain our energy for the causes that we give to. Giving can be challenging when you're trying to have a particular impact, and we have to sustain that energy across sometimes years before we see all the fruit that we're hoping for. So joy helps keep us going. It also helps us to know where we're called to give. Joy is a sign, a signal that we are in God's place that he's given us. And the idea of joy in giving is really biblical. In addition to the verse that you read earlier from 2 Corinthians 9, we know a lot of things about where God is kind of coming from in this whole area of generosity.

But we can go way back to the fundamentals of our faith. God is all about his glory, and he's all about our joy. And he is most glorified when we are most joyful in him. So joy in giving brings him glory. And that's, after all, what it's all about.

I love that. And I think as we begin to lean into that and realize that joy should follow with our giving and that perhaps we need to think more intentionally, more purposefully about our giving and connect our giving to the passions that we have. And is that your experience, Kendra, that when people connect their passions with their giving of God's resources, that joy is just a natural byproduct of that? Yes. When people really know what they're passionate about, and that's really the key, and they connect their giving and their serving to the things that they're really passionate about, then their joy begins to increase. And that sustains them. And it also brings great joy and glory to God.

Yeah. And there's this other idea as well, Kendra, that we're acting differently than the world when we give joyfully. Would you agree with that? I think, honestly, that we act differently from the world mainly because we act out of different motivations.

Many people in the world give, and they give prolifically, and they enjoy it. But our motivation is different. Our motivation is not for our own glory, but for the glory of the Lord that we serve. And so fulfilling his purposes as he's designed for us, we're acting out of faith, and that makes all the difference. I love that.

Kendra, we've got just about a minute left. When someone comes to you and says they don't have any joy when they give, where should they start, perhaps to figure that out? Well, I encourage them to pray about where God might be calling them to give.

I don't believe he wants to keep that a secret from us. So I encourage them to begin with prayer, but also to go to the Word. I think we can clearly see God's priorities in Scripture.

For example, Scripture breaks it down into three big areas. We're to give to the church, meaning the community of people who feed us spiritually. We're to give to the Great Commission, meaning the reaching of the ends of the earth with the truth of the gospel. And we're finally to give to the vulnerable, widows, orphans, and others who have needs. You can see these things all throughout Scripture. And it's a good place to start as we begin to pray about our passions.

I love that. It really gives us a roadmap for our giving. Just around the corner, we'll get real practical about how we apply those areas to our own personal giving. Kendra VanderMeulen with us today from the National Christian Foundation, the Seattle office, finding more joy in our giving.

That and more when MoneyWise Live continues. Today's topic, finding more joy in your giving. And which comes first, the joy in the giving or vice versa? We'll find out as we chat with Kendra VanderMeulen of the National Christian Foundation.

Rob? Kendra, just before the break, you were sharing with us God's priorities that Scripture breaks down our giving into three big areas. And I think this is really helpful. The church, the community of people who feed us spiritually, the Great Commission, reaching the ends of the earth with the story of the gospel, and the vulnerable, widows, orphans, and others who have need. Practically speaking, how do we apply those three areas to our own personal giving?

Yeah, that's a big question because, of course, those three areas are huge and we can't take every aspect of all of those things on ourselves. But we know that there are purposes that God has prepared for us. In Ephesians 2 10, we read, For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do. So we believe that when we can find the place where we're prepared and have been prepared by God to do the work, and we're into his purposes, then we can be really comfortable. And that's when the joy begins to flow. I encourage people to start paying attention to things that either break their hearts or bring them great joy. Those are God's indicators of where he might be calling them to give personally. If something's really breaking your heart, then you know that it's something that you have great passion about, and that passion to solve that issue will sustain you. And things that bring you great joy are also a great sign that God is working in those places in your heart.

Yes, I love that. What breaks our hearts? You know, perhaps many of us haven't thought about that. And yet, as we immerse ourselves in Scripture and see what's on God's heart, and then think about how he's wired us uniquely, and what breaks our own hearts, perhaps there's an opportunity at the intersection for our giving that will bring us incredible joy. I'd love for you to share a story. I'm sure you have hundreds, but perhaps a story of someone you've helped experience a greater sense of joy through their giving.

Sure. I think my favorite story is actually a story that involved many people in helping this particular couple. And they had reached a place in their lives where they really wanted to step up their generosity and learn how to do it well. And honestly, they had been giving faithfully to their church, but they didn't have any experience in particular giving beyond that. After spending some time with them, I introduced them actually to a friend of mine, Heather Tenenga, who helps people with this whole journey by helping them devise a family mission statement and helping them to do research on various charities that might fit their mission statement. She took them around town to a whole bunch of different kinds of charities and invited them to see what the work was all about. And ultimately, their hearts were broken by the Women and Children's Shelter at the local Union Gospel Mission. And they've gotten very involved there, Kelly in particular, with her personal time as well as with their financial support.

Ultimately, they even began traveling internationally and looking at opportunities in Africa. And it's just been so fun to watch their joy increase as they find out more and more things that really God has prepared for them and been able to connect those things to their giving. I love that, you know, my friend Lloyd Reeve talks about, as you consider halftime, what God has called you to in the second half of your life, something called a low-cost probe where you begin to experience perhaps the areas God is working and witness that personally and then see what he does. And that's what you're describing here with your giving, you know, the opportunity to begin to experience where God is at work and find out what pricks your heart in a way that might cause you to get more involved with your time and your money, right? Exactly. And I think many times people don't realize that they can just go visit some of these charities.

They love to have visitors and they love to have volunteers. And those are things you can do that are, like you say, low-cost probes into the things that God might be preparing for you. Kendra, I don't want to turn this into a Bible study, but what do you do with a verse to whom much is given, much is required? What does that mean to us today?

Is that connected to a dollar figure or is it something other than that? Oh, that is a Bible study question and one we can spend the whole session on. But let's just begin by saying that everything that we have has been given to us by God.

It's all his and he's entrusted it to us to be his stewards. And when we begin to really comprehend that and think about that, then it turns the question around from how much do I have to give to how much could I give? How little might I spend or how might I better rethink the balancing between spending, saving and giving in a way that really lights up my life according to the purposes that God has prepared for me? And I think that does start to ask and answer questions around things like what is the purpose of the tithe? Is that tithe the beginning or the end of my giving and how does that all fit together? Let's tackle that question, Kendra, because we get this a lot here at MoneyWise Live and that's related to our giving in the local church.

What do you tell someone who's trying to decide between dividing their giving between their church, where God has them planted, where they're serving and being fed and other things that bring them joy? Well, sometimes people get confused about this, and I think the confusion can start with an assumption, really, that the tithe is the part of their income that they're supposed to give. And then they give some to the church, but if they're going to give to anything else, they need to somehow take money out of the tithe. And I don't think that's how God looks at this.

I think, again, everything is his and we're his money managers. So in that context, we can begin with the support of the church. And I think I personally believe that our tithe is meant to support our local church.

There can be debates about that, but I think you get into scripture and you pray and you listen to the Lord and you'll find that your support of the church is a very high priority in God's economy. But our giving doesn't need to stop there. And we often see people that I work with who either started out saying, I'm going to add to my tithe every year, 1%, 2%, or they reach a point in life where they've realized they've been entrusted with more than they really need or more than they ever thought they'd have. And they begin to think about giving beyond the tithe to many things that God is doing in the world. And that's where this conversation about joy and purpose can really come in.

I love that. Just a few seconds left before you leave us today, Kendra, sum this up for us as it relates to joy and our giving. I think joy is God's gift to us. It is a gift that he gives us for many purposes, and among them is to sustain our generosity. As Generous Giving says, Have you ever met an unhappy, generous person?

I don't think so. And so it doesn't just begin and end with a tithe, but it's the opportunity for us to unlock our time, our talent and our treasure towards the things that he's created for us to do. And that's life that's truly life. Well, Kendra, this has been so helpful, finding joy in our giving, which leads to the ability to be more faithful, more generous and even more fully alive. How can folks get more information?

Well, there's plenty of information at NCF, for sure. And you can get there by visiting MoneyWiseLive.org slash NCF for all the resources that we have available for your journey of generosity. I love it. Kendra, thank you for stopping by today. It's been a privilege to spend a few minutes with you. Thanks so much for having me.

Kendra VanderMulen of the National Christian Foundation has been our guest today. Again, you can check him out when you visit MoneyWiseLive.org slash NCF. Your calls next when MoneyWise Live continues. Hey, welcome back.

You're listening to MoneyWise Live with Rob West. I'm Steve Moore. Here's our phone number. We have open lines available at 800-525-7000.

In fact, it looks like we have four open lines, so no waiting today. Give us a call right now with your comment or question, concern, conundrum, 800-525-7000. Rob, with your permission, sir, we'll jump right in, all right? That sounds great.

Hinsdale, Illinois, just outside Chicago, I believe. And Nicholas, how can we help you, sir? Yes, I'm 35, and I just started getting serious about saving for retirement. I've been at my job now for two years, and I've been contributing to my 401K for about a year, doing 15%. And I don't know a whole lot about the investment world, and I don't want to know a whole lot about it. I'm just trying to be as hands-off as possible.

But at the same time, I want to be a good steward. So other than my emergency savings and putting the 15% in there, every paycheck, I guess my question was, is there anything I need to do other than looking at my statement every quarter? Do I have to redistribute funds in there, or is that a good plan, I guess is what I'm asking? Yeah, it's a great question, Nicholas, and I'm delighted to hear that you mentioned your emergency fund.

That's great. That's going to really serve as the basis for your financial life. I hope you're living on a spending plan.

If not, check out the MoneyWise app. We might be able to help with that as you manage the flow of money month in and month out. Make sure you're giving systematically, and I love the idea that you're saving toward retirement.

You're still a young guy, so you've got time on your side. I mean, depending upon what the Lord has in store for you, potentially 30 years or more of working, and you're already saving at a good percentage at 15%. That would be kind of the top end of what we would tend to recommend at 10 to 15% of your pay going into funds. Now, you mentioned you're in a target date fund. Which target date are you set at? I think it's 2055. It might be 2060, though. Okay, yeah.

That's fine. I mean, so target date funds have grown in popularity tremendously just because of their simplicity and hands-off investing approach. Essentially, for the benefit of our listeners, a target date fund is a fund of funds.

And what that means is you're investing in one fund, but inside it are a number of different, usually index funds that employ a mix of stock index funds and bond index funds with the larger concentration toward stocks earlier. And then as you move toward that target date, which is supposed to be your retirement age, at least in theory, so for Nicholas, he's 35 years old and a 2055 target date fund, that would be what he would be potentially shooting for as a retirement date. And as you get closer and closer to that date, your allocation over time is going to automatically adjust to move from a more aggressive posture with a stock exposure to, over time, more bond exposure, ideally then making your portfolio more and more conservative as you near retirement.

So that, in theory, is very good. Low cost, indexed approach, hands-off, starting out aggressive, getting more conservative over time. Potentially, maybe the only downside to target date funds, as we've seen them now for over a decade, is some folks will say that they tend to be maybe too conservative.

A one-size-fits-all doesn't work for everyone based on your risk tolerance, what you're trying to accomplish. And keep in mind that once you retire, if the Lord tarries, you have good health, people are living longer these days once you reach age 65, which I realize is still three decades down the road. But once you reach age 65, at least based on what we know today, your life expectancy is 83 years old. So what folks are finding is that that retirement date still means potentially you have three decades of need for that money to last. And so some folks find that that can get them in too conservative a posture if they go with a straight target date approach.

So again, I'm not against it. I think it's a great hands-off type strategy. But an alternative might be, and this might be my recommendation to you, Nicholas, to go ahead and schedule a visit with a financial planner who's also an investment professional who can do a financial plan for you comprehensively to look at are you appropriately offsetting any risks in your life? What is your current track for retirement savings? And will that meet your goals and objectives?

Will it oversubscribe it? And could you be doing more giving now or other things? And are there other investments inside that 401k that you're missing out on by taking the target date approach? Should you maybe have an allocation to the target date fund, but then with a portion of your money, perhaps there's some really phenomenal growth stock funds in there that might be more actively managed that might give you a little better return over time.

And I think that's where a professional could give you some guidance, you'd pay for your for the time of that professional, but they would, perhaps in addition to that financial planning, assess the various investment options in the portfolio, and help you make a selection. But beyond that, it sounds like you're doing all the right things. And the last thing I'll say is I like the idea that you said, looking at it quarterly, whether it's monthly or quarterly, I think that's the right rhythm.

I certainly wouldn't be looking at it every day, you could kind of drive, drive yourself crazy, though. Does that all make sense? Yeah. So my understanding is that everything is automatically readjusted, you know, when you mentioned hands off so that when it grows, you know, just by being in the stock market, then it's redistributed automatically by Vanguard.

And, you know, so I'm like, truly hands off, I guess is what I'm asking. That's exactly right. Yeah, they will rebalance periodically. And Vanguard's a very solid mutual fund family known for their low fees and high quality. But again, I think the potential option for you at your young age is to say, do I want to go 100% into the target date fund? Or do I want to put a portion there and perhaps a portion in something else? Because there's some other wonderful investment options in my 401k that I might be missing.

And at your age, you have the ability to be a little more aggressive, even than a target date fund might be. Nicholas, we're glad you got through and thank you very much for your call and your question today. Donna, you're next after Donna Gary and then maybe you. We have open lines at 800-525-7000. This is MoneyWise Live. Your host is Rob West.

We'll be right back. moneywiselive.org. You'll find a lot of things there, links to free resources, personal finance tools, budget templates, and you'll find information about something we're really excited about. It's fairly new. It's our newest substantial resource. It's called the MoneyWise app. And when I say substantial, Rob, fill our listeners in and all the parts and pieces that are there. Yeah, I'd be happy to you know, MoneyWise is much more than a radio broadcast, although we're delighted to come to you each day here on the airwaves. It's really a destination, a community, if you will, of people wanting to know God's heart related to their money and wanting to have the best tools and resources to live as a faithful steward. So we wanted to put that community those tools right in the palm of your hand. And we did that through the MoneyWise app. What's in it? Well, three big pieces. Number one, the best digital envelope system I've ever used.

Connect it to your institutions, download your transactions, set up your spending plan, fund your envelopes, always be reconciled back to your bank accounts and you and if you're married, you and your spouse always having access to what's remaining in each of those envelopes at any point when you open up the MoneyWise app. So check that out. The second part is our community where folks just like you are asking questions. And what's fun, Steve, is that they're answering each other's questions. There was one in there yesterday about SEP IRAs and three or four of the users jumped in and said, let me tell you my perspective. And another one said, go to soundmindinvesting.org, they'll help you.

And so that's fun to see you all interacting with each other. But we also have expert moderators that come in there from time to time. And then the third piece is our brand new Discover tab. This is only two weeks old, but we went out and collected all of the best content providers and voices in Christian Finance and all of their content stories, podcasts, it's all feeding in to the MoneyWise app in the Discover tab. So you'll see all kinds of new articles and videos. And like I say, podcasts, it's all there. So if you want to grow in your understanding of managing money God's way, that's the place to do it.

Will you put it all together? And that's the MoneyWise app. Where do you find it? Well, it's in your app store waiting for you.

So just go to the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store and search for MoneyWise biblical finance, and you can download it today. And you know, Rob, lots of people have been asking, I've been getting these emails wondering if we're going to add a garage sale component, you know, stuff you don't really want or need, you could post it there. I mean, old lawn furniture, children's toys, things like that. Do you think that might ever happen on the well that came up in our meeting last week, and you know, we decided there was a few other people already in that space. And so we decided to let them handle that. Well, I just thought, you know, hundreds have been contacting me about it.

Yeah, I'm sure they have. Yeah. All right. Let's see.

Let's go to let's go out to St. Louis. Hello, Donna. What's on your mind today?

Hi, I can't believe I got on. I love your program, first of all, and I tell everybody about it. Oh, wow. Sweet. Thank you. Yeah, no, it's a great program.

I don't even have to be sweet, Donna. But basically, I've heard both of you talk about if you're thinking about closing credit cards, that you shouldn't close them all at once. And I think something about maybe you should close the newest ones rather than the oldest ones. Well, in the mail yesterday, coincidentally, I received letters from two different credit card companies saying I hadn't used either one of them in a certain amount of time, and they would like to close them out if I don't use them within 30 days. So I thought, yeah, I'll just let them close.

And I thought, no, I remembered your advice. So I'm calling now. I have a great credit rating. Would it be better that I try to use one so they don't close it in 30 days and let the one close? Is it better I call them and close it or does it make any difference if they close it?

Yeah, it does not make any difference whether you close it or they close it. But let me just try to answer the question as to whether it's going to have an impact on your credit. Donna, are you carrying a balance on any of the cards that you have?

Not these cards in specific. Other cards I pay off every month. I mean, I don't carry balances from month to month. I pay them off. So I don't owe any interest or anything. Great. Well, that's what I'd like to hear, especially since you're a MoneyWise Live listener. I would expect that.

Number two is you answered it. You have other accounts that you use regularly for budgeted items and you're paying them off. So this is really going to have little to no impact on you in terms of your credit score. What's going on here is that in the fine print, when you open these accounts, there was probably some language about inactivity and that if that inactivity continued for a certain period of time, they were going to close the account. Why would they do that? Well, they'd rather have that money available to extend to somebody else, because even if you're not using it, the fact that they've extended a credit limit to you is part of the total limit they have to extend to everybody. But they'd rather extend it to somebody who's going to make them some money through the merchant rebate and interest and late fees and over limit fees. And you're not playing along, Donna, because you're not using that card.

And so they're not making any money. So they're going to go ahead and reclaim that limit. Where would it affect you? Well, if it changed your credit utilization, meaning you're carrying balances on other cards that are high balances, and by this credit limit that's available coming off the table, it could push your utilization up to a higher percentage of the total credit available to you. That's where it could hurt you, but that doesn't affect you because you're paying off your cards every month.

Types of credit, 10% of your score, making sure that you have revolving accounts and installment accounts, various types of credit. Well, you're not taking the revolving category off the table because you have other credit cards that you're actively using, so you're satisfying that. The only potential issue is if these are the oldest of your accounts and the ones that you're using are newer. That's 15% of your score, and if they stop reporting and it falls off altogether, it could remove one of the older accounts showing you have history. That could affect you minimally. But everything I'm hearing based on the way you're handling your financial life tells me that if there's any impact, it's going to be minimal and it'll rebound over time.

And the bottom line is if these are cards you've decided not to use for any reason, I'd like the idea of you closing them out, whether they do it or you do it, because it's just one less account you have to keep up with and might be compromised and used fraudulently. Donna, thank you. I hope that helps you, and thank you for your kind remarks at the beginning of your call today. We wish you the best.

Grand Junction, Colorado. Gary, what's your situation there, sir? Oh, well, thank you for taking my phone call. I appreciate it.

You're welcome. My wife and I are going to become empty nesters here shortly. We have raised three boys through all kinds of sports and extracurricular activities, which has taken up pretty much everything that we have made. But now we are at the point we are in our mid 50s and we are wondering what would be the best way to try to build up some savings for retirement. We haven't had very little to be able to set aside and still make ends meet.

But now we're at the point where we should have a little bit more. And what would you suggest would be the best way to try to build for retirement? Yeah, Gary, it's a great question. And I can certainly appreciate where you're coming from being the dad of four kids, two boys and two girls.

We've been involved in travel soccer, travel basketball, travel baseball. And I realize how quickly all of that adds up financially. Let me ask you this. What are you currently doing now that things have changed in terms of your ability to save for the future?

Well, both my wife and I have been currently employed for quite a while with our recent job. We do have four... Let me interrupt you real quick, Gary. I apologize. The clock's gotten the best of us. You hang on the line and we'll pick this up right on the other side of the break.

We will indeed. You're listening to Money Wise Live with Rob West. I'm Steve Moore.

We'll be right back. Hey, we're chatting with Gary calling from Grand Junction, Colorado. He and his wife are about to be empty nesters and they're wondering, well, what can they do now to build up their retirement?

Gary, I appreciate you holding and sorry we had to cut you off there. You obviously have been raising three boys. You've been spending a lot of money just trying to get them through high school and sports and all that life brings your way. Now you're in your mid 50s wanting to put something away for retirement.

And I know a lot of people are resonating with that. Tell me what you're doing right now in terms of retirement contributions, what percent of your income and in what types of vehicles? Well, we have a 401K available through our companies.

We contribute three percent on each one of our 401Ks. We have kept ourselves debt free over the years for the most part. All we have is our house payment, which is a thousand dollars a month. And we have one car payment, which is two hundred and fifty dollars a month. We don't carry any credit card debt.

We only have one for travel and we pay that off. We have the money aside before we leave. But as I said, at this point in time, we realize we don't have a lot of time left. So we want to try to accumulate as much as we can, but we don't want to take exponentially more risk than maybe we need to. So we don't want to hit the panic button, is what I'm saying. So what do you know?

Yeah, I totally get that. How much margin do you have? What's left over at the end of the month after all the bills are paid currently? Well, now that the three boys are gone, we're actually doing rather well. We could probably put, I'm just going to say, probably five to seven hundred dollars a month would be reasonable that we could do without pinching ourselves too much.

Very good. Well, you know, you're in a good spot in that you have obviously kept your lifestyle at a minimum. Hopefully we can have a plan to get that house paid off before you would transition into whatever God has next in retirement in the next decade or so, because that's going to bring the total expenses down in retirement, which will help to make sure that you don't need a whole lot coming from the retirement assets. So obviously, at this point, you really want to, because you're playing catch up, you want to pivot back to really trying to max out what you can put into the 401k.

Again, to your point, I don't want you to push the panic button in terms of the investments, the getting too aggressive. But at the same time, what I do want you to really prioritize is keeping your lifestyle in check, looking for ways to cut back so you can free up perhaps even more than seven hundred a month, because what I'd love for you both to be doing is getting your 401k contributions up to not three percent, but 15 percent. Now, if there's any matching portion, you could take that off of there. If they're matching the first three, that's six, then you'd be looking to add an additional nine percent on top of that.

Now, you may say, Rob, that's just not possible. And if not, that's OK. But I think, you know, we typically want to be in that 10 to 15 percent range. But because you all are starting a little bit later, you're going to definitely want to be as close to 15 percent as possible. So that's, I think, step one. And that may require you make some changes and cut back in certain areas to free up more margin to put toward 401k contributions. The second thing is, Gary, I'd encourage you to go visit with a certified kingdom adviser there in Colorado to do some planning so that you and your wife have some confidence in what is it you need to have saved so that you can accomplish what you feel like God has called you to accomplish in terms of your giving and your lifestyle and being prepared for that next season of life. So then it takes the guesswork out and you know that you've got a plan to get there. At the same time you're there, that professional can also evaluate the investments that you've selected inside your 401ks to make sure you're in the right things based on your age and goals.

So try to get those 401k contributions up to 15 percent and schedule a visit for retirement and financial planning with a certified kingdom adviser on our website at MoneyWiseLive.org. Gary, thank you very much. We appreciate that today.

Let's quickly move to Massillon, Ohio. Hi, Chris. Welcome to MoneyWise Live. Hi.

Thank you for taking my call. I wanted to know about long-term care insurance. I am 66 years old and I have about 475,000, maybe 476,000 investments, you know, a conservative and a balance. And I asked my financial advisor about some info on this and she had printed me out something that for $100,000 I can get a $250,000 long-term care insurance policy. And that would give you $4,000, well, about $4,000, about $41,000, a little, $4,100, excuse me, $4,100, a little over that as a monthly health, you know, health care insurance.

So I just wanted your opinion on this. I mean, I know I'm kind of late in life starting this, but I was a little late in life investing also, but everything I have is paid for and I don't owe anybody. And I do have about $2,600 between pension and social security, which I could take my own social security, but I was advised to take my husband's and just let mine grow. So that's what I have been doing.

Okay, very good. You know, Chris, I like the idea of you considering long-term care insurance at this point. You need to do it sooner rather than later because I think between 55 and 65 is really the ideal time to get it at 66. It's going to become cost prohibitive pretty quick. But, you know, you can expect to pay at age 65 if you're in good health about $2,100 annually on average for a long-term care insurance policy, about $3,100 if you have some health issues but are still accepted.

Now, they're not all created equal and there's all kinds of riders like inflation riders and, you know, other things like that. The reason you would want to consider it is based on the latest studies and you can find, you know, studies somewhat all over the map. But most of them will say about 70% of people turning age 65 today at some point will need long-term care services either at home, in their community or in a facility, you know, for on average, you know, somewhere between two and four years. So that's a good chance that you could need some sort of assistance and it's probably the biggest risk in terms of eroding the assets that you have. So that's why I would look into it. There are a couple of other options though besides just a straight long-term care insurance policy. You can add a long-term care rider to a life insurance policy. You can do an asset-based policy which is a hybrid again of life and long-term care insurance.

So I would get a couple of other folks weighing in on this. In particular, I'd look for a long-term care insurance specialist. This would be an insurance professional who really, you know, specializes in this area of long-term care insurance policies because they're not all created equal and there might be one company that's better for you just based on your age and health status. But the key is you want to make sure it fits well within your budget because it does you no good if two or three years down the road you just can't afford it.

So you want to make sure it's something you can stay with for the long haul so that you have the protection when you need it. If you need a referral to a long-term care insurance specialist, you can connect with a Certified Kingdom Advisor there in Ohio and ask for a reference. Chris, thank you very much for that. Before we take our final call, I just want to remind you that, well, this is a brand new month, just a couple of days into the month of March. And we really do appreciate and treasure your participation, not only your phone calls and listening each day, but also when you're able to help us financially. We want to be here. We want to help you as best we can. But at the same time, if you can help us with your prayers and your financial contributions, that would be a great blessing. We just can't do it without you. And would you help us start out this month in a really good position?

We certainly would appreciate that. And to thank you for what you're able to do, whether it's a large amount or a small amount. Well, for a gift of $25 or more, we'd like to send you a complimentary copy of the Financial Stewardship Bible. It's a Bible that we've been able to put together with the assistance of the American Bible Society. All the verses that deal with money and finance are already color-coded for you in green.

There are other resources in the Bible on both ends of the Bible, if you will, things to help you as you begin either a multi-day Bible study or a daily devotional. Again, it's the Financial Stewardship Bible. We want to send it out to you for a gift of $25 or more. And you can do that quickly, easily, and safely when you visit our website, MoneyWiseLive.org. Just click the Donate tab at the top of the page. And you have our thanks for your generosity. All right, back to our phone lines quickly.

St. Petersburg, Florida. Joanne, just a little bit of time. What's your situation there? Hi. Thanks for taking my call.

Yes, ma'am. My situation is my husband and I are retired. He is 65 and I'm 70. We have a comfortable monthly income that is between a pension and Social Security. We also have a portfolio that we are not high-net-worth people, but we believe we're right where God wants us and has entrusted us.

And since we don't have a monthly income that's just exorbitant, setting a finish line didn't really seem like the option to go. But then I started thinking about it, or we did, and we thought about, well, what if we set a finish line on the portfolio? Yes. Yeah, let me jump in here, Joanne.

This is a great question. I wish we had another 10 minutes to talk about it. We've got about 20 seconds. I want to talk to you off the air, but let me just say quickly, I love that you're thinking about this because our finish lines can be both on the balance sheet, portfolios, and income. And I think you're ripe to say what is enough and then start accelerating your giving.

And a donor-advised fund from the National Christian Foundation would be a great way to do that. You stay on the line. We'll talk a bit more off air. We will indeed. MoneyWise Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and MoneyWise Media. Thanks. Join us again tomorrow.