This is Doug Hastings, Vice President of Moody Radio, and we're thankful for support from our listeners and businesses like United Faith Mortgage. Mortgage commercials are rarely exciting, so to make it slightly more interesting, here are my nieces to do it for me. So interest rates continue to drop like my sister's baby teeth. Come on, Uncle Ryan had to say the same thing last year.

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Not licensed in Alaska, Hawaii, Georgia, Massachusetts, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah. It happens to most of us sooner or later, a family member asks for financial help. If your first thought is to write a check, put down the pen just a minute and ask yourself, is this helping or hurting? A family member in need, regardless of the circumstances, provides an opportunity not only to help, but maybe even change the life of a loved one for the better.

Financial planner and teacher Rob West has some great ways you can do that. Then we take some calls from all across the country. However, today's edition of the program is not live. We are prerecorded. I'm Steve Moore.

MoneyWise Live with Rob West is next. Rob, interesting subject today. We've suggested that people ask themselves if giving money to a relative will really help or hurt the situation. But isn't that a tough question to answer for most people?

Well, it really is, Steve. So it's understandable that some people don't want to think about it at all. So instead, they just write the check. But it's important to ask it.

And coming up with an answer doesn't have to be that difficult. First, consider the circumstances that led the family member, or it could also be a friend, to ask for the money. Is this a short-term problem? Or is it something that's ongoing? So for example, a lost paycheck that takes a few weeks to replace is one thing. But if there's a history of asking for help, handing over money isn't going to solve the problem.

In most cases, it will likely just make it worse. Okay. Well, let's just say for argument's sake that it is a one-time thing, and you've decided that you should help.

So then what? Well, in that case, you have to decide how you'll help. And you have two basic choices, either with a gift or a loan. Now, whichever you decide, make the terms clear to the person you're helping. If it's a gift, let them know you don't expect to get the money back. Now, if it's a loan, I would do up a promissory note with the repayment terms clearly spelled out.

There are plenty of templates online that you can download and fill in. The key is, make it clear and make it in writing. Okay. Which is better, a loan or a gift?

Yeah. Well, my preference, relationally speaking, would be to make it a gift, because once you do that, the matter's over. It's quite different with a loan, which is ongoing and potentially damaging to your relationship with the person you're helping. Scripture says the borrower becomes the slave to the lender.

We talk about that often. So in effect, loaning money to family or friends changes the nature of that relationship, and I think that's why it's really better to make it a gift and be done with it if you're in a position to do so. And regarding loans, Steve, you might be asked to cosign one as a means of helping. Scripture repeatedly tells us not to do that, and it makes no exception for family members. I'll take you to one of the verses on the topic, Proverbs 22 verse 26. It warns, be not one of those who gives pledges, who puts up security for debts. Okay. I don't want to put too fine a point on this, but you said basically there are two choices, a gift or a loan.

Does that mean that there's still another way in addition to those two? Well, yes, you could also give the person a job, an opportunity to earn extra money. That could be chores around the house or any number of things if you own a business.

That approach may not always be possible, but it's worth considering if that's an option for you. Is that why when I asked you for $20 you said, shovel my driveway? Right.

I think it was, can you wash my car? Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, yeah. Okay. That's why I just always wondered. Okay.

All right. Let's say it's the other circumstance. The person asking for money is often in trouble.

Maybe it's not the first time they've asked. Then what? Well, one option clearly is just to say no, but if you do, it's important to explain why. And I would just say in a loving way, explain that you believe it would perhaps do more harm than good by enabling them to keep repeating the pattern that you really want to be helpful to encourage them to solve the underlying issue. Okay. And what if you do decide to help?

Right. Well, first decide how you'll provide the money. If you can't trust the person to handle it wisely, perhaps consider making a direct payment for a bill like utilities or an insurance premium if that's the reason they're asking for help. Or you could provide groceries instead of cash or even a gift card for groceries. You could also help and provide help a great deal by putting conditions on the money. So you could insist that the person sit down with you to go over their finances to make up a budget or develop a plan for saving and paying down debt. If you're uncomfortable doing that, where they disclose that information to you, well, one of our MoneyWise coaches could help with that. You could also insist they go through a small group study on personal finance.

They're offered online by Compass. Finance is God's way. Just look for navigating your finances God's way. Okay. We'll come back and tackle one more issue, helping adult children. This is MoneyWise Live.

Stick around. We're at MoneyWise Live and we talk about our telephone number often, usually because we're live, but today we're pre-recorded. So if you hear a mention of the phone number, please don't call us, but you can find us online at moneywiselive.org. Rob, we've been chatting for just a bit about lending a friend or a family member to a family member.

We've been talking about moneywiselive.org. Rob, we've been chatting for just a bit about lending a friend or a family member money. Anything else that we haven't mentioned that you want to?

Well, a couple of additional thoughts. One is, let me just go back to this idea of really requiring that there be some conditions with the gift. I really like this idea of using an opportunity to help someone of a genuine interest of concern and wanting to care for them, encouraging them to really solve the underlying issues. And in many respects, that's just a lack of understanding God's way of handling money. And so encouraging them, for instance, to get on a spending plan and be accountable to somebody like a MoneyWise coach, encouraging them to go through a study like the one we mentioned, Navigating Your Finance is God's Way from Compass One, would be great. And those are, again, offered online at compassone.org.

That's compassone.org. This can be a real, I think, step toward solving what got them to this position in the first place, which gives you a lot more peace of mind to know that as a steward of what God has entrusted to you as you make the gift, you really are genuinely trying to help. I think the other thing is, let's say you make a loan to someone. You say, I'm going to provide you an interest-free loan.

We write down terms. You're going to pay it on this schedule, over this time period, and ultimately pay it back. And let's say something happens along the way, and they're unable to do that. They're unable to fulfill that obligation.

And you decide that you want to now make it a gift. You're not going to require them to pay it back. You're going to change your mind. I would let them know that. I want you to release them from that obligation. Otherwise, that's going to continue to hang over them. But if you make that decision, communicate that. So you know what? I've decided just to make this a gift.

I want to bless you with that. You are released from this obligation, and it's over, and you move on. Because I think the relational fallout from these situations can be really damaging, and we certainly want to avoid that at all costs. You're a compassionate guy, Rob West. All right, we did mention there was one other aspect we wanted to touch on.

It involves helping adult children. Too often, one spouse wants to help. The other is against it. Help us out here.

What can we do? Well, it's a tough situation, no doubt, and it's often where someone will cite 1 Timothy 5-8. If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he's denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

Pretty clear. But I think the key word there is provide. It doesn't have to be money. Wisdom is by far the most important thing we can ever pass on to our children, so putting conditions on the money, like we just mentioned a moment ago, is a great way to provide wisdom along with financial help. I also think this can be a real point of contention between husband and wife, and so I would say as spouses, you should come together and pray about this decision. As Howard Dayton, the former host of this program, likes to say, it's impossible to argue with someone when you are praying together, so be sure to do that. And then you can also seek some outside counseling to help you reach an agreement. You could talk to your pastor or perhaps someone at church, but just really think and pray through these decisions.

Remember, we're so quick to help our adult children, and oftentimes tough love is one of the best ways to learn, even though it can be difficult. So just be sure that may not be the better option, and I want you to consider that. Thank you, Rob.

Well said. Again, we're taking your financial calls on anything today, 800-525-7000. If you have a question, if you have a concern, if you have a testimony of sorts, we'd love to hear from you, 800-525-7000.

Marsha is in Chattanooga, and what's on your mind today, Marsha? Hi, thanks for taking my call. I have a house that I still owe about $32,000 on, probably about 15 years, and it has been sitting vacant for some time. I have two children, neither one of them. They have their own home, so they don't want it. I live in another location with my husband, and my nephew and his wife do not have a home. They are renting, so I want to make an agreement with him if he will pay rent to make the payments on the house, and then when the payments are made in the 15 years, I want him to have the home. But he's going to pay rent to me to make the payments for the rest of the time. So I want to find out if that is a good idea or if there's some agreements we should make. How should I go about this?

Yeah, I think it is a good idea, something you can definitely pursue. You want to do it the right way, both from a legal standpoint as well as from a tax standpoint, because the IRS is going to want to make sure that the rent that you're charging is customary and fair according to what would be typical in that area, and you're going to want to have everything clearly spelled out with a rent to own agreement. So what I would recommend you do, Marcia, is visit with a real estate attorney, someone who perhaps from your church or local area specializes in this area, who's an attorney but does real estate closings and is well versed in real estate law, who could draw up a rent to own agreement, help you work through that process to make sure that it's handled properly, and even handle the tax side of it as well or refer you to somebody who can. But I think this is a great way to bless your nephew, assuming this is the home he wants to own, that he could be working toward that home ownership by paying you rent, and then that would be credited toward his ultimately being able to own it outright, and of course at that point it would be in his name.

So if you don't have someone that you know of in your area, you could go to our website, find a certified kingdom advisor there in Chattanooga, just go to MoneyWiseLive.org, click on find a CKA, and then ask for a referral to a real estate attorney who could help you draw up a simple agreement, make sure it's done properly, but give both of you the peace of mind that you know you're working toward something, and I think this will be a great blessing for him. Randy, or rather Marcia, thank you very much. We appreciate your call today. I hope that works out well for you.

Grand Junction, Colorado. Now we say hi to Randy, and you have a 401k question, Randy? Yes, I do. I've got a target dated 401k, and I was just wanting to maybe manage it more myself, and just you guys recommend, I don't know, maybe some books, websites, something to learn about all this. Sure, yeah, you know the only challenge with a 401k, and I'm not against them by any means, I think it's the place to go as a starting point for your retirement savings, especially with matching, but the only downside is just that you are in fact limited in the investment options inside the 401k to whatever the 401k administrator makes available. So a lot of people choose the target date funds just because they're easy in the sense that you don't have to put a lot of time and energy into researching the investment options, and it can make sure that you're in effect rebalancing over time to move more and more conservative as you approach retirement, and that you don't get overly aggressive at any point, or you're not too conservative while you still have some time. But if you'd like to take a more proactive approach, there's nothing wrong with moving out of the target date fund and essentially using the other funds that are in there to build your own allocation. And one reason why you'd want to do that is if, for instance, you wanted to be a bit more aggressive than perhaps the target date fund is, or you want to be more conservative. Either option would allow you to take the funds that are in there and in a sense build your own allocation toward, you know, stocks and fixed income. And in the stock part of the equation, you could, you know, choose the more aggressive or the more conservative options.

So I think there's a couple of things you need to do. Number one is you need to get the plan information so you can get the prospectus for each of the funds that are there and become familiar with the various options you have. And then secondly, I want to send you a book. If you hold on the line here, Randy, we'll send you Austin Pryor's Sound Mind Investing Handbook.

This is really going to give you a good overview of investing so you can understand what you're looking for and what is the right allocation for your age and risk tolerance and objectives. But it's all done with a biblical perspective. And that's, of course, what we're really interested in. So if you hang on the line, we'll get you that book.

Go ahead and order or request a copy of each prospectus from the funds inside the 401k. So as you're reading it, you'll be able to look those over and then you can make some choices. And if you have any specific questions along the way, Randy, give us a buzz. Randy, we appreciate your phone call today. We wish you the best with that.

Thank you very much. When we return from our brief break, we'll be chatting with Christie, who's working on a concrete repair project. Eric wants to get into the stock market, that and more. You're listening to MoneyWise Live with Rob West. I'm Steve Moore. We're going to take a brief break and then we'll be back with more MoneyWise Live.

You're listening to MoneyWise Live, but today we're not live. So if you hear that phone number, please don't call, but do stick around. Lots of good information ahead. All right, let's dig into this concrete repair project.

Let me say this again. I'm a semi professional. Concrete repair project that requires landscaping. Oh, Christie, I have a rake and a shovel. I don't know if I can help you much beyond that, but maybe Rob can. How can we help you?

Thanks for taking my time. Yeah, it's a pretty big project and it's quite a bit of money, probably upwards of like $40,000. So our concrete is above grade. Everything has to come below the foundation of the house and a lot of our landscaping. So we need to come up with $40,000 and we're looking at different areas to draw it from. So yeah, this has to be done soon because our sill plate, you know, is rotting.

Other repairs have to be done too. So anyway, yeah, we have like a 401k. We can take it against, we have a life insurance policy, which will charge us $1,500 a year. If we take it from there, we have some savings. We have a college fund we're hoping we can empty because our kids are done with college and we have $30,000 in savings or we could borrow against the house.

So yeah, we're not sure what the best way to go is. Okay, so you said the project you think is going to cost around $40,000. You have $30,000 right now in savings. Do you have some margin at the end of the month, Christi? When you all are done paying your bills, do you have a little bit left over? We don't have a budget, which is bad. So we kind of live to the hilt.

And no, that's really bad. But so we don't really know. Like, no, we don't have left over because we always seem to spend what we get. Yeah, yeah.

Okay. And tell me about this college fund. Is it in a 529? Or is it just in an account that was earmarked for college? Oh, it's in something. I don't know, could be a 529.

It's like $10,000. We have to, I guess my husband has to figure that out. It's not just in our savings. It's not something we put aside ourselves. Like, we put it somewhere.

Somebody's taking care of it for us. So you'd pay tax and a penalty likely on the gain that you have in there if there's any gain. So that would be a first option because if you don't have any more kids that are going to school and you don't plan to go back or your husband for any additional schooling, then that's an asset, even though we have to pay some tax on it. I like that a lot better than what you're talking about in terms of a loan from either the life insurance or the 401k.

I would really steer clear of those if at all possible. I'm okay with you taking some of your savings, but I really want you to do a budget or a spending plan first because anytime we're drawing down the savings, I really don't want you to get below three months expenses. What would you say is a rough estimate of what you're spending on a monthly basis in expenses? I really don't know. Okay, well that really needs to be our starting point, Christy.

Go ahead, I'm sorry. In a month is about $12,000 and somehow, but part of that money is going towards, you know, ties and offering and it's not the whole thing obviously, but yeah, we don't seem to have extra and we can't figure out why we don't have... Well, I could tell you why because you're not tracking it. You know, we're all in the same boat and this said I'm not getting on to you. What I'm saying is if any of us were to operate this way without a plan and once you have the plan without a process to control the flow of money in and out, whether that's on a spreadsheet or the envelope system with physical envelopes or a smartphone app, it doesn't matter. You have to have a way throughout the month for you to say, okay, we've reached the end of our eating out budget or we've reached the end of our entertainment budget or yep, we're done with going to the movie this month or whatever it is and that budget needs to reflect all of the expenses including the non-recurring expenses, those things that happen quarterly or semi-annually, those things like putting something aside to repair the cars or for gifts. So it's really important that you work through that process. I think that's where one of our MoneyWise coaches, Christy, could be a real help to you. I do that first where you where you take 30 days and capture all of your expenses, better yet 60, and then get it into a plan.

They'll walk alongside you to help you do that. In the meantime, I would prefer you take a home equity loan assuming you have some equity in the house. Do you have some equity built up? Yeah, we owe 250 and I think the house is worth like 5.65 and we don't have any bills. We don't carry any debt outside of that.

Okay, all right. So that would be my first choice. You can get a real attractive rate and right now I wouldn't get a home equity line of credit where the interest rate is adjustable. I'd get a home equity loan. Make sure you do your homework, get the number of bids, decide who you're going to go with and how much you actually need, borrow that amount, pay it in full, but then really focus on getting that paid off quickly and that's got to really come down to you having a well thought out budget. You'll have a lot more peace of mind knowing where your money's going and the goal will be to free up some margin on a monthly basis over and above all of your obligations. So that's the direction I would go, a home equity loan, but get started on that budget today and if you have questions along the way, give us a call back. That's right.

Of course, having a budget and putting all that in God's hand is the very best foundation you could ever have. We wish you well. When we come back, Eric, Olivia, we're coming in your direction. Stay with us. You're listening to Money Wise Live. Find us on the web at MoneyWiseLive.org, but today we're not live, so if you hear that phone number, please don't call, but do stick around.

Lots of good information ahead. Olivia, Gary and Rosa, I know you're out there. Keep with us or stay with us. Keep listening because we're going to get to you just as quickly as we can, but first let's talk with Eric calling from Crown Point, Indiana.

Eric, we're so glad you called today. You're on Money Wise Live. Go right ahead. And just with the market, I really appreciate you taking my call. I've always been interested in getting into stocks.

I was wondering if this would be an opportunity to get into the stock market and how much would be a good amount to start off with? I'd love to weigh in on that. Let me ask a few questions first, if you don't mind.

I'd love to weigh in on that. Let me ask a few questions first, if you don't mind. Just give me a quick overview of your financial situation, Eric. Do you have any debt to speak of? And then what about emergency savings?

That's great. And do you find that you have a hundred or two hundred dollars left over the end of the month, or is it coming right down to the wire? Throughout the year, it seems like we do have a little bit of a bump down. We do have like a little bit of a bump and things down.

When it comes to like auto insurance and things of that nature, we just have to be like in and get off every six months. Okay. And when you say an increase, you mean your savings is increasing? Okay.

Yeah. And when you say an increase, you mean your savings is increasing? Just looking at the total amount that we have. Very good. And do you or your wife have a company sponsored retirement plan available to you?

Very good. And do you or your wife have a company sponsored retirement plan available to you? Right now, I'm pretty sure my wife is putting into a Roth. I'm not sure which one it is.

And then I think there's two different ones, I'm not sure which one it is. We don't really have any savings. I just recently got a job. Besides that, my company, I don't really have any savings.

I just recently got a new job into my company, taking somebody out, not turning into great. And then last question, do you have any savings goals? So you're trying to say in the last question, do you have any savings goals? So are you trying to save for a purchase of a home or are you trying to save for a second car? So what goals you've we are hoping maybe in the next two years to get a home and also start a family.

We are hoping maybe in the next two years to get a home and also start a family and kind of start my nursing career with those goals in mind. Okay, very good. Well, I think you're doing a lot of things right here. I didn't hear you mention any credit card debt, so it sounds like you're doing a lot of things right here.

I didn't hear you mention any credit card debt, so it sounds like the only debt you have is the student loan debt. Is that right? That's right. We do have credit cards.

Yeah. And I love that you're on the envelope system using that for the discretionary portion. And I love that you're on the envelope system here for the discretionary portion of your spending plan. I think the key here is I heard you say you're spending about fifteen hundred dollars a month, so obviously you're keeping your lifestyle pretty modest. You've built up seven thousand in savings, so you're not quite to six months, but you're getting close.

That's a good thing. I'd love for you to quantify your goal for the home purchase and the way to do that is to start to imagine when you're ready to buy a home and the way to do that is to start to imagine when you're ready to buy a home, you've started your nursing career, you're ready to ultimately start a family, you guys are ready to buy a home. Even if it's not the one you ultimately like to buy, get a feel for the neighborhood you'd like to live in, how much you think you could spend based on a reasonable expectation of what your income will be so that your principal interest taxes and insurance payment isn't more than twenty-five percent of your take-home pay. Figure out how much you want to spend.

If it's a hundred thousand, well we want to set a goal to save twenty thousand. Even though it's a few years off, we want to know what that is so you know what you're working toward. Even though it's a few years off, we want to know what that is so you know what you're working toward. The second thing I want you to do is I want you to look at the total amount you're putting into retirement accounts right now based on the 401k that you're likely contributing to and this Roth that you believe your wife is contributing to so you all know how much you're putting away of your pay.

You may not be able to get there right yet because you may not be able to get there right yet because you're not in your job yet so that may come later. You may just max out the matching portion maybe three to five percent if that's available. But I'd love for you to know the answer now so you have a feel for what is your baseline in terms of how much is going in right now and then you know what you ultimately want to work up toward in terms of that ten percent. That is really the money that I want you to be focused on investing with the rest rather than just dropping some money in the stock market. I'd rather you not go that approach because then we're trying to time the market two weeks ago a month from now or it could be dramatically higher we don't know and that's why the bible encourages us to be what's called steady potters which means we're systematic over a long period of time in our investing system and that's what a consistent contribution to a retirement plan is going to do for you is you're putting it in every paycheck every month and that means you're buying at all levels on the market every month but I wouldn't be opening a separate account and dropping some money and just because I'd rather you be systematic so let's go back and let's quantify the shares on the home and purchase in terms of the same amount of money then and then set up a separate savings account for that and start contributing a little bit every month from this pullback and then secondly figure out what a percentage of your total income you're putting into retirement right now and dropping so you know where you're starting and then let's try to work that up to ten ultimately fifteen percent over time let's not worry about that so let's go back and let's quantify the goal on the home purchase in terms of the down payment and then set up a separate savings account for that and start contributing a little bit every month and then secondly figure out what it will absolutely what I'm saying is though let's focus on that in terms of our investing you know where you're starting and by putting it in every month systematically we're not trying to pick a bottom we're not trying to say okay I think today's the day because the market's down no we're gonna invest this paycheck and we're gonna invest next paycheck and doesn't matter where the market is we're systematic that really should be our mode of investing steve for it will absolutely what I'm saying is though rob here's a quick email from vivian dear rob we're almost 70 and we owe 67 000 on our mortgage my husband wants to increase our 30 000 home equity alone today because the market's down thousand dollars to pay off credit card bills and we're gonna invest some of that doesn't matter where the market is we're systematic you know I really don't like vivian of either option of increasing the home equity loan to pay off the credit cards or using the home equity loan to pay for the vacation you know we really don't need to look at the equity in our house as being available to fund other things really what we need to do is fund those things out of our income to pay off credit that means we got to do the hard work of putting a budget in place that balances and has you know I really don't like taxes after our giving after our lifestyle we've got some left over that we can use to paint down those credit cards as quick as you can so let's do this don't let's not borrow any more from the house as let's contact christian credit counselors.org to see if you can use a debt management program to pay off the credit cards and then let's save for that vacation even if you have to put it off a little while that balances and if you have a question you'd like to send to rob and you'd like to have him answer our lifestyle we've got some left over that we can use to paint down those credit cards as quick as you can so let's do this let's not borrow any more from the home let's contact christian credit counselors.org to see if you can use a debt management program to pay off the credit cards and then let's save for that vacation even if you have to put it off a little while and if you have a question you'd like to send to rob and you'd like to have him answer you on the program via email the address is questions at moneywise.org questions at moneywise.org hey a real pleasure to have you with us today this is money wise live i'm steve moore that other guy over there the guy with the answers uh he's rob west and we're happy to have you with us on the program today however we are pre-recorded we won't be taking your calls but we've lined up some calls in advance that i think you'll find interesting helpful and uh a very very practical at least we've tried to make them that way but i think the upcoming information will help you and bless you and make you a wise steward of what god's given you you might be saying how can i help those guys out how can i make sure that monday through friday when i turn the radio on at this time that this program is still here well um i'd like to suggest that please remember money wise media is a not-for-profit 501c3 ministry and we're not a business and we really do depend greatly on your support your friendship your prayer support and your financial donations and as of today rob there's a newer quicker creative way to give right uh keeping up with the time steve moore you're exactly right we do depend upon your gifts and we want to make it quick and safe and secure for you to give to money wise and we've got three ways here they are you can call click or text what are you talking about you ask well i'll explain you can call triple eight six six three four two one one that's triple eight six six three four two one one that'll go right into one of our team members who's waiting to assist you even now with a smile on their faces and we'd be happy to help you can click the donate button when you go to moneywiselive.org just click the donate button moneywiselive.org or yes you can text you can text the word give wise yes that's one word give wise to two eight nine five zero so open up your text type in two eight nine five zero and then type the word give wise and it'll be quick and easy for you to give that way as well i like it so okay the three ways again you can you can call you can click or text now click it or tick it what does that does that apply here no that's a total what does that mean yeah that has to do with your seat belt i think oh sorry i'm always getting these confused all right well let's let's go back to our phones albany new york olivia you are so patient when we appreciate that how can we help you yes um rob i just wanted to thank you so much for being willing to answer some of my questions um i am 66 years old my husband divorced me after 38 years of marriage a year and a half ago and the money i got from him was part of his retirement um i got the home and it has no mortgage but last year for taxes um i i was stunned i had to pay over forty four thousand dollars to um state and um local taxes and so i've got sixty thousand dollars to work with yesterday i met a vice president um of the bank that i've been going to for over 20 years and we spoke about the possibilities of what could be done for me um through the bank and um there was something called gallery max equity composite which um i didn't want to go for because that is a little bit more risky and then there's gallery balanced composite gross and then the lowest was a gallery fixed income so after i answered all the questions he asked it came out that the best for me would be the gallery balanced composite and i was originally planning on going to a financial planner who has his own business but after speaking with this vice president um he was just so wonderful and um i'm i'm wondering what you think about that and the other thing is um i need to put i believe you said six months of emergency funds in a liquid savings and also someone had shared with me that in case of emergencies it's good to have like five hundred dollars cash in your home and i'm just wondering what you think about those things yeah very good uh let me just ask one question do you have any debt to speak of olivia i do um i'm embarrassed but i do i i have six thousand dollars on my credit card but i did i just did a transfer balance balance and they didn't charge me anything to do that okay and the sixty thousand you have to invest do you have any emergency savings in addition to that or would that be the extent of your savings i have i do have a ross i um ira um at fifteen thousand and i have a cd um at five thousand okay when does that mature um the ross it looks like they just renewed it it looks like it's going to mature in like four years and the cd um should be um in i believe 2021 okay very good and last question i know i said that before but this really is the last question how much do you spend what are your expenses on a monthly basis um you mean dollar wise yes ma'am roughly um i honestly don't know um i know after i get off the phone with you today i am going to make a list of everything but it's usually just groceries and gas okay well let's let's do this let me just try to help uh because there's a lot of moving pieces here let me just give you some general counsel and then i want to get you to somebody who can really get into the nuts and bolts number one even though you have that period where there's no interest on the credit card i'd like for you to go ahead and pay that off i think it makes sense for you before you were to invest anything i think we need to go ahead and get rid of all your consumer debt it sounds like that's your only one so i'd write the check be done with the six thousand and pay it off now you've got fifty four thousand left then i would put away that six months of emergency funds let's say you're living on twenty five hundred a month uh you'd take six months of that and you'd need uh you know fifteen thousand uh to be able to have an emergency savings i'd put that in an online savings account linked to your checking account but it's just a click away from you getting to it if you had an emergency expense so that takes us to twenty one thousand uh that we have uh going out the door so if we take that away from our sixty thousand you've got forty thousand left in terms of where you go from here with that i'd probably make sure that you're funding another year of the roth ira if you don't have a plan available at work and if you want to look at investing the rest of it i think the key is uh to make sure this is money that you don't plan to touch for at least 10 years because if that's the case then we could go ahead and get another six thousand this year into the roth and then take the balance which is roughly thirty thousand and you could you know put that to work unless you had other goals that you're saving for in the shorter term i.e uh you need to replace the car and you want to do that without without any debt you have another major expense if you own a home you have a major repair coming down the pike things like that so i wouldn't be too quick to invest money that you know you need to use let's say in the next five years i'd pull that from the roughly thirty thousand that remains as well with anything left now we're talking about investing it and i would probably look at the expense side of this thing if you wanted to do it yourself you could visit with our friends at soundmindinvesting.org or you could go to one of these robo solutions like the uh you know at the Schwab Intelligent Investor or you could use Betterment but if you have a relationship with your bank and you felt comfortable with that i wouldn't have any problem with you investing with that individual but i wouldn't put the whole sixty thousand in because again when that credit card comes due and we're going to start paying interest on it i don't want all your money tied up in the stock market and now you're having to pull it out so that's why i would make sure i do those other things first okay so let's go back over these number one make sure you have a spending plan let's go ahead and get that written down and make sure you have a process of controlling the flow number two i'd pay off the credit cards in full number three open that online savings account put in fifteen thousand dollars in it and then with the balance decide between savings goals that you have in the next five years and that goes in the online savings account and then with the the rest i'd fund the Roth another six thousand and then consider investing the balance either with this gentleman you've been working with for 20 years at the bank in that balanced mutual fund or looking at a lower cost solution like Schwab Intelligent Portfolios or Betterment and with that i think that at least gives you a track to run on if you have any other questions feel free to check with one of our coaches olivia thank you very much we appreciate your call today one more fort lauderdale rosa thank you for holding we're going to have to be brief but how can we help you thank you so much for your time um my question is regarding about my husband is 67 i'm 60 and we are planning to refinance the house i would like to know if it's the best time i have $60,000 in line of credit and he have a 401k that we don't know if we need to take it out of the money or not okay um let's talk about this so you um what is the house worth do you think uh 380 or 390 now okay and what do you owe in the first mortgage 171 and what do you own the second mortgage uh $60,000 okay and how long how long have you had that first mortgage do you know uh 10 years okay and what is the interest rate at 475 right now yeah okay all right and was it a 30-year mortgage rosa yes it was 30 years more than 20 years now okay very good and um do you plan to stay in this home for a while yes yes okay very good uh you are absolutely a candidate for refinancing because you could save at least a percentage point assuming you have good credit uh and that would be my rule of thumb i want you to be in the home for at least five to seven years i want you to save at least a point on the interest rate but i'd really want you to do a 20-year loan uh when you do this and the key is going to be can you afford that so you're going to have to go back to the budget and see can we afford a new 20-year mortgage where we put the first and the second together so we don't stretch out the term and with the savings and the interest rate does it still fit into our budget meaning it's not more than 25 of your take-home pay with the 401k i'd roll that to an ira and with that we're out of time but you stay the line and we'll talk just a bit more off air we will indeed rosa you hang in there thanks very much we appreciate your call today and thank you again as i mentioned for tuning in and for listening and for being a part of the program money wise live is a partnership between moody radio and money wise media and you our listeners for rob west i'm steve moore hoping you and yours have a wonderful remainder of the day then join us again next time