This is Doug Hastings, Vice President of Moody Radio, and we're thankful for support from our listeners and businesses like United Faith Mortgage. If you go to our mortgage team's website, you'll find hundreds of testimonials of real Christian radio listeners we've helped. Laura here is a recent friend who is kind enough to share a few words with her local station.
I was actually referred to United Faith Mortgage through my mother-in-law. We decided it was time for us to start looking for a house, and I reached out to Kelly, and we found several houses we liked, but you know, with the seller's market, things kept falling through. But any time we needed her, she was there for us. She got everything we needed as soon as we asked for it, and she made it work. She made sure that if that was the house that our family wanted, we were going to get that house. They're a wonderful company, and we're just really blessed that we found them in the process, that they helped us get through it, and we are in the home of our dreams, and our family is so happy.
We are United Faith Mortgage. We all have our favorite things in life, things that bring us joy, meaning, and fulfillment. Sometimes it's nice to make a list of our favorites. It helps us recognize and appreciate them even more.
Hi, I'm Rob West. You know, we could make lists for many different things. Favorite Bible verses, for example. Well, I recently made a list of my favorite financial things, and I'll share it with you today. Then it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000.
That's 800-525-7000. This is MoneyWise Live, where finances are always in sync with biblical truth. So first, on my list of favorite financial things, it involves, yep, you guessed it, your emergency fund.
Specifically, the best place to keep it. We talk about this a lot, and how higher yield savings rates are found in online banks, not brick and mortar types. And within that category, I have three favorites. Ally, Marcus, and Capital One 360. And of course, all of these are FDIC insured, and right now offer around 0.5% on savings.
Of those, Marcus may top the list for me. There you'll find no fees or minimum deposit, linking to other banks for same-day transfers, and a US-based contact center to answer your questions. I also love their app and website. Alright, my next favorite financial thing, you ready? It's the Teen Checking Account, and we're setting them up in the West household as a tool to teach our kids to manage their money wisely. Proverbs 22.6 is clear, train up a child in the way he should go. Even when he is old, he will not depart from it. Now, I recommend a Capital One Money Teen Checking Account.
That's what they call it. It has no fees or minimum balance. It offers a debit card for teens with parental locking and unlocking, and a mobile app that allows you to easily transfer birthday and allowance money into the account. I'm regularly moving money around from my app right into their account.
Really, really simple. So I recommend it wholeheartedly. Now, you might be surprised that a credit card is on my list of favorite financial things, but keep in mind that any advice I give you about credit cards always includes the warning that you have to pay off the balance in full every month. Otherwise, the interest you pay will wipe out any rewards you receive. That said, my favorite credit card is the Fidelity Rewards Visa Signature Card.
And why do I like it so much? Well, it has no annual fee. And listen to this, it gives you 2% on every purchase.
That's pretty unusual. It's not for specific categories. Here's why they're doing it, though. You have to sign up to automatically deposit your cash back into one or more Fidelity accounts, such as a Fidelity 529 plan for college, could be a Roth or traditional IRA or even an HSA. So you don't get to spend the 2% cash you get back. It has to go into savings. But I think that's a smart idea. We're using it to fund 529s. You know, our friend Ron Blue often says that you can't make money by spending it. But this may be the only exception.
Certainly one of the only ones I've seen. As long as you use this Visa Signature Card from Fidelity for budgeted purchases only and you pay off the balance in full every month, you can actually save money for the future by spending wisely right now. Alright, the next category in my list of favorite financial things are digital envelope budgeting systems. And my favorite, of course, is the MoneyWise app.
It's based on the old school tried and true paper envelope system, only it's digital and it's innovative. Your envelope balances carry over month to month. You can only use the money in your accounts to fund those envelopes, so you stay on budget. The MoneyWise app easily keeps your transactions organized. You can split transactions between envelopes. You can record memos to help you remember what you purchased. You can even run custom reports to see where you're spending the most money. So you can manage all of your accounts in one place, connect to over 11,000 institutions securely, and that way you can easily see all of your accounts and have balances and transactions automatically imported.
All that plus the absolute best financial content from a biblical perspective that you'll find anywhere from all of our contributors, the best voices and thought leaders in this space. So go download it. It's free.
You can get it wherever you get your apps. And listen to this, we're about to cross 10,000. If you are the 10,000 registered user, we'll give you the pro subscription for a year. Just one more of my favorite things, and that's hearing from you. If you have a story to share, send it to us at mystoryatmoneywise.org. We always love to hear how God's working in your life.
All right, there you have it. My favorite financial things. Hey, your calls are next.
800-525-7000. This is MoneyWise Live, where God's word is our roadmap to financial freedom. Welcome back to MoneyWise Live. I'm Rob West.
So glad that you're along with us today. Looking forward to diving into your questions as we apply God's word, God's truth to your financial life. Here's the number. We have some lines open. 800-525-7000.
800-525-7000. You might wonder, how does he know there's 2350 verses on money and possessions in God's word? Well, Howard Dayton, my good friend and one of my mentors, actually counted them.
Here's the story. So he was in a men's Bible study. They discovered early in their faith journey that God's word had a lot to say about this topic.
So they said, let's find out how much he has to say. They divided the Bible into Old Testament and New. Howard, being the newest believer, said, I'll take the half in the Old Testament and you take the new, not realizing it was much longer. They actually cut out with scissors every verse dealing with money and possessions, stacked them on the table over weeks that they were using in categories, and then they counted them up 2350 verses later. They knew God's word has a lot to say about this topic.
Why is that? Well, I believe there's such a connection between our money and our hearts. In fact, Jesus said that where your treasure is there, your heart will be also. So if our heart follows our money, it means we really have to understand what's driving us. Why are we making the decisions we are? And is God and his plan for our life at the center?
Because remember, it's all his. We're stewards or managers of his resources. The key is our money reveals what we value. What's most important to us? So here's the question we all need to ask myself included. What story are we telling with the way we're using God's money about what's most important to us? And are we okay with that?
And if we are great, let's continue on that track. But if not, maybe this is a time to make a course correction and say, Lord, with your money, I want to show what I value. And it's not the way I'm spending your money today. I want to make a change.
Well, the good news is God's word, as we've said, is chock full of principles and passages that can inform every financial decision we make. So let's apply it to your questions today. Here's the number 800-525-7000.
Let's start with Marilyn. We'd love to hear your question today. You're on MoneyWise Live. Go ahead. Hi. I just received a letter from my visa and they're wanting to confirm information about my annual income and housing information. I've never been asked that before.
Now, it does say I remember your response is completely optional, but I was just concerned about it and why they were doing it and have never had it before. Sure. Marilyn, how did they contact you? By letter. By letter.
Okay. You know, that's the key. You want to make sure that it is, in fact, coming from who you think it is, regardless of who they claim to be. And generally, if you were to get that by email or you would get that by a phone call, I would immediately be suspicious.
In fact, I would just terminate that communication and move on. But if it's coming through the mail, it likely is something that's legitimate. Oftentimes, credit card companies will update their account profiles for their cardholders.
It's not unusual. They do it simply to reevaluate customers' ability to pay. It can lead in some cases to a credit limit increase. It's not a problem, but you do want to contact them directly. So I'd perhaps call in on the number on the back of your card. And if you want to provide this information, you can do it that way or you can return it by mail. It's not anything that's going to help you.
It's for their benefit unless you're looking for them to come back with either an increase in limit, perhaps even better terms or interest rates. But it's normal, routine business. So again, as long as it's coming by mail, I wouldn't be concerned about it.
And if you choose not to provide that information, that's entirely up to you. And we appreciate your call today. Let's head to Illinois. Al, you're next on the program.
What's on your mind? Yeah, I bought a timeshare years ago in probably 2001 and upgraded four times. They kept saying, well, if you just paid more money and I've paid it off every time as soon as it was due. But I have eighty eight thousand dollars in this thing and can't get a time that I want at a place I want. And so I just like out of it.
I'd like my money if possible, but I'm just wondering about your thoughts on this, if that's a possibility and who I should do it through. Yeah, well, that's a great question, Al. Unfortunately, I don't have a great answer for you. There are more sellers than buyers when it comes to timeshares in terms of those people who have followed through on a perhaps a solicitation to buy one of these and regretted it, or at least at this season in their life. They're thinking that they don't really want it any longer. And so they're looking for a way to unload it. The problem is that the companies behind these are more interested in selling new ones than they are making a market for somebody that might be looking to get out of it. And so it's going to be challenging.
A couple of thoughts in terms of where you might go from here. There is the Timeshare Users Group. It's at TUG2.net.
That's T-U-G the number two dot net. They have a lot of great information about selling a timeshare and a marketplace to help you do it. Unfortunately, as I said, the secondary market for timeshares is not great because of low demand.
In addition to that, and you're going to have varied success with this, but I'll just mention a few other options. You could contact the management company that oversees it to see if they can resell it for you. People who are staying at the resort would be your best prospects and they're already talking to the management company.
I would at least make the call to see. You could consider renting it instead of selling it. I'd try to work through the management company if at all possible. You can advertise it locally in a local newspaper or local realtor who deals with timeshares. Not all do, but this would be an option and you can even advertise it through social media. I don't recommend, and not that you were necessarily thinking of this, but I don't recommend giving it to a charity since they'd be responsible for the ongoing maintenance. So check out the Timeshare Users Group at TUG2.net or some of those other options and we'll wish you well in terms of getting rid of that.
I know it can be a real hassle and expensive to keep up over time. We appreciate your call today. Let's head to Chicago, Illinois. Manuela, you're next on the program. What's on your mind? Great.
Thank you so much for taking my call. I recently received the gift of $28,000 and I would like to know how to invest it. I do have a mortgage principle of $134,000 that will mature in May of 2050 as well as a car loan of $14,000. Okay.
All right. And you came into $28,000. Tell me about any savings that you have. Do you have an emergency fund in addition to this $28,000? I do not. I do not. All right. And do you have any credit card debt?
I do not. Okay. So your only debts at this point are your car loan and your home mortgage. What would you say the total of your monthly expenses are? When you put all of your monthly expenses together, including food and your mortgage payment and that car payment and everything else, insurance that it takes to fund your family for a one-month period, what would you guess that would be? My guess would be about $2,000.
All right. Let's say you're off by a bit. Let's say it's $2,500 or even $3,000 just to be conservative. You know, if you were to put three months expenses away, that'd be $9,000. If you were to put six months, that'd be $18,000. That would be the number that I'd be targeting somewhere between $9,000 and $18,000 that I would move from that $28,000 into an online savings account.
As I mentioned at the top of the program, I like Marcus. I like Capital One 360. I like Ally Bank.
Any one of those are going to pay you about a half a percent in interest. There's not going to be any fees to open the account. You can link it right up to your checking.
You can do same-day transfers through the ACH system. Therefore, if you have an unexpected expense, Manuela, you're not going to have to put that on a credit card or not be able to take care of it. You'll have the money there to do it, and the unexpected will come. And so that's why I want it liquid and a savings account. Again, earning some interest, but more importantly than that, available when you need it. So let's say you were to do that with $18,000. That would mean that you'd have about $10,000 remaining. Do you have any immediate needs to, for instance, is that car in good working order?
Are you saving for anything else that might be a major expense in the next five years? So the car is in good shape. I had just purchased it. It's a 2017 year old.
I mean, you know, from 2017, so it's fairly new. Yes. Yeah, so that would be the only thing that I would have to do for right now. Are you putting something away for retirement? No, I do not have a retirement plan, so that was going to be my next question.
Yeah, very good. Well, I think that would be a great option. You could look at funding a Roth IRA, which you could open at Fidelity. You could open at Betterment.
You could open at Vanguard. Basically, you'd open a Roth IRA. You could fund it $6,000 if you're over the age 50. You could put in $7,000 per tax year if you're married.
You and your spouse could do that for $12,000 or $14,000 depending on your age. I think that would be a great next step for you, and any one of those options would have some great investment options for you once you've funded it to put it in where you'd have broad diversification and low fees. So I think that might be the best next step. Let's fully fund that emergency savings, and then let's get that money working for you for the longer term. If you have a company-sponsored plan at work, like a 401k or a 403b, I'd think about putting some money away there, starting with maybe 5% of your pay. Try to get up to 10% to 15% over time. That's going to make sure you have good savings for the future. We appreciate your call.
More to come right around the corner. This is MoneyWise Live. We'll be right back. Welcome back to MoneyWise Live. We're taking your questions and calls today, answering your financial issues with biblical principles and biblical wisdom. Here's the number to call. Phone lines open at 800-525-7000.
That's 800-525-7000. At the top of the program today, I mentioned our MoneyWise app. We're approaching 10,000 registered users. We're so excited at how quickly you all are downloading the app, getting involved, setting up your envelope system and tracking your expenses by downloading all your transactions. You're getting involved in the community inside the app, posting your questions.
Our coaches are responding with their answers, giving you feedback and all of our great content. Remember, all the best content in biblical finance is flowing into our app and our website where you can read the latest and great topics on God's word applied to the financial issues you're dealing with right there in our Discover tab. That's all in the MoneyWise app, plus all of our episodes here from MoneyWise Live. You can access it right there.
Where do you download it? Well, just head over to your app store, whether that's the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. And by the way, if you are registered user number 10,000, we will make sure that you get a MoneyWise Pro subscription for a year. So go download the MoneyWise app today and I'll see you in the community and look forward to taking your questions. We've got just a couple of lines open. Again, the number 800-525-7000. Speaking of that community, a great question that came in recently. Christian, Jeff, you asked, should we pay off our credit card debt or fund our emergency fund?
What advice do you have for us? And Christian, Jeff, that's a great question. Here's my take on that. If you've got credit card debt, presumably high interest credit card debt, and you've not yet funded your emergency fund. Maybe you just started listening to MoneyWise Live and you're starting to think about the need to have some funds set aside, which by the way, is very biblical. There's precious oil and treasure in the house of the wise.
The foolish man swallows it up. So you want to have something for the unexpected. Ultimately, I'd like for you to have Christian, Jeff, three to six months expenses in that emergency fund in an online savings account linked to your checking. But if you've got high interest credit card debt, here's the way I'd approach it. Let's dial into that spending plan, get in the MoneyWise app, download your expenses, start managing your budget and free up as much margin as you can. With that margin, I want you to focus on your emergency fund first. Let's get to fifteen hundred dollars. When you get to fifteen hundred, stop there and then let's focus on the credit card debt. Snowballing it, paying all the minimums, but with the smallest balance, apply a hundred percent of your surplus every month until that one's gone and then move on to the next one and the next one.
Once they're all paid off, credit card debt only, I'm not talking about cars and other loans, once your credit card debts are paid off, let's go back to the emergency fund and get that up to three to six months expenses. And I hope that helps you. All right, back to the phones.
Winter Haven, Florida. Manny, you're next on the program. What's on your mind today? Yes, good afternoon.
I enjoy your show. My question is, I have a mortgage of over sixteen thousand dollars. I have about five thousand dollars that I can put towards it, but I'm not sure whether or not I should just make extra payments on mortgage or just pay, you know, give five thousand dollars towards the principal.
Yes. No, it's always better if this money has been earmarked for debt reduction specifically for your mortgage, Manny, go ahead and pay that as soon as you can. The quicker you get that money directly going toward principal and get that balance down, you're going to be paying less in interest over the remainder of the loan. So it'd certainly be better for you to go ahead and apply all of that to the principal. The key, though, is I'd make sure that you talk to them so that you apply that in the way that they want you to. It could be that they want you to add a note to the coupon when you send it in, or maybe you need to designate that on the Web site. Just make sure that that amount over and above your payment is one hundred percent going right to principal.
It's probably going to happen that way, but it's worth a phone call given that this is a little bit unusual for you. But that's a great thing to do. And I'm excited you're going to get that mortgage paid off early. Hey, when we come back, much more of your questions on Money Wise Live, 800-525-7000. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Money Wise Live. So glad you're along with us today. Just ahead, we're going to be talking about building credit for a gentleman marrying someone from another country.
We'll also talk about diversifying your investment portfolio in your IRA when retirement is just around the corner and an alternative for 401ks. But first, let's go to Austin, Texas, and welcome Yvonne to the broadcast. Yvonne, what's on your mind today?
How are you doing? I'm just trying to help my son out. I've got a home that's almost paid off and he's 41. He's never owned a home. And I want him I want to sell my home to him. He's been paying a rental fee for about four years of seven hundred a month.
I was told there's no way to keep that payment at that price. But I would still like to know how to do that so that I can sell this house and I could have a retirement. Yeah. So you're looking to sell the home to your son and then you're going to cash out and invest that money. And he wants to move into this property. Is that right?
He's already living in the property. Yes. Okay. All right. And are you looking to sell it at market value or are you looking to sell it to him at below market? Way below market. Okay. About how much below? Probably about eighty thousand.
And right now it's market's like 250. Okay. All right.
Well, I think the key here is to understand a couple of things. Number one is if it's sold below market to a family member, that's going to be treated as a gift from the IRS. And if that goes beyond what is an annual gift exclusion, you're going to need to report that. And so you want to talk to your tax preparer about that. You'll also want to get a real estate attorney to help you with this transaction just to make sure everything is filed properly. And the documents are handled appropriately so that legal title passes. And then once you receive the proceeds of the sale, assuming you've handled it properly legally, as well as from a tax standpoint and from a gift standpoint, since the IRS will see it that way, then it's just a function of how you should invest the money to generate an income that will allow you to meet your needs. Will you have another income source, Yvonne, other than the proceeds of this home sale?
Yes, I do. My husband is employed. Okay.
Very good. My husband is employed. Excellent. And so how much will you be looking to draw off of this, the proceeds of the home sale to supplement your husband's income?
Probably, you know, I never thought of that, but I think I'm not real sure. Okay. Do you have a shortfall every month, or are you able to cover your bills with your husband's income?
We're able to cover, but it's pretty tight. Okay. And what are you selling the home to your son for?
Around 80 grand. Okay. All right.
Very good. Well, I think the key for you at this point would be, first of all, just to kind of go through the priority orders. You know, if you have an emergency fund, great. If you don't, I'd love for you to shore that up with this 80,000, essentially putting away the equivalent of three to six months expenses in a savings account.
If you have any high interest credit card debt, get that paid off or any other types of loans. Beyond that, it could be that the very best place for you to put this money is to start investing it so that it can grow for your future. So when your husband is no longer able to work or the Lord reassigns him to something else, this money is greater than the proceeds of this home sale down the road, and you can allow that to supplement Social Security or any other income sources you might have. I think the only other thing to consider is just whether you're in a position financially to sell this home to your son at this great a discount. It could be that you all need to go ahead and sell it at full market value because that's money that you're counting on for the future, and there's other ways to bless your son. Maybe you could give him a smaller gift and then leave him an inheritance down the road. I'm not saying you shouldn't sell it to him at a discount. If that's what the Lord's leading you both to do, I would just think through it. You wouldn't want to put yourself in a real financial bind years from now when you don't have perhaps enough in retirement savings when your husband is no longer able to work. Beyond that, I would get some help in investing these funds so that you're not going it alone, and you could do that with our friends at soundmindinvesting.org, or you could contact a certified Kingdom advisor there in Austin, Texas.
Just go to moneywiselive.org and click Find a CKA, and I hope that helps you today. We appreciate your call. Up next is AJ. You're calling from Cleveland today, and how can we help you? How are you guys doing today? Doing great, AJ. Thanks. Awesome. Appreciate your ministry.
Thank you. So I was just wondering about some different alternatives to a 401k plan. I currently have a union pension that's building, but I've been hearing a lot of negative things about a 401k and kind of where that's going, and I have an opportunity right now to come out of the union and start a 401k, but I didn't know if that was the route I actually wanted to go if there were other alternatives that made more sense.
Yeah. I actually think it probably is your best option, so what's going to be made available to you? It'll be a 401k through your employer, and will there be any matching?
Yeah, it'll be a partial match. I want to say 50% up to 6%. Okay. That's great. So you put in 6%. They give you another 3% on top of it. That's a 50% return on your money. You're not going to get that anywhere else.
That's great. And the nice thing about the 401k is you can get the tax deferral through the traditional version. You can get the tax-free growth with the Roth version of a 401k, but the contribution limits are much higher than you're going to see elsewhere unless you're self-employed at $19,500 versus an IRA, let's say, which is at $6,000. So you can put away more money on an annual basis, and again, that 50% return on your money in the form of a match is money you're not going to find anywhere else by contributing outside of that 401k. The good news is by fully maxing out that match, you're going to have 9% going every year just at that minimum level. I'd love for you to get that up to as much as 15%. I'm not concerned about the future of 401ks.
The massive amount of money in 401ks would make it very difficult politically for anything to change with regard to how 401ks are handled and treated, and it would take an act of Congress. So I feel like that's the very best place for you to invest moving forward as you come out of this union option and move into a self-directed option. Does that make sense, though? Yes, it does. Thank you so much. You're welcome. The last thing I'll say, AJ, is get some counsel as you think about how to invest the money that goes into that 401k, whether that's a plan administrator that can give you some guidance or whether you pay a financial advisor for a few hours of his or her time. That'll be well worth the money you spend as you get that invested properly based on your age, your goals and objectives, and your risk tolerance. You don't want it invested too aggressively, but you certainly don't want it invested too conservatively.
You want to make sure that it's got good growth, especially if you've got plenty of years between now and retirement. We appreciate your call today. Thank you very, very much. Hey, let me mention before our next break, MoneyWise Live is funded solely based on your generous support. We are a listener supported radio program and ministry. And I'd love for you to think about partnering with us as we move forward and app development and the radio broadcast and all the things we're doing with our MoneyWise coaches. If you would prayerfully consider being a partner with us, you can head to MoneyWiseLive.org and click the donate button. You can give one time or monthly, and we'd certainly be grateful. We'll be right back after this.
Stay with us. Welcome back to MoneyWise Live. I'm Rob West. Are you looking to align your financial counsel with your values as a believer? Well, the Certified Kingdom Advisor designation is for professionals who are specially trained to bring God's word to bear in the context of competent financial advice. If you'd like to find a CKA in your area in the arenas of investments, financial planning, tax and accounting, legal for estate planning and insurance, you can do so at our website, MoneyWiseLive.org.
Just click find a CKA. By the way, right next to that, you'll see how you can connect with a coach. And we have just graduated a whole new group of MoneyWise coaches. These are volunteers that want to serve you as part of their ministry, help you get on a spending plan and set up your MoneyWise app and get on a debt repayment plan and a giving plan. They'll also teach you some key biblical financial principles along the way.
Just click connect with a coach when you visit, again, MoneyWiseLive.org. Let's go back to our phones. Woodstock, Illinois. Rebecca, you're next on the program. What's on your mind?
Hi. I'm just wondering if I should diversify my IRA. My house is paid off. My car is paid off.
Both are in good condition. I have about four months of savings for emergency plus some other stuff. And anyway, I'm just wondering, you know, I've been reading and it says to diversify your IRA. And it's like, I don't, I'm not quite sure.
You know, I have everything right now in one pot, which is a mid cap. And I'm going to be retiring in about three and a half years. Three and a half years.
All right. Tell me what's going to happen when you retire, Rebecca, in terms of your income sources. Will you be relying on Social Security alone or do you have other income that you'll be counting on? No, just Social Security and, you know, whatever, you know, I figure about $4,000 a year from my IRA. And how much do you have accumulated currently in the IRA? $100,000. And then I have another $1112 and a $401k. Okay, so let's say that grows to $125,000. We would typically say you'd only want to pull about 4% a year, which would be about $5,000 total. But you're looking to pull about, you said, how much a month? Just about $4,000 a year. Okay, about $4,000 a year. Yeah, I've been living low forever. Okay, that's great.
Yeah. So I think the key right now is that you need to be more conservative than having 100% of your assets, you know, at the risk of the stock market in mid cap stocks. First of all, even if you had much longer, I'd want you more properly diversified with small cap, mid cap and large cap, but want to make sure you have some domestic and international investments, you'd probably want to have a little bit of bond exposure, maybe 5% toward the precious metals. That's going to give you a really well rounded portfolio. So you're not counting on just one, not only one asset class stocks to perform well, in your case, you're counting on stocks to perform well, and a very specific subset of those stocks, which happened to be mid cap sized companies. That's just a little too narrow.
So we need to broaden that out. The other thing is given that you're only three and a half years away from really relying on this to be a key part of your, you know, income to supplement Social Security at four to 5000 a year, which is very doable. But you don't want to be in a position where you're at 100% risk of the market. And let's say two years from now, and I'm not saying I know this is going to happen, but I'm just putting a hypothesis out there or, or a scenario, let's say two years from now, the market really starts to take a downturn, we head into a recession that lasts a couple of years. And then a year after that you're ready to retire, but you're 125,000 is now you know, 80,000 because the markets taken a pretty big hit, you want to be able to let that recover, but you'd be in a position where you'd have to start selling at least a portion of those investments to be able to supplement your income and I don't want you to be in that spot. So I began moving to a much more conservative portfolio, you're probably going to want to seek some professional assistance, either through like a certified kingdom advisor there in Illinois, or by at the very least using one of the robo advisors that could help you determine what the right allocation is based on your age, your risk tolerance and your proximity to retirement. You're probably not going to want to have more than I'm going to say 30 at the most 50% of your investments at the risk of the stock market at this point, just because you're so close to retirement, and you're not going to have time to let you know that portion recover, if you're going to have to start selling things to pull out. Whereas if you let's say you're at 50% for the next year, and then 40 and then 30%.
The idea would be that you could go ahead and start withdrawing that 4000 a year out of the fixed income portion while you waited for the stock portion to recover. And that's, you know, what you want to do typically in that season of life, so that you've got a growth component in the good years. And historically speaking, those have outpaced the bad years. So there's, you know, I would expect many more good years ahead.
But they, you know, there's going to be bumps along the way. And when we hit those bumps, we want to be able to not have to sell any of those stock investments, we want to be able to wait for them to recover. So I think your next step, if you want to seek out an advisor to help you build that portfolio that I'm describing, I'd head to MoneyWiseLive.org, click find a CKA, interview two or three. You know, your portfolio size is right at the size where, you know, it for some advisors, it may not be enough for others, it will be, but they could build you a portfolio that makes sense based on where you're at right now. Does that make sense?
Yeah, it does. Okay. Very good.
MoneyWiseLive.org, click find a CKA. We appreciate your call today. Next up, we're going to talk about building credit when you're getting married. Kyle, tell me what's going on in your life.
Hey, how you doing? Yes, I'm doing this fiance visa. I'm going to marry a girl from another country. And I've just seen the best way to get her credit. I was thinking about maybe put her as authorized user on my credit cards.
Yeah. Well, you certainly could do that. Will she have an ITIN number, individual taxpayer ID number or will she actually get a social when you get married?
To be honest, I don't know. Yeah, I would look into that. I mean, at the very least, she's going to want to request an individual taxpayer identification number. You could see about adding her once she has that as an authorized user.
That would certainly do the trick. There is something called NOVA credit. You may want to research if you're new to the U.S. and you want to apply for financial products. The benefit of that is that in some cases will allow you to transfer your credit history from a previous country of residence. And that credit is then plugged into the top global consumer credit bureaus to bring your credit to the U.S. for use by the American lenders, essentially moves your credit file over. It may or may not apply to the country she's coming from.
And, you know, it doesn't work in every case, but it's at least worth looking into. In addition, Kyle, to being an authorized user once she has that taxpayer ID number, she can look at opening a secured credit card at your bank. Perhaps she'd put a certain amount on deposit and then she'd be issued a credit card against that. She can only charge up to what's on deposit. And then as she charges budgeted items, that would begin reporting to her credit file. There's also something called a credit builder loan. Just Google that.
You'll see what it is. It's not used for making purchases. Basically, the lender deposits a small amount of money in a secured savings account on your behalf. It's a loan that stays deposited in your savings. You pay off the loan with monthly payments. The whole idea behind it is to establish good habits and to build credit.
Most of them are small, so they'll be small monthly payments and they're fairly easy to qualify for. So I think between those options, you should be on the right track. But by the way, congratulations. What an exciting time. Thank you. All right. Hey, we appreciate your call today, Kyle. Call us back anytime if you have any questions. On to Joliet, Illinois. John, you're going to be our last caller today. What's on your mind, sir?
Okay. I'm getting ready to pay off my home in about another month from now. And I wanted to make sure that, you know, my two adult children are on the title and make sure that if once I leave the world, to make sure that they don't have to go to the state and go to courts and all of that to have to pay a lot of fees to make sure, you know, that they don't have to be worried about that. So I want to pre-plan that.
I want to plan that ahead. So once, because I've been told that once I pay off the house, I'll be getting the deed. The deed has my name on it from the county. But I want to make sure that I can put them on the deed. So if they decide to keep the home and rent it out, or if they decide to sell it and split down the middle, whatever the profit would be, I want to make sure they can do that.
Well, I appreciate that question, John. Essentially, you're looking to keep this out of probate. And, you know, there's better ways to do it than putting them on the deed while you're alive. And I'd always seek counsel of a competent estate planning or real estate attorney to help you think through this. An estate planning attorney would be best. But here's the idea is that if they're on the deed now, let's say, and this is obviously a worst case scenario, let's say one of them pre-deceased you. Now they're legally entitled to it. And then it's going to pass to their, you know, whoever's their next of kin or whoever their assets are going to, which may not follow what your intentions are.
That would be an unintended consequence that would be negative. And obviously, if you wanted to sell it at any point, they'd be immediately entitled to their portion, which may happen prior to you wanting to give this to them at death. You'd want to be able to take the proceeds and go buy something else. Let's say you got into, you know, a situation where you just decided you needed to downsize or you needed to move for some reason. The most common way to do what you're talking about is through a revocable trust.
I would look at that. It's going to allow you to maintain control of your property, but it's going to allow you to decide how it's distributed after death without going through probate, which was your goal. And you would just title the home in the name of the trust.
So get with an estate planning attorney and they'll help you figure that out. Hey, folks, thanks for being along with us today. MoneyWise Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and MoneyWise Media. I want to say thank you to Dan Anderson, Amy Rios, Rich Rozell along with us today. Thank you for your calls. Make sure you come back and join us tomorrow. This is MoneyWise Live, where God's words meets today's financial decisions. God bless you. We'll see you tomorrow.
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