The Sin of Pride

Uncle Ryan is going to talk about how hot, hot, hot cash out refinances are. That sounds fun.

I sound like a broken record. I've been doing this for 18 years. I have never seen a market like this in my life. Home values have generally been skyrocketing the last couple of years.

And with interest rates being some low, I've actually seen refinances where people are able to cash out that newly found equity in their homes, do home improvements, whatever it may be, and still save money per month compared to what their prior mortgage payment was. So it's worth a shot just to give us a phone call. And one thing I can promise at United Faith Mortgage is we will not be pushy.

It's one of my biggest pet peeves. I can promise you we will not be that way. I like to see it as my job is to present you with a few different options.

I step back, I let you decide, and I'll let you call me when you want to move forward. We are United Faith Mortgage. Uncle Ryan is going to talk about how hot, hot, hot cash out refinances are. That sounds fun.

I sound like a broken record. I've been doing this for 18 years. I have never seen a market like this in my life. Home values have generally been skyrocketing the last couple of years.

And with interest rates being some low, I've actually seen refinances where people are able to cash out that newly found equity in their homes, do home improvements, whatever it may be, and still save money per month compared to what their prior mortgage payment was. So it's worth a shot just to give us a phone call. And one thing I can promise at United Faith Mortgage is we will not be pushy.

It's one of my biggest pet peeves. I can promise you we will not be that way. I like to see it as my job is to present you with a few different options. I step back, I let you decide, and I'll let you call me when you want to move forward. We are United Faith Mortgage.

I am Rob West. Pride first made its appearance in the Garden of Eden and has harmed our fellowship with God ever since. But what does thinking too highly of yourself have to do with money? I'll talk about that first today, then it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. So I think we should first make a distinction between the sin of pride and what we often call taking pride in our children or maybe doing a job well done. For that, we might use the word satisfaction rather than pride. And there's nothing wrong with taking satisfaction in your job or your family if you always remember to give God the glory.

He did, after all, give them both to you, along with everything else you possess. Even the ability to earn money is a gift from God. The pride we're warned about in the Bible is quite different. We read in Proverbs 16, 18, pride goes before a destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. CS Lewis wrote that pride is the great sin that leads to all the others because it exalts the self over God.

1 John 2, 16 tells us, For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The sin of pride can be described as having an exaggerated view of yourself without regard for others. And history shows that from the Tower of Babel to the Titanic, that kind of pride is proven to be disastrous. So how do you know when you're having a problem with pride? It's been said that pride is the easiest sin to spot in other people. It's difficult to spot pride in yourself because it's the one sin that tells you you don't have it.

Maybe that's why Jesus says in Matthew 7, 5, You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. But the one way to tell that you're giving in to the sin of pride is that you've become critical of others. That's just another way of exalting yourself over others. So pride is spiritually deadly, but it can be toxic to your finances too. Pride can reveal itself in any number of ways and it often leads to other sins. Certainly one of the ways pride shows up is when we fail to manage money according to God's financial principles.

The first and most important of those is that God owns everything and we're simply managers or stewards. Pride tells us that we own the things God has entrusted to us and that we can do with him what we want. Pride leads to all kinds of bad decisions and a lot of them are financial in nature. It could be something as simple as missing out on bargains and spending too much because you refuse to buy generic items.

Or maybe you won't shop at discount stores because you feel you're above that. Proverbs 29, 23 reads, One's pride will bring him low, but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor. And pride often leads to big financial mistakes like buying too much house or too fancy a car. Those are far more serious and can often be traced back to pride.

Then of course there's just running up a lot of credit card debt. Often folks will say they had no choice, but more likely it's because deep down they feel they deserve a higher lifestyle than God has provided. The Bible repeatedly warns us that pride goes before destruction and often that destruction is financial. But his word also says that as God resists the proud, he gives grace to the humble. For most of us, humility doesn't happen by itself.

We have to work at it in our finances and elsewhere. Fortunately, God's word encourages us and teaches us how to be humble. First before God, as we read in James 4-10, humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you, but also humble toward one another. Here, Jesus' second great commandment is key, love your neighbor as yourself. And Paul states in Ephesians 4-2, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love. And in Philippians 2-3, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. By thinking more highly of others, extending grace to them, we humble ourselves and allow God to extend grace to us. Being financially generous requires humility and putting pride aside as we think more highly of others. Proverbs 19-17 says, whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord and he will repay him for his deed. All right, your calls are next.

800-525-7000. This is Money Wise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Five lines open, we'd love to hear from you. We've got some great questions lined up today, but first, speaking of questions, let me remind you, if you already knew, or perhaps you're hearing for the first time, about our community. That is the Money Wise Live community, specifically in the Money Wise app. This is a place where you can go to come together with other stewards, trying to be found faithful in managing God's money.

And here's the great thing about it, that in the app, which by the way is a free download, as is participating in our community, but in the app, when you click on the community tab, you can post questions. You may have a financial question, you may not be comfortable being on the air with us, but you'd like to post it. Well, here's the great news, is that our Money Wise coaches are in that community responding to your questions, even other stewards, God's people weighing in with their expertise when they have something to share from time to time, and I'm in there as well. In fact, I just responded to TJ yesterday.

He wanted to know about tithing on the sale of a home and how he calculates the increase, and I was able to jump in there and provide him an answer. So check that out if you would. Just go to your app store, the Google Play Store, the Apple App Store. You'll want to search for Money Wise Biblical Finance, and when you get that downloaded, then check out our community. And by the way, you can read the content in the learn tab. You can also manage God's money using the digital envelope system.

It's all there in the Money Wise app. Check it out today. All right, let's head to the phones today. First up is James in Pennsylvania. James, good afternoon, sir. Hi, James. I'm sorry, this is James. How are you? I'm doing great, James.

Go right ahead. So my question was today, basically, we have roughly about $170,000 in total debt that's included in a home, vehicle, and some credit things otherwise. And then we have sufficient enough assets to be able to hold that off and still exceed the $65,000 left over. And I'm wondering if that's smart to pay off all of those debts to be on that debt-free.

We have a budget set up, and we have sufficient income. I'm just trying to figure out if it's smart to alleviate all those assets, or if we should be looking to pay them off separately. Yeah, and the $170,000, is that outside of retirement accounts?

Yes, yes. Okay, so it's just sitting in a savings account of some kind? Yeah, we have them in different investments. We have them set up in different investments. So we have actually about $230,000 or so in different investments. Okay, so do you have retirement accounts that you're contributing to through work or on your own?

Yes, I have one through work, and then we also do one separately. Okay, and you said you have about $230,000 total, but $170,000 that's available to pay toward the debt. So does that mean your retirement accounts are sitting at about $60,000, or do you have more than that?

Yeah, they're probably right around $60,000 to $65,000. Okay, very good. And what is your age? I'm 28. 28, okay, excellent.

Well, you've been doing some hard work, James. Congratulations. You and your bride obviously have been limiting your lifestyle, living well within your means. You've had plenty of margin, which has allowed you to get started with your retirement contributions, but also accumulate quite a bit of money outside of that, that you're in a position to use toward debt. So I actually really like this, especially given your age. You're young, you've got incredible time on your side, and if you went ahead and paid everything off to become completely debt-free, which some would say, no, use the leverage and invest it. I love the idea of you guys being completely unencumbered, having complete flexibility, plus even more that you could redirect toward additional giving, or long-term savings, perhaps bumping up your retirement contributions. If you got your retirement contributions up to 15% of your total take-home pay, or your total gross pay, I guess I should say, man, I mean, with nearly 40 years to go, you'd have to define your finish line early, because you'd reach it early, which would be a great thing, because you'll be debt-free throughout the whole of your working life.

You'll have plenty in the way of accumulated assets to fund your modest lifestyle in retirement, which means you're going to have quite a bit to give away, and so you all need to be thinking about aligning your passions with your giving, because I think you all could do some pretty hilarious giving along the way. So I really like this approach. As you and your wife have talked, thought, and prayed about it, is this something that excites you to be completely debt-free, or are you all you know, comfortable having the debt, and is there one of you in the marriage relationship that would rather kind of hang on to it, so to speak, just so you could take that money and put it to work? Yeah, that's kind of where we're at. We're just, we've been actually a minister as well, but I've been, we've been trying to pray and figure out what's best, and I know what you guys have in the Christian stance, we'd give you guys a call, but we've been kind of back and forth on what to do, and that's when we're kind of, we have the option of possibly being completely debt-free without alleviating all of those assets, and you know, with us being younger, like you've said, we've talked about still having time to be a little bit more aggressive on our investing, even after paying off the debt, so. Yeah, that's the great option that you have. You know, I wouldn't want to deplete your emergency fund, but it sounds like you have quite a bit of margin on a monthly basis, so even if you dip down below six months, you could probably build that up very quickly and then allow that to spill over into increased retirement savings.

But again, you know, you can't go wrong either way. I mean, certainly there's nothing wrong with continuing to carry debt on your home specifically, I'd absolutely eradicate the other, with the idea that you want to get more compounding for you, but given how young you are, how much you've been able to accumulate to this point, and the fact that you could literally be debt-free and then have all that extra margin to put toward additional savings and giving, I think it's just a great opportunity for you, unless that would, you know, prevent you from some other shorter-term goals that you might be saving for, you know, in the near term. But apart from that, I would just encourage you, if you've prayed about it, thought about it, and you like the idea of being debt-free, I'd go full steam ahead and not look back. Here's the last thing I'll say, is that, you know, in all the years I've been doing this, the thousands of calls that we've taken, I've never, never had somebody call back and say, you know, we paid off our house and our car, and we're completely debt-free, and man, we just can't sleep at night. We really regret that decision. I just don't get that call, James, and I think there's a reason behind that, and it's one of the reasons that I think the Bible encourages us to try to move toward being debt-free, because it changes the relationship.

It's a slave-master relationship, the Bible talks about it, and I'd love for you to be out from under that. So, thanks for your call today. We'll be right back. We're grateful you've joined us today from MoneyWise Live. I'm Rob West, your host. Thanks for being along here today, and thanks for calling with your questions.

We've got some great questions lined up, but we do have room for you. You've got a question today related to saving or giving. Perhaps it's your lifestyle or managing your spending. Perhaps it's giving wisely or saving for college, or as we just talked about with our last caller, James, paying down debt.

Is it prudent to become completely debt-free, even if you have the opportunity to take those funds and invest them if you don't pay off the house? How do you process that? Well, we'd love to process that with you, using the Bible as our backdrop to draw the wisdom from Scripture around money. Here's the number 800-525-7000. In just a moment, we'll go to Kalamazoo and Fort Smith, but first, Pam is in Tampa, Florida. Pam, thanks for calling today.

How can I help you? Yes, I had a question. I heard you mentioned earlier about paid upon debt. And I was wondering, does that apply to cash, like savings accounts? Yes, some bank accounts do have a POD designation.

Retirement accounts certainly do. You know, this payable on debt feature allows you to name one or more beneficiaries, and then those assets would then not have to go through probate. I mentioned the alternate beneficiaries, and it really is important that you name not only a primary, but an alternate in case the primary dies before you. I would also encourage you to review those beneficiary designations at least once a year in case anything changes.

But yes, the POD, or Payable on Death, or TOD, Transfer on Death, is a feature that allows it to pass more expediently and efficiently outside of the probate process. I will say, though, Pam, do you have a will, though, currently? No, we don't.

And we should. You really do need one. You know, some assets, including real estate, don't have a Payable on Death feature. And if you die without a will, if you're married, you and your spouse, you know, that means the state would step in and through the probate court determine how your remaining assets would be distributed. And you certainly don't want them making that decision if you have the opportunity to make that decision. For those who have, you know, children, dependents at home, minor children, you absolutely want a will because that's going to designate their guardian if the Lord were to call you both home. But so I think it's really something you need to do.

It shouldn't cost you more than, you know, $500 or so. But it's your last stewardship decision. And I would certainly encourage you to make sure that's in place.

But yeah, definitely worthwhile to have the POD, not a replacement for a will. And also make sure you update that annually. Pam, we appreciate your call today. 800-525-7000 with your questions on to Fort Smith, Arkansas. Logan, good afternoon. Hey, what's going on, man? How are you?

Thanks for calling. Hey, so I just got a question. And my fiance and I are getting married in September, so about to be a married man and start that wonderful chapter of my life. Congratulations.

That is exciting. Yeah, dude. No, I'm not talking about a nervous man. But, you know, it's definitely a transition going from single life and managing my money to being married, right, and joining that money together.

And I was just looking for some advice about maybe some stuff to get started on. You know, I know starting with like saving six months expenses and whatnot, but also like further than that and just being good stewards of God's money, right? Because there's so much more we can do than just putting in a savings account.

Yeah, boy, that's so true. Well, first of all, Logan, congratulations. It is exciting. It's going to be an amazing journey and blessing in your life. Secondly, you know, just the fact that you're even asking this question around wanting to be prepared says a lot about who you are and what the Lord is going to be able to do through you as a married couple, because this is the area that so often trips up so many married couples. You know, 70% of couples will say they have conflict in their marriage over money. And so you can lay the right foundation, get the right plan, going into the marriage to handle money God's way.

It will be a huge blessing to you and your bride throughout the rest of your lives. You know, what I would say to you is a couple of things. Number one, communication is key.

You're going to hear that over and over again. But it's certainly true in this area of money management, both in terms of, you know, having a conversation about what money was like growing up and really understanding, you know, your different money backgrounds. You know, how did her mom and dad handle money? How did your mom and dad handle money? Was, you know, were you on a tight budget or did they have excess?

And did they operate on a spending plan? I mean, so much of what we bring to the marriage relationship in terms of our money habits and personalities were formed in our childhood. And so talking about that and finding out where, you know, there was differences that you all can then move together and make plans as one flesh, as a married couple, based on those uniquenesses really will be key. And having those conversations, you know, are really important. I think you need to decide who's going to be the bookkeeper, even though you're both going to be involved in the decision making. And I would encourage you to have a weekly or at the very least a monthly money date to evaluate your spending.

You do that together. But one person who's probably the more detailed person would be the one to pay the bills and so forth. Talking about your lifestyle and, you know, depending on how you all see God leading, what kind of lifestyle do you want to live and how important is giving to you and where does that fall? And really talking about all that.

The second thing is really learning. So from communication to learning, you need to learn God's way of handling money. And when you get done here today on the radio, I want you to hold on because Deb's going to get your information. I want to send you a copy of Howard Dayton's book Money and Marriage God's Way as our gift to you on these upcoming nuptials. And I just want you and your bride to agree to read that together a chapter at a time. I think that's really going to unpack some of these key principles. The next would be a plan.

And you alluded to this. You know, it's important to have six months in your emergency fund. It's important that you're on a spending plan and you guys have a plan to live well within your means.

It's important that you talk about how much you're going to be able to save toward retirement, how much systematic giving and even sacrificial giving you want to build into that plan. Begin to look at all that in advance. And you'd even want to probably pull a credit report for each of you so you can see what you're bringing in. And that's not a time for finger pointing. That's just a time to say, hey, whatever we have, assets and liabilities is now ours. It's not yours and mine.

It's ours together. And then the last thing I would say is you might even want to think about getting a mentor or financial couple for the first year, somebody that you can just check in with once a month who can really guide you, who understands God's way of handling money. Because the last thing, Logan, is that, you know, having a vision for where God is taking you, talking about your values and recognizing that money is a tool to really take you toward where God has you and where he's leading you as a couple is really key because, you know, money is not the end.

It's just the tool we use to accomplish all of those things that God is doing in our lives and the extent to which you can establish those goals based on your values, based on scripture. Then it becomes a lot easier to make sacrifices financially in the short run. You know, we're not going to go out to eat tonight. We're going to wait and do it on Friday night because, you know, saving that money is going to help us pursue things that we feel like God really wants us to do, whether that's saving or giving or whatever that might be. So I hope that's an encouragement to you. I do want you to know that you're well on your way to having a fruitful marriage in this area of money by just even you calling today.

So I'm really proud of you. Hey, you hang on the line. We'll get your information. We'll get that book, Money and Marriage, God's Way out to you. And congratulations on your upcoming marriage, Logan. All right, folks, we still have a lot of ground to cover today.

We're going to be talking about 401ks, building homes, wills versus trusts. That and your question, 800-525-7000. Stay with us. We're glad you're along with us today for MoneyWise Live, a community of stewards coming together to manage God's money faithfully so we can pursue freedom and joy and contentment. That's what it's all about.

Mining the scriptures, applying God's truth, His wisdom, which is timeless and transcendent to today's financial decisions. Thanks for your calls and questions today. We do have actually two lines open, 800-525-7000. Let's go to Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Denise, you're next up on the program. Go ahead. Thank you. My company matches my input into it 4%. I currently have a balance of that particular portion of it. The current balance is $251,000 of that where they've matched me 4%.

The cost basis is $64,500. Yeah. My outside brokerage firm tells me that I should do an N-U-A, a net unrealized appreciation.

Should I do it? Yeah, so essentially they're suggesting you take a lump sum distribution based on the difference in the cost basis and the market value. Is that what you're getting at? Yes. Yeah. Is this all in company stock, the whole $251,000?

Yes. The whole 401k is about $1.4 million, but of that, the company matched portion is the $251,000. Okay. How much of the $1.4 is in company stock?

Dollar wise, $251,000. Oh, that's it. Okay. So you don't have any other company stock outside of that.

All right. So you've got a good bit, obviously, in company stock. I'm glad to hear it's not the whole account, but it's still, I would say, a highly concentrated position.

So I agree. I like the idea of you diversifying away. What are they suggesting you do with that money? Just have them redeploy it in another account. And what are they telling you about the tax event there?

What they're telling me to do is if I take a lump sum now that I would be paying lower taxes on it if I do it now, then if I wait till after I'm retired and start taking it out, you know, like so much a month. Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense.

Yeah. And do you have the option, Denise, to diversify away from the company stock inside the 401k without taking the lump sum distribution? Yes, because what they will do is the money that they match me goes into company stock. But I have taken the money that I have had and I have taken it down to like 10% of my portfolio. So I don't have so much in company stock. Yeah, good.

Okay. Well, I would further diversify. I'd love to see you get that position down to only about 10%.

So I could go either way. I think there's something to be said about the tax consequences based on what they're telling you of getting this money, you know, out through the distribution or excuse me, the lump sum some distribution and then redeploying it and realizing that tax liability now as opposed to later through the N.U.A. So I would check with your tax preparer or CPA just to have another professional who's unbiased look at this to make sure he or she agrees from a tax standpoint that that makes sense. But at the very least, whether you do that or just leave the money in the 401k, I'd love to see you get that company stock position down to about 140,000 or less so that you're not, you know, over 10% of the portfolio in one holding. I think that's just too highly concentrated if there was a, you know, a bad quarter or there was, you know, something that went awry with the company.

I mean, just talk to the folks from Enron, you know, years ago who lost a combined 850 million dollars when the company went bankrupt and everybody thought it was doing great. I realize that's a, you know, worst case scenario, but that's why the Bible talks about being diversified in Ecclesiastes. So I could go either way.

I'd check with your tax preparer before you do the N.U.A., but at the very least, I'd try to get that position down to 10% or less. Does that make sense? Yes. Question, though.

Since I have gotten these figures, I have taken it down considerably. Okay. Okay, good. And so now with whatever the dollar amount is, is doing an N.U.A. a good thing? My CPA says no.

Okay. Well, I would take your CPA's advice, and I think because you've diversified, you know, further, I think, you know, leaving it right there if your CPA says it's not a good thing is probably the right move. There's no reason not to just let that continue to grow inside the 401k, and then you can begin taking it out as you need it through, you know, regular distributions or required minimums if you get to that point at age 72.

So I would go with the counsel of your CPA on that, and if that's what they're saying, they don't have a dog in this fight, you know, so to speak, other than just to make sure you pay as little tax as possible. So that would be the direction I would head. And Denise, we appreciate your call today. On to Lafayette, Indiana, WGNR. Robert, go right ahead.

Hi, Rob. I appreciate your Christian wisdom, and I'm looking for that as opposed to legal advice. We are a couple in our mid-60s, retired, and our grandchildren live 1,700 miles away near Glacier National Park, and in order to be nearer to them, we signed a fixed price contract in November of 2020, which we extended in May of 2021 to have a builder build a townhouse at the edge of Kalispell, Montana. And then in April when we were there, the trust package was there on our lot, but just two weeks ago, with our unit to be done at the end of this month, we received a notice that we needed to pay $20,000 more than the fixed price, along with 10 other units, because of the spike in materials in May. Now again, our lumber package was there in April. We are going to be discussing this with the builder and the developer, which is a fairly large development, going into another phase of construction soon, tomorrow.

And I'm just wondering the Christian response. I know that we can, as homeowners, hire a lawyer, and there's young and there's young families and retirees involved, so what would be your Christian response? Yeah, well, clearly if you've signed a contract and that contract has a fixed price and there's not any, you know, exclusions or exceptions based on, you know, a unique circumstance where materials have a, you know, certain percentage and rise in price and that kind of thing. I mean, there's fine print that allows this, then obviously in that case you're legally required. If not, if it was truly a fixed price contract, then the burden of those price increases really falls on the general contractor, as you well know.

And you can demand that you stay, you know, pay only the fixed price amount and obviously could pursue legal options in the event he is demanding that you pay more. Now, from a biblical standpoint, you know, if we need to pursue legal action, I think as long as it's not believer to believer, you certainly are entitled to do that. The question would just be, you know, if this wasn't as a result of inefficiency or poor workmanship, these overruns came honestly and in good faith, you know, you may decide then it's an opportunity to go to the, you know, negotiating table and say, listen, how about we share this additional cost?

Let's keep this outside of court. Let's work together. And, you know, we're willing to take a portion of this if you do as well. Obviously, we don't have to take any of it, but you want to use that as a witness and perhaps to resolve this amicably based on these unprecedented times that we find ourselves in.

I think that would probably be my starting point if you have the ability to pay more and you're comfortable doing that. So I think you just continue to pray about it, see where the Lord leads, and you're certainly entitled to take either approach. Hang on the wine. We'll talk off the air.

We've got to hit a break. We'll be right back on MoneyWise Live. Thanks for tuning in to MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Hey, if you haven't supported the ministry, I would encourage, perhaps challenge you to do so if you consider yourself a part of the MoneyWise family. MoneyWise is brought to you each day in part by the generous contributions of our listeners. We can only do what we do with our app and on the radio here, the broadcast each day with our community and our coaches and our CKAs and all the content on our websites because of your support. We don't have an organization or anything behind us that's funding this.

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Nashville, Tennessee, one of my favorite towns. Dick, how can I help you, sir? Yes, I'm 71 years old and a few years ago I did a will on LegalZoom and I was thinking of updating that now and a couple friends were saying I should really have a trust and not a will or a trust along with the will, and I'm not sure what reason I would do that. Yeah, you know, it's not necessary for everyone. You know, while both are estate planning vehicles to assist in handling your affairs, you know, there are some key differences. You absolutely need a will, so I'm glad you have that, and I think it's good to update it, whether you do that yourself or have an attorney look it over. But the main difference is the will doesn't go into effect until after death, whereas a living trust is active once it's created and funded, so assets have to be either retitled or, you know, placed into the trust. So that means that the trust can provide protection and direct your assets if you become incapacitated in some way, something a will is unable to do, the trustee could take over. Also, after death, the assets in the trust don't go through the probate process, so it's out of the public record, not handled by the probate court, and if you have special considerations beyond your death where you wouldn't want, you know, assets to be distributed immediately, but perhaps over time based on certain conditions being met, you know, that would be another reason for a trust. But, you know, if you're just simply bequeathing your assets to your children and you have no special needs and, you know, those kinds of things, there's not any real reason to have, you know, these assets managed for the benefit of somebody else. If you're incapacitated or something like that, a trust is probably not necessary and it's a bit more costly, whereas a typical will prepared by an attorney might be around $500 a trust would be more like $1500. So, you know, tell me your thoughts on that, Dick, just based on your situation. Well, I mean, so if I just had a will, then the house would go through probate even though it's in the will?

Yes, it would. It would go through probate, but the will would be, you know, the executor who would be assigned by the probate court, you know, or named would be the one to handle that. And if it's stated clearly in the will, then that's not the court making that decision. It's just through the probate process. That's how it's distributed, but of course, according to the will, which is why you'd want the will in place. Whereas with the trust, everything happens outside of the probate court. But even though the probate court is involved, as long as you have that will, it's going to get to the right place. It's just going to happen, you know, through the courts as opposed to outside. And so I guess the other thought I had is, if my retirement, if I was going to give that to grandchildren, it would go immediately, it wouldn't, it wouldn't be, they had to be 21 or anything like that, but a trust would do that, they would, they could hold it until they were of age or something? It could, yeah. There could be certain stipulations that you would put in place that based on those triggering events, the trustee would then release the funds over time as those criteria are met, you know, and certainly one of those could be age. So that might be a reason to consider it. I'd encourage you, Dick, to connect with a godly estate planning attorney in your area just to kind of talk through this and with specifics related to your situation. And it could be that some of those additional flexibilities through the trust might be worth the added cost for you to make sure that your assets are distributed according to your wishes. Let me also offer as our gift to you, one other thing, if you stay on the line when we're done here, I want to send you a copy of Ron Blue's book, Splitting Errors.

It's the best book, in my view, on biblical wealth transfer, and it covers a lot of the principles, but also the how-tos on passing God's resources according to biblical principles. Splitting Errors is the name of the book, we'll send it out to you as our gift and we appreciate your call today, sir. On to Lombard, Illinois. Ann, thank you for your call today, how can I help? Hi, about a month ago I called you and because I was going to get an inheritance and I wanted to know what you thought I should pay off my house or invest it because my mortgage had like a 2.5 interest rate. And we all decided that I should pay off my house and you said call me back when you do, so I'm calling you back. Okay, so tell me now a month later, how do you feel about that decision? Well, I just did it on Saturday, so it still hasn't really hit me yet, and I was in there signing the check, you know, going off to the very end with those numbers, and then I said to the woman, I said, it's kind of anticlimactic, and she says, well when you leave there'll be confetti out the door, and there really wasn't, and there was no parade. Oh no, none of that.

And it's something that you can't share with a lot of people, or I don't want to, you know. Well, I can promise you that, well I hope we can add some excitement to that, because there's tens and tens of thousands of people listening to your voice right now that are cheering with you, Ann, about this decision that you've made, and I'm frankly really excited for you about what this means for you, just to follow the leading of the Lord, have complete flexibility, and being unencumbered I think is a great place, and I'm really glad you're not saying I'm regretting that decision, because I often say I've never gotten a call from somebody who paid off their mortgage saying I wish I hadn't done that, so I wouldn't be able to say that anymore if you said that today, but you're not, so that's a good thing. No, it just hasn't sunk in yet, you know, and then now I have a little extra still left over, and maybe let's say like fifty thousand dollars, so I'm just like I want to keep some of that like liquidy, but what should I do with that? I have 401ks, and I have, you know, all kinds of other things, but I was just wondering what should I do with that? Well, what is the total roughly of your expenses per month? Well, now that changed a little bit, so I'm going to, I don't even know, I have to recalculate, but yeah, you know, per month, I don't know, but let's say four thousand dollars or something. Four thousand, okay, let's say you're wrong and it's five, I mean, you know, you have about ten months expenses, which is quite a bit, but you're fully retired, correct?

No, not yet. Oh, you're working, okay, and so yeah, I mean, obviously you've got quite a bit more, we say, you know, typically three to six months expenses, so I think at this point, you know, the opportunity would be for you to put some of that to work, you know, perhaps half of it. If you need a new car, you know, coming down the pike and you want to replace that with cash, you perhaps could move it over or leave it right there, but your market for that purpose or some other goal where you could, you know, keep yourself debt free, but if you don't think you're going to need to be replacing a car anytime soon, you certainly could deploy that into additional investments, but I think you're in a really great spot here, you know, with plenty of assets being accumulated, you're still working, you're completely debt free now, you've got a bit more margin every month, so this is a great place to be, and I think, you know, perhaps as a target for that emergency fund, $25,000 is probably the number, and then anything beyond that, you know, you're free to either deploy it or earmark it for some other purpose, but, and thank you for calling today, we do celebrate with you, we're so excited for this decision you've made, and clearly you've been following God's principles, which has put you in a position to do this in the first place, so God bless you, we appreciate your call. On to Wellington, Florida, Ray, thank you for your call today, how can I help?

How are you doing, Rob? Yes, my question is, I had a slipper for accident last year at Chipotle restaurant, and I got a personal injury attorney, and after a year, like, we just got the settlement, it was $14,000 they gave me, my question is, am I obligated to title that $14,000 minus the expenses of the attorney, which is one-third, and minus medical expenses, which is about $6,000, it's going to leave me about $2,300, so my question is, am I obligated to tithe the 10% on the $14,000 or the $2,300? Yeah, Ray, I appreciate your question, you know, I'm hesitant to say obligated when it comes to the tithe, we don't want to get legalistic about it, and there, you know, I certainly recognize we're under the law of Christ, not the law of Moses, and so, you know, that was a part of the Old Testament law, we're beyond that, but I would also say Jesus really raised the bar in every case, and I would think that's, for those of us who have seen what he did for us on the cross, his death and resurrection to pay the penalty for our sins, we should want to give generously back to the Lord out of our excess, out of our increase, and so if you want to apply the principle of the tithe, clearly what you would do is you would say, yeah, I'm going to give on the increase.

Well, what is the increase in this situation? Well, it's anything over and above, as you said, the expenses that you incurred, because if it's them making you whole on expenses or costs related to this injury, then obviously that's not an increase, it's just, you know, them covering those charges for you, but anything beyond that clearly would, and applying the Old Testament principle, which we see referenced in the New Testament as well, of the tithe, which I think is a great thing. We should be systematic givers. Randy Alcorn calls it the training wheels of giving the tithe, and I certainly think it's a great starting point. If you wanted to apply that to this, you would absolutely look at that portion that's over and above the real expenses that you incurred, and then you would give a tenth of that, again, if you're applying that principle.

So I think that's a good thing. Clearly you want to honor the Lord, not out of compulsion or obligation, but as a cheerful, generous giver, and you certainly are that, my friend. Thank you for your call today. We appreciate it.

Jennifer in Florida, we're not going to be able to get to you today. She's got some extra money. She's debt-free, wants to know where to invest it. I would say if you're just starting out, check out our friends at soundmindinvesting.org. Soundmindinvesting.org.

The Soundmind Investing newsletter, I think, could be a great way for you to get started with some extra money in no-load, meaning no commission, high quality mutual funds. Soundmindinvesting.org. Thanks for calling, Jennifer. Well, that's going to do it for us today. I want to say thank you to my amazing team, Eric Tedwell, Deb Solomon, Amy Rios. Jim Henry was along today, and thank you for being here. Thank you for your calls and questions. Thank you for listening as well.

MoneyWise Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and MoneyWise Media. Lord willing, I'll be back tomorrow. I hope you will as well. May God bless you. Bye-bye.