Perils of Lost Passwords

One listener that stands out that I worked with recently was this older couple that was interested in refinancing. They reached out to a few different lenders and their credit wasn't the best. I know some of these other bigger banks, you just won't hear back from them, which I cannot stand. Not everybody has the 780 credit scores and never had any hardships in their life.

I'll walk you through what you have to do. How can you end up being able to do this refinance, whether it's two, three, six months from now? Back to that older couple, we worked with them for months and months to improve their credit and we were able to get the loan done. We were saving them hundreds each month, thousands of dollars a year, finally got themselves into a situation financially that they can handle and they could start saving money each month, saving for retirement.

At the end of the day, they just could not be happier, which just put a huge smile on my face. We are United Faith Mortgage. One listener that stands out that I've worked with recently was this older couple that was interested in refinancing. Their credit wasn't the best. Not everybody has the 780 credit scores and never had any hardships in their life.

I'll walk you through what you have to do. How can you end up being able to do this refinance, whether it's two, three, six months from now? We worked with them for months and months to improve their credit and we were able to get the loan done.

We were saving them hundreds each month, thousands of dollars a year, and they could start saving money each month, saving for retirement, which just put a huge smile on my face. We are United Faith Mortgage. United Faith Mortgage is a DBA of United Mortgage Corp. 25 Melville Park Road, Melville, New York. License mortgage banker. For all licensing information, go to NMLSconsumeraccess.org, corporate NMLS number 1330, equal housing lender.

Not licensed in Alaska, Hawaii, Georgia, Massachusetts, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah. Today's version of MoneyWise Live is prerecorded, so our phone lines are not open. Thanks to identity theft, everybody knows that a compromised password can cost you money, but now it turns out that a lost password can also be financially devastating. Hi, I'm Rob West. It's the cautionary tale for most of us, but one of epic proportions for some cryptocurrency investors.

I'll give you the details first today, and we have some great calls lined up, but we won't be taking your live calls today because we're prerecorded. This is MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial security. So for most of us, the lost or forgotten password is no big deal. It's just a temporary inconvenience, even if it's for something as valuable as our banking or investment accounts. We simply click the forgot password link to have reset instructions sent to our recovery email address. But that's not how it works if you lose the password to your Bitcoin account. The world's biggest and best known cryptocurrency has no recovery process.

If you lose your Bitcoin key, as the password is called, you lose access to your account, period. While it's far too volatile as an investment for my taste, there's no denying that many people have made fortunes investing in Bitcoin. Some have made hundreds of millions of dollars on paper at least. You'd think the last thing those folks would do is lose their password.

Oh, but it happens a lot more than you think. Perhaps the best known case is that of a San Francisco programmer who in 2011 was paid for some work with 7000 Bitcoin. He promptly lost his password to the account and he still locked out. At the time, a single Bitcoin was selling for around a dollar, so the programmer's loss was certainly unpleasant, but not catastrophic. Well, today the ultra volatile Bitcoin sells anywhere from $20,000 to nearly $60,000 per Bitcoin. That means at the high end, the programmer owns upwards of $400 million in Bitcoin that he can't touch and may never be able to.

But he's not alone, not by a long shot. It's estimated that 20% of all Bitcoins in existence today are trapped inside accounts with lost or forgotten passwords. That's around $140 billion worth of assets that owners can't touch. Now, most of us will never own Bitcoin and frankly, I'm glad for that. But does this story carry a warning for the rest of us? As I said, it's a cautionary tale about password maintenance.

It's something we all need to pay attention to and take seriously. As more and more financial transactions are done online, the number of passwords we have to keep track of these days continues to grow. It's the rare individual who doesn't lose track of a password occasionally. In fact, a recent survey revealed that 25% of us forget a password at least once a day.

But that's only a part of the problem. Using a weak password, memorizing a single one and using it on several accounts, and not routinely changing passwords, all will put your privacy and finances at risk. Some of you may have solved this problem by storing passwords in a Word doc or some other file, hopefully one that's backed up and password protected itself. And that certainly solves most of your password headaches.

But there's actually an easier way. If you haven't looked into using a password manager, you should. These are special apps that, among other things, create random passwords for each of your accounts. This is especially valuable if you're in the habit of using one password on several accounts, even though you know you shouldn't. And the passwords these apps create are as long as your arm and crazy complicated.

They're the kind you could never memorize, but you don't have to. The password manager does that for you. All you have to memorize or keep track of is one password needed to operate the password manager itself. And when you think about it, that's a lot easier and more secure than storing several dozen passwords in a Word doc somewhere. And it's definitely easier than constantly having to recover forgotten passwords. So password managers provide a very valuable service and not surprisingly most charged to do it, but not a lot. Typically, you might pay around $3 a month for an individual service and maybe $5 for a family plan that allows for multiple users across different devices. There are free versions available, but they may not have all the features you want. Some of the most popular password managers are LastPass, Dashlane, and 1Password. That's the number one and the word password.

But one thing all of these apps have in common is that they're fairly easy to set up. And by the way, we'll have links to all of these in today's show notes. You're listening to MoneyWise Live with Rob West. Today's broadcast is prerecorded, and that means we're not taking any calls. But we've got some calls lined up and great information coming your way that we think you'll find helpful. So stick around for more MoneyWise Live after this brief break. Welcome back to the program.

I'm Rob West. So glad you're along with us today. Today's program is prerecorded, so I would encourage you not to call in, but I will tell you we have some wonderful calls all lined up in advance that I know you will enjoy. In fact, let's go to one of them now to Chicago, Illinois. And Georgiana, thanks for calling.

How can we help? Hi. I have about $50,000, $55,000 in debt. I've been able to pay every month without fail.

Never been late. And these are all credit card debt. I have a home that may have about $50,000, $55,000 in equity. And I wasn't so sure if I should, well, I also want to do some work in my home.

I'm not so sure if I should refinance my home to pay off the debt and also include some work to be done. Yeah. What is the home worth? Perhaps maybe about $200,000. Okay. And you owe roughly $145,000 on it? Yes, $145,000. All right. Very good.

You know, I'm not a fan of that, Georgiana. I just don't like paying off debt with home equity for a number of reasons. Number one is we're taking what is unsecured debt, meaning it's not collateralized by anything, and we're securing it to your home.

So I'm delighted to hear that you've been in a position where you've been able to make those payments on time every month. But if something happened and you were unable to, in the case of the credit cards, they could file a judgment in court and you would have to acknowledge that you owe the debt, which you certainly would. And then over time, you could work on a repayment plan of that debt. But there's limited recourse as opposed to you transferring that debt to your home, something happening and you being unable to make the payment, which is now higher because you've got a mortgage of nearly $200,000 or 100% of the equity, and now your home is at risk. They can foreclose on it.

And so I just don't like that. Number two, you know, you've got a decent amount of equity in this house right now. I would typically say, if at all possible, never want to go below 20% in terms of the equity that we have in the home. And on a $200,000 home, that's $40,000. So I would not want that mortgage to go above $160,000, just because that's going to bring in private mortgage insurance, which is going to add an additional cost to you.

And that does nothing for you. That's just for the benefit of the lender. And it's an added expense, not to mention if we were to see the housing market take a downturn, you know, if you are financed at 100% or close to it, you could find yourself upside down, where you actually owe more than the house is worth or then you've been able to sell it for, which would obviously be a really challenging situation and limit your flexibility. I think the third thing is that even though the interest rate would be much lower, it's going to string this prepayment out over a much longer period of time. Let's say you go get a new 20 or 25 or 30 year mortgage, even though it's a lower interest rate, that interest over that, you know, three decades is going to end up being a lot of money.

And then, you know, lastly, there is a cost to refinancing and it can be a sizable cost. So I think the key for you right now is to make sure that you're living on a spending plan, a balanced budget, and that you are able to stick to that every month so you're not continuing to add debt. If you're not, that's great, but I would just really dial back into that budget and look for ways to cut back, have a spending plan where you're tracking the flow of money in and out to be sure that you're, you know, staying on budget every month and our MoneyWise app can help with that.

In fact, when we're done here today, hang on the line and I'll give you a six month subscription that you can download your transactions into the app to stay on top of it. So where do you go with this debt? Well, if you haven't already, I would look at a credit counseling program. Our friends at Christian Credit Counselors do a wonderful job.

They'll be able to come up with a payment for you that will hopefully fit right into your budget, get those interest rates down, and people in credit counseling pay off their credit card debts 80% faster because of the consistent payment and the lower interest rates. But I've thrown a lot at you there. Give me your thoughts. Yeah. Well, I sort of kind of agree with what you said the first time I just needed support. The other thing that I was thinking about is to maybe borrow from my 401k, which is also a lower, which can, you know, give me a lower rate so that I can pay it off. But if the forensic program can help me better, that sounds like a better idea.

Yeah, I would start there. If anything, you might want to temporarily suspend new contributions to your 401k, which would allow you to have more take home income that you could then redirect toward debt reduction. I wouldn't borrow from the 401k because if something happened and you had to separate from your job, that would all become taxable to you as income plus a 10% penalty if you're under 59 and a half. So I just don't like the idea of borrowing from the 401k. So I'd leave that alone and I'd contact Christian Credit Counselors at christiancreditcounselors.org. And if anything, you know, reduce temporarily your new 401k contribution so you can get more going to debt reduction each month through credit counseling.

So give our friends a call there or contact them online christiancreditcounselors.org. And I think that'll be a real help to you. You stay on the line. We'll get your information and get you that Money Wise app subscription. And we appreciate your call. Let's move on to DeKalb, Illinois. Nicole, you're next on the program. Go ahead.

Hey there. I am looking to see if I should change from a term life insurance to a whole life insurance. The reason for this would be I have run into some health issues.

I'm 42 years old. And the last thing that the geneticist told me prior to getting these tests was make sure that you have your life insurance in order because depending upon what these tests say, it could prevent you from expanding your life insurance or making any changes to it in the future. Yes. Yeah.

Well, I certainly understand that. I think the key is, though, you know, is there really a need for permanent insurance? You know, typically, I only recommend permanent insurance if you have a lifelong dependent, if you need to do it for estate planning purposes. You know, if you need based on health challenges, which is obviously potentially the situation, you'd want to, you know, have something in place to offset a risk that would be incurred. If something happened to you, the Lord calls you home, and there's somebody here that's relying on your income or there's an added expense that's created like ongoing child care or something like that as a result of your passing.

Would that be the situation here? And is there really a need for life insurance beyond a term insurance policy that you already have? I don't necessarily know that there is a need other than, you know, if I passed before my husband, then he would definitely need something. I don't have any, my concern is really I don't have anything to pass on to my children, so I don't have, I've been a stay-at-home mom my entire life, so there's no 401k, there's nothing like that pension for my kids from me should I pass. And my husband is, it's a second marriage, so he is their stepfather, so I, you know, I feel a strong responsibility to make sure that my kids are taken care of.

My youngest is 14, so. Yeah. What I would be looking at, Nicole, is a new term policy, if anything. I mean, you could give 30-year term policy that would cover the next 30 years, so if the Lord called you home, there'd be a payout. But for you to lock in a whole life policy, it's going to be very costly, and I'd rather see you go get a new term policy, shop it around with an independent agent who's going to get you the very best price for your age and health condition right now before you do this, and then lock in that policy. It'll be there for the next 30 years.

If the Lord takes you home, it'll pay out to your beneficiaries, and if you have good health and the Lord tarries, it'll be around for a long time, and then it'll expire, but you'd be saving all along the way. I hope that helps. We appreciate your call. We'll be right back. Welcome back to MoneyWise Live. I'm Rob West, your host. We are not live today. We actually have the day off, so don't call in, but we do have some great calls all lined up for you to enjoy, and one of those comes from Las Cruces, New Mexico. Elliot, you're next on MoneyWise Live.

Go ahead. Hi, I have a question about title lock insurance. What's your opinion of it?

Yeah, you know, I'm not a big fan. You know, folks often get this confused with title insurance, which is obviously different, and it's generally, unless it's an owner's policy, it protects the mortgage company from claims against your title. Title theft insurance is a completely different product and essentially just monitors whether your deed has been transferred out of your name at the county records office. Now, that might be helpful if you're able to react in time and challenge the deed transfer before the scammer takes out a new loan, but that's a pretty big if. Also, no matter what you hear in those ads, there's really no way to actually lock a property title in any state, at least not yet. There's nothing to stop a scammer from forging your signature and transferring a deed out of your name. And by the way, you can monitor whether a fraudulent transfer has occurred by yourself. Many counties now allow you to view the status of your deed online.

Some even allow you to sign up for automated alerts. And, you know, the challenge here is in terms of protecting yourself from home title theft, you really don't need protection against it because it's fraud. So if someone forges your signature and transfers your deed, it's still fraud at the end of the day. The con artist didn't legally own your property, so the new lender doesn't legally have a claim to it. So if they tried to foreclose on it, it would be wrongful foreclosure.

So I just think, you know, these products obviously are getting some attention as of late, but there's just not a whole lot behind them. So I would encourage you to pass. Does that make sense though, Elliot? Yes, I just wanted to see what the risk was involved. And if I had to challenge a title change, I would have to get an attorney to do that. But ultimately, I would not be at, you know, a risk for anything except attorney fees.

Is that correct? Yeah, I mean, that would pretty much be the case because again, it would be done fraudulently. So there wouldn't be anybody that would have a legitimate claim to that property other than you, which again, is different than title insurance, which was protecting you or protecting the lender unless you get an owner's title insurance policy, which I would encourage you to do from somebody who has a rightful claim to the title. But if there's a clear title on it, then anything else we're talking about would be fraud. And that would be really something that, you know, you would just have to be able to demonstrate to your legitimate ownership. But beyond that, a policy is not going to protect you from that.

I think that's going to be the court's job. So we appreciate your call today. Hopefully that's helpful to you, sir. Let's head now to South Carolina. Mike, your next up on the program. Go right ahead.

Yes, sir. My question is this. My mother has heard that XRP is a great investment. And I was wondering what your take on that was, because I've done a little bit of research on it. And, you know, I'm not a financial advisor myself. But from what I see is not that great of an investment. Yeah.

Well, let me just say first, Mike, we don't actually give specific recommendations. So I wouldn't be able to give an up or down vote on any particular investment. But XRP is the stock symbol for ripple, which is a technology that acts as a cryptocurrency and a digital payment network for financial transactions. They offer an alternative platform as well that facilitates cross border payments. And that's kind of their place in this cryptocurrency space, if you will. You know that the challenge with the cryptocurrencies, they're obviously getting a lot of attention.

I think the technology behind the cryptocurrencies is here to stay in our global digital economy, where we want instantaneous and secure, you know, transactions even cross border, but they tend to be quite volatile. And the only investing I would encourage any of us to do, including myself is investing that's long term, that's properly diversified, that's not speculative, you know, trying to capitalize on the short term moves of a particular investment. That's just too much risk with God's money, from my viewpoint. So I'd rather you be across multiple asset classes with a properly diversified portfolio that's long term, it's not going to be as exciting, perhaps, because you won't necessarily, you know, have a concentrated position in something that can be a high flying stock. But again, I don't think that's the prudent investment strategy for us as believers.

So I would just respectfully say that, Mom, I believe this is a little too volatile, you know, for prudent investing and see if you can move along at that point. But we appreciate your call very much today. Hey, let's take a quick email before we head to our next break. This email comes from Kathy and Jim. And they write, Hey, Rob, we're looking to refinance our property. We're wondering what the rules are to determine whether or not refinancing right now makes sense. And Kathy and Jim, a lot of people are looking at this right now we have historically low interest rates. And my rules are simply this number one, you want to try to save at least a point and a half on the interest rate, a point and a quarter would work a point and a half is better, you want to make sure you're going to stay in the home for at least five to seven years, I'd want you to match your remaining term or shorter. So if you have 25 years left, I wouldn't go more than 25 years on the new loan, if you could drop it to 20, and still allow that payment to fit into your budget, even better, I get three bids, don't just settle for the first one from your bank, I'd get three bids, and I'd probably get two of those from at least, at least two of those from online lenders. And then I would want to make sure that the cost to refinance is not more than 2% of the loan. If you find it's higher than that they may be asking you to buy the rate down.

And that's going to add up quickly and in this low interest rate environment, you shouldn't have to do that. So hopefully that's helpful to you, Kathy and Jim, thanks for writing in today. And if you'd like to post a question in our community in our MoneyWise app, we'd love to have you do that.

Our coaches stop by, I'm in there periodically as well. Just download our app in your app store today, search for MoneyWise biblical finance, and then you can post your question. Hey, we're going to pause for a brief break. We'll be back with much more.

Stay with us. Welcome back to MoneyWise Live. I'm Rob West. Hey, we're prerecorded today. We have the day off, so don't call in, but we have some great calls all lined up.

Like this one in Fort Laundrydale from Nadine, you're on MoneyWise Live. Go right ahead. Thank you, Rob. I appreciate you taking my call.

Yes, ma'am. I have a Medicaid question. I will be turning 65 in May, this May, and I was told that I need to sign up for Medicaid.

And I was wondering why, because that's something that I would not be using, because I have insurance through my husband's job, and I've always had insurance through his job. Yeah. And do you think you possibly mean Medicare instead of Medicaid? I'm sorry.

Yes, it's probably Medicare. Okay. Yeah, no problem. No problem.

Well, here's the thing. You don't have to pay for Medicare. You don't have to sign up for Medicare if you choose not to. But kind of the big if there is, if you want to later, you could incur some penalties. The exception is, and this may be what exactly applies to you based on what you just said, if you have group health insurance from an employer for which you or your spouse actively work after 65, then you can, in fact, delay enrolling in Medicare until the employment ends or the coverage stops.

And in that case, you would not incur any late penalty. When the employer-tied coverage ends, then you're entitled to a special enrollment period of up to eight months, Nadine, to go ahead and sign up for Medicare. So you can't delay Medicare enrollment without a penalty if your employer-sponsored coverage comes from retiree benefits or COBRA, which don't count as active employment. But if you're actively employed, then you should be all set in delaying.

Does that make sense? Yeah. So does my husband's employer, can they make me sign up or can they drop me or anything when I turn 65 or I'm just still covered?

I just wanted to know that. Yeah, you would need to check with the company just to make sure that you are going to continue to have active group health covered based on your husband's employment. And as long as that is continuing, then you don't need to enroll in Medicare because you're covered under another policy. And as long as there's no lapse or disruption in that, and that would be a question you'd want to pose to them, then you should be all set. You could delay it.

And again, when that ends or that ceases to be available, then you would have a special enrollment period of up to eight months to sign up for Medicare. So we hope that's helpful to you, Nadine, we appreciate your call very, very much today. And let's head next to Indiana and welcome Abby to the broadcast. Abby, you're on MoneyWise Live. Hi, thanks so much for taking my call. Sure.

Thank you. My husband and I are, we're a farming family. And we're to the point where we're well invested in the stock market and our savings are starting to just kind of grow. And it just bothers me that it's not doing anything, but we're kind of at the mercy of something coming up for sale, something to invest in. So I was calling to ask what options should we consider as far as using our money wisely in the waiting?

Yes. What's the timeframe on this money, Abby, and how much do you have sitting there parked? The timeframe is basically when something would come up for sale. There is no timeframe.

And hopefully soon, but we've been waiting eight years. And at this point we're talking about 300,000. Okay. And where is that money parked currently? It's in a specialized money market. Yeah. Do you know what you're earning on that right now? Right at 1%. Oh, you are getting 1%. Okay.

Well, that's great. You know, as much as I hate to say this, you know, the key for this money, because you want to be able to move quickly and you don't want it at risk, meaning, you know, if you were to put it in any kind of marketable securities, you were to put it into stocks, even very high quality conservative stocks, or you to put it into bonds as interest rates head up those over the next year, those bond prices are going to fall. You know, you could lose principle and you certainly don't want to do that because even though it's been eight years, the Lord may provide the right property a week or a month or six months from now. So I think just given the nature of this money, the first thing that's key is it's about the return of your money, not the return on your money, meaning you want it protected, you want it safe. And yes, as a good steward, you want to learn, earn a little bit of interest. And you're certainly doing that. I mean, the prevailing, you know, rates right now, high yield savings is around 0.5, perhaps even 0.6%.

So a little better than one half of 1% at 1%. If that's in fact, you know, what they're paying you, and the money is completely liquid, and you have FDIC insurance, which you may or may not, depending on what kind of money market it is, then that's a great thing. Because, you know, you're at least, you know, getting a good bit of money every year for that 300,000 as it sits there, not as much as you could. And I realize that can be frustrating. But I think the key is you just want to make sure you're ready to move because in a market like this, you know, I realize this isn't a single family home you're looking for, you're looking for a farming land.

But I suspect given the fact that you all haven't found anything in eight years, others haven't either. So the ability to be able to move quickly with the money being readily available, and not having it at the risk of principal loss is really key. So I'd probably just stay right where you're at. Does that make sense, though? Yeah, it absolutely does. It absolutely does.

We're currently FDIC, and our credit union has been bought out by another institution that'll be like in a year or something. And I'm afraid that that rate is going to fall and that the security will still be there. But yes, that does make sense. Yeah, yeah.

Okay. Yeah, I think that's exactly the way you need to approach this, just recognizing that as much as you'd like to be making some more money, just having the peace of mind to know that that money is there, it's safe, it's ready to go. And then it's just up to the Lord's timing.

So I'm sure you have already, but you and your husband just make this a matter of prayer and ask the Lord to give you the right decision and the right wisdom to know when to move when that right thing comes. And we appreciate you calling in today very, very much. Hey, let's take a quick email before we head into our next break. This one goes to Sally, and Sally is in Atlanta, Georgia, and she asks, When I have credit cards that are open but unused, how do I know if I should close them? And it's a great question. It's one that a lot of people have regularly, especially when we get caught into that trap of opening store cards, because we're getting that 10% discount that they promised us, which we get, but we can end up with a 10% discount. But we can end up with a bunch of open accounts.

And here's the thing. I'd like for you to close those probably no more than two every six months. But over time, I'd like you to close those unused accounts and pare it back to something that's more manageable and more simple.

Why you ask? Well, if there's a zero balance, it's not affecting your credit utilization. And it's not affecting your repayment history, because the bottom line is there's no payment being made with a zero balance.

But it is open and active. And therefore, if it was compromised in any way, and somebody charged something on that account without your permission, that's fraud. But it'd still be a real hassle if you didn't catch it. Because if you don't report it in time, you could be responsible for it. And when it goes unpaid, which it would if you didn't know about it, that's going to be reported to the credit bureau.

And it's going to take you quite a bit of work to get that all cleaned up. So how do you go about closing those cards? Well, first of all, I just call the customer service number on the back of the card and let them know that you'd like to close it. I'd follow up with something in writing.

And then 30 to 60 days later, I would check your credit report at annualcreditreport.com to make sure that they followed through on it. Hey, do you have the Money Wise app? If not, it's the best digital envelope system out there plus a community of believers and the best content on biblical advice.

You can find it in your app store today. Search for Money Wise Biblical Finance. I'm Rob West on Money Wise Live. We'll be right back after this. Stay with us. Welcome back to Money Wise Live. I'm Rob West.

This is where God's word intersects with your financial life. So glad to have you along with us today. Hey, our team is taking some time off today. This program is pre-recorded. So don't call in today. Wait till we're live in the studio. But we do have some great calls all lined up ready for you today.

I'm sure you'll enjoy them. We're going to be covering how you find a stock certificate if you've been perhaps inherited some stocks, but you don't have the certificates. How do you claim those? We'll also talk about non-traded REITs. What's that?

Well, it's a real estate investment trust. We'll talk about that with Randy. First, we're going to head to DeKalb, Illinois. Wendy, what's on your mind today? Hi, thanks for taking my call. Sure. I work in the auto industry and we were down, well, when COVID because we weren't considered essential workers. And now we're down again because all the shortages, the foam that make the seeds, the chips that are in the cars.

And then I have a part two to this actually. I was wondering, I just received COBRA papers and I know there's COBRA like for insurance. Yes. Something that the president just passed. Yes.

Okay. Well, let's tackle the economy first. You know, obviously, you know, the economy is recovering quite strongly as it reopens. We're expecting gross domestic product to be stronger than it's been in 20 years as we move forward and as we see a general reopening.

But that's, of course, relative. You know, many factors determine how well the economy is doing in hold, is doing as a whole. And in various regions of the country, we're going to see significant differences, especially when we look at individual sectors.

Auto industry would be one, hospitality would be another. You know, there's just certain industries that have been affected more significantly than others. And we've also got continued COVID shutdowns. We've got supply chain interruptions. We've got weaker worker shortages in some areas.

So, you know, it's really hit or miss and extended unemployment benefits, frankly, have made it difficult for some businesses, especially restaurants, to stay open as much as they'd like. So I think all in the key here, Wendy, is, you know, just to stay the course in terms of if you're looking for additional employment, being diligent in doing that. The good news is we are seeing the economy rebound quite well as long as you're in, you know, the right sectors of the economy. And it's always going to come down to how are you managing what God's entrusted to you. And during a season where it's lean, especially if you're out of work, you know, starting with the bare minimum, going back to that spending plan and looking at what we call the big four.

You want to keep food on the table and keep a roof over your head, keep the mortgage or the rent paid, keep the utilities on and keep gas in the car so you can get to work. But, you know, beyond that, everything's discretionary and on the table to be cut so that you can manage through a difficult season. So I think we've got certainly, you know, a stronger economy ahead.

And we're seeing good signs right now in terms of the economic data that's coming. But you've got to stay the course. So hopefully that's an encouragement to you as you look forward to the years ahead in your area and in your area. And in your industry with regard to the insurance, you know, I think the key is, you know, just to keep that insurance in place. COBRA is a great way to do that so that you make sure, you know, that you don't go without any protection because that could be a huge risk for you financially. You know, moving forward, if you lose that protection altogether and COBRA as a stopgap is a great way to handle that. I would also look, if you need to, if that's not going to work for your budget because you're having to assume that cost fully, I'd look at Christian Healthcare Ministries as a health-sharing alternative that's affordable, where you can make sure that you have some coverage in place in terms of, you know, you not having to come out of pocket per incident beyond, let's say, $500 and where Christians, literally tens of thousands of them, share one another's medical bills in a way that really is cost effective.

You can find out more at chministries.org if the COBRA plan is not going to work for you and we appreciate your call today. Let's head to Indiana next. Colleen, you're on the broadcast.

How can we help you? Yes, sir. I had a brother and he bought stocks and Apple in 1983. He showed me the stock certificates.

He bought $100 for himself, $100 for my grandmother and $50 for each of his nieces, my daughter and my sister's daughter. He passed away in 1985. My grandmother passed away shortly after and then my mother passed away and I have no clue where to find those stock certificates or how to get ahold of them. Yeah. Well, you know, if you, as a stock owner, if you lose a certificate, you still own the stock.

So that's the good news. Paper certificates are rare these days, but they can be replaced and it really does vary by company. But first thing you do is you have to describe the loss and any facts surrounding it through an affidavit.

You may be required to purchase what's called an indemnity bond. This is to protect the corporation and the agent in the case that the law certificate is somehow redeemed by another party. So in your case, you'll probably have to prove that you inherited the stock, which you can do, you know, once the will is probated, if it hasn't been already. And, you know, the bottom line is my next move would be to call the company's investors relations department. Investor relations handles these types of things and they'll tell you how you contact the transfer agent to be able to reissue the new certificate. So investor relations will be on the website of any publicly traded company. Get the phone number, give them a call, let them know what's going on, and they'll tell you exactly what the steps are to both prove that you're the owner, that through the inheritance, as well as how you can have these reissued.

Again, it's called the investor relations department and I would place that call next. All right, on to Chicago, Illinois. Randy, you're next on the program. How can we help you, sir?

Hi, Rob. Thanks for taking my call. Yeah, I have an IRA and part of it is invested in real estate investment trusts. I have actually three REITs and one of them is actually traded now and two of them are not. And I'm just wondering what my options may be. I don't want to obviously incur any significant penalties if I, you know, get out of these somehow, if there's a way, or if I should just kind of hang on to them, let this thing ride out. Yeah, well, the first thing to do is find out what options you have. I mean, just for the benefit of our listeners, a non-traded REIT is basically a real estate investment that's designed to provide returns based on real estate that's purchased inside the trust, but it doesn't trade on a securities exchange.

And because of this, it can be illiquid for a long period of time. There's also, you know, typically some front-end fees. I think the key for you, Randy, is to go back to the documents that describe exactly what you have and find out what their buyback plan is if they have one. You know, periodically some REITs will tender for shares and that's a great time to exit at a discount, no doubt, but at least you can get out. So you'd want to check the REITs website to see if they've provided any announcements and then go back to those original documents that were provided to you when you got into this just to find out what liquidity provisions were in there and how you go about valuing it and then getting out if it can be done. Each one is going to be a bit different and so it's going to require some legwork on your end. Do you have the original docs on this? Yeah, I believe I do.

I don't have them in front of me, but I believe I do and I do have somebody that I worked with to actually obtain these REITs, so I could always get a hold of him as well. And I plan on doing that. Okay, I think that's your next step just to find out what options you have so you could begin to move in that direction because that's really going to be the key.

I mean, there's not any kind of one-size-fits-all on this. It's really coming down to what provisions were made possible for the investors as a part of the Real Estate Investment Trust and each one is going to be a little different. So, if you have any questions, once you read that, give us a call back. We appreciate your call today very, very much, sir. Let's do an email today, actually.

We try to get to as many of these as we can. If you want to send an email to us, here's the email address, questions at moneywise.org. Questions at moneywise.org.

We recently heard from Christy and Jeff and here's what you asked. Christy and Jeff, you said you want to pay off credit card debt and fund your emergency fund. You're just having trouble figuring out which one comes first. And I can certainly understand the predicament there.

Let me give you my thoughts. You know, when it comes to the priority order of managing God's money, we realize we have simultaneous priorities. We want to be givers, right? We want to be debt-free. We want to provide for our families and cover our expenses. We want to save for the future.

How do we do all of that? Well, the good news is there are some great principles that we can apply from God's Word about the priority use of God's resources. You know, from my standpoint, I think we should be givers first. Now, you may not be giving at the level you ultimately want to give, but I would start somewhere.

Begin to exercise that muscle and give systematically right off the top. That's between you and the Lord, how much you give, but I think proportionate giving right up front is going to break the grip of money over your life and get you in the habit of beginning to give, starting with your local church. Then, I'd love for you to have some reserves, but if you have high-interest credit card debt, I'd limit the amount that you're saving for your emergency fund to $1,500.

It's not a magic number. I think it's just a number that's going to give you something to fall back on if you have a major unexpected expense and hopefully break the cycle of you having to put money on those credit cards. Once you have $1,500, let's go after the credit card debt in the snowball method, smallest balance to highest, dial into that spending plan, create as much margin as you can each month, and let's tackle the smallest one until it's paid off and then move right on down the line.

Once the credit cards are paid off, go back to the emergency fund with a goal of three to six months expenses. Christie and Jeff, thanks for emailing us. If you have a question, again, questions at MoneyWise.org is the email address. We'd love to hear from you. Well, folks, that's going to do it for us today. Thanks for listening. MoneyWise Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and MoneyWise Media. This is where God's word intersects with your financial life. Come back and join us next time, will you? God bless you.