Christian Healthcare Ministries 40th Anniversary

This is Jamin Baxter and I serve as Business Development Director for Moody Radio. The only reason we're able to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ on the radio is because of financial support from listeners like you. We also have businesses support us too, like United Faith Mortgage.

Faith and family is at their core. It's why they choose to be such a close partner with our station. It's why they specifically advertise on Christian radio stations across the country.

It's why father and son John and Ryan still lead the company to this day. Check out United Faith Mortgage and their direct lender advantage at unitedfaithmortgage.com. Thanks to you and to United Faith Mortgage for supporting Moody Radio. United Faith Mortgage is a DBA of United Mortgage Corp. 25 Melville Park Road, Melville, New York. Licensed 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. This is Jamin Baxter and I serve as Business Development Director for Moody Radio. The only reason we're able to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ on the radio is because of financial support from listeners like you. We also have businesses support us too, like United Faith Mortgage.

Faith and family is at their core. It's why they choose to be such a close partner with our station. It's why they specifically advertise on Christian radio stations across the country.

It's why father and son John and Ryan still lead the company to this day. Check out United Faith Mortgage and their direct lender advantage at unitedfaithmortgage.com. Thanks to you and to United Faith Mortgage for supporting Moody Radio. United Faith Mortgage is a DBA of United Mortgage Corp. 25 Melville Park Road, Melville, New York. Licensed 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. This year, Americans will spend nearly $6,000 on average for healthcare. Wouldn't it be great if there was a way to share that burden and lower the cost? Hi, I'm Rob West.

Well, it turns out there is. By joining a medical cost sharing plan, I'll talk about that first today with Lauren Guidek of Christian Healthcare Ministries. You won't want to miss what she has to say. 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. Well, our guest today is Lauren Guidek, Vice President of Communications and Media at Christian Healthcare Ministries, an organization that gives believers an alternative way to meet their healthcare costs. Lauren, welcome back to the program. Great to have you.

Oh, thanks so much, Rob. It's always a pleasure being on the show with you. Lauren, we're going to talk about some exciting things going on at Christian Healthcare Ministries. But for listeners who may not be familiar with you, let's start with the foundation. Tell us how Scripture in particular guides your operation.

Sure, I'd be glad to. So Christian Healthcare Ministries is based on Galatians 6, 2, which is our flagship verse, and it says, Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. And that's really what we're here to do. We are here to come alongside Christian believers at times in their lives when, you know, they're facing financial difficulties as it pertains to their healthcare. So, and another verse that we really like to emphasize, it's actually a few verses in the book of Acts, is Acts chapters 2 and 4, when all the believers had come together.

This was the first century church, and they pooled their resources to share so that no one had any need. And that's what Christian Healthcare Ministry does in the realm of healthcare. Well, I know you've been doing it for a long time, and we'll talk about an exciting celebration of how long that's been a little later in the program. But first, why would someone want to consider CHM? You know, this is a completely different approach for meeting their healthcare needs, and I'd love for you to talk about that answer in light of these uncertain times we find ourselves in. Yeah, absolutely. I think that one of the strengths of Christian Healthcare Ministries, which we abbreviate as CHM, is that we've been around for a long time, and it's actually really easy for me to remember how long we've been around because I was born the same year that CHM started back in 1981.

So, you know, we're celebrating this year, our 40th year, and of course, I'm dating myself because I am too. But, you know, it's really exciting, and I think people are looking for something that they know has been around a while, and, you know, we are a better business bureau accredited charity as well. So, that's something that people can really latch on to as they're looking for a healthcare cost solution.

Yeah, and of course, they want to make sure those healthcare costs are covered. That's critical, but you add this other element to it, which is an aspect of community and prayer. Talk to us about that part of it. Right.

Yeah. What we like to do is just come up with all sorts of ways that the body of Christ, and, you know, we're big supporters of the local church, but I'm talking about, you know, the body of Christ all across the nation and even all over the world coming together to pray for each other, and we do that a number of ways. We do it, you know, online, on social media. We have members who will send each other cards and letters of encouragement, especially when they're facing, you know, a medical illness or an injury, and we just, you know, there's a myriad of ways that we just want to provide that type of support, particularly to people who are hurting.

We've got just about a minute before our first break. You mentioned that CHM has been around for 40 years, and that's significant. I know you're actually celebrating that anniversary right now. What does that mean to you? Why is that so special, this longevity of this organization? Yeah, well, you know, as I mentioned before, this is something that we were actually the pioneers of this concept. We were the first health cost-sharing ministry in existence, and, you know, this is really a novel concept back then, and nobody knew if it was going to work, but, you know, looking back now, we can see how wonderfully it has worked and how God has blessed it, and that our members have, to date, shared more than $6 billion in medical bills, and that is billion with a B.

That is incredible. The original medical cost-sharing ministry serving individuals, families, and groups, and it has been a real blessing for so many of our Money Wise Live listeners. Well, much more to come just around the corner as we celebrate CHM's 40th anniversary.

Stay with us. A key partner of ours here at Money Wise Live is Christian Healthcare Ministries. They're an underwriter of this program and have served so many of our listeners and even our staff here at Money Wise Media, providing a medical cost-sharing ministry, meeting the healthcare expenses and costs of so many, and yet providing a biblical basis, a community, really with prayer undergirding all of it, and we're joined today by our good friend Lauren Gajdek of Christian Healthcare Ministries. She's vice president of communications and media, and CHM is celebrating an exciting milestone, 40 years in serving believers, and I'd love for you to take us back, Lauren, to how CHM started. I know it's quite a story.

Yeah, CHM got its start back in 1981, and it's really interesting what happened. It's kind of a sad story with a very happy ending. There was a pastor, and it was an October morning in 1981. A pastor was in his car with his family on the road there and got in a terrible, terrible car accident, and it was very sad. His wife passed away. One of his children passed away, and this poor man was, you know, having to deal with that tremendous loss, and at the same time, he didn't have any healthcare. He didn't have any health insurance, and so he had founded, a few years before he had founded a rescue mission to help, you know, alcoholics and people dealing with substance abuse, and he had a newsletter for that rescue mission. So he printed in his newsletter a notice, the story of what had happened to him and his family, and he said, you know, I don't have any way to pay for these medical bills.

Can you help me? And the response was just tremendous. People really, really stepped up to help them with those bills, and in just a few short months, all of those medical bills were taken care of. Wow, that's incredible, and here we are now 40 years later, and what's incredible is that now six billion dollars have been shared with CHM members.

Absolutely stunning. Lauren, share with us some of the milestones along the way to becoming the ministry that CHM is today. Yeah, I really would like to start, you know, back in about the 2010s, because up until that time, you know, the ministry was more of a grassroots organization. People would hear about it from person to person, word of mouth, and in 2010, a lot of things started to change because, you know, Congress started working on the Affordable Care Act, which is the national health care law, and once that got passed, you know, what we saw was a lot of people started looking for alternatives to what they'd had before, and so they looked into health cost sharing, which is what CHM is, and we just saw over a span of about five or six years, we just saw tremendous, tremendous growth from that. In the meantime, CHM had applied for and had earned the designation of a Better Business Bureau accredited charity, which is an extremely stringent list of qualifications in order to meet that standard, so that, you know, people, when they see that, you know, they think, okay, these guys have been around for a long time, they have this seal of approval from the BBB, and that only added to, you know, the number of folks joining. And one of my favorite little stories, if I can just share real quick, you know, Christian Healthcare Ministries, our headquarters are actually in two school buildings in the city of Barberton, Ohio, and a funny story about the second building, back in 2017, we knew we needed to expand so that we would have enough staff to serve our membership, and we ended up buying the second building from the city of Barberton for one dollar. And I kid you not, it was one dollar, they were going to tear the building down, and we said, no, no, no, we'll fix it up, you know, we want to keep our administrative costs low, so we're going to operate out of these school buildings, and that's the way it's going to be. Oh, that's great.

Well, you mentioned the Affordable Care Act, and although this is not insurance, I think it's important to know that this is an eligible option for individuals and families under the national healthcare law, isn't that right? Yes, that is right, and we do have a lot of information about that on our website, but we're very intentional about, you know, making sure that we're operating under the law so people can feel comforted with that. Absolutely. Let's go back for a second to this 40-year celebration. It's fascinating that that's the milestone we're celebrating today, and there's real biblical significance to that number, isn't there?

Yeah, we've been talking a lot about that this year, even amongst our staff. So the time period of 40, meaning 40 years or maybe 40 days, appears actually nearly 150 times in the Bible, and generally speaking, it's always a period of preparation. You know, so a couple of examples of that would be, you know, the Hebrew people, they were wandering in the desert for 40 years, and what came out of that was, you know, they were being prepared for entering the promised land. You know, Moses was on Mount Sinai for 40 days, and he came down, presented the Ten Commandments, and that was preparing people for, you know, the law by which they would live their lives.

And then a New Testament example of that would be Jesus fasting in the wilderness for 40 days, which helped to prepare him for his ministry here on earth. And so, you know, we look back at the past 40 years, and we just want, we believe that God is preparing us for something great. We've seen so many wonderful things happen over the years, but, you know, we just look forward to the future with great anticipation.

Yeah, I'm sure you do. Let's talk about that vision for the future for a moment. What would you share with us about where CHM is headed? Yeah, I think this is a really exciting time to be a part of CHM. You know, we have hundreds of thousands of members all over the country, and one of the things we're looking to do is we're looking to grow, you know, not for the sake of numbers, because that's not really important, but for the sake of being able to serve more of the members of the body of Christ. We know there's a lot of people out there who are looking for something like this for their health care costs, and, you know, we want to come alongside them and help them in whatever way we can. You know, another thing we really want to focus on is providing great technology solutions for our members, and I'm sure you know, you know, technology becomes, what do they say, outdated every 18 months or so. It totally doubles every 18 months or something like that, so we really want to stay on top of that and be able to use technology, you know, to just make being a member of CHM extremely easy and something that, you know, people, it's just very seamless for them to be a part of.

Well, that's a very exciting vision. Lauren, I know there's many, many CHM members in our listening audience today. What would you like to say to them now? I would just like to say, you know, first of all, all the credit and glory goes to God.

You know, he's the one who's made all of this possible, and secondly, you know, the faithfulness of our members just has been so instrumental. So thank you so much for your faithfulness over the years, and I want to invite your listeners to join us online for a birthday celebration, a 40th year birthday celebration. If you will go to chministries.org magazine, chministries.org magazine, and look at our October issue, you will find all the information about the online celebration, which is actually tomorrow, October the 1st. So please be sure to head over there. Very good. Lauren, thanks for stopping by today and congratulations. Thank you so much. Always a pleasure. Lauren Gydeck with Christian Healthcare Ministries has been our guest today.

Their website, again, is chministries.org. Your calls are next, 800-525-7000. Stay with us. We'll be right back.

Welcome back to MoneyWise Live. I'm Rob West, your host. So glad you're along with us today. We're taking your calls here in just a moment. We've got some lines open. We'd love to hear from you. What's on your mind today, financially speaking? We'll try to tackle it and run it through the lens of biblical wisdom. Here's the number 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000. Before we head to the phones, our MoneyWise Weekly Wisdom email goes out tonight, every Thursday night with this week's digest of recommended reads, featured podcasts, an encouraging scripture, and a message from me.

I'm focusing on fear in this edition. I'd love for you to get a copy delivered to your inbox. Again, it's called our MoneyWise Weekly Wisdom, and you can sign up for it when you download the MoneyWise app in your app store. Just search for MoneyWise Biblical Finance. When you create an account, that's all you need to do. Or you can head over to our website, moneywiselive.org. Scroll to the bottom of the page. You'll see where you can register with us, and we'll make sure you get the weekly wisdom tonight.

Again, moneywiselive.org. Phone lines are open. Taking your calls and questions on anything financial.

Again, here's the number 800-525-7000. Let's head to begin today to Oklahoma. Hello, Derek. How can I help you, sir? Hey, how you doing today? Thanks for accepting my call.

Absolutely. I'm calling from Midwest City, Oklahoma, and I'm a first-time buyer. My wife actually lives in Chicago, and she's with me trying to get this accomplished. But my first question is, do you assist people in my area?

We don't offer any kind of real estate services or mortgage services. MoneyWise Media provide education through this broadcast and through our website, moneywiselive.org, through our app. We do have coaches that would be happy to help you with a spending plan or a debt repayment plan and certified kingdom advisors that help in investments and financial planning, insurance, tax and accounting, and estate planning, but nothing on the real estate front. But what's the question you're wrestling with today?

Maybe I can help. The question that I'm actually wrestling with the most is the real estate agent that I've been talking to, he's been sending me listings of different homes. And the last ones he sent me, I liked the last nine that he sent. And we're supposed to have a meeting on Sunday, whereas we go out and we'll look at these homes. Then he informed me that the closing costs for the loan would be four to $5,000. And I was wondering if that was like, too much or was he is that cheap?

Sure. What's the value of the mortgage? Do you know how much you'll be borrowing? About a total between $115,000 and $130,000. Okay, so at $130,000, I would be looking for you to pay no more than 3% of the value of the mortgage, which would be right around $4,000. So it does sound like that's a bit on the high side.

In fact, I'd target 2%. So somewhere between $2,500 and $4,000 would be what I'd be looking to pay, which is why you need to really shop this mortgage around. I'd look for three different lenders. You don't automatically have to go with the one the real estate agent is recommending to you.

It may end up being the best one, but perhaps not. This is the largest transaction you'll probably ever make, or at least one of them when you buy a home. And so we want to shop this around in the same way we do it with any item that we're purchasing. So I'd make sure at least two of the bids for your mortgage come from an online lender, someone either with an online bank or just an online lender where they can be pretty aggressive. I'd go to bankrate.com and look for who has the most attractive terms and rates right now. But you're going to want to compare, as you said, in addition to the interest rate, the closing costs to make sure that those are in line. And I'd use that 2% to 3% number as a gauge. So I'd perhaps get a couple of other bids and see if you can't get this down a bit lower.

Does that make sense though, Derek? Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, very good. Bankrate.com is the place to go, or at least one of them, to evaluate who has the best loan programs right now.

It does vary from time to time because depending upon how much money these lenders have available to lend, they can be fairly aggressive in some cases. And you'll want to see who has the best program right now. So check that out. If you have other questions along the way, give us a call back, and we appreciate you listening today. We've got some lines open.

800-525-7000 with your questions on anything financial. Next to Viola, and she's in St. Louis, Missouri. Go right ahead. Hello, Rob.

This is Viola. I was just wondering, my son got laid off with a nice severance package, but they recently had a baby, he and his wife, and I was wondering if this medical program, Christian Healthcare Ministries, is something that my husband and I can purchase for them until, you know, he gets employed again? Absolutely.

Yeah, you've got a couple of options. COBRA should be available to him, but it may be cost prohibitive, and Christian Healthcare Ministries would be a great alternative to that. You can find out more at CH Ministries.org. It's not health insurance, but it is a faith-based health care cost solution. It's in all 50 states, and it does satisfy the requirements under the Obamacare legislation. It's budget-friendly, though, so, you know, it would give them some coverage, depending on which plan they picked. Probably the first $500 of any incident would be out of pocket, but anything beyond that would be shared by the ministry, and that really just takes a lot of the concern away, gives you the peace of mind to know that if they ended up in the hospital or had an event that involved, you know, ongoing care that required that it, you know, went well above $500, all that would be shared and covered.

And I think, you know, going without anything, especially with little ones, but really just for anybody, is not a good thing. So I'd check it out. I think this could be a great option, and yeah, absolutely you and your husband could come in and pay for this as a gift to them to make sure that they have this in place while he's looking for a new job, and then, Lord willing, he finds that job and he could join the group policy at that point. So check it out today, CHMinistries.org. I know they'd love to assist you. We're going to pause for a brief break when we come back. More of your questions. We'd love to hear from you today.

What's on your mind? Here's the number 800-525-7000. I'm Rob West, and this is MoneyWise Live. We'll be right back. Thanks for tuning in to MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Hey, I'd like to invite you to become a partner of ours here at MoneyWise Media.

We rely on your gifts to do what we do every day. If you'd like to consider a gift, it's quick and easy at our website, MoneyWiseLive.org. Just click the donate button, and between now and the end of the year as our gift to you, we'd like to send you a copy of the brand new book that's by Paul David Tripp entitled Redeeming Money.

It's one of the best new books on money and our hearts that I've read in a long time. It's our gift to you with a gift of $25 or more. Again, just head to our website, MoneyWiseLive.org.

You can click donate. We would certainly be grateful. Let's head back to the phones today. We've got, let's see, four lines open, 800-525-7000.

Perhaps one of those is for you. In a moment, we'll be in Colorado with Linda. She's wanting to find out about refinancing.

Daniel in Chicago is wondering about opening a mutual fund or a brokerage account, but next up in Wisconsin is Pete. Hi there. How can I help you, sir? Hello, sir.

Thank you for taking my call. Yeah, I'm just curious. I have, I'm in a 401k and I own a home and I have zero debt and I was in, actually Afghanistan, off of an accident in 2016. I have about $50,000 in liquid cash just sitting in a, I have three separate accounts, so I'll keep it brief.

So I'm wondering what to do with that $50,000. It's just collecting dust and I really felt like, as a Christian, I need to address it widely, so I'm calling for that. Yes. Did you say you're just back from Afghanistan?

Yeah, several, a few months ago, yes sir, since 2016. Okay. And the armed forces? Department of Defense, sir. Okay, great.

Well, thank you for your service, Pete. Do you have an emergency fund? Do you have separate from this roughly $50,000 funds that you can use that's liquid for the unexpected? Yes, I do. Okay, great.

Yeah, so putting this to work I think would be great. Talk to me about the retirement account options that you have available to you through your work. Okay, right now I have a 401k in there as well. Okay, and are you maxing that out? How much are you putting in out of your pay? I was putting in 16%. Okay, and that's what you're currently putting in? Yeah, of a six-figure income, so yeah, that's quite, doing quite well, and it's with Fidelity, and they, you know, they have it invested in a lot of different areas, so that's fine. Okay, do you think you'll hit the $19,500 limit?

I'm not sure what you mean by that. Well, there's a contribution limit for a 401k for 2021 of $19,500. Do you think the 16% you're putting in will get you to the max contribution for the year?

Probably. Okay, great. Well, so obviously you're contributing quite a bit there. The reason I ask is I'd love for this money, as much of it as possible, to be in a tax-deferred environment, and so I was going to say, you know, if you didn't have the ability to contribute to the max and that was going to impact, you know, your monthly income and not give you enough to cover your expenses, perhaps you could pull from the $50,000 to supplement and bump your contributions up to get the full $19,500 going into the 401k, which is going to get as much into that tax-deferred environment as possible, but if you're already doing that, then really the next option is to look at investing this in a taxable environment. So at that point, I would just be looking perhaps to fund first a Roth IRA. Do you have any IRAs that you're currently contributing to? No, that hasn't because I've been so out of the loop.

I have a bunch of CDs and I'm invested this year and I just haven't had the time. Yeah, sure. Okay, great. And are you married, Pete? No, I'm single.

Okay, gotcha. All right, yeah, so you could open a Roth. Are you over age 50?

Yes, barely. Okay, so you could put in $7,000 for this year and then you could turn right around and put in another $7,000 when we turn into the new year in 2022, so that would cover $14,000 of the $50,000. Do you have any relationships with investment professionals or do you have a custodian you'd like to work with? You mentioned Fidelity. One option would be to use a robo advisor solution where essentially through a series of questions and answers, the algorithm would build a very well-diversified portfolio that would be low cost using index funds or ETFs really to take you into a broad market strategy of stocks and bonds and you just capture the broad moves of the market over time. That'd be one approach and you could certainly do that with Fidelity. Another approach would be, and you could do this at Fidelity as well, but you'd visit with our friends at soundmindinvesting.org and you could use the Soundmind Investing Newsletter to select the mutual funds that would be a good fit for you based on your age goals and objectives. They'd give you the mutual funds to go into and they update that literally monthly, although you wouldn't make changes that often, but they could give you really the direction to go and it's a proven strategy that I think could really work for you. Either one of those I would be fine with, Pete, getting the $7,000 and then another $7,000 into the Roth this year and then right after the first of the year and then the balance being invested in the way I described.

Does that sound like it makes sense in what you're looking for? Yeah, I didn't know you could do the $7,000 and then after the first to do another $7,000. I did today because this was my priority. I called through my banker. He gave me the number for Fidelity up in Brookfield, Wisconsin. So I do have an appointment next week with one of their advisors. So before we didn't know how to have an idea of what I was looking at. Yeah, very good and perhaps before that check out soundmindinvesting.org.

Again, the Soundmind Investing Newsletter could be a great resource for you to pick some really high quality funds that are low cost with great track records and that would be another low cost way to go and you'd end up with some really high quality investments that you could just set it and forget it. You could obviously look at it when the statement comes but you'd probably only want to make changes once a year or so and over time you'll have something meaningful here that will build up for you. So again, we appreciate your call today, Pete. I hope that's helpful and we'll hope to talk to you again real soon.

To Chicago, Illinois. Hi, Daniel. How can I help you, sir? Hello, guys. Thank you for taking my call. So I'm currently 38 years old and I'm $7,000 away from being debt free. Great. So we're trying to start building the emergency account and we don't know if we should put it on a mutual fund or should I open a brokerage account and just do like, you know, some trading?

Yeah, you know, I'm not a big fan of trading, Daniel. I really like what the Bible calls steady plotting when it comes to our investments where we, you know, we get a portfolio of high quality diversified investments which, by the way, comes right out of Ecclesiastes, the idea of being diversified and, you know, we just let it grow over time and not try to pick the winners and losers, not try to pick our entry and exit points in the market but just capture the long-term trends which, you know, has won, you know, when you look back over the last hundred years in terms of the very best places to build wealth apart from, you know, owning a business. So, you know, that would be the direction that I would go. I love that you're going to be debt free at this age. That's great.

You'll really be thankful that you did that but I think moving forward, I would say the same thing I said to Pete. Either look at one of the robo-advisors at Vanguard or Betterment or head over to soundmindinvesting.org and the Sound Mind Investing newsletter could give you some really high quality mutual funds that you could pick from that would serve you well over time. Again, soundmindinvesting.org. We appreciate your call today, Daniel. Folks, a lot more to come on MoneyWise Live. In fact, we've got a couple of lines open for your question.

800-525-7000. Stay with us. This is biblical wisdom for your financial journey. I'm Rob West. We'll be right back. Thanks for joining us on MoneyWise Live.

I'm Rob West, your host. Do you operate with faith or fear when it comes to money? What motivates you? Is it your faith and trust in the Lord or fear of things perhaps you can't control? Maybe you're afraid God won't live up to his end of the bargain. Well, I talk about that in this week's edition of the MoneyWise Weekly Wisdom. The fact that fear can cause us to do things with money that indicates a lack of trust in God. It can lead to hoarding or a lack of generosity and the opposite of that, of course, is faith. We want you to lean into trusting the Lord whose promises are true, who says, I will never leave you or forsake us and recognize that even before the first dollar of God's money that we manage, we're already in an abundant situation.

We've been given the gift of salvation through trusting in his son Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection on the cross. We start there and realize we have so much, so much even more than we could ever deserve. Well, that's what we try to explore here on MoneyWise Live each day.

How can we handle God's money in a way that reflects our trust in him, reflects his ownership and our role as stewards? Well, we'll do that together. We're going to head back to the phones today. Next up is Linda in Colorado. And Linda, how can I help?

Oh, thank you so much for letting me call you. I have a home in Colorado and I owe $63,000 on it. And then it has a second for $60,000. And my interest rate's about 4%, maybe a little bit, maybe four and a half.

I don't know for sure, but my whole payment is $1,500 a month. And my husband's been a vet and stuff. He has cancer and we've been fighting that for six years. And it's, he doesn't work as much as he used to.

He's a contractor. And so if I could get my payment down lower, it would help us. But every time I talk to someone about refinancing, they say, we're better off where we are.

And I don't know if there's any other place to call. Yeah. So if I understand you correctly, Linda, you have two mortgages and they're both at about $60,000. Is that right? Right.

Okay. And what is the home worth? The payment. What is the home worth? What do you believe the home is worth today?

I think about $500,000. Okay. And so you owe about $120,000 on it. How long have you had these mortgages? Oh, for 20 years. Okay.

All right. So, you know, there's an opportunity there perhaps to see if they might be willing to help you work on the payment. You know, they oftentimes can recast the mortgage, you know, once you have that much equity to, you know, change the payment, that would be one option. A refinance, the challenge there is you could get the interest rate down, but you're probably not going to address the payment itself until you, you know, unless you were to do a new 30-year mortgage, which 20 years into a 30-year mortgage, I don't recommend. Apart from that, you could look for one of the assistance programs like the mortgage housing assistance program for Colorado homeowners affected by coronavirus. If you're unable to pay your mortgage because of a financial hardship, you know, they have some resources and you can apply online at 211colorado.org.

But there are eligibility limits in terms of income and so forth. But if this is more of a long-term situation, you know, at this point, other than seeing if they can work with you to reamortize the loan and get the payment down, the only other option would be a refinance. But again, it's going to involve you getting a new mortgage at a lower rate, but perhaps for a longer term where you'd be resetting this, let's say, instead of having a 10-year payoff, you know, you may have to go to a 20-year payoff to get the payment you're looking for. Now that would take the pressure off in terms of giving you a payment that perhaps could fit into the budget, but it would extend the payoff of this thing for another 10 years, which I don't like because that means it's going to be hanging around a lot longer and you're going to pay a lot more in interest even with that lower rate. So I think your best option at this point would be to see if there's a way to, you know, find some additional income. Perhaps, you know, you work part-time or he does in addition to what income sources you already have, you know, look for ways to cut back on the budget. So I think all of those are in play and perhaps maybe the best next step for you, Linda, would be to connect with one of our MoneyWise coaches who could look over your situation, look at these mortgages, look at your spending plan, and then advise you on where you might go from here.

You can connect with a coach at our website, MoneyWiseLive.org, and after you do that, if you have any questions, don't hesitate to give us a call back. We appreciate your call today. Let's head to Chicago. Floyd, how can I help you, sir? Hello, how are you doing? Thanks for taking my call.

Absolutely. Yes, I was, my mom and dad, you know, they deceased, they bought a house and they turned it over to a company, a bank, a mortgage company, I guess, and we reverse mortgage, and I want to buy it back. How will I go by to get it back? Yeah, well, you would want to get a payment in full amount from the reverse mortgage lender. Do you know what that amount is?

No. Okay, so that'd be the first step is to let them know that you have inherited the home, that it had a reverse mortgage on it, that they'll be aware of that. You want the payment in full amount for you to take the home back. Once you have that amount, you have two options. You can either pay that loan off in cash or take out a new mortgage to pay off the reverse mortgage. At that point, it, you know, would be something you could take back from the reverse mortgage company, and then from that point forward, if you don't have the cash to pay it outright, you'd then have to assume that mortgage payment that you would be taking out. Does that make sense, Floyd?

Yes, sir. Okay, so I think that's where you need to head from here. Get that payment in full amount, and I think that'll tell you where to go.

If you do end up taking out a mortgage to cover the payoff, I'd get at least three quotes before you land on one, and perhaps bankrate.com could give you the best loan program. We appreciate your call today. We're heading south to Florida. Hi, Kevin. How can I assist you? Hey, good afternoon, Rob.

Appreciate you taking my call. Sure. Got a question in regards to handling debt and also being trying to try to invest money at the same time. So right now, my struggle is every time I get a paycheck, I definitely want to go ahead and pay off some of my credit card debt that I do have, but I also do want to go ahead and invest some of that as well, too. So I was wondering if you'd give me like maybe a percentage as to how much of my income I'm receiving on a bi-weekly or monthly basis that should go ahead and be set to debt and how much of that should be set to investments.

Yeah, yeah, it's a great question. How much do you have in credit card debt, Kevin? Right now, it's looking at about 10, no, 9k.

9,000. And do you have a 401k at work or are you looking at contributing somewhere else? I do have a 401k as well, too, yes. All right, and are you contributing anything currently? Yeah, 5% and they match as well, too. They match the full 5% dollar for dollar?

Yes. Okay, and so are you looking to put more to work beyond that and that's your question or are you wondering if you should even be doing that? Well, by now, I'm currently just investing right now and I'm doing some trading from crypto and I'm also going into some stocks as well, too. But I definitely want to go ahead and like keep have that profile there and that's what I'm referring to most mostly because the 401k, I'm always doing that. Every paycheck, you know, 5% is going out and I'm also getting that match by my employer.

Yeah, very good. Well, I would stay with that because you're getting 100% return on your money. You're not going to get that anywhere else. But I'm going to encourage you, Kevin, in two areas. One is not to do any more investing until that credit card debt is paid off. You know, you're just not going to find a guaranteed return of whatever that interest rate is on those cards, 12 or 15 or 18%, anywhere in the stock market.

Now, you're getting 100% return in the 401k match, but apart from that, you're not going to find any guaranteed return. So I would set that aside and really focused on taking 100% of your margin and snowballing that debt, you know, piling every extra dollar beyond the minimum payments for all the cards on the lowest balance until you get all of them paid off. Then we can look at, you know, you perhaps investing this.

Secondly, I'd want to make sure while you're paying off the credit cards, you build up an emergency fund if you don't have one of at least $1,500. And then before you invest, once the credit card debt's paid off, let's get that up to three to six months expenses. Lastly, I'd be really careful with investing in crypto and trying to pay play speculative investing.

It just doesn't pay off in the long run. I don't think crypto is going anywhere. The technology, the blockchain technology behind it, but in terms of it being a prudent investment, there's just way too much volatility and speculation for me. And I'd encourage you to stay away from it. I'd encourage you to be more of a steady plotter with your investments and just be a dollar cost averaging into the broad market as opposed to trying to pick the winners and losers.

That's just my perspective. But in terms of the priority order, I'd go $1,500 in the emergency fund, everything focused on the credit cards and then additional long-term investments after that. We appreciate your call today. Quickly to Indianapolis, Indiana. Bobby, I just have about a minute. How can I help you? I wanted to, we're trying to get everything set up, our will and all that. And I want the money from the house to go to my two daughters and my four grandchildren.

What's the best way to do that? Well, you can spell that out in a will, Bobby. That's fairly simple where you would, you know, basically decide and reflect in the will exactly how you want your assets to be distributed. The executor would handle that at your death. And if you're married at you and you're after both of you pass away and it can be passed very efficiently through the probate court according to the last will and testament. So the next step for you is to visit with an estate planning attorney, someone who could draft that will for you.

It should be less than $500. And, you know, it will make sure that it's done right and enforceable and according to the laws of the state of Indiana. So that's where I'd head next. And perhaps while you're there, you could think about a living will, a healthcare surrogate, even a durable power of attorney to deal with some of those other issues if you're incapacitated so that you have determined who can make decisions on your behalf.

But everything you describe can be taken care of in the will and an attorney can help you with that. We appreciate your call today. Folks, that's going to do it for us. MoneyWise Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and MoneyWise Media. So thankful for our friends at Moody. I want to say thank you to Deb Solomon and Amy Rios and Jim Henry for their support today. I want to thank you for being here. We'll be back again tomorrow and look for you then. And I hope you'll join us. May the Lord bless you in the meantime. Bye-bye.