3 Misused Money Verses

Money is one of the most common subjects in 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 goals. It has no hidden codes that we have to decipher, so it's only our interpretation of it that sometimes gets us into trouble. You can't properly apply God's principles for managing money if you misinterpret the meaning of the verses.

So let's look at three passages where that sometimes happens. Probably the most misunderstood verse in all of the Bible would be 1 Timothy 6.10, for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Now that seems pretty clear, so it's a wonder why this verse is often paraphrased incorrectly as money is the root of all evil.

And of course that misses the point entirely. Money is simply a tool that can be used for good or ill, but the love of money is always destructive and sinful because it replaces our love for God. It's yet one more form of idolatry. Also, that misinterpretation has led some to think that people with few resources are somehow more godly than affluent people.

The Bible never teaches that. In fact, this was one of the issues that arose during the Reformation. The Reformers called out so-called mendicant or poverty orders of priests and monks who begged for their sustenance, but were corrupt and lived in luxury. Also, many people whom God favored had significant resources.

David, Solomon, and Job, to name a few. God gives some people abundant resources so they can be generous to others in need. That, of course, is a very godly use of money. And if you need any further clarification about the meaning of 1 Timothy 6.10, the second part of the verse provides it. It says, Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

That's what the love of money will do to you. The next misused passage about money is Luke 18, verses 24 and 25. It reads, How hard is it for the rich to enter the kingdom of God? Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. Again, some people misinterpret this to mean that somehow there's righteousness in being poor and that being rich is a sin. But that's certainly not what Jesus is teaching. He's calling out those who think their riches, their works, will buy their salvation. Those who heard Jesus say those words were confused, too. They asked, Then who can be saved? Jesus goes on to say, The things that are impossible with people are possible with God. The teaching there is fundamental to the doctrine of grace.

We can't get to heaven by our own efforts, but only by the grace of God through faith. And in the very next chapter, Luke 19, Jesus further makes this point in his encounter with Zacchaeus, the crooked but repentant tax collector. The man was probably still quite rich even after returning more than he'd stolen, but Jesus said his faith had saved him. Now compare that to the account of the rich young ruler in Mark chapter 10. He was prepared to follow Christ until he was told to give up all that he owned. Jesus was testing his heart knowing that it was connected to his wallet.

Jesus knew the rich young ruler loved his money more than God. But keep in mind that can be true no matter if you have a lot or a little. Now our third misused verse is Luke 1234, which reads, Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Again, it seems clear enough, but some people get confused and think it's saying the opposite. That there's a difference between your treasure and your heart, or at least they want it to mean that. They think they can separate their earning and spending from their love of God, but we just simply can't. Our monthly bank statements are a reflection of what we hold in our hearts. If we're spending money in a way that dishonors God, it's an indication of our spiritual condition. Are you glorifying God or giving in to material desires? Jesus means exactly what he says. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

It's meant to convict us, and it does. All right, your calls are next. 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial goals. We're so thankful to have you along with us today on MoneyWise Live.

I'm Rob West, your host. We began today by talking about misused money verses. The bottom line is God's word has a lot to say about money. You know, I think there's something that's so connected between our hearts and our money.

Well, that's not my idea. Jesus said, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. So we know our heart follows our money, and we know it's clear that God owns everything, and we're stewards or managers of God's resources. And when we see money as a tool to accomplish his purposes, and we understand that money is not evil as a tool, it can be used for good or evil.

The question is, does God have our hearts? And if money is a reflection of what's most important to us, what does the way we're handling or allocating God's money say about what we truly value? And are we okay with the story that our money's telling? Or do we need to make some changes? Well, that's a question we can all ask prayerfully and answer.

And hopefully as a result of doing so, we might be able to make some changes to bring God's heart into our lives in this area of money so that he can have lordship over everything, including his resources. Let's talk about that together today in light of your questions. What's on your mind today financially? We've got lines open. Here's the number 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. Is it saving or giving? Perhaps it's investing. You know, we've been talking a lot about faith-based investing recently.

An exciting and growing space in the investment landscape where you can align your values, not just with your financial decisions, but with your actual investments. Well, we can talk about that. Whatever's on your mind today. Again, here's the number with lines open. 800-525-7000. Let's begin today by taking a couple of emails. We do give you an opportunity to send us emails at questions at moneywise.org. That's questions at moneywise.org. And we try to take several of them each day if we can.

This one comes from Bob. He says, I have two or three credit cards that I would like to close. Is it better to close the oldest first? Also, I was told I should have a time interval between closing the accounts and do not close them at the same time. They have different limits.

Does this matter? So, great questions, Bob. Let's begin to unpack these. If you have extra credit cards, that is cards you're not using because you're limiting that perhaps to one credit card, maybe one debit card.

I like that strategy. I would concur that closing them makes some sense. These are just less accounts that you have to monitor to ensure that they haven't been breached or haven't been compromised in some way that would allow them to be used fraudulently. You would typically only know that by seeing unauthorized charges coming through. And so, an open account means an account you have to be checking regularly.

By closing it, you no longer have to do that. Now, what's the impact? Well, when you close an account, that limit that was available to you is no longer available to you. It just means any balances you're carrying are a higher percentage of your new lower overall limit in the aggregate. If that happens to push above 30%, which is what's called credit utilization, that could cause your score to come down. Also, if these are older accounts and therefore that history of an older established account is removed because it's no longer factored into your score, which may or may not be the case depending upon the scoring system you're using, that could also impact you negatively. Bottom line is any impact is only going to be temporary if you're managing money wisely, paying your bills on time, keeping your balances low, hopefully at zero because you're paying them off every month. Any impact is going to be minimal. As to how many to close at once, I would just simply say, let's not close more than two and six months.

That way, if you space it out, any impact will be again very, very minimal. Bob, I hope that helps you. And again, if you have a question you'd like to send us to be read on the air, just send it over to questions at moneywise.org. All right, let's begin to take your calls and questions today. Here's the number, 800-525-7000. We'd love to hear from you. We'll begin today in Chicago, Illinois. Virgil, how can I help you, sir? Hi, I'm very glad about your show.

I really enjoy it. And I have a little question now that I have paid off my mortgage and I have a little extra income and I want to invest it. And so what I found through my, I open an account with through Mary Lou Lynch and they have a plan like similar to 401k like with target date, but that feels like 6% only only to enroll. And as you know, it's not very easy to make 6% in the market. And could you advise me what other options I have to invest some kind of, I'm looking some kind of conservative investment like to be diversified, something similar to 401k, you know, target date right now.

I have set up like the year 2040 like to retirement. Sure. Yeah, very good. Any funds I have heard for Vanguard and Puritan and what do you advise me?

Yeah, very good, Virgil. Well, first of all, I really concur with this idea that, you know, when we live within our means, that gives us a surplus, which gives us the opportunity to make sure we're pursuing our goals. I would say beginning with an emergency fund after that paying down or paying off consumer debt and then saving for the future, whether that's a short-term savings goal or a longer-term goal like saving for retirement.

And that assumes that we're giving first, not just out of our surplus, but we're building that in as, you know, something we do systematically and proportionately right off the top. But that margin is key and to your point, it's giving you the opportunity to put something away for the longer term and allowing that to work for you through a stock and bond portfolio. Now, let me ask you and I will weigh in on what you raised there about this potential account you're opening with Merrill Lynch. But is this in a retirement account at work or one that you opened yourself or is it just a taxable account?

I opened myself, you know, I have at work and I have maxed it out of 20% but I still have a little extra. So it's a little extra investment that I would like to do. Okay, and is it in an IRA or is it just a taxable account? It's a taxable account. I see.

Okay, very good. And how much are you adding to it every month? Yeah, now that I have a little extra, I would like to add like $500 to $600 extra a month that I have, you know, free money. And you haven't built this account up yet. You're just getting started, correct?

Yeah, I just opened it and you know, originally they said, you know, if you open it, you get $600 like incentive, but then now you have to have like $200 to get this incentive. So anyway, but the initial take like 36, like 6%, 5, 6%. Yeah, well, let me just comment on that. I mean, Merrill Lynch is a very reputable and well-known investment manager. There's some wonderful advisors there. Many of our Certified Kingdom advisors are with Merrill Lynch. So I don't have any problem with Merrill Lynch whatsoever. I'm a little confused about the 6%. I mean that perhaps that's just because you have such a small balance that you're just getting started with, but that would not be normal and customary for Merrill Lynch or any others.

So perhaps you misunderstood that or perhaps it's just because you're starting out. But I would say with regard to an account where you're just getting going and that's a good thing and I love the fact that you're going to set this up as an automatic contribution, I would probably go for this type of account with one of the low-cost providers in this space through probably a robo-advisor solution because you don't have enough yet for somebody to manage this for you. You're just looking to invest on a dollar-cost averaging basis, which means whether the market's up or down in any given month, you're going to put your same $500 in. And if you're buying when the market's down, you're buying more shares for the same money and the opposite is true when the market is up. But over time, you'll just have multiple entry points into the market and you should capture the broad moves of the market going up. In terms of how you'd build that portfolio with these robo-advisors like Schwab Intelligent Portfolios, like the Vanguard Advisor robo-solution and with Betterment, any of those three would provide you an index-based ETF portfolio.

So these indexes would mirror the broad market indexes, the S&P 500, and you'd have some international and domestic, large-cap and small-cap. You'd have an allocation to a bond ETF as well. And all that would be based on your age, your risk tolerance, and your time horizon. And as you invest it, the beautiful part of these robo-advisors is they typically don't have any transaction costs. So any new contributions are automatically reinvested and the accounts are typically rebalanced to the model portfolio once a month. And you might pay 20 basis points, so like one-fifth of 1% a year for one of these robo-solutions. So I'd check out one of those three, the Vanguard Advisor, Schwab Intelligent Portfolios, or Betterment.

I think any of those three would give you what you're looking for, a low-cost, high-quality, passive approach to investing that will grow over time. Does that sound good? Yes, yes, very good. Thank you so much. I love your show and God bless you guys. Thank you, Virgil. You're very kind.

I appreciate those kind remarks. Well, we're going to take a lot more questions today. In fact, we'd love to hear from you.

I've got room for you with lines open. Let me give you the number as we head into a quick break. We'll be back to take your calls and questions. 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000. This is MoneyWise Live.

That's biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. We're so glad you've stopped by today, and we're going to cover a lot of ground, perhaps your question. Again, 800-525-7000.

Stay with us. Thanks for tuning in to MoneyWise Live. I'm Rob West, your host. This is biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. I've got a couple of lines open.

800-525-7000. Hey, our MoneyWise Weekly Wisdom email went out today. That's our free weekly email with a thought from me on how you can be a more effective steward of God's money, along with our recommended reads, our trending podcasts, as well as our verse of the week. And in this week's email, I share seven ways you can increase your savings. That's seven ways to increase your savings, hopefully some practical insights that you can apply immediately. And we have some great articles in there, including a great new article from the National Christian Foundation that generous marriages make resilient couples and how you can do that. We've also got one on breaking the plastic addiction and much more. If you're not signed up to receive our MoneyWise Weekly Wisdom email, it's free, and I'd love to put it in your inbox every week. Just head over to our website, MoneyWiseLive.org and create a free account.

And when you do that, that will automatically sign you up. All right, let's head back to the phones today. And just a moment, we'll be talking to James, who's got some questions from Sarah Cuse. Donna's in Missouri.

But next, Akron, Ohio. Hi, Michael. Thank you for your patience. How can I help you?

Yes, Mr. West. I was listening to your program here, and just some questions here with regards to debt. I am heavily in debt.

I'm not sure what the estimation is, probably about $100,000 or maybe. And that's just included with school debt as well, the loans, whatever. So I, you know, want to be obedient to Christ and live my life that way as far as getting out of debt, but I'm just not sure where to start at.

Yeah, yeah, very good. Well, it's kind of like the old saying, you know, how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time? And I think the same applies here. You know, we don't get into debt overnight.

We certainly don't get out overnight. And so it's really going to come down to first recognizing God owns it all and recognizing his principles of managing money, which includes living within our means. And that may sound simple, but Michael, I can tell you, it is critical that you embrace that idea that as your income rises and as you have, you know, you get a bonus along the way or an unexpected windfall, that you really limit your lifestyle.

And with intentionality, which means having a budget and a system to control the flow of money in and out, you live below the income that you have so that you can create margin because that margin is going to be essential to you first building an emergency fund if you don't have one. And I'd say, you know, with the credit card debt on top of student loan debt, and I'm assuming that's what the other debt is, but I'll ask you to clarify that. But if you have credit card debt, I'd start with that emergency fund of just $1,500.

That's that emergency reserve that you're going to fall back on when the unexpected comes and it will. But beyond that, let's go after your consumer debt first, obviously keeping the minimums paid on everything and develop a plan to pay that off. Now, you mentioned I think you have about $20,000 apart from your student loan debts. Is that in fact credit card debt or some other type of debt? It's some other type of debt. Actually, I paid off credit card debts.

That I've done, I've never gotten another credit card. But it's just other smaller debts that I believe, you know, that I've accumulated as well, you know, on top of the student loans that I have. All right. And you don't have to reveal specifics, but is it family members or friends or is it medical debt? What type of debt are we talking about?

Medical. Okay. All right.

Very good. Well, I think the key is to make sure that you have a proper accounting of everything. I'd get all of them written down and then I'd go after the smallest balance first. So, you know, we like the snowball method here, which just basically says let's ignore the interest rate, especially since we're talking about other than credit card debt.

Let's ignore the interest rate and let's just try to get some quick wins. So if you have something that, you know, of $1,000, you'd call them and especially if it's medical debt, they'll be eager to work with you. In some cases, they may even be willing to settle at lower than the current balance, especially if you're a cash payer. And, you know, then you'd start working your way into paying the minimums on everything, but then taking every available extra dollar that you have over and above your budget and applying it to that smallest balance.

And here's what's going to happen. When you pay that off, that's going to give you the encouragement, the psychological boost to keep going. And then we take that amount, including the minimum payment you were paying on that card or that account and roll it to the next one and write down the line. And eventually, when that $20,000 is paid off and all you have is the student loan debt, then we just want to apply as much as we can to that to get it going in the right direction. And hopefully, you can have a plan to get that paid off within 10 years. A couple of other resources that will help, the MoneyWise app could be a great resource for you where you can connect to your accounts, create your budget, really closely monitor your spending using our digital envelope system.

You can download that in your app store. Just search for MoneyWise biblical finance. Secondly, our coaches would be happy to help you as well. If you're a pro user to the MoneyWise app, you could schedule a 30-minute meeting with a coach or sign up to go through a multi-week engagement with a coach.

Again, no charge, but they can help you set up that spending plan and get moving in the right direction. As you get this plan in place and you start to see some progress, I'm confident that'll give you the encouragement you need. We appreciate your call.

More to come after this. Stay with us. Well, I appreciate that you've chosen to spend some time with us here on MoneyWise Live today. Biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. I'm Rob West, your host.

All of our lines are full, so we'll get right to your calls and questions here in just a moment. But first, you know, in Luke 12, we read the parable of the rich fool, and I love right at the end where it says, So is the one who endlessly builds his own. He is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who endlessly builds his net worth, you could put in there, but is not rich toward God. What does that mean to be rich toward God? You know, as we think about handling what God has entrusted to us, and here's the bottom line, we all have an abundance, because even before the first dollar, we have the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. The Lord sent his son and saw fit to reconcile us unto himself by his son living a perfect life, dying on the cross to pay the penalty of our sins and then being raised from the dead. It's sending into heaven, and when we choose to place our trust in him, we can have a personal relationship with him and also the Father at the same time, and that in and of itself is an abundance. But we also have the promises of God.

Remember he said, I will never leave you or forsake you. So we have so much. So when we talk about how we manage our financial affairs on this program, we just wanna know how do we honor God as we manage and steward his resources, and I think part of that goes back to this line in Luke 12. We wanna be rich toward God. Well, John Piper, the author and pastor says, you know, when we handle money in such a way that it is apparent that God is our treasure and not our money, that's being rich toward God. And that's what I'd like to see for all of us, including myself, that it's apparent when we handle our money that God is our true treasure.

But we still wanna be effective and faithful managers. So let's do that together. We'll head back to the phones to Missouri. Hi, Donna, welcome to the program. Go right ahead.

Thank you. Yes, I was calling about whether to pay off a motor home or not that I owe on. Okay. And I mean, I'm 75 years old, have social security, a pension. I have a money market account that I can use to pay it off. I also have a 401k that I don't touch, of course, except for the distribution.

Yes, okay. So what I'm hearing is you've got this motor home payment balance of about 40,000. You can cover the minimum in your budget with the income sources that you have and you're not even having to draw apart from what's required from the 401k. But you're wondering if it makes sense just to go ahead and pay it off so you're debt free. And that would also lessen your monthly expenses because you'd no longer have that payment. Is that right?

That's correct. Okay, what do you have in the money market, Donna, today? What I have is about the 39,000 that I owe.

About 39. Okay, so you'd have to pull 100% of it. And what are your monthly expenses total on a monthly basis, roughly?

Roughly, they're about, I would say about $2,000. Okay, so if we wanted to have three months expenses, we'd need $6,000. If we wanted to have six months expenses, we'd need $12,000. I'd probably say at your age and stage of life, I'd love for you to have at least six months worth of expenses.

And if you went to a full year, we'd be talking $24,000. So, you know, I would love for you not to spend that down to zero, because then if the unexpected comes and it can do that very frequently, then you don't have anything to fall back on. And now we're having to think about putting things on credit cards and so forth. It sounds like, though, that you do have some funds that you could pull from a retirement account, even though that would be taxable. And so if you would have more peace of mind to know that that is paid off, even though you can cover it and you have a real conviction around being debt-free, then I would say let's take from a combination of a portion of your emergency savings, maybe the difference between $24,000 and, you know, the balance, or, you know, go down to maybe six months, which would be $12,000. So that would allow you to pull, you know, perhaps $25,000 out of the emergency savings to put toward this. And then you'd need another $15,000, $14,000, or $15,000 that you could pull from your 401K, as long as you pulled enough and set it aside to cover the taxes, you know, that you would have to pay on that amount. And that way you would eliminate that payment, and then you'd have even more you could put away on a monthly basis to rebuild your emergency fund. Apart from that, if you were comfortable just kind of hanging onto this debt, if you will, you know, I would say let's go ahead and pay it down, use that, you know, roughly $25,000 that I said could be allocated from the emergency fund, but then for the balance, rather than just, you know, pulling that from your retirement account, just continue to make the scheduled payments that you were making until it's paid off, and then you haven't taken anything from your retirement account. You've just simply drawn your emergency savings down to six months, and then once you finish paying it off, you'll build it back up. I could go with either of those options. I think the key is just how strong is that conviction on your part to get this paid off in full?

Does that make sense? Yeah, that makes sense, and I only have five years left on that motorhome, so that's my quandary. If it's a long period, I'd say pay it off. But yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you. Well, and if you continue to make the same payment, but you took that $25,000 from your emergency savings, you know, now you've only got $14,000 left on the loan.

You're going to pay it off in less than five years, so that would dramatically reduce the payback and allow you not to touch the 401k, so that may be an option to consider. We appreciate your call today very much. Let's head to Syracuse, New York. Hi, James. How can I help you, sir? Hi. How are you? Thanks for taking the call.

Sure. So I'm 48 years old, and I'm finally, you know, after a long battle and a good place financially, I knocked off a lot of credit card debt. You know, I'm making some pretty good money now, and I'm what you call kind of a late bloomer, so I don't have anything really geared towards retirement yet, and right now I'm in a good place to do so, and, you know, I'd like to retire at 62, but I'm just hoping that maybe you can point a finger in the right direction for me. I've never spoken to a financial advisor, but, you know, I'm ready to start putting some money aside, and I just want to know, you know, what's the best way to go about it?

Is it traditional on a raise? I'm thinking maybe like the crypto route. I don't know much about it, but, you know, I'm starting now, and just maybe just some advice. Yeah, I'd be happy to, James, and, you know, the key is to start as soon as you can, and, you know, I'm glad to hear that you're in a position where you've got some margin. It sounds like, you know, despite mistakes you've made in the past, and we've all got them, you know, you're living within your means, which is giving you the ability to pay off your credit card debt, and now you're in a place where you can start really thinking about putting something in the way for the future. As your income increases, guard against your lifestyle increasing with it.

Let's cap that lifestyle. Let's manage the flow of money in and out, live on a spending plan, and take as much as you can and sock it away for the future. In terms of how to go about that, you know, do you have a 401k available at work, and if so, is there any matching contributions? Yeah, there is matching contributions, and a 401k just became available to us. We just expanded. So I'm going to start putting money into that directly weekly, you know.

Okay, good. Well, I would figure out how much you can put away. I'd love for you to try to put away 15% of your income if you can swing it.

So what I would do is figure out what is 15% and can you do it? If not, determine what that total amount is that you can afford to put away on a monthly basis. I'd fully fund a Roth IRA, a Roth IRA with $6,000 a year, and then I would fully take advantage of the match, and anything you can do above the $6,000, I'd put into that 401k as well. So between a combination of the two, the Roth and the 401k with the matching, let's see if we can get 6 months, excuse me, 15% of your income going in.

Hold the line. I also want to send you a copy of the Soundmind Investing Handbook. And this is MoneyWise Live.

We'll be right back. We do what we do because of your generous support. And if you'd consider prayerfully a gift to the ministry as we head into the year-end season, we would be grateful.

Here's the way to do that. Just head over to MoneyWiseLive.org and click the donate button. That's MoneyWiseLive.org. And click the donate button. You can give quickly and securely, and we would certainly be grateful. Along with that, with a gift of $25 or more, if you'd like it, we'll send you as our gift, the great new book from Paul David Tripp called Redeeming Money. It's one of the best books on our money and our hearts that I've read in a long, long time.

It's just a way of saying thank you. And we do thank you in advance. Let's head back to the phones today.

Eileen is in Florida. And Eileen, I understand you have some teens that you'd like to invest for. How can I help you? Yes, thanks for taking my call. Yes, I have two teenage daughters, 16 and 13.

I have $3,000 each and I would like to know how to invest that money for them long term. Okay. Eileen, do you have that earmarked for any specific purpose?

And in particular, I'm wondering, would you like it earmarked for college or would you like it more generally available? Generally available. Okay. And do you want control over when and how they get it or are you comfortable deciding right now before they're 18 that when they reach 18, if it was theirs, no matter what, to do with what they want, that you'd be okay with that? Yeah, I'd be okay with that, yes.

Okay. So then what you could look at is what's called a custodial account. Sometimes it's called a UTMA account, Uniform Transfer to Minor Act, or a UGMA, Uniform Gift to Minors Act. But essentially, if you call it a custodial account, somebody will know what you're looking for. And it's essentially where it's in their name, but you're listed on there as well because as an adult, until they reach the age of majority, you have to be on the account. But when they reach the age of majority in your state, it's their asset.

They can do with it what they please and you just have to recognize that going in. And then you'd want to go ahead and start investing in. And I think, you know, as you put money in there, whether it's this 3,000 you're starting with or something you might add systematically over time, and as long as you have, I would say, at least a five-year, preferably a 10-year time horizon, then you could put that money to work and it will grow over time.

Now, where would you put it? Well, I think a great place to go would be what I shared with a previous caller and that is, you know, one of the developments in this age of investing with what's called FinTech, financial technology, and the fee compression that's going on. You know, Fidelity was the first and now many others have introduced free investment accounts where the, you know, indexes have literally no cost.

And so all of the fees across the board in the investment landscape as the technology has improved and we've got more accessibility than ever, it's caused everything to get much less expensive. And as a result of that, these robo-advisors have popped up, which is essentially where a very sophisticated algorithm, many of them, you know, award-winning, created by some really intelligent folks, allows you to answer a series of questions about the purpose of the money and the age of the person it's benefiting and the risk tolerance you have and so forth. And then it builds what's called an indexed portfolio of exchange-traded funds. That's nothing more than a basket of investments that's going to capture the broad moves of the market and the allocation between stocks and bonds is going to be geared toward the age and objectives of the investor. So if you open one of those accounts, and I'll give you three different options to do that, I think it would be a very low-cost but very effective way to invest.

And the beautiful part of it is it's just kind of automated. Every time you make a contribution, it's automatically rebalanced across the investments. There's no cost every time you invest. It's just an annual charge.

And that annual charge is very small, like one-fifth of 1%. And I think that on a passive basis will give you the kind of investment account you're looking for. I would look at the Schwab Intelligent portfolios. I'd look at Vanguard Advisor. And I'd look at Betterment.

Those three, I think, would give you what you're looking for. So check those out, Eileen. And if you have any questions, give us a call back. And by the way, you stay on the line. I want to send you a copy of the brand-new recently revised Soundmind Investing Handbook.

That'll be a great tool for you and your daughters to begin to learn to invest God's way. And we appreciate your call today. On to Texas. Hi, Alan. How can I help you, sir? Well, good to talk to you.

Thank you. My question to you is I'm 71. And this year, I have a small, or have had a small, tree company, Arborist. And I had a heart attack.

And I'm not able to work. But I've paid off all my debts. And I sold my little company and made a nice little profit on it. And now I need a return on that money of about $1.5 million is what I have acquired in cash. So I'm short from Social Security and a little rental place of about $4,000 a month.

And I'm trying to figure out if an annuity is a safe thing or should I look at other investments. Yeah, very good, Alan. You said you're short about $4,000 a month on a rental, meaning you have a rental property and it's not cash flowing above your expenses. Or am I missing something? I meant that my monthly income has now dropped because I've sold my company.

I can't work because of my heart attack. No, that makes sense. Very good. And so the gap between what you're bringing in from other sources and what your monthly need in is about $4,000 a month, right? Right.

OK, very good. Well, the good news is on that $1.5 million, that shouldn't be terribly hard to make up. Because if we were to look at what you would reasonably expect from a portfolio like this, the typical rule of thumb we would look at would be 4% a year, which would be about $60,000, which is a little more than you need on an annual basis. More recently, I just saw an article from Morningstar the other day. They're recommending 3.3%.

Why the reduction from four? Well, they're saying with the modest returns we're going to expect in the days ahead, coupled with some of the challenges on the horizon, that over the long haul, that'd be a safer number to pull out per year, where you'd want to maintain the balance and give you that income. But whether it's 3.3 or 4, you're right in that range, where you should be able to pull out the income you need on a monthly basis and have that portfolio replenish that each year. The question is just, how risk averse are you? What I would probably, my default position would be you'd go interview three investment professionals. You'd get to know them. They'd ask you a lot of questions. You'd get to know who they are and kind of their track record and kind of their investment philosophy.

And they'd understand kind of what you're trying to accomplish in this monthly need that you have. And then they'd deploy a very conservative investment strategy with a focus on both capital preservation, preserving what you have, and income, where through a series primarily bonds and other fixed income type investments with probably a small allocation to stocks, maybe 30%, they would be able to cover your income and replenish the account every year through the dividends and the gains. And if the market was down, even for an extended period of time, it would most significantly affect that 30% in stocks. And we just wouldn't touch it during that period of time until it recovered.

And historically, it always has. The benefit of that is your capital is always available. The other option is you lock it up in an annuity. Now, if you're extremely risk averse, that can be a very effective way to transfer the risk from yourself to the insurance company, and they give you guarantees.

Now, what's the downside? Well, there's lots of different fees involved in that. Gains will be limited. You could result in more taxes, ordinary income versus capital gains.

There's no step up in basis for the heirs. They tend to be complicated. And to get to your money, you could have surrender charges and penalties. But there's something to be said about the guarantee that you're not going to lose any principal. And depending on your risk tolerance, that may or may not be something that's really important to you. So reflect on what I've just shared. Give me your thoughts. Well, since it's all new to me, it's about as clear as mud.

But I like the idea of interviewing two or three different investment people that can give me some comfortability, because that's all the money I'm going to have to live on, whether it's one day or whether it's 20 years. Yes, sir. Yeah. That's funny that you said that. My dad used to say that all the time, clear as mud.

I love it. Yeah, I think that's right. And I wouldn't make any decisions quickly, especially since this is all new. But I think, given that it would give you a lot of flexibility over the investment strategy, complete flexibility, a lot of control over the tax structure and tax loss harvesting, a lot of benefits on giving out of appreciated stocks, where you could give appreciated stocks and then backfill with cash. And you'd still have access to your money.

And you can be very conservative. And you're not asking for a lot in the way of a return, given the assets that you have and what your monthly need is. So I think you're really in a great spot here, Alan, to hire an advisor who can deploy a strategy like we described. But at the end of the day, you're the steward. You've got to be comfortable with it.

I wouldn't rush it. And you're going to want to take the time to understand what you're getting into. Because the last thing you want to do is work a lifetime, sell a business, only to turn the money over to somebody and say, I don't know what they're doing.

No, you need to know that. And that's going to take an education and an advisor who's willing to spend the time to get you up to speed on how they're compensated and how they're going to invest for you based on what God's doing in your life, not because they want to beat the market or anything like that. So head over to our website, moneywiselive.org. Click Find a CKA. And find three certified kingdom advisors near you.

Interview the three. And if you have other questions, give us a call back. May the Lord bless you.

Well, Money Wise Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and Money Wise Media. That's going to do it for us. Let me say thank you to my team, AB Rios, Gabby T., Deb Solomon, and Jim Henry. Thanks for being here as well. Hope you'll come back and join us tomorrow. We'll look for you then. God bless you. Bye-bye.