A Stress-free Christmas

The angel said to them, I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.

Hi, I'm Rob West. That passage in Luke 2 tells us how we should feel during the Christmas season. Enjoy a celebration of Christ's birth. Unfortunately, anxiety over money often gets in the way. I'll talk about how to avoid that with Chad Clark today, then it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000. This is MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Our guest, Chad Clark, oversees technology and innovation here at MoneyWise, and he's one of those guys you just can't do without, always working behind the scenes to make everything digital work around here and so much more. But every now and then, we get him out of his cyber cave to tell us what he's been working on.

Today, he has some tips to help you overcome holiday money stress. Chad, welcome back. Thank you. It's good to know that you think I live in a cyber cave.

I didn't realize that. Well, I'm glad you're out of that cyber cave. We want to talk about an important topic, but let's start. What made you want to talk about taking the anxiety out of Christmas spending anyway? Well, for me personally, the Christmas season can create a lot of stress and anxiety. For my wife and I, it's a busy season, and I think that a lot of people are dealing with this stress and anxiety. There was a study by one poll that found that 88% of us feel stressed during the season, and about half of those respondents reported they are filled with dread and thinking about the amount of money they will spend around the holidays. So over half of us are really dreading the financial impact of the Christmas season. Dread is certainly not a word we want to think about in terms of how we're approaching the Christmas season.

This should be a time of great celebration and joy, as we see in the scriptures, and we're celebrating the birth of our Savior. So I'm delighted that you're going to help us perhaps remove the dread and replace it with joy in this wonderful time of year. And I know you came with seven tips to avoid Christmas money stress, so I'll let you dive into number one.

Yeah, absolutely. And this isn't an all-inclusive list, but it hopefully is a starting point for some of us to get the right perspective. And so to start, the first thing we need to do is slow down. I don't know about you, but the end of the year here is just a crazy season, whether you're trying to accomplish some end-of-year goals or deadlines at work, maybe some personal goals you're trying to finish up.

Obviously, the Christmas season, all the festivities, family, friends, planning, gift buying. I mean, it's a crazy season. And I think what we need to learn to do is to just take a step back and slow down. And when I mean slow down, I mean literally just carve out some space to just sit, turn off the TV, put your phone away, get in a place where you can just sit quietly, close your eyes, take some deep breaths, and just sit with the Father. I think that's an important spiritual discipline that we all can benefit from, but especially when we start to feel stressed and anxious and when we feel like things are just kind of coming at us at a million miles an hour, slowing it down is a great way to refocus ourselves on the season and the reason that we are celebrating.

Well, there's no doubt about that. It sounds simple, but it's something that we have to put intentionality into if it's ever going to happen, and so I couldn't agree more. Tip number one, slow down. All right, before our first break, let's hit the second tip for removing Christmas money stress at this time of year. Well, in order to slow it down, we've got to make sure that we're not inadvertently speeding things up by procrastinating.

For me and my wife personally, a lot of Christmas seasons, we wait until the last minute to go and do our shopping and kind of get everything in place. And especially in 2021, this is not the year to procrastinate. There's a lot of supply chain shortages, a lot of backlog and kind of the shipping, and so this is not the year to procrastinate. So don't procrastinate. I love John Mark Comer's book, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, and he talks about how hurry is the great enemy of our spiritual life. And again, if we're procrastinating, it makes it really hard for us to slow it down, so be intentional about planning and putting together kind of what you need to do and making some steps to make those purchases ahead of time and not at the last minute. Boy, that hits close to home.

I think about myself when I'm hurried running out the door, whether we're going to church or a basketball game, I'm not the best version of myself or my kids or my wife, that's for sure. And if I apply that to the Christmas season, the same is true. Yeah, absolutely. If we think about the Black Friday sales and you think about hundreds or thousands of people trying to funnel through those tiny doors, that's sometimes what the season feels like.

And I don't know, when you have to tackle somebody to get a TV, I don't think that's what Jesus meant by loving your neighbor. So, you know, let's not procrastinate. Let's not try to shove a bunch of things through a tiny door. Let's be really intentional about planning ahead of time. Chad Clark's here today with seven tips to avoid Christmas money stress this time of year. Stay with us.

Much more to come. We'll be right back. Welcome back to MoneyWise Live. I'm Rob West, your host.

Joining me today, Chad Clark, who leads technology and innovation here at MoneyWise. We're talking about seven tips to avoid Christmas money stress. I know that's something each of you would like to do. And we began just before the break by saying we need to first slow down. We need to take some time to reflect on what we're really celebrating this season, the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Enjoy family, enjoy time with your Heavenly Father, and try to pull the stress and anxiety out by slowing it down. And then second, don't procrastinate. Chad made a great point that hurry is the great enemy of the spiritual life. And often when we procrastinate, we're rushed, and we don't present the best version of ourselves. It's so important this year in particular to plan ahead because of the supply chain constraints and some of the issues we'll face if we wait till the last minute. So, Chad, those are the first two. What is tip number three to avoid Christmas money stress?

Well, tip number three is one of my favorites. It's putting together a plan. And I love the verse Proverbs 21, 5.

It says, the plans of the diligent leads surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty. Planning is such an important part of being a good steward. You hear us talk about it a lot here at MoneyWise. We've obviously got the MoneyWise app which we designed to help you put together intentional plans to be a good steward. But for Christmas specifically, there's a lot of things that we need to plan for, not just gifts for friends and family, but we have decorations, there's food, you may have some travel expenses, there's a lot of events that you need to be planning for, or any other type of giving that might be happening during the season. So, it's important for us to put together a plan to take some time to sit down to plan out all of the things that we're going to be spending money on. And the MoneyWise app can be a really great tool for you to do that. You can plan at a really high level and just sum up all of the money that you plan to spend this season, or you can actually plan out each and every item and be able to track it according to kind of how you're performing. So, regardless of how you intend to plan, I think the MoneyWise app will be a great resource for you to put those plans in place. I love that because you can actually create a Christmas envelope. In fact, it's already there, you just have to select it and perhaps everything gets dumped into that envelope and you track that high level category, or you can create envelopes under a Christmas group for each person you're giving to, perhaps one for decorations, one for travel, and then you can track that way as well.

So, there really is a lot of flexibility and you outline all of these options in a blog article that you wrote for this purpose, right? Yeah, if you go to MoneyWise.org, you can find our post that says, Seven Tips to Avoid Christmas Money Stress. We'll outline some tips to use the MoneyWise app specifically for your Christmas planning.

Very good. Go to where you download apps and search for MoneyWise Biblical Finance. You can download the MoneyWise app today and perhaps you'll be well on your way to a stress-free Christmas.

All right, what is the next tip to avoid Christmas money stress, Chad? The next step is really to sit down and do your research. So, I think that we've got an amazing opportunity to do research just online to see kind of what's in stock, what their good price is, and we need to be really intentional about that, not just going and purchasing the first thing that we see. So, carve out some time to do your research to really understand what opportunities you have to get a good deal.

I remember a few years back going to a store and walking in, and they were out of inventory, and they said, Well, you can go down the road six miles and buy it. Help save yourself some time and do some of that research ahead of time, and I think it will pay off greatly. I know your kids are younger. I have high schoolers at home, so we're actually getting them involved in this as they think about what they would like to have for Christmas. We're asking them to not only find what they would like, but actually do the research and find it where we can buy it the cheapest, and they're just sending me links these days to the things that they want, which makes it really simple. Makes it really simple. So, yeah, be sure to do your research, and I think that leads nicely into step number five, which is getting creative.

So, how can you pull your kids into the equation? How can we think outside of the box in terms of what we're doing? And so, it's not just saying, Hey, I need to go buy this for this person, or I need this decoration, or I need these things. How can we be creative in the way that we give gifts?

I think that we've all been gifted with something unique. Maybe you're a good cook or a good baker. Maybe you can make something for a friend or family. Maybe you've been given the gift of writing, and you can write people an encouraging note rather than going and purchasing a gift for them. Maybe what you need is just to give somebody your time. I think we miss that one a lot, but just giving somebody some time, giving them a phone call, asking them to go to coffee, that might be the gift that they need this season. So, be creative.

Think outside of the box. We also love for my family to look at organizations that are supporting other families around the world. So, we work with Food for the Hungry, and we sit down with our kids to find a family that we can give a chicken to or a clean water kit to. Maybe you can give that gift to somebody on somebody's behalf. That would be a great way to be creative in how you give this season. Yeah, there's no doubt about that, and I think as you look at one of these gift catalogs where you can give the gift of, as you said, a chicken or a goat to somebody in a part of the world, that that would literally change their life.

That would be incredible. I know others have given their kids an envelope with cash, but the instructions are you have to give it away and then report back to what you have done with it. I mean, these are out-of-the-box opportunities to give in a way that teaches a valuable lesson around generosity and meeting the needs of others. In fact, we put together a resource this year with a number of opportunities to be generous, didn't we?

Yeah, absolutely. We put together a list of 25 acts of generosity, and these are some ideas that help you be more creative. You don't necessarily have to do all 25, but hopefully it's a starting point to kind of get the wheels turning and get those creative juices flowing.

All right, so we want to slow down. We want to make sure we're not procrastinating. We want to create a plan, and you can use the MoneyWise app for that. Do your research and get creative.

What are the last two? Well, the next one is, again, one of our favorites, which is actually tracking your performance. It's never enough to just put together the plan and then just set it off to the side. You actually need to track your performance. And again, the MoneyWise app is going to be a great resource for you.

If you're using MoneyWise Pro specifically, it connects to your bank accounts and will pull those transactions in automatically, and all you need to do is just assign them to the appropriate categories. But this is a really important step in the process because a lot of times when we don't track our performance, that can compound our stress and anxiety because we don't know where we stand. So tracking your performance is a critical step. And then the final one is just celebrating. We need to take a step back, like Rob said previously, and we need to just celebrate this season. John 1.14 says, The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father full of grace and truth. So let us celebrate this season. Let us not get wrapped up in the consumeristic nature. And let's take a step back.

Let's slow it down. Let's follow some of these other steps to reduce some of the stress and anxiety that we typically have during this Christmas holiday. You know, the last thing we want to do, Chad, is get to January, and then that's the first time we look back to say, How did we do only to find that we racked up a whole bunch of debt? And by following these steps, especially the one creating a plan and tracking against it in the MoneyWise app can really help to avoid that.

Yeah, absolutely. Those are going to be really critical things to set you up going into the new year, and we've got some awesome resources planned for the new year to help you get on track starting January 1. Where do they go to get this article, this blog about using the MoneyWise app?

Yeah, so that you can go to our website, moneywise.org, or download the MoneyWise app, and all you need to do is look for 7 Tips to Avoid Christmas Stress. Chad Clark leads technology and innovation here at MoneyWise. Chad, thanks for stopping by. Thank you.

Folks, your question is just around the corner, 800-525-7000. This is MoneyWise Live. We'll be right back. Thanks for joining us today on MoneyWise Live. I'm Rob West, your host. We've got some phone lines open.

That's where we'll be headed next. Your questions on anything financial. Here's the number, 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. We were talking about 7 Ways to Avoid Christmas Spending Stress. You can find the article with that title on our website at moneywiselive.org. It's right there featured on the home page, and in it, you can download the complimentary 25 Acts of Generosity with some great, practical, simple ideas for you and your family to lean into the opportunity to be generous this Christmas season.

What a great way to share in the true meaning of Christmas around the ultimate gift given, that is Jesus Christ, God's Son coming to pay the penalty for our sins that we might have life. We would love for you to download that resource. It's absolutely free. By the way, that article around setting up your Christmas spending plan in the MoneyWise app is there as well. It's a blog article that makes it very simple and easy. If you haven't downloaded the MoneyWise app, we'd love for you to do that today.

You can do it in your app store. Just search for MoneyWise Biblical Finance. All right, it's time to take your calls and questions today. Again, here's the number 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. We love when you send us emails as well, and so perhaps today what I'll do is begin by taking some of those e-mailed questions. We rarely get an opportunity to get to many of them on the air, and I know many of you have sent them recently, and we'd love to take as many as we can. So let me dive into a few of those. Again, lines are open today for your questions. 800-525-7000. All right, first one says, I'm working.

This is from Becky, by the way. I have savings and enough emergency money. I need a car. Should I lease a new one or buy it? Looking for the best deal. Is it possible to lease a used car? And, Becky, I would just simply say I don't like the lease. You're going to end up spending more that way because not only are you renting the car, so to speak, during the years where it's going to depreciate the quickest, when you add in the added fees, not to mention if you drive more than the allotted miles and the cost to turn it back in, it's just going to end up costing you more.

Here's what I would rather you do. Let's buy a late model used car in good working condition, perhaps one that you'd have an independent mechanic look over. Whether you buy it at a dealer or a private sale is not of primary concern to me.

The key is that it's something that's reliable, that you can count on, and that fits your budget. Now, what is that budget? Well, I would say let's try to keep the transportation category no more than 10% of your take-home pay. And as you make that payment, assuming you have to borrow for this first used late model car, once you pay it off, let's keep making that payment to yourself, the bank of you, so that the next time around you can buy that car with cash.

But here's the idea. The car you're driving right now is typically the least expensive car for you to drive, and so I would say drive it as long as you can, and that way you'll maximize the value. The last car we turned in had 250,000 miles on it.

It was a Honda minivan that did very well for our family, but I'll tell you, when you buy them and drive them for a long, long time, that ends up being the most cost-effective. Becky, thank you for your email. One more quickly, this one comes from Joseph, and he says, Why does my credit score go up and down so much?

And Joseph, I appreciate that question. That credit score is based on an algorithm that determines how likely you are to repay as agreed. If you do a Google search for FICO score breakdown, you'll see that the percentages allocated to the various elements of your score have to do primarily with your payment history, your credit utilization, that is, the balances you're carrying versus the limit of money that's been made available to you, the credit mix, the history. Those are the primary factors determining what your score is going to look like.

It does move around, but here's the thing. If you follow biblical principles, manage debt wisely, that is, pay it off as quickly as you can, be an on-time payer, and keep those balances low or at zero, you will be rewarded over time, and that's the key, it doesn't happen fast, with a credit score that's going to get you the very best rates and terms. We don't want to use very much debt. Debt's going to work counterproductively against your future financial success.

However, I understand that it's used for a lot of things these days, and so having a good score makes sense. Don't be terribly concerned, but check those credit bureau reports at least quarterly to make sure the information is accurate. Joseph, thank you for your email. All right, let's head to the phones today. We've got some lines open, 800-525-7000.

We'll begin today with, I think it's Parina in Nashville, Tennessee. Thank you for your call. Hi, thank you for taking your time to answer my question. I'm a young adult, 22. I just left my job to focus on my faith and my mental health, and this is a season where I want to spend money. I want to show people that matter to me, give back to the people who have given to me over the years.

But the money's running out. I'm applying for jobs, but it's just a bit of a stressful time, and I had to just defer some of my student loans. I'm in my master's degree program. There's a lot going on, and I would appreciate any advice you could give for a young adult trying to figure out her way in the world.

Yes. Well, Parina, I appreciate that so much, and I'm glad you are thinking about this because here's the thing. As you look out and you've got a lot of time ahead of you, the Lord tarries, it sounds like you're young, none of us know how many days or hours, but we know that God has us here for a purpose. And so you leaning into that, growing in your walk with him, growing in your faith, getting into a Bible-believing church, having people around you to encourage you and support you, I think is absolutely critical. Being in God's Word regularly to renew your mind so you don't get caught up in the comparison trap is going to be key. And this time of year, don't get swept up in the craziness of you've got to meet a certain expectation with the gifts that you give, and you've got to spend a certain amount of money. You need to focus right now on creating a plan that works for you, living within your means, finding God's next step for you in terms of your work, and you can still be generous with your time and other giftings to show the people you love how much you care about them.

I would focus on that this Christmas season, and I think God will do a work in your life. Stay with us. We'll be right back on MoneyWise Live. We're delighted you've joined us today for MoneyWise Live. I'm Rob West, your host.

Just before the break, we were talking to Corina, and Corina, I'd love for you to call back. I want to give you a gift. You said you were a young adult. You're reorienting, refocusing your career on something that you feel like perhaps is going to be more in line with God's gifting, but you're still looking for that and wondering how to navigate these times as a young adult. What I'd love to give you is something called Career Direct. It's a comprehensive career assessment that's based on biblical principles, but also with cutting-edge career guidance technology. It focuses on four facets that are essential to discover the career that's right for you.

Not only your personality, but also your interests, your skills, and your values. It's one of the few that approaches career guidance from a biblical perspective. We'd like to give you an assessment and an evaluation with a trained facilitator as our gift. As you explore perhaps what God has in your next season, I'd love for you to incorporate his wiring of who you are into your search for that next job.

I think this Career Direct assessment will be a blessing to you, so if you just give us a call back, our team is ready to receive you, and we will get you connected with your assessment. Again, 800-525-7000. Now, if you have a question today, you'd love to join us on the broadcast, I'd love for you to do just that, whether it's saving or giving. Perhaps it's paying down debt or setting long-term goals.

Maybe it's developing a spending plan or preparing for Christmas. Whatever it might be today, give us a call. We've got lines open. 800-525-7000.

Let's head to Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Hi, Jennifer. Thank you for calling.

How can I help? Hi. So I was calling because I've had trouble finding a financial planner.

I listen to y'all's website or y'all's program all the time, and I absolutely love it. But the Certified Kingdom, their advisors, there aren't any in this area, and then the few advisors have all given me conflicting advice. One said you've got to have $60,000 before it will even invest with you. One of them said you've got to pay monthly to use that. I'm just trying to figure out where I can, yeah.

Yes. And so at the end of the day, Jennifer, are you looking for help in developing a spending plan, or what is it that you're most pressing need right now financially? Well, we dug the Dave Ramsey sub while we've gotten completely out of debt, so we're kind of in a place where we're kind of looking at the future. Just somebody to advise, everything but our mortgage, you know. But just somebody to advise us. We've got six months of savings and 401Ks from work, but that's it. So we know we need a plan for the future, but I just don't know about going about doing that.

Yeah, very good. Well, keep in mind, financial advisors work differently in the sense that they have unique areas that they work in, and then they each set their own kind of fee schedule in terms of how they're compensated. So these folks that are certified kingdom advisors don't work for MoneyWise. They've attained this designation, which has very high standards around competency and integrity and their training and biblically wise counsel and their experience. But in terms of their area of discipline as well as their compensation models, it will vary.

So that's why you need to interview multiple advisors, find the one that's the best fit for you. What you're describing is a fee-only financial planner. And what that person would typically do is get paid by the hour to develop a comprehensive financial plan, looking at all of the areas of your financial life, both risk and your investments and your savings goals and looking at retirement and what you need to be setting aside now to achieve a certain goal down the road, if there's any college planning that needs to be done.

I mean, just really looking at your whole financial life, even some of the tax side as well, and then coming back with a plan to say, here's based on everything you've said, where you believe God's taking you, and this is how money can be used as a tool to accomplish that in all of the areas. Now, that can typically run $1,000 or more. It wouldn't be an ongoing fee. It would be a one-time fee, but it would be probably a couple of meetings with several hours invested. If that's more than you're looking for and you say, listen, we're trying to keep things simple, we're out of debt, we've got our emergency fund, we just kind of need to get pointed in the right direction, we're not looking for a full-blown financial plan with kind of projections on what we need for retirement, all the other things that I mentioned, then probably one of our MoneyWise coaches would be a great resource to you.

There's no cost for that. Just go to our website, moneywiselive.org, click on the Community tab, and then click Connect with a Coach, and that person could look over your situation, point you in the right direction, perhaps help you get started in terms of what you might want to be thinking about in terms of your lifestyle as well as saving for the future and answering some basic questions. You probably find yourself kind of right in the middle between needing to hire a financial professional who can manage assets and do ongoing planning and somebody who's really just helping with basic budgeting and debt reduction, and that's a challenging space to be in because there's kind of a gap in between those two things in the financial services industry right now. So I think you just need to kind of decide which sounds like most appropriate for you and then go in that direction, either a Certified Kingdom Advisor who's a fee-only financial planner who would do a financial planning engagement for you on an hourly basis or a MoneyWise coach that could provide some guidance and principles that you could then take and run with.

And hopefully one of those two will be a great resource to you. It sounds like you guys are making some great decisions on the right track. I'm really proud of where you're headed and thanks for your call today.

800-525-7000 is the number to call. We'd love to hear from you. We've got some lines open today. Let's head to Boca Raton, Florida.

Actually, all four of my kids were born at Boca Community Hospital here in Boca Raton. Jodi is there, and Jodi, I understand you have a question that I can help you with. Go right ahead. Hi. Thank you so much for taking my call. I loved your program.

Thank you. And I have a question about mortgages. I know that years ago, you know, financial people would say that when you close on your mortgage, normally your payment isn't due until like the next month or the month after that, after your closing. They used to say that if you paid like a payment on the day that you closed or like before the first payment is due, that it would take like thousands of dollars off of your mortgage.

Can you still do that? And how would you do that? Well, it's not, you know, there's no science to it, Jodi. I mean, the bottom line is this. Every dollar you pay above your scheduled monthly payment, which the way a mortgage works is it's called an amortization schedule, which determines over the life of the loan, typically 30 years, the interest is calculated on the outstanding balance of the beginning of each period, usually 30 days. And then, you know, based on the interest that's due, that portion of the monthly payment is then allocated to interest and whatever's left over goes to principal. And that's why the vast majority of your payment on the first payment goes to interest with very little going to principal. And the opposite is true on your last payment.

The vast majority is going to principal and very little to interest. And it kind of moves down that scale throughout the life of the loan. But anytime you pay anything above and beyond that scheduled mortgage payment based on that amortization schedule, that's going to go directly to principal and that's money that you no longer owe that you're not going to pay interest on for the rest of the term. So at a 30 year mortgage, every dollar you pay off today of principal is money that you're not going to pay interest on for 30 years. And so that's why the sooner you pay that down, the better. But doing that before the first mortgage payment or the day of or the day that's not of any concern.

It's really just a matter of let's get that principal down as quickly as you can, because then for all the years that are left, no interest will be paid on that balance. So I hope that clears it up and takes perhaps some of the mystery away from your question. We appreciate your call today. Lines are open 800-525-7000. Give us a call. Thanks for tuning in to MoneyWise Live. I'm Rob West, your host. Delighted you're along with us today, taking your calls and questions on anything financial, giving you biblical encouragement as you manage God's money. Remember, He's the owner, we're the manager. Money is a tool to accomplish His purposes.

We want to be found faithful as we manage that each day. We want to help you do that here on MoneyWise Live. Lines are open 800-525-7000. Give us a call.

We want to help you do that here on MoneyWise Live. Lines are open 800-525-7000. Let's head back to the phones. Washington is Tony, and Tony, how can I help you today? Hi.

Mostly I don't need your help, but I wanted to say how grateful I am to you. I have been listening to this program since the very early days of Larry Burkett. And I have followed a lot of the principles throughout my life. I've never had more than one debt, either a house or a car. Currently, my only debt is my house. And I have a little more than a week and a half ago, I found myself needing emergency surgery.

It takes time to get disability pay in order, but I am not worried because I have my emergency money that I can live on until things start kicking in. And I am so grateful for that because I worry a lot about money a lot. And just thank you so much for your principles, for your encouragement, through everybody's encouragement through the years. And because I am living, I am living the dream of not worrying about money in spite of major surgery.

Wow. Well, Tony, you've used the gift of encouragement that the Lord has given you to share that testimony today. I'm grateful for that. I know it's been an encouragement to those listening as well because as you said, you are living testimony, not of anything I've said, you're living testimony of God's principles working in your life. You know the Scripture. Larry Burkett always started with God's Word.

Howard Dayton always started with God's Word. That's our hope and prayers that we do that here on this program as well, as I follow in the footsteps of those giants of the faith. And you're living proof that God's Word is always right, it's always relevant, it's never going to change. And as you've applied that to your life, you're experiencing now the fruit, the peace of mind that comes from knowing, not that there's not difficulty ahead because we still live in a fallen world, but you've put yourself in a position to experience God's best, whether that's a trial or whether that's a season of plenty, whatever it is, you know that your trust is in the Lord and you're doing everything you can to be found faithful.

And when you do that, you're able to share a testimony like you just shared. How are you doing following your emergency surgery? Are you okay? Yes, I am improving. This is day 11 that I am in the hospital after surgery. So it's going to be a long haul.

I had a, well, the doctor said a massive herniated disc, so it's going to be a while before my everything recovers and I'm back to normal and able to go back to work. Alrighty, very good. Well, I'd like to send you a gift. I'd like to send you the Stewardship Bible. It's a beautiful Bible that the American Bible Society put together with our friends at Compass. And every passage of scripture that relates to money is highlighted in green. And I think as you read through that Bible, you'll be encouraged by what God says.

And you'll see many of the principles that you've been applying over the years right there in the Bible. We'll send that to you as our gift, our way of saying thank you for calling and sharing your story today. Tony, all the best to you in the days ahead and may you have a quick recovery. God bless you. Let's head next to Weston, Florida. Wasn't that sweet?

She's so delightful. Luke is there in Weston. Luke, how can I help you?

Yes, thank you for taking my call. I just have a question regarding my mortgage. I have a house, but unfortunately, my wife recently filed for divorce and I'm trying to see what do I do next?

Do I go by selling the house or because you have two small kids? I don't want to do that. But I just need your advice or guide me. What do I need to do?

Yes. Well, Luke, I'm sorry to hear about what's going on in your life. We'll pray that the Lord will work in the midst of that between you and your wife, Lord willing, for reconciliation and also in the lives of those little ones as well that I know this is going to be difficult for. As you think financially about this, have you already gone through the divorce proceedings as the judge already rendered decisions on how the assets are going to be split?

Yes, but the fact that I'm still living in this house, we're both still living in the house. There's nothing really right now as far as, you know, paying child support, nothing like that. The only thing is just the divorce is, you know, the judge is OK for the divorce, but anything else just on hold. So all the assets are going to be split 50-50? Basically, according to the judge, that's what's going to happen.

Yeah. So typically what would happen, Luke, is the home would be sold. And the reason is because if she's entitled to half of the home, then you'd either have to, in a sense, buy her out. If you're wanting to stay and she's not, either by refinancing and cashing out, which I don't recommend, especially given the changes that are coming in your life, if you're going to have added expense through child support and other things. I want to make sure that this home now fits into your budget.

But you would typically sell the home and then both of you would move on from there, taking your share of the proceeds, and then either buying a new home or renting for a season as you kind of develop your new financial plan and spending plan moving forward. Do you have the ability to buy her out right now? No, not now. OK. All right. And so what is your thought about keeping it?

What would you be looking to do? Try to refinance the mortgage? Yes, we did. We financed it because we get the lower mortgage. But if they extend the time for us to pay it. But right now, yes, we did refinance.

Right. But if she's wanting her half of the proceeds, that's going to require you to do yet another mortgage and cash out and increase the mortgage if you have enough equity such that you could get her share of the home out to pay her in cash. Not only is that going to be expensive, I would just ask the question, does that still fit into your budget?

You're going to be taking out a whole lot of debt in order to give her 50 percent of the value of the home, which is going to mean a much higher mortgage payment. And I guess I just wonder whether that fits into your plan. So I'd start there, Luke. First of all, I wouldn't do anything and let all of this get settled. Figure out how much your child support is going to be and whatever else that's going to come as a result of this. Develop a new spending plan. Figure out how much house you can afford, which as a rule of thumb would be no more than 25 percent for principal interest, taxes and insurance, no more than 25 percent of your take home pay. And I think you're going to find that with these new costs you're going to have as a result of the divorce plus the fact that you don't have the money to buy her out and therefore you'd be taking on a much larger mortgage that may be cost prohibitive. What may make the most sense is for you just to sell and then rent something or buy something smaller that fits into your budget. But I think you've got to wait this out to see exactly how this is all going to shake out and then you've got to develop the plan and make sure that this home fits.

If it doesn't, then perfectly consider what your next move is. And we appreciate your call today. And again, so sorry to hear about what you all are going through.

To Cleveland, Ohio, WCRF. Hi, Juanita. How can I help you?

Hello. I was calling because my husband left his job and he has an annuity that we have to roll over and actually we have to take part of it out because we need a furnace. We just bought a house so we need a furnace. But we want to roll over everything else that's left in there. But I'm not sure how to go about it.

Can we have our own IRA account or do we have to go to like a Fidelity or something like that? I'm just not sure how to handle that part of it because I don't want to just go to anybody who has, you know, we don't want to leave it there because, you know, they're probably investing in things that we don't agree with, you know, as far as I don't know how we've been investing. Sure. How much do you have in this annuity? What's the value of it? Well, right as of the other day, it was $49,000 and some odd $100.

Okay. Yeah, you're going to want to keep it in a tax-deferred environment. And so typically the best way to approach that is to roll that out to an IRA.

When you do that, that's going to make it a non-taxable event. And then it will need to be invested because it will come over in the form of cash. And so I think a great way to go from here Juanita would be to connect with our friends at soundmindinvesting.org. And through the Soundmind Investing newsletter, they'll make all the recommendations you need once you roll this into an IRA with any of the major custodians, TD Meritrade, Charles Schwab, Vanguard. They'll give you the mutual funds to choose, you know, through their service. And you can develop a very high quality portfolio that matches your age and risk tolerance and objectives. And then you just get that money working for you so that, you know, when you need it down the road in retirement, it's there for you to begin to convert that to an income stream alongside your other retirement assets. The challenge is at just under $50,000, it's probably a little too small for an advisor to take on and manage themselves. So that's why I think the approach of soundmindinvesting.org would be a great resource to you. And all the best to you all as your husband looks for his new job and we appreciate your call.

We've got just a few seconds left. Deborah, I understand you've got $100,000 in the bank and you're wondering how to invest that, is that right? Yes, with very little risk since I'm retired and my husband is still working. And we've always been so conservative, but, you know, it just doesn't make sense, I think, to just kind of, you know, we've got close to $150,000 just sitting not making any money.

Yeah. Well, I think as we head into what most are describing as choppy markets ahead where they're not going to go straight up like they have for the last few years and even longer than that, I think having an advisor to manage this in a portfolio that makes sense based on what you just described to me about your conservative nature and where you're at in your life makes a lot of sense. So head to our website, moneywiselive.org, and click Find a CKA.

I'd interview two or three, find the one that's the best fit. We appreciate your call. That's going to do it for us today, folks.

MoneyWise Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and MoneyWise Media. Thank you to my team, Gabby, Dan, Robert, and Deb. Come back and join us tomorrow, will you? We'll see you then. God bless you.