2022-1-7_MWL

Proverbs 16 tells us of God. said is that many Christians also fall into this trap of success by the world's standards. They've bought into the lies that money and material things bring happiness. Advertising tells us this every day.

Sometimes it can be a spiritual decision to just turn off the TV. In Matthew 6, Jesus warns us, Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. Now, that doesn't mean that Christians should stay poor and lowly to be successful in God's eyes.

Here, attitude counts far more than action. First Corinthians 13 says, And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. You see, God often provides an extra measure of resources beyond our needs, in the form of money or other assets, so that we can be generous toward his kingdom. But he wants us to do that with the right attitude, out of love for him, and others less fortunate. In Matthew 25, Jesus says that What you do for the least of these, you do for me. He goes on to say, Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

For I was hungry, and you gave me food, I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. It's important to understand that God often blesses us in ways that have nothing to do with material things. Loving relationships with family and friends, a strong, nurturing church, and most of all, a deeper relationship with him—that's the true blessing and true success. So how do we obtain the good things God promises? Well, in Matthew 6, Jesus says, But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. You know, it's also important to note that we can never do things perfectly, because no one's been perfect since the fall.

But again, attitude is more important than results. God simply wants us to diligently seek him and his righteousness. That means we fully trust in God, and we're willing to make things right when we fail.

We're quick to humble ourselves continually before the throne of God. Psalm 84 also says, Blessed is the man who trusts in you. God has special plans for each of us that we can't fulfill without fully trusting in him. He promises not to withhold any good thing from us when we trust him fully and seek his will for our lives. And we must always acknowledge that any success we achieve comes from God. To help us be a success in God's eyes, we must remember three key words, surrender, obedience and persistence. Surrender means accepting that God owns it all.

We're only temporary managers or stewards of what he gives us. Obedience means being willing to use God's resources as he directs, and persistence means sticking with the first two items no matter what worldly stresses or pressure we encounter. Nehemiah 6 asks, Should someone in my position run from danger? Finally, in Acts 21, we see Paul responding to disciples who wanted him to stay away from Jerusalem for his safety. He says, Why all this weeping? I am ready to be jailed, but even to die for the sake of the Lord Jesus.

Now, that surrender, obedience and persistence put into action, and when we're successful in God's eyes, we'll know true peace and contentment, and that's something worth striving for every day. Your calls are next, 800-525-7000. I'm Rob West, and this is MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Thanks for joining us today on MoneyWise Live, I'm Rob West, your host. This is biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. We've got some lines open today, in just a moment we'll be headed to the phones to find out what's on your mind financially speaking.

We'd love to hear from you. Perhaps one of these lines is just for your question. Here's the number, 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. Why do we talk about money every afternoon on this program? Well, can you think of an area of life money does not directly or indirectly touch?

Food, shelter, clothing, the chair you're sitting in or the car you're driving, the pillow you lay your head on, the utilities while you sleep. Money is often an invisible force influencing our lives and our society, but it's more than that because here's the reality that I've experienced. Our financial journey is one of the ways, one of the key ways I'll say that God shapes our faith journey. You see, it's the clearest indicator into what we value, how we take and use God's money, expresses what's most important to us, and God's given us a treasure trove of wisdom in His Word related to, yeah, this topic of money, 2350 verses.

My friend Howard Dayton actually counted them in a small group study one time, and 16 of the 38 parables, more verses on money and possessions than prayer and faith combined from Jesus. So it's a topic on God's heart because I think it really is so much more than the money. It's about our hearts. You remember Jesus said, our hearts follow our money. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

So how do we manage God's money in a way that allows us to provide for our families and enjoy what He's given us, but also be connected to His activity, help those in need around us and be an accurate reflection of Christ here in this world? Well, let's do that together today. The number to call, 800-525-7000. Let's head to the phones today. We'll begin in Wellington, Florida. Norma, thank you for calling today.

How can I help? Hi, Rob. Thank you for accepting my call. I recently resigned from my job, and I'm kind of semi-retired, and I have a 401k and a pension. My question will be, should it be a good idea to move the pension into the 401k and leave it in that company, or should I keep it separate or roll over it into something more conservative, like a fixed annuity with another company? Sure.

Well, let's talk about that. So you have a pension and a 401k. You've separated from the company. You don't plan to work there again. And you said you're semi-retired, which I assume means you're working part-time. Is that right?

I'll be looking for something like that in a couple of months. I will say I'm kind of like taking a vacation. Sure. Yeah, I understand. And are you able to take the pension in a lump sum if you wanted to roll it out to an IRA? Yes.

Yes, I am. And what is the value of the pension? It's close to 100. Okay. And how much in the 401k?

It's like 250. Okay. All right. And when do you plan on taking Social Security? 65. Okay. And what is your age now? I'm turning 61 this month.

Okay. So you've still got about four years. So what will you be living on in this interim period before you consider going back to work? Well, I do have some rentals. So I have enough money to live from them. Okay, very good.

So the rental income after expenses and debt service and hopefully some money put away for maintenance and repairs, of course, taxes and insurance is throwing off some income. And it's enough to meet your expenses currently. Do you have an emergency savings account?

Yes. Okay, very good. And how many months worth of expenses roughly? Well, I don't have any debt. So I would say maybe 10 months, 12 months.

10 to 12 months. Great. Okay.

Excellent. Well, you're in a really good spot here. You know, I think the opportunity for you here, Norma, would be to roll both of these out to an individual retirement account, an IRA, both the pension, which is a tax deferred savings vehicle as well as the 401k, could be combined into one new IRA or into two IRAs. I'd do it into one. And given the amount of money you're talking about here, $350,000 or so between the two, I think it's a great opportunity for you to connect with a financial professional to talk about your options. You mentioned a fixed annuity and that wouldn't be my first choice.

But if you said, listen, I don't want to take any risk, I want to transfer that risk to an insurance company in exchange for a guaranteed return, even if I was giving up a little bit and losing some flexibility because you've got to turn over the full amount of whatever you're putting into the annuity and there's going to be surrender penalties and charges in order to get it back. Another option that you could talk about with an advisor would be just to take that $350,000 or so and just have it managed on a conservative basis, recognizing that your income is pretty much covered. If you were to sell these properties at some point down the road because there's too much work involved in maintaining them, then that would be even more that you would have to add to it. And all of this together needs to be able to provide the income stream that you need for the rest of your life as well as continuing to grow it so that you'd have resources if you need long-term care or in-home assistance or a nursing home at some point, which can be very costly or to have as an inheritance to give to your heirs or to support charity or ministry that's on your heart. So it needs to be managed well with an eye toward preserving it first but then allowing it to grow so it outpaces inflation. It doesn't lose purchasing power every month and the best way to do that in my view and maintain access to the funds is through a conservative investment portfolio managed by a professional where there'd be a small portion allocated to stocks, a larger portion allocated to fixed income and where the goal was maybe four or five percent a year in terms of a return. So that would be the way that I would go but in either case, I would visit with at least three, two to three, I'll say, certified Kingdom advisors there in South Florida and talk through your options.

Find the person that you feel is the best fit and once you do that, then you would roll those pension and 401k into IRAs or into an annuity, whichever you decided. Does that make sense? Yes. Yes. And is there a charge, annual charge that these financial advisors will be charging?

What's the average? Yeah. And so it just depends on which direction you go. Of course, if you went with an annuity, there'd be some charges embedded in the product that would allow them to pay the commission to the agent and there's ongoing fees as well. If you just hire an advisor to actually take and manage the money and have what's called discretion based on your goals and objectives but making the buy and sell decisions for you, with about 350,000, I would expect to pay somewhere between one and one and a half percent a year on that amount of money. So if we're talking 350,000, that'd be $3,500 a year, perhaps as much as 5,000. But the idea is you're paying for that ongoing management and the returns you would be looking for would be, the idea would be that it'd be net of that fee.

So they know they have to make up the fee and any other expenses and then show you a rate of return that's consistent with your goals and objectives and the risk level that you're willing to assume. Would you recommend any life insurance that would be top-notch in annuities? Well, any life insurance companies? I would talk to the professional as you make that decision between straight investment management where, again, the benefit staying outside of an insurance contract is that you keep full access to the money if you need it.

But you are assuming the risk associated with whatever investments are selected versus the insurance company where you're transferring that risk but you're going to give up a little bit in terms of what you might expect in terms of the return. As to the companies, I wouldn't want to name any specific ones but that's something that whoever you select as an advisor, if that's the direction you decide to go, they could give you several options, make sure you understand which is the best one based on what you're trying to accomplish. The direction to head now is our website.

If you want to connect with a certified kingdom advisor, just head to MoneyWiseLive.org, MoneyWiseLive.org and click Find a CKA. And again, I'd visit with two or three in that area. And if you have other questions along the way, let us know. We appreciate, though, you listening and calling today.

May God bless you. Well, folks, we've got a few lines open. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk to Mark in Tennessee, Debbie's in Chicago, Melissa's in Chicago as well. We'll be right back. Stay with us. Welcome back to MoneyWise Live!

Biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. We've got some phone lines open. We'd love to hear from you today. 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. Before we go back to the phones, let me take a quick email. We do hear from so many of you sending your emails in to questions at MoneyWise.org, and we like to take them periodically.

This one comes from Larry. He says, my aunt has run up a ton of credit card debt. We want to consolidate it and get it paid off. How can I help her without just giving her money to pay her bills? And I think, Larry, this is a great question in two parts. One is, what is the best approach to getting this debt paid off for your aunt?

And then number two, how can you help? It's a wise way to do that, and I'm glad that you're thinking through that. In terms of how to go about paying it off, if there's a lot of credit card debt, just snowballing it yourself is often challenging, and you'll end up paying a lot of interest in doing that. So I would recommend you check into a debt management program.

Our friends at ChristianCreditCounselors.org would be the source I would recommend. When you visit with them, they'll help your aunt get set up on a budget. They'll look at each of the credit cards and determine what the revised or lowered interest rates would be in debt management, and then come up with a fixed monthly payment that she would pay that would pass through their nonprofit credit counseling agency to each creditor. And with the reduced interest rates and the fixed monthly payment, she'll on average pay these back 80% faster.

So it's a very effective program. Now, when you couple that with your desire to help, I think this can be a blessing here also because I agree. Just giving her money to pay her bills, especially in light of the fact that credit card debt is symptomatic of poor financial decision-making, perhaps living beyond her means, that may not be as helpful as you want to be. Here's one idea. What if you were to say, listen, if you get on a debt management program, if you make that payment each month, we'll match it, or we'll take half of it, we'll take 25% of it, whatever that amount is, it gets paid to the debt management program, your assistance, so you're making sure that it's getting to the right place, and it's based on a program that's moving her toward being debt-free. So that would be the direction I'd go, Larry. We appreciate your email, and again, the website for Christian Credit Counselors is simply christiancreditcounselors.org. All right, back to the phones today, 800-525-7000 is the number to call.

Hi, Debbie. I know you're in Chicago today, and you have a question about I bonds, is that right? Yes. We went ahead and bought some before the year ended, and you know, I heard you talking about them and the interest rate, but when I looked at it, that composite rate had two parts, and so the first fixed is zero right now, and the inflationary was the seven pole. Yes, the semi-annual inflation rate is sitting around just over three and a half, which annualized is 7.1%. Okay, so then how do we decide when it's time to take it out maybe and get different ones, or you know, I know that you can make steps of them, and then also whether it's, if they're a good gift for grandchildren or a good way to save for grandchildren.

Yes, you know, they can be. I mean, it'd be the only bonds that I would look at in terms of, you know, what you might be wanting to buy just because the yield is so high. They'll adjust again in April of this year, April 2022, and so you'll want to watch it. The bottom line is you'll continue to earn interest for 30 years. If you cash them in before five years, you'll lose three months worth of interest, and so, you know, there's an incentive to hold on to these, but given the interest rate that's there, you know, there's very good reason to do that because given that it's backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government and you're getting a very attractive interest rate of right now over 7%, you know, there's a great yield that you are receiving here that's guaranteed. So I would look at holding these, but you certainly will want to monitor that rate and if at any point you decide you want to take it out, you know, before that five-year period, you'll just give up a little bit of interest when you do that.

TreasuryDirect.gov is a great place to monitor that, and I would just check again once that rate adjusts to see what it's looking like, but in the meantime, you're, you know, accruing a very attractive interest rate with zero risk and you can't beat that. Right. Well, now, that can change every six months, though, correct?

That's exactly right. So you'll want to monitor that just to see when, you know, if the rate drops down to a point where you don't feel like, you know, it's attractive to you or you could replace it with something else, then that would be the time to consider getting out, but I don't see that happening anytime soon, so I just plan to hang on to these and perhaps consider buying more. As to it being a good gift, yeah, I think it very well could be.

The only other option would be if you want to give a gift to a child that's earmarked for college, I'd love for you to look at a 529 savings plan and my favorite website to evaluate which plan would be savingforcollege.com. They rank them every quarter and they can help you decide which is the most attractive for you, but I like I-Bonds as a gift as well, so you just keep monitoring that rate every time it adjusts, but in the meantime, enjoy that great payout. We appreciate your call today. 800-525-7000 is the number to call. We'll be right back after this break. Thanks for tuning in to MoneyWise Live. I'm Rob West, your host. We've got some lines open today.

We'll head back to the phones here in just a moment, 800-525-7000. Just before the break, we were talking about I-Bonds. These are from the US Treasury and they're a great deal right now, over 7% given the tick up in inflation that we're experiencing. Let me give a few more details on that because one of the things I didn't mention is you do have to keep I-Bonds for at least a year, so they can be held for as little as one year, as long as 30 years, but if they're sold fewer than five years, that's where you'll sacrifice the last three months' worth of interest. But the minimum is a one-year hold on them, which given the interest rate they're paying right now, again, the yield being over 7%, it's a phenomenal return, and even if we were to see a cooling of the inflation rate later this year when they adjust, I don't think it's going down to a level where it would not be attractive.

So it's a great opportunity right now. You can put in $10,000 per social security number per year. So each individual can put in $10,000. You can actually get an extra $5,000 in though if you do it through a tax refund.

So if you get a refund on taxes you've paid in, you could get it up to $15,000. But just wanted to make sure you have those details. If you'd like to read more about I-Bonds, the I of course standing for inflation from the U.S. Treasury, you can do so at soundmindinvesting.org. Our friends at Sound Mind Investing have written a lot on this topic as of late. Just search for I-Bonds and you'll see all of the details.

If you'd like to buy them, you can do it directly from the Treasury on the website, treasurydirect.gov, treasurydirect.gov. All right, let's head back to the phones today. Mark is in Tennessee. Mark, how can I help you?

Hi, thank you for taking my call. It's about the stimulus, personal stimulus checks. I have received all three of them that were issued by the government, but all three were issued to me based on the 2019 income level because I have filed the 2020 return late May of 2021. So technically, I made more money in 2020 than the limit for a single person would have been allowed to issue that check. And according to my tax return representative and also the IRS representative, which I called early today and spoke with them, they told me legally I am allowed to keep even the third one because all of them were issued based on the 2019 return.

But I don't want to be legalistic, I just want to do what's right by God. So I was wondering before I destroy the check or actually use it, would it be okay to give it to a family member that are struggling economically in present day a little more and they probably can use it? Yes. Well, it's a great question, Mark, and I appreciate your desire to be faithful in whether or not you should have received this money and whether it gets returned or shared with somebody else. You're correct. So for a single person, you would not receive the check if you made more than $80,000. But if your CPA and the IRS are telling you that it's based on 2019 and you did then comply in 2019 even though you didn't in 2020 and therefore you're entitled to it, well, that's what they're saying and that must be the case then and you could certainly take their advice on that. If you had a conviction of wanting to return it, the way you would do that is you'd write void in the endorsement section and you'd mail the voided check back to the IRS location that's appropriate for you and you could find that out at IRS.gov and then just write a brief explanation stating for the reason that you're returning it.

If though in fact you are entitled to it and that's what the IRS is advising and that's what your professional CPA is advising, then I think at that point, it's really unless you have a conviction to send it back, it's you're now the steward of this money because you were entitled to it based on the regulations that determine who receives it and who doesn't and it would be up to you then to decide how you want to use it and if you decided to share that with somebody in need, I think that's great. So I'd say you go for that unless you have a conviction to do something differently. Does that make sense? Yes, sir. Thank you.

Appreciate your advice. Thank you so much. Absolutely, Mark. I appreciate your desire to honor the Lord with your stewardship of your resources and that's a real encouragement to me, I'm sure to a lot of folks who are listening as well. Thank you for your call. Chicago, Illinois. Hi, Melissa.

How can we help you? Hi. Yes. My husband has an executive whole life insurance policy worth $100,000 and he's had it for quite some time, more than 30 years, so it has a cash value of almost $38,000 and recently every year we've wanted to cash it out and maybe put it somewhere else, but our accountant always warns us that it will create a tax liability for us to pay taxes on that. So my question is, I wanted to know at what point do I just take the tax liability and invest it into something else for it to grow versus just hanging onto it? Yes.

Yeah, very good. Well, I think the key here is to really just analyze it from a financial standpoint to determine basically how long this policy will last based on the death benefit, the mortality expense being paid by the cash value that you've accrued and at what point, depending on how long you live, you need to actually put more money in or it would be collapsed or versus you taking it out, paying the tax on the amount that's over and above your cost basis of what you put into it and then being able to reinvest that and have that money working for you and there's a math equation there that you can run that just basically says, okay, the net amount we would receive is X and look at that over a period of time versus what the insurance company is telling you as to how long this death benefit would be good and then what you would have to put into it to continue to maintain that death benefit because you've obviously put a lot into this over the years and if you don't ultimately receive the death benefit, then all that, you would get whatever cash value is left but I realize that money is going to be eaten up over time and given the fact that you don't need the death benefit, you've saved. This is not a policy that you're counting on to provide for the needs for a family member, your husband or yourself or a dependent, then looking at taking this money and redirecting it someplace that could get a better return on it makes a lot of sense to me but you do have to factor in the taxes that would need to be paid.

So if you don't have the ability or don't understand how you might look at that, I would perhaps connect with an advisor who can do an analysis for you to determine the two scenarios as to when it might make sense to go ahead and leave it in the policy with the expectation of receiving the death benefit versus taking it out, paying whatever taxes do and then investing it accordingly. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. I always forget that it's the gain, so it's not the full amount I wouldn't be taxed on, just the gain versus how effective it is. That's exactly right.

Over and above what you've paid into it, yeah. Very good. Well, Melissa, we appreciate your call today and all the best to you as you all make this decision.

Thanks for listening to the show as well. 800-525-7000 is the number to call. We have a few lines open. By the way, if you haven't created a free MoneyWise account, you can do that at MoneyWiseLive.org. That'll make sure you receive our weekly MoneyWise wisdom email with some great articles and insights from MoneyWise media. You'll also be able to post in our community and get responses from our coaches.

It all happens at MoneyWiseLive.org. Stay with us. We'll be right back after this. Thanks for tuning in to MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Let's head right back to the phones. Wade is in Fremont, and Wade, thanks for calling, how can I help you? Thank you for taking my call.

I have a new home that I built recently, and because of the values going up, I've got enough property where I could sell this home and rebuild it and more than likely be debt-free. And I'm wondering what you thought about that. So let me make sure I understand.

Go ahead. Or am I just scared about the future and don't trust God to pay off my present mortgage? Well, you know, he wants us to be wise in how we manage his money, and so I would put this in that column that you're just trying to be a good steward.

If there is any fear there, well, obviously you need to give that to the Lord. So often our financial decisions are symptomatic of deeper, ultimately spiritual issues, and so I think we always need to be evaluating why we're making the decisions we're making with our finances, what's behind it that's driving it, and there's our beliefs that are so often shaped by our upbringing, by how money was handled growing up, by so many factors in the media, our culture, people around us, and we need to take our cues from God's word. Ultimately that would then allow us to be focused on God as our provider, recognizing our proper role as steward and living with contentment and freedom, because we've followed biblical principles. But at the end of the day, if we try to exercise too much control, well, it'll be a false sense of control, because ultimately God is in charge, and so we've got to trust him for the outcomes.

But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to make the very best decisions we can along the way with God's money, and taking our cues from Scripture is a great way to do that. Let me make sure I understand, though, the question, so you've got a piece of property, you've built a home, you're living in it, it's increased in value, like pretty much all homes have as of late, last several years in a significant way, and what is it you're looking to do? You'd sell the property, buy a new piece of land, and build a new home?

No, I wouldn't need to. I got enough property. I got 40 acres.

I could sell half or only 10 acres with the house, and then rebuild on that same piece of property. I see. Yeah. Well, I mean, do you do this yourself, or do you hire contractors, or a combination of the two?

Yeah, a combination of the two. I can do some of the work, and I hire most of it, though. But I do the general contracting, basically.

Yeah, very good. Well, it sounds like God's given you a gift in this area, and he's given you an asset, namely this 40 acres of land, and if you've demonstrated that you can do this once, then you can do it again. I mean, you would have to factor in, which you would probably be very well familiar with, the increases in the raw materials and so forth, although some of that has waned as of late, like lumber. But if you could take this asset, and you have more land than you need, and you're willing to subdivide it and kind of duplicate what you've done before, and use that property to get out of debt, which is absolutely encouraged by Scripture—it doesn't mean borrowing is a sin, but it does mean that there are clear warnings about it. I think when we're unencumbered, you certainly have more freedom to follow the Lord wherever he leads, and there's a lot of peace of mind that comes from not being servant to the lender. So if you can do that by leveraging this property and the gifting that God has given you as a general contractor, I'd say go for it. I don't see any reason why you wouldn't want to do that. Okay. I thank you very much.

All right, Wade. Hey, all the best. Send us some pictures when it's done.

I'd love to see it. I'm sure you're doing a great thing up there. Thanks for your call today. We're going to head to Nevada next. I guess it's Winnemucca, but I'm probably saying that wrong.

Forrest, thank you for calling. How do you say your town? Winnemucca.

Winnemucca. I was close. As soon as it came out of my mouth, I thought, that's probably not right.

Hey, how can I help you today? Yeah, that's Paiute for one moccasin. Ah, there you go.

I like it. So we have a couple of young men in our church that feel that God's called them to preach, and they've been in college for a couple of years studying for that. We would like to open up some retirement accounts for them to get them started so they can start putting money away for the future.

We know that a lot of pastors end up in small churches, and they don't get paid much. So we're wondering what we could do to maybe get them started with a retirement account. Are you wanting to do this as the church or as individuals? Individuals. Just my wife and I. I see.

Okay. Well, you know, you really can't in the sense that they would need to open those retirement accounts because it's not being opened by an employer. So I think the best way to go here would probably be to say to approach them and just say what you told me, listen, I want to encourage you as you're starting out, you feel called to preach. I want you to be able to set something aside specifically earmarked for the future. And so we'd like to ask you if you'd be willing to open a Roth IRA in your name.

They can open that at any institution they want, whether that's a Charles Schwab or Vanguard or TD Ameritrade, Betterment. And then once they do, you're allowed to gift them $15,000 a year up to without having to file a gift tax return or anything like that. They would be able to put away $6,000 this year. And so, you know, any amount up to that, as long as they have earned income of at least that much, then they'd be able to take that gift that you give them and then turn around and make the contribution to the Roth IRA. I assume they have other jobs that is generating earned income.

Is that right? Well, they're both full time students. The older one actually has his bachelor's and not his master's now.

He has a counseling job there at the school. So that would be the only issue there is that they would only be able to contribute up to the earned income that they had for the year with a maximum of $6,000. So if they don't have $6,000 in earned income, they could do the portion that they have up to that based on your gift. Otherwise, they'd probably have to take your gift and put it into some sort of savings account, maybe a high yield savings account at Ally Bank or Marcus Capital One 360 and just allow it to accrue.

And at some point when they do have, assuming they're going to be either bivocational or when they get a full time job at a church down the road, then they could use that money to begin making contributions to a Roth IRA until it's, you know, putting it in each year until it's used up, meaning that it's been invested into that Roth IRA. Does all that make sense? It does. You told me just exactly what I needed to know. I appreciate that.

Okay. Well, listen, I really appreciate your desire to encourage these young men who are filling the call to full time ministry and to preaching, and I couldn't agree more. We need to make sure that they're thinking long term. They're probably not going to be earning big paychecks if this is the way the Lord leads and they're in small churches. So the body of Christ coming around them to encourage them and even provide some financial assistance, I think is a wonderful thing. So Forrest, thank you for your call and your encouragement today. God bless you, sir. Chicago, Illinois is where Betty is, WMBI. Betty, how can I help?

Well, hello, Rob. Thank you. 57 years old. My husband is 64. We don't have a lot of savings and we have a mortgage that we bought two years ago.

It's a two frat. We plan on selling it once we're retired so we can get something smaller and more affordable. We still are making car payments and I want to know what can I do being a city employee.

I want to be able to save some money and have a comfortable future with my husband. Plus, his side business closed down after COVID. So that's money that we were counting on and we no longer get.

Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah, I know that for so many small businesses, Betty, that was the reality and that makes it tough. Are you going to have a retirement account that is coming to you, some sort of pension or retirement from your government work? Yes, I do have a pension. Right now, there's like a little bit over just $60,000 in there. My husband has a smaller pension. He's only been with his company for like four years, five years, maybe max, and yeah, so we... Okay.

What can I... Right, and he won't abdicate that to anyone or anything else, but we need to be diligent in doing our part in saving for the future and then we trust the Lord for the rest. Betty, are you all able to put something away? Do you have some margin where you could begin funding every month a retirement account in addition to what you're doing through your employers? Well, what I do now is we tithe, that's the first expense before anything else because we're so grateful to the Lord for everything he's given us. And then we were going to the dentist now, so I was saving $200 a month, but it's been going towards our dental bills, so I'm guessing I can only use like $100 a month. All right. And do you all have an emergency savings account or have you used that up? Yes, we have an emergency... No, we have an emergency savings account. It'll cover us for just a couple of months. I see.

Okay. Well, I'd like for that to get up to three months expenses at a minimum, but then after that, if you want us to take what you have every month and it may change, I realize that, and fund a Roth IRA alongside the two retirement accounts you have at work, I think that would be a great thing. So visit with our friends at soundmindinvesting.org and read about opening a Roth IRA and just systematically every month putting that into a high quality mutual fund so that over the next 10 years or so, that can grow to supplement what you've already saved and then we'll trust the Lord for the rest. Betty, thank you for your call today, all the best to you. That's going to do it for us today, folks.

MoneyWise Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and MoneyWise Media. I want to say thank you to my team today. Caro is with us today, Amy, Dan, and Jim. We're so thankful to have you along with us as well. We'll look for you on Monday. Come back and join us then. Bye bye.