The Meaning of Stewardship

Today's version of MoneyWise Live is prerecorded, so our phone lines are not open. Christians are to be different and apart from the world, and a good way to start is by practicing stewardship. In a culture that glorifies materialism, true stewardship should stand out.

Hi, I'm Rob West. Being a faithful manager of God's resources requires a working knowledge of stewardship and the principles behind it. We'll talk about that first today.

Then we have some great calls lined up, but we won't be taking your live calls today because we're prerecorded. This is MoneyWise Live, where biblical truth guides our financial decisions. So the first principle we must understand about stewardship is ownership. God owns everything. He created everything, so that just stands to reason. And Scripture is very clear about this. Let me take you to Psalm 24, 1 and 2. The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein.

For He has founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the rivers. How about Deuteronomy 10, 14? Behold to the Lord your God belong heaven, and the heaven of heavens, the earth and all that is in it. And finally, Psalm 50, verse 10.

For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. So we've established God's ownership. Now let's look at this from another angle. We have to understand that if God owns everything, that means we own nothing. That's a difficult concept to grasp, because we possess a lot of stuff. Our house and car and bank account. We hold those things.

But here's the key. We don't own them. God does.

We own nothing. From the change in our pocket to the clothes on our back, God owns it all. And we're to use those resources wisely and in obedience to the Lord. If we become arrogant about who's done what, it's good to remember that even the skills and abilities we have to acquire wealth belong to God. They're only on loan, if you will, and we're to use them to glorify Him first and foremost, not to enrich ourselves.

Deuteronomy 8, 17 and 18 makes this clear. It reads, Beware, lest you say in your heart my power and the might of my hand have given me this wealth, you shall remember the Lord your God. For it is He who gives you the power to get wealth, that He may confirm His covenant, that He swore to your fathers as it is this day. So God owns everything.

We own nothing. And this is the first principle of stewardship. The next principle, though, is responsibility. You see, as stewards, we have no rights over what we temporarily possess by the Lord's provision, but we do have responsibility to use those resources wisely for His purposes. There's nothing wrong with enjoying God's provision, but we must seek the balance between that and using His resources for His purposes. This is defined in 1 Timothy 6, 17. It reads, As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to put their hope in the uncertainty of riches, but on God who provides richly with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share. One day, each of us will stand before the Lord to give an account of how we used His resources, just like the servants in the parable of the talents.

The difference is we'll be accountable for everything, not just money, but our time and abilities too. Those are all resources God has given us, so we must use them wisely. How do we know where to draw the line? How to enjoy God's provision without clinging to it and claiming it for our own? I think that's something each of us must determine in quiet prayer with the Holy Spirit.

Romans 8, 26 reads like this, Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know what to pray as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. Trust Him to tell you if you're enjoying or squandering what the Lord has given you. All right, now for the last principle, and that's reward. I think we have reason enough to be good stewards because of what God's already done for us, the priceless gift of His Son for our salvation, but He promises even more blessings when we're faithful stewards. Colossians 3 reads like this, Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. How we manage God's provision will determine whether we hear those words someday we all want declared good and faithful stewards.

The key is we need to understand our role, and that's the role of manager or steward, caretaker of God's resources. This is so key. This is MoneyWise Live with Rob West. Today's program is prerecorded, so keep that in mind when you hear phone numbers. We're going to pause for a brief break now, but Rob West will be back in a moment with more MoneyWise Live. Thanks for joining us today on MoneyWise Live.

I'm Rob West. This is the program where we recognize God owns it all. Therefore, we're stewards, and money is a tool to accomplish God's purposes.

We want to answer your calls and questions today. Apply the 2350 verses—well, maybe not all of them at once—but apply the principles we take out of God's Word to whatever is going on in your financial life. Before we get to our first call today in Athens, Ohio, let me remind you our MoneyWise coaches are available to serve you. It's one of the ministry offerings we make available here at MoneyWise Media. These are men and women who have taken a portion of their time in ministry to come alongside God's people to help you develop a spending plan, a debt repayment plan, a giving plan, and teach you some of the principles we talk about here each day on MoneyWise Live.

They'll walk with you for six to eight weeks. There's no cost for that coaching. We just ask for a small fee, $25 for the electronic workbook, but if you can't afford that, we will cover that for you as well. I think you'll find it a blessing, and what we hear from folks coming out the other side of that coaching experience is that it has been incredibly helpful. How do you take advantage of it? Well, just simply head over to MoneyWiseLive.org and click Connect with a Coach. We'll get you in line, get one assigned to you, and we'll look forward to hearing how that works in your life. All right, phone lines open today with your calls and questions on anything financial. 800-525-7000.

We're going to begin today in Athens, Ohio. Bob, thank you for calling today. How can I assist you? Yeah, thanks for taking my call, and God bless you and your ministry and all that you do to help folks.

Thank you, sir. My question has to do with investing. I'm new to investing and recently opened a faith-based Roth through a credit union, and both the faith-based and the normal investment Roths had similar performance, but I did notice that on the faith-based listing of companies, they still have a lot of companies like Microsoft, Goodyear, Target, Facebook, all those types that I don't really care to support due to their cancel culture ethics and things that they seem to have adopted. My question has to do, is there any way to figure out a list of companies or how to exclude them as well as those that support abortion and pornography and all those sorts of things?

Sure. Well, Bob, I'm delighted to hear that as you get into investing, you're also thinking about how to align your investments with your Christian values, which is a really exciting opportunity that we all have as investors or might I say owners. When we own companies, the question is, what are those companies and what are they doing with their corporate profits and what are their primary business activities and do those conflict with our values? I think we all need to establish our own convictions about how we want to approach investing. Do we want to avoid certain companies? Perhaps we want to engage in buying other companies that are actually making a difference in the world from a kingdom standpoint or purely just human flourishing. Or maybe we want to use our role as ownership to engage with certain companies and vote proxies and make our voice known to align our Christian values with the company. You know, I think that opportunity exists today, perhaps in ways it hasn't in years past with some wonderful investment solutions that will do just what you're describing. I'd love to share some ideas with you, but first, Bob, when you say you went into a faith based investing strategy, describe that for me. Was it a faith based investing fund family inside that Roth?

How was it portrayed to you? Yes, as far as I understand it at this point, it's a selection of companies and they're primarily, I think, a lot of the tech companies and things. And what the faith based as far as this was, it eliminated things like companies that are involved either in pornography or probably tobacco and alcohol and all those sorts of things. Okay.

Yeah. And so if that's your conviction to exclude certain companies, the question that is, how are those filters or exclusions being applied? And that would be up to each investment company to determine what that looks like.

Hopefully they have the ability to provide a screening that aligns with your convictions, or it may just be kind of their own approach and you'd have to decide whether it works for you or not. A couple of thoughts on where you'd go from here. One is I would encourage you to check out some of the fund families that are really some of the leaders in this space. One would be called Eventide, invest eventide.com is the website. Another one is Praxis, P-R-A-X-I-S, praxismutualfunds.com. And then the third is inspireinvesting.com. So invest eventide, inspire investing and praxis mutual funds.

Those would be three world class fund families that would be doing the kinds of things you're describing and have the level of exclusion I think you're looking for. One other tool that's free that I would avail yourself of is a website from one of those companies I mentioned named Inspire and the website is inspireinsight.com, inspireinsight.com. What they do there with that free resource is you can type in any stock symbol, any mutual fund symbol or any exchange traded fund symbol and it through a massive database pulling content in from all over the web will actually provide a score for every investment you put in and actually give you insight into the kinds of activities they have that may potentially violate your own values. And not only can you see the score they provide, but you can do your own analysis based on the information that returns. So I think Bob, perhaps that's the starting place for you is to evaluate what you have, see how it scores and then look behind that to see the kinds of things that are driving that score down so you can see if you do have some concerns about that.

And then secondly, I would check out any one of those three fund families perhaps for some other investment options that would really line up more effectively with what you're looking to accomplish. Does that make sense for you? Yes, it sure does. And I appreciate the references that you were offered there and I plan to investigate them. Very good, Bob. We appreciate you listening. Thank you for your kind remarks today, sir. And may the Lord bless you. We appreciate it very much. Well, folks, this is a really exciting development that's taking place in the investment landscape where alongside a secular approach to investing called ESG, environmental, social and governance type of investing, as a subset of that, there's a really growing segment called faith-based investing where you can, in fact, make sure that your values align with your investments.

So perhaps you should check out those fund families I mentioned for yourself, Invest Demon Tied, Inspire Investing or Praxis Mutual Funds. I think you'll be pleased with what you've done. Many more of your questions just around the corner. We're grateful you've decided to tune in today to MoneyWise Live. I'm Rob West. Just a moment, we're going to be talking with Dan in Fort Wayne about investing his tax refund. We'll talk with Ann in Cleveland about whether she's responsible for her parents debt if he or she or her parents pass away. We'll talk about investing a 401k. But first, let's head to Spring Hill, Florida, and talk to Travis. How can I assist you?

Hi. I purchased a house around three years ago with Homebridge Mortgage. I took out mortgage with them and just recently transferred to Freedom Mortgage. And they sent me some mail and I got a phone call to contact them saying that I could get a lower payment.

And I did. And they offered me to refinance. And I was just curious if I should refinance. I don't really know much about that. Yeah.

Tell me about the current mortgage that you have. You said it's fairly new. You took it out not too long ago. Is that right? Yeah. It's FHA, I believe, Streamline Mortgage. All right. And what is the term on it and the interest rate? So 30-year term and the interest is 5.12%. Okay. And have they told you what that new interest rate would be if you were to streamline refinance? Yes.

They would be 3.625%. Okay. All right. Very good. Excellent. And would it be a new 30 years?

He gave me an option of a new 30 years and then staying the same years that like just staying the same. Continuing the same term. Very good.

Yeah. I like this option. Your rate is high. You're going to save nearly two points on it. And with FHA, this Streamline Refinance Program gets its name because it allows borrowers to refinance an existing FHA loan to a lower rate more quickly. You'd miss a lot of the paperwork and appraisal that you would typically have with a straight refi and you can save a lot of money and time in doing it. So as long as you plan to stay in this home for a while, I like the idea that you do the Streamline. Again, it would be lower cost. You'd come out way ahead with the lower interest rate over the life of the loan. And if you take that option where you're not extending the term, I like that even better. So I would say, Travis, go ahead and proceed. I'd be concerned with you refinancing again with a straight refi just because of the cost you've been incurring as you've been doing this. But the Streamline Refinance gives me some more confidence that this is the direction to go.

So I would, in fact, proceed and let us know how it turns out. We appreciate your call today. We've got some lines open, 800-525-7000.

Let's head to St. Charles, Illinois. Joanne, thanks for your patience. How can I help you?

Hi there. So I received a call yesterday from my financial advisor that I'm 59 and a half. The first question was, who told you? But anyway, he said, he said, so we were wondering, it's probably a good idea to take your 401K money that you have and give it to us so that we could start an IRA for you. And, you know, I know typically people charge for moving monies for you or watching over your monies. And, you know, while my 401K is with a company called July Services, I guess, you know, it's growing there. So I'm like, what is the benefit for me to move it or what are the pitfalls?

So, you know, and then would there be a concern for taxes if I move it that I have to pay taxes on that money now? Or are there other things I should move on right now? I'm debt free. My home is paid off.

I have no debt. So I'm saving money as I say that I keep putting it into this investment firm. But, you know, I don't know if I'm making a wise decision with what I'm doing.

I'm just putting it here or there and just. Yeah. So the first thing you'd have to determine is whether or not your 401K plan would allow you to roll these funds over while you're still working. Most cases you're going to have to separate from the company in order to do that. But essentially, once you roll it to an IRA, whenever that time comes, which I think is generally a good idea for most folks, that's not a taxable event. So it really doesn't have any impact on whether you're 59 and a half or not because you're not withdrawing the money. You're simply rolling it from a qualified account, the 401K, to another qualified account, the IRA. You're not taking possession of the funds.

And so as a result of that rollover, you know, you're not recognizing any income or paying any tax. And then you would have to deploy those funds into new investments once it was rolled into the IRA. I think the main question for you at this point is, you know, what investments are available to you in the 401K and which ones have been selected by you or somebody else?

And are they appropriate for your age and risk tolerance goals and objectives? You know, the last 12 years, the market has done quite well. The last couple of years has done really well. So we're in on the kind of back end of our raging bull market. Now, where is it going from here?

Well, no one knows. But I think the prospects that we could hit, you know, a cyclical rollover of the market because the economy takes a downturn a year or two down the road with inflation and higher interest rates and the debt that we've taken on in this country and just some of the things that tend to happen in cycles economically could lead to a recession at some point or a bear market. I mean, we know historically we're due for one. So the question would be, you know, even though you've done quite well over the last 12 years, are you positioned appropriately so that if we were to hit a rough patch in the market, which I wouldn't say would last forever, it would typically after 18 months or two years, we'd work our way through it and move into a new upward cycle. But during that time, are you too close to retirement and perhaps taking too much risk that you may find yourself in a position where your account was down, you know, 20 or 30 percent or more?

And that would be concerning to you. So I just want to make sure that you're invested in the right things with the right allocation of stocks and bonds and real estate investment trusts, if that's a part of this. So whether you leave it there in the 401K or roll it out to an IRA at some point to have it managed, I'd get some professional expertise to look this over.

It's worth it. You've been saving for a long time and this is a lot of money that you've put away. So I'd encourage you to go to our website, MoneyWiseLive.org, look for a Certified Kingdom Advisor or two or three in your area that you could interview. And then if you leave it in the 401K, they wouldn't have to take over management. You could just pay them for their time to evaluate the investments, tell you whether you're on the right track or you should make some changes.

MoneyWiseLive.org, just click Find a CKA and you can search by zip code. We appreciate your call today. You're listening to MoneyWise Live with Rob West.

Today's broadcast is prerecorded, and that means we're not taking any calls. But we've got some calls lined up and great information coming your way that we think you'll find helpful. So stick around for more MoneyWise Live after this brief break. How should we as Christians think about investing? What if we could invest our money in a way that aligns with what we believe? At Eventide, we believe it is possible to love God and love our neighbor in the very practice of investing. We design investments for performance and a better world so you can invest for the future with a sense of wholeness and purpose. We call this investing that makes the world rejoice. More information is available at investeventide.com. If you're investing for retirement or any other goal, you may be wondering if it's possible to enjoy both profit and peace of mind no matter what's happening in the market. Sound Mind Investing has a short video webinar on that topic at soundmindinvesting.org. SMI has helped tens of thousands of Christians learn to be wise and faithful stewards in the area of investing. Profit and peace of mind no matter what's happening in the market at soundmindinvesting.org. It's been lingering in your mind for the past few months.

Is it time to move on from my current job? Maybe you're feeling drawn to ministry. Here's a thought. How about investing in the mission of Moody Bible Institute in Chicago? Moody is all about teaching students the word of God and preparing them for service. But that mission also involves Moody's sister ministries like broadcasting and publishing. Help make an impact in ministry at Moody. Check out all of the career opportunities at moodyjobs.org.

That's moodyjobs.org. We all want a family that has fun together, but you have a full schedule and carving time to plan creative, affordable events can feel overwhelming. In 52 Uncommon Family Adventures, Randy Southern offers original ideas for family time that will create lifelong memories, all while connecting spiritually and speaking each other's love languages. Choose an adventure, make a plan and have fun.

Get your copy of 52 Uncommon Family Adventures at moodypublishers.com. Whether you're brand new to Money Wise or have been with us since the early days with Larry Burkett and Howard Dayton, you know we love helping people get out of debt, live within their means, save for the future and become more generous. We want them to learn and apply biblical wisdom to their finances so they can be better followers of Christ and be free financially to serve Him. But to do this, we need your help with a monthly or one-time gift before December 31st. Just go to moneywiselive.org and click Donate and thanks.

With SRN News, I'm John Scott. Jurors have convicted a suburban Minneapolis police officer of first-degree and second-degree manslaughter in the fatal shooting of black motorist Daunte Wright. The jury deliberated for about four days before finding Kim Potter guilty of both counts earlier today. Consumer prices rose 5.7% over the past year. That's the fastest pace in 39 years as a surge of inflation battered Americans as the holiday shopping season was getting underway.

The November increase reported by the Commerce Department followed a 5% rise for the 12 months that ended in October. Stocks closing the week higher on Wall Street. The Dow was up 196 points. The NASDAQ gained 131.

The S&P was ahead 29. This is SRN News. We're delighted to have you along with us today on MoneyWise Live. Hey, our team is off today. We're taking some time away from the studio, so don't call in.

But we have some great questions lined up in advance. And before we go back to the phones, let me take an opportunity to remind you the importance of your gifts to MoneyWise Media here at year end. We are listener supported, so everything that we do from this radio broadcast each day to our MoneyWise coaches, all of our content at MoneyWiseLive.org, even our MoneyWise app, a great new addition to our suite of ministry offerings this year, is all made possible through your generous support. So if you would prayerfully consider a gift to the ministry here before December 31st in addition to the giving to your local church, we would certainly be grateful. You can do that quickly and securely online. Just go to MoneyWiseLive.org and click the donate button. You'll also find a physical mailing address there if you'd rather send a gift through the mail or a phone number so you can give over the phone. Again, MoneyWiseLive.org, just click the donate button, and thank you in advance for your generous support. Let's head back to the phones to Cleveland, Ohio, CRF, and thank you for calling today.

How can I help you? Yes, I was just wondering, my mom passed away last year, and I wondered if any of her debts, medical or credit debt, are able to be forgiven? Yeah, that's a good question. You know, the law requires the estate to pay the deceased person's bills before distributing money to heirs. If for some reason the account doesn't have enough money to pay off the creditors, then you as an heir are not responsible for any unpaid balances unless, of course, it was a joint account with you or you co-signed for the debt. But apart from that, that would be handled from the estate, part of the responsibility of the person handling the estate, the executor, prior to the funds being distributed.

And again, if the funds are not available, typically it's charged off or forgiven at that point. Does that make sense to you? Yes. Now, is that a case with spouses? Because I thought I had heard that if you have credit cards in your own name, that your spouse is not responsible for the debt if you were to pass away. Is that true?

Yeah. In common law states, you're usually only liable for credit card debt if the obligation is in your name. So if the credit card is only in your spouse's name, you're typically not liable for that debt. But I think at that point, you would have to ask yourself, you know, is this money that was charged for, you know, by both of us? And you decide how you wanted to handle that, you know, with integrity.

But yes, from a common law state standpoint, there would not be responsibility there. Okay. Okay. I guess I was confused that they would forgive that.

And then with a parent, the estate is responsible. Okay. So that makes sense. All right. Very good. We appreciate you listening and calling. Absolutely. And God bless you. To Fort Wayne, Indiana. Dan, thanks for calling today.

How can I assist you, sir? Yes. I received a tax return and I was just wondering what a good thing would be to do with it. Like, I want to put it, I may put it towards investing.

Yeah, very good. So a couple of things. Number one, how did, how much did you receive on your refund? $8,000.

Okay. So the first thing I would look at, Dan, is increasing your withholdings so you get more back in your monthly paycheck. Because what I'd rather you do is have a spending plan or a budget that really reflects your goals and priorities, including giving and saving for the long term. And if you don't have an emergency fund building that up and if you have consumer debt paying that off, you know, you're going to do better getting that in your monthly check every month so that you can prioritize the use of those funds as opposed to getting a windfall at the beginning of the next year and giving a tax-free loan to the government all those months while you're waiting to get that back, which I'm glad to hear you're thinking about investing it. Typically with a windfall like that, folks will not necessarily use that in the most wise way. They might buy a big ticket item or go on a big vacation or something like that.

So talk to your HR department about increasing your withholdings so that you've got, you know, more money coming back to you in your paycheck every month and less being taken out for taxes. With regard to how to use this $8,000, let me ask you a couple of questions. Do you have an emergency fund, a liquid savings account for unexpected expenses that may come up? I do. I have $11,000 in savings. Great. And that's separate from this $8,000, right? Yes.

Perfect. Secondly, do you have any credit card debt? I pay it off every month what I use.

Excellent. And do you have any other debts, car loans, anything like that? I have a property debt. I have a property. I own a property. Okay. So it's a mortgage? And that's just like a mortgage, yeah, that's all.

And that's all you have. Okay. And are you contributing toward retirement through at work? No. I don't have nothing.

My employer don't offer nothing, no. Okay. Are you considered self-employed or are you a W-2?

I'm a W-2. Okay. Very good.

All right. Well, I think this is a great opportunity to start putting something away for the future, you know, by putting this into a Roth IRA. What is your age? Twenty-three.

Okay, great. So you're a young guy. If you get started now, Dan, and put this into a Roth, you could put away $6,000 in a Roth for this year, you know, that would give you a great start toward, you know, saving something for the future. Ideally, your employer would add something down the road, but until that time comes, I'd get this into a Roth. I'd probably open a Roth at either Betterment or at Schwab in their Schwab Intelligent Portfolios, or you could look at the Vanguard Advisor.

Any one of those would be great. And basically, it's a very simple process. You'd open a Roth IRA, you'd make the deposit, and then after answering a number of questions, they'd build a low-cost ETF portfolio using indexes to give you a good diversified portfolio that could grow over time. And then when you increase the withholdings and get more coming back in your paycheck moving forward, you could perhaps just do a systematic contribution of, let's say, you know, $500 a month right into that same Roth IRA starting next year, so you can fund $6,000 a year. If you have the ability to do more over time, you could look at some other options, you know, for your investments, but I think that would at least give you something that's going into long-term retirement savings.

So Betterment, Schwab Intelligent Portfolios, or the Vanguard Advisor, you want to open a Roth IRA and then make a 2021 contribution to that account. I hope that helps you, my friend. Thank you for your call today.

We appreciate it very, very much. Hey, before we head into our next break and then we have some great calls that are lined up to take here in just a moment, let's take an emailed question. This comes from Jan in Washington and she says, What should I tithe on?

Social security? Stimulus? That's a good question, Jan. And you know, here's my approach to this. Clearly we see throughout Scripture we're to be generous. We're to be givers. And I love the tithe as the beginning point.

Randy Alcorn, the author, calls it the training wheels of giving. The tithe means a tenth. And I think we should give there to our local church and then give beyond that to the places the Lord has aligned our hearts and our passions. What's our increase?

Well, I would say it's simply everything that passes through your hands. Social security, stimulus, paycheck, inheritance. It's all God's provision and we can't outgive God.

So I'd return a tenth to the Lord through your local church and then look for ways to give beyond that. You want to send a question to us? We'll read it on the air.

Send it to questions at moneywise.org. Hey, this is a reminder that we're not live today, but we do have lots of great information coming up in the rest of the program. So please stick around. This is our final segment of a broadcast we previously recorded. Thanks so much for being with us today and we hope you'll stick around and enjoy the rest of today's program. Thanks for joining us today on MoneyWise Live, taking your calls and questions, applying God's Word to your financial decisions and choices. Let's go right back to the phones.

West Palm Beach, Florida. Scott, thank you for your call today. How can I help you? Yes, sir.

Good afternoon. We're in a Chapter 13. Like most of the country, the home values here have gone up. I was approached about possibly refinancing our home. Spoke with our bankruptcy attorney and they said, yeah, you can do that.

You have to get approval by the court, I believe. But is that even a smart thing to do right now? Well, it's just going to be a function, Scott, of whether or not you can improve your mortgage enough for it to make sense, because there's obviously a cost related to this.

You're right. You can do it with an FHA and VA. You can typically do it after one year of on-time payments with a conventional loan, typically two years before you can qualify. I think the question is, with that bankruptcy on there, what is the lender willing to do? Can you save a point to a point and a quarter on the interest rate?

Can you match the term? Are you going to plan to stay in this home for at least five to seven years? And what are the expenses? Are they much more than 2% of the value of the loan?

If they are, that would start to concern me. But let's start with the interest rate. Do you have a sense of what you could get? Well, our interest rate right now, I just looked at it, is 4.5. It's a 30-year. And I believe that I'd have to look at it a little deeper, but I don't know if we've just been paying on the interest rate or if we're addressing any of the meat of the loan right now.

And I don't know. Our credit is not great. We had two family members that had cancer, and that kind of vaporized a lot of our savings and affected our credit. Well, I suspect, I mean, unless it's an interest-only loan, if it's a conventional mortgage, you've got, in the early part of the loan, a very small amount going to principal. But there is something going to principal, and then that increases every period, every payment you make. But again, I think with bad credit and this Chapter 13 out there, you're going to be hard-pressed to save at least a point on the interest rate. It's worth looking into.

There's nothing except some time on your part to investigate it. And if you could save at least a point, and the expenses were in line, I would say it could make some sense. But I'm thinking that's probably not going to be the case.

So I'd take a look. Again, I'd want you to stay five to seven years. I'd want you to try not to pay much more than 2% of the loan value in refinance costs. I'd want you to save at least a point on the interest rate and match or decrease the remaining term.

If you can do all those things, I'd say proceed I suspect you won't be able to. So in that case, just stay paying that Chapter 13 every month on time. And over time your credit will repair itself. In the meantime, that's not a terrible rate. I mean, I realize rates are lower now.

But given the situation, I think having something around four and a half percent is not all bad. But we appreciate your call today, Scott. And thanks for listening to the program. To Illinois, Louise, thank you for your call. How can I assist you? Yes, thank you so much for taking my call.

I'm calling because I went into a vestment in property with my daughter. We got pre approval for on our Fannie Mae loan, which the mortgage person gave us two options of 4.1 without a point for $20,000 down or 4.25 for $25,000 with 2.5 points. And I don't know about what points are. And I'm a little concerned because of the rate I am near retirement.

And so I'm just a little ambivalent as to what direction I should go at this particular point. Yeah. Give me the numbers again. What were the interest rates and what were the points associated with them? If we put $20,000 down, it was 4.0 with zero points and 25 down 4.25 with 1.50 points. Okay.

Yeah. You know, that's not a bad rate because this is an investment property. It's going to be higher.

So I would, you know, I would certainly look at this. What concerns me more about the rate is just, are you in a position to do this in terms of taking on this investment condo at this stage of your financial life? You know, do you have the money to put into it?

Are you able to cover the debt service? What is your plan with regard to the property? Are you looking to rent it out? And, you know, do you have the time or are you trusting, you know, your family members going to do that in terms of getting the renter in there and maintaining the property?

And what if there's damage when they move out? I mean, all of these things, not to mention the fact that you're buying and the, you know, a really sky high real estate market right now. So you'd have to look at your area and just see, you know, how elevated are these prices and, you know, what did these same condos sell for a year or two ago?

And how much of a premium are you paying because of what's going on in the housing market right now? So those are the things that concern me perhaps more than you paying four percent. I don't think I would pay in your situation the discount points.

I'd probably go with just the straight four percent or excuse me, I think it was four point two five with no points. But I'd want to make sure you've addressed all of those other things first before you make this decision to move ahead. Does that make sense, Louise?

It does. I'm in a position to make the payment. The concern that I have is because I don't like to have any debt. I'm debt free.

I have no debt. But what was given to me was the mortgage could be anywhere from fifteen hundred to eighteen hundred. And that's just a little bit out of my range in terms of comfortability with debt on a regular basis.

Right. I can certainly understand that. And I think, you know, given what is the potential for income coming off of this, especially given, you know, how high the real estate market is right now is probably, you know, it may not be what you think it will be just because of how high the debt service is on a monthly basis. So I'd probably take a hard look at this, make sure this is the right time. And, you know, to take on this kind of debt, you've obviously positioned yourself quite well where you can enter retirement with, you know, as little expenses as possible because you've positioned yourself to be debt free.

And that's a good thing. So I just make sure you're going into this for the right reasons, not because somebody's urging you to do it or they can't do it without you and they want to do it. But because this is the right thing for you. And I'd be inclined to say, hold off at the very least, just push the pause button, pray about it and really take a hard look at it.

Perhaps you could visit with a certified kingdom advisor there in Illinois who could just for an hour or two of their time, give you a real objective viewpoint on this by looking at all of your finances, which obviously I don't have the benefit of looking at your budget, the assets that you have and making sure this plan makes some sense. But I'd go slow and proceed cause. But we appreciate your call today to Plantation, Florida. Evie, thank you for calling today.

How can I help you? Hi, thank you for taking my call. The reason that I'm calling is I was I have vacant property up north Florida and somebody just propositioned and asked if I wanted to sell it. And I figured they were giving me the best price I've ever gotten for it. They were offering me $45,000.

But my husband is concerned about the penalty, the tax penalty that I would have to pay. Did you say this is raw land, Evie? Yes, it is. Okay.

All right. And how do you know this is a fair price? Do you have, has anybody looked at it and done a market analysis for you? Well, I've owned it for 29 years and I've been getting offers throughout the years for like $7,000 here or $10,000 there, $11,000 there. This one was the highest I've been offered. And I started looking around and asking other people and there's people that actually live in the area and they're like, that's very high. So I would take it.

And my husband is like, not yet. Hold on. You might end up having to pay a penalty.

Well, it shouldn't be a penalty. I mean, you'll pay capital gains tax, but that should only be 15% depending upon your income. But for most folks, that's what it'll be. So the good news is real estate is incredibly high right now in Florida. In fact, I have a family member who just sold a piece of property in the middle of the state and got far more than they ever expected.

So this is a real thing. And development is taking place rapidly. And Florida is seeing an incredible influx of folks that's resulting in a lot of this building and development and prices are very elevated.

So arguably, this is a really good time to sell. The tax doesn't concern me because it's going to have to get paid at some point. And the prospects are that the capital gains taxes, the tax rates are going higher. I mean, that's what's being proposed by the current administration. The question is just which taxpayers it'll affect at what wages and what levels of income. But there's no reason to believe tax rates are going any lower.

If anywhere, they're going higher. So I would say given how high the real estate market is and how low capital gains taxes are, even though you are going to have a tax bill, the IRS, this is a great time to sell this property. The thing I'd want to do is just because it's higher than you've ever gotten doesn't mean it couldn't be worth more. So I would take the time to find a realtor, a real estate professional or broker in that area that knows the property that you have or the area at least where the property is located and can do a CMA, a comparative market analysis to look at what other properties around it have sold for to see if in fact this is the right price.

And it may be. It may be a phenomenal offer, but you may find that other things have sold recently for a lot more and you're giving up quite a bit. So I'm on board with you selling it if it's the right thing for you financially, just given the reasons I mentioned.

But I do a little more due diligence before you accepted the offer. I hope that helps you today and we appreciate your call very, very much. Well, folks, we're about out of time. We've covered a lot of ground today. We've talked about how we handle God's money and a host of issues in a way that honors Him. And that's really what it's all about. We want to hold God's money loosely. We want to give generously and we want to think about how we can align our hearts with His.

MoneyWise Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and MoneyWise Media. Thank you to Deb, Dan, Jen, and Gabby T. Thank you for being here. We'll be back tomorrow with much more. I hope you'll join us. God bless you.