Winds of Change

Lots of folks are hoping that 2022 will be better than last year, but can investors afford to be that optimistic? Hi, I'm Rob West.

Does the volatility we're seeing on Wall Street these days mean we're headed for a bear market? I'll talk about that first today with investing expert Mark Biller, then it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000. Jot it down, 800-525-7000.

This is MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Well, our friend Mark Biller is executive editor at Sound Mind Investing, where they've been warning lately about certain market indicators. Mark, welcome back to the program. Thanks, Rob.

Thanks for having me back. I was delighted to see you were coming today because the last two days, the incredible volatility, the reversals, Mark, what in the world is going on? Yeah, it has been wild and really this whole month has been kind of crazy. We set a new all-time high right out of the gate January 4th and then since then, you know, the S&P 500 index is down about 10%. Some of the smaller indexes like the small cap index, the Russell 2000, the technology indexes, they're down even more. So in a way that S&P 500, which is of course dominated by the very largest companies, your Microsofts and Apples and those types, they've kind of been holding up pretty well so far relative to everything else, which looks even a little bit more shaky. So yeah, it's been a wild month, that's for sure. Well, I would say, Mark, based on your January newsletter article that we'll be talking about today, you're not entirely surprised though at this market action, are you?

Yeah, we're not. I mean, in fairness, the speed of this decline coming right out of the gate here in January, I think that's been a little surprising to everybody, but you're right. You know, right before Christmas, we published our outlook for 2022 and it was a pretty blunt warning that we saw trouble ahead. Now, to be clear, S&I doesn't usually make big market calls.

That's not really what we're all about. But in that article that we're going to be talking about, I outlined why I thought the market was likely to shift from this long-term bullish trend that we've had for at least the last 18 to 20 months and kind of shift towards a more bearish tilt this year and why that might warrant additional caution on the part of some investors. Well, it certainly turned out to be a timely warning. Before we dig into the specific reasons that had you concerned in the article, why don't you give us the big picture context of this market?

Yeah, sure. So, you know, one of the most important factors to the markets these days is the Federal Reserve, which is kind of unfortunate, but it's really true. You know, the Fed has taken on an increasingly active role in markets since the financial crisis about a dozen years ago, and it's gotten to the point where a lot of investors just think the Fed's going to rescue them. Anytime the financial markets slide enough, the Fed will come riding to the rescue, and they think that because we've seen the Fed step in over and over again, cutting interest rates, purchasing assets, and really doing whatever they can to support the stock and bond markets.

So as a result of that, Rob, you know, every market downturn that we've had over the past dozen years has been pretty short-lived and relatively shallow. We haven't had to deal with a sustained bear market since 2008, and that has really created a whole generation of buy-the-dip investors because the Fed just won't let markets fall. Now, things shifted a little bit from our point of view a couple years ago when COVID hit, because that's when the federal government sent out these massive stimulus payments directly to individuals and businesses. We kind of think that's a game changer because we've seen inflation really pick up since then. So for the first time in a few decades now, the Fed has to weigh whether to rush in and save markets or stoke inflation, and that puts them in a tough spot. No doubt, and we'll continue to talk about the implications of that today with Mark Biller, investing expert from Soundmind Investing. The article we're talking about today, Winds of Change are Blowing, Casting a Weary Eye on 2022.

You can read the entire article at soundmindinvesting.org. When we come back, much more on this market and what it means for you and your portfolio, then questions from Mark. So if you have investing or market or economic-related questions, 800.

525 is a number to call. This is MoneyWise Live. We'll be right back. Thanks for joining us today on MoneyWise Live. I'm Rob West, your host.

Delighted to have you along with us. We're taking your calls and questions today in this segment, your investing-related questions. Our good friend Mark Biller, executive editor at Soundmind Investing is here today with his thoughts. In particular, we're unpacking an article that Mark wrote late last year about warnings related to certain market indicators.

And those warnings certainly turned out to be timely given what we've experienced this first month of the year, and especially we've seen it on full display the last couple of days. Mark, you mentioned the Federal Reserve. Before we dive back into this line of thinking, let's head to the phones because Jason has a question in Nevada specifically about the Fed. Jason, go right ahead. Yeah. Hi, guys. Love your work, by the way. Thank you.

Yes. So, yeah, so it's splattered all over the Internet and all these things, talking about a great reset. And it starts, I guess, tomorrow with this big meeting about they're going to default on their loans.

And like I say, of course, the Internet, you know, you never know what's going on with them and how accurate that information is. But I just wanted to get you guys' opinion on this big loan, these loans that we're going to default on, apparently. Any thoughts on that, Mark?

I'm not familiar with what he may be hearing. Yeah, I think that's a great question, Jason. And thankfully, on this one, I think we can probably put your mind to rest a little bit because I believe that what those news stories have been referring to was some testimony maybe by one of the Fed officials. I can't remember who it was that was talking about this. But this was in the context of the importance of the U.S. raising its debt ceiling. So this debt ceiling drama is something that comes around every year or two. There are some congressional limits on the amount of debt that the U.S. is allowed to borrow. And almost inevitably, when we bump up against those limits, the political parties kind of jockey back and forth and try to use that issue to either cut spending or kind of push through some other political goals. And I would just say that, you know, we have seen this drama play out many, many times in the past because it's something that Congress has to Congress has to reauthorize a higher debt limit debt ceiling every so often.

So this is just the latest in a string of many similar episodes in the past. And I would just say, Jason, probably that's not a huge concern, simply because both parties and all of the politicians know how devastating it would be to actually let the U.S. default on any of its debt. And there's no reason why they would need to allow that to happen. So that's not one that I'm specifically real worried about, even though it does create a lot of smoke and a lot of rhetoric whenever it comes up. Now, as we're going to be talking about here, the rest of this program, there are some other things that I'm kind of concerned about. But that one, the threat of us actually defaulting on U.S. debt is not high on my worry list. Mark, what about the Fed action that's expected to be taken? I suspect we'll hear about rate hikes. Many folks expecting several rate hikes this year. What does that mean for us here in the U.S. and developing countries, which obviously could put some additional strain on them?

Yeah, absolutely. Now, that rate hike expectation, which is going to be a huge amount of drama and focus on this Fed meeting tomorrow and Chairman Powell's testimony tomorrow afternoon, when we really kind of peel back the layers here on what's been going on with the stock market so far this year, it's directly related to the Fed. And the Fed has explicitly been warning investors that it is going to take away a lot of the liquidity that has been the backdrop of this really 12-year bull market that we've had in stocks. And certainly since the 2020 decline, the Fed has been just pumping liquidity into this market at an incredible rate. And the Fed really since last June has been saying, look, guys, we're going to be paring this back.

We're going to be taking the punch bowl away. And investors don't want to hear that. They hate that idea. And so they've kind of been ignoring the Fed. And only recently have they really started to believe that the Fed is serious about taking these steps. And the reason that I say that is we can gauge what investors are expecting in terms of future rate hikes through some various market indicators. And over the last month or so, investors as a group have gone from pricing in very little expectation of future rate hikes. And they've adjusted those expectations to where they are now pricing in for Fed rate hikes in 2022.

Well, that's a huge adjustment for such a short period of time. And I would argue that that's the direct immediate catalyst for what we've seen in the stock market so far since the beginning of the year. Stock market investors have been adjusting their expectations for stocks based on these higher interest rates that seem to be inevitably coming down the pike.

So tomorrow afternoon is going to be the first time since the stock market shake up and correction has happened that Chairman Powell is going to address the investing community and basically say either, yes, we're going to stay on track with our plans to continue to tighten conditions and these rate hikes are still on schedule or potentially back off. And what we were talking about right before the break, Rob, is for the last 20 to 30 years, the Fed has been able to basically just address the financial markets in isolation. When we have these periods where the market is wobbling, they can come in and just address the financial markets because inflation hasn't been a problem. But today, we obviously have this runaway inflation or at least higher inflation. I don't want to be overly traumatic about it, but we have this high inflation and that for the first time in truly at least 25 years is kind of putting a counterweight to what the Fed would likely want to do. They probably would love to come in and reassure investors and reassure the market hey, we're not going to move too fast, it's not going to be too severe. But they know full well that if they do that, that that's going to be interpreted as we're not going to take the actions that are necessary to stop this rising inflation. So they're really caught between a rock and a hard place in this meeting tomorrow to try to thread the needle of saying we're going to do enough that you can count on us bringing this inflation down, but we're not going to do so much that we're going to disrupt the financial markets and cause a bear market in stocks.

And that's a really narrow window for them to try to thread that needle. So it's going to be interesting. And this is this is all exactly why we're seeing the stock market correcting the way we have in recent weeks.

Really interesting. Well, when we come back from this break, we'll talk about Mark, what you're expecting moving forward. We'll also look at a few more of the things you unpack as to potential catalysts for a declining market in 2022. And then what we can do about it with our portfolios. That plus your questions on investing in the markets for Mark Biller today, 800-525-7000.

A lot more to come. Don't go anywhere. This is MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. We'll be right back. Thanks for tuning in to MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Hey, are you a part of the MoneyWise Live family? Do you listen with regularity? Are you on our website or using the MoneyWise app?

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All right. Joining us this segment of the broadcast is Mark Biller, our good friend and investing expert with soundmindinvesting.org. We're talking about a recent article that was published in the Soundmind Investing newsletter that you really need to check out. It's called Winds of Change are Blowing, Casting a Weary Eye on 2022.

Again, you'll find that article, soundmindinvesting.org. Mark, we'll get back to that in just a moment. Let's take a call.

Ashley's in Spokane, Washington, been holding very patiently Ashley, go right ahead. Thank you. Thank you guys.

So, we're in a bit of a, we sold a house and we have like $175,000 cash and we are needing to get into another house, but we're just kind of trying to make the decision to pay the least amount on the mortgage, on the next house, the down payment, and then just invest the rest of the money. And we're hesitant because of the market right now and just the times and we don't really know enough to feel good about making any decisions. So, yeah. Well, let's try to help you. Let me ask a couple of follow-up questions. What is, it sounds like you're married, is that right? Yes. And what are, you're in your husband's ages?

We're 30, 36. Okay, great. And you said you have $175,000 in net proceeds. How quickly do you think you would buy your next home? Do you think it's in the next two years?

Yes, we're hoping, yeah, within the year. Okay. And what do you think you might be spending?

Have you been looking at houses recently where any, you know, go ahead. We're looking right there before it jumps into the jumbo loan, like 550, right around there. So purchase price of 550, is that right? Yep. Okay. All right. And then separate from the 175 that you pulled out of the last home, tell me what you're doing in terms of just systematic contributions for the long term, like through a retirement plan at work or a Roth IRA, something like that. We have a John Hancock kind of retirement account.

Other than that, another plan or thought to do. All right. And do you know what percent of your income's going into that each month? No, there's a lot of numbers there.

Yeah, no worries. It just comes out of his paycheck. Okay, very good. So Mark, they're young, obviously have some systematic contributions toward retirement, trying to figure out how much of this 175 to put toward the next home purchase that could happen here in the next year versus a smaller down payment, and perhaps and perhaps investing some of it. How would you help someone process that? Yeah, well, first of all, Ashley, these are all wonderful problems to have. You're operating from a really good position here.

So that's great. Regarding the home purchase, one thing that you would probably want to keep an eye on is that normally, if you are putting down less than 20% of the purchase price of a home, you're going to end up paying some extra expenses. The PMI insurance on the mortgage usually kicks in at that 20% level. So if you are looking at around a $550,000 home, that could mean that you're going to need roughly 110,000 of this proceeds in order to avoid that PMI payment. So if it was me, that would probably be kind of the first step in this evaluation is I would want to avoid that expense because that is you're really insuring the bank. It provides no benefit to you at all.

It's all for the bank, the mortgage owner's benefit. So with that in mind, that amount to invest may come down a little bit from what you're thinking. I love that you're doing systematic investing through your employer plans. This is a great question, Ashley, for this point in this particular program because it's an opportunity to just reiterate to younger folks who've got a long runway ahead of them that the type of market volatility that we're talking about today, that's not a reason to stop investing systematically through your 401k contributions or whatever. The people who really need to be concerned about these short-term market variations are folks who are much closer to retirement or in retirement. So I would just kind of set some of those concerns aside. Now, that doesn't mean you want to throw everything you have at the market today. But in terms of investing whatever portion you have left after you've set aside money for your down payment, I would say maybe you invest that over a series of six months or something divided into pieces.

But I would be pretty comfortable getting that back to work for you. I think that's great advice. The only other thing I would offer is just consider plowing 100% of this back in as an option alongside what Mark is saying. Because if the goal is ultimately to be debt-free, then we want to keep moving in that direction.

But I would say let's be sure to limit your lifestyle spending so that you can get that systematic contribution to your husband's retirement plan up to 10% to 15% of your take-home pay. If you do all of that, you guys are going to be really set in the future. Thanks for your call. More with Mark Biller just around the corner. Stay with us. Thanks for tuning in to MoneyWise Live.

I'm Rob Last, your host. Joining me today, Mark Biller, executive editor at SoundMind Investing. Late at the end of the year, the team at SoundMind Investing was pointing out some warning signs as to potential volatility this year. We've certainly seen our share of that. And Mark, as we think about the correction of the past few weeks, do you think we're likely to see more market weakness ahead?

That's really the million-dollar question, right, Rob? You know, right now, to kind of put it in context, the S&P 500 index is down about 10% from its high. And that's really not an unusual drop at all. We've had about 14 of those types of market corrections in the last dozen years. They averaged about a 12 to 15% drop, so very much right in line with what we're experiencing right now. So, you know, with that said, unfortunately, I'd be a little surprised if we've seen the end of it. And that's simply because the factors that had me concerned coming into this year really haven't changed at all. And the historically high market valuations have only had this very small adjustment, the correction.

So my guess is that we haven't seen the end of it. But in fairness, it's always really hard to say for sure whether a 10% drop like we've just seen is just, you know, a typical correction, or if it's the start of something more serious. And that's really where we kind of need to pivot back to the article that we wrote last month on what we thought the market set up for the whole year was likely to be. Yeah, let's unpack that a bit more. So you mentioned four potential catalysts pointing to a declining market in 2022.

Quickly walk us through those. Yeah, so the first one was just slowing economic growth. We've had some really above trend growth the last couple years due to all the stimulus in the system. And I think that we're probably going to see that decline as the year goes along.

So that was the first thing we were pointing out. The second one's kind of a weird one, but it has to do with where we are in the political calendar. And to really briefly sum that up, the six months leading up to midterm elections tend to be the worst six months on average of the four-year political cycle. So that's what we're looking at from May to October of this year. And we wouldn't normally put a lot of emphasis on that, but because it corresponds exactly with these other negative catalysts, you know, that's something we're looking at.

So interesting, the forces that drive the market. What other potential threats are we facing this year? Yeah, so the third one is we've got this looming fiscal cliff, which is the other side of all of this federal government stimulus. So they've been pumping money into the system through these stimulus payments. And now the amount of federal government spending is forecast to decline by about 4% of the entire country's GDP.

It's just a huge amount. When you look around the world, other governments are also cutting back. So this headwind, or I should say, what's been a tailwind for financial markets is about to turn into a headwind. And then the last one is simply the thing we've been talking about with the Fed. And this is the one that I'm the most concerned about. And that is this tightening policy is really the thing that has been the most typical catalyst for killing bull markets in the past. Every time the Fed has tried to cut that liquidity back, the stock market has stumbled. And it's really hard for me to see why that's going to be different this time.

Interesting. All right, so let's talk about where we go from here, how investors should respond. How do they prepare for any further weakness coming in 2022? Yeah, some of that's going to depend on what their investment posture looks like already. With our SMI members, we already have some defensive capabilities built into our strategies. And we've been taking some small incremental steps to get a little more defensive.

So for our members, a lot of them didn't really need to change a whole lot. And if a listener is hearing this and they already have a fairly defensive portfolio with a lot of bonds, less risky stocks, they may not need to change much either. But I would just caution anybody who has an aggressive portfolio, lots of growth stocks, maybe some crypto, other riskier assets, I would not assume that this is over and done and we go back to racing higher. You know, at a minimum, I would say you should be thinking about what would the implications to my portfolio be if we go down, say, another 20% from here and maybe consider making your portfolio a little bit more conservative as part of that process. Yeah, that's great advice. Now, if somebody has a long-range investment horizon, say 10 years or more, and consistently contributes the same amount each month, dollar cost averaging, should they be concerned?

Yeah, you know, the length of that runway, like we were talking about with Ashley earlier, that's really so important. If you've got that multi-decade investing horizon, that really covers a lot of the concerns here. So it's really more folks who are getting closer to retirement, maybe they're in retirement, that really need to think about this because they may not have a lot of time to recover if we do see a full-blown bear market. You know, another piece of this, Rob, is really what type of investor are you? You know, if you're kind of a, I make changes in my 401k once a year kind of thing, then, you know, you're probably not going to take a real active approach here.

Whereas like our SMI members, you know, they tend to be more active and that's what we're helping them navigate through at SMI. So, you know, because I don't think this is necessarily over, I am inclined to caution people to move to their most conservative posture, but that doesn't mean sell everything, get out of the markets, you know, throw up your hands and panic. It just means that whatever your normal range is or your normal posture is, you want to lean more conservatively. Again, that usually means possibly going a little heavier in bonds and less in stocks, and certainly I would consider if you're heavy in like growth stocks, aggressive names like that, that it might be time to maybe lean a little more towards the value side, value stocks, overgrowth stocks, larger companies over small perhaps, because small company stocks tend to be a lot more volatile. So I'm not encouraging folks, Rob, to go out and make massive adjustments, but I would think through if there is more downside ahead, you know, do I have an appropriate mix for my age and my risk tolerance? Well, and the key, I think, Mark, is that whatever portion is at the risk of stocks, especially more growth-oriented stocks, go ahead and anticipate that downside now and think about the psychological response you might have.

Make sure you're not feeling like you're going to be prompted to sell because that'd be the last thing you want to do, right? That's exactly right. Couldn't have said it better. Mark, really appreciate your time today. Thanks for stopping by, my friend. Thank you, Rob. Always a pleasure. Grateful for you. Mark Biller has been our guest today. You can read more about his article, Winds of Change are Blowing, cast a weary eye on 2022 at soundmindinvesting.org. Check it out. All right, your calls are next on Anything Financial, 800-525-7000.

We've got a few lines open. This is MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. We're thankful you've chosen to tune in to MoneyWise Live this afternoon. Have you downloaded the MoneyWise app?

If you haven't, I'd love for you to do that today. In your app store, just search for MoneyWise biblical finance. Not only can you access our MoneyWise community, where you can post questions and get answers from our coaches, you can access our broadcast archives and all of our great articles and podcasts in the Learn tab, but then you can take advantage of our money management system. It's three systems in one. You can find the one that best meets your personality, and it's simple and easy to use. It can help you stay on top of that spending plan to be a wise steward of God's resources.

To learn more, you can search for MoneyWise biblical finance in your app store or just head to our website, MoneyWise.org. All right, back to the phones today. Barbara has been holding patiently in south central Georgia. WLPF. Barbara, thank you for calling.

How can I help? Well, you know how back when our parents were young, born in the Depression era, they kept money somewhere, stuffed under the mattress or under the third chicken from the right in the coop, you know. It was always the third chicken, right? Not the second or the third chicken. And don't grab the white egg.

It was always the brown one. But now in an electronic world, how much cash should we keep on hand? Yeah, it's a great question. And as far as having cash on hand, you'll find lots of rules of thumb. I mean, one of them that's commonly held is probably a week's worth of living expenses is enough. Just in case of a banking network hiccup, you know, something that would cause you to have a challenge in the short term, getting access to funds, maybe a weather event, something like that.

It's not likely to happen, but it's not impossible. So if we were to think in terms of a week's worth of living expenses, that may be $500 and maybe $1,000. I think, you know, anything more than that is probably not necessary and could absolutely be held in a bank account. In terms of your larger emergency fund that I think would be best held not physically at home is three to six months living expenses in liquid savings. Now, I like online savings accounts because they're free and they pay a little bit of interest right now, about a half of one percent with FDIC insurance. And you can link them to your checking account.

I like Ally Bank and Marcus and Capital One 360. You're going to get a little more for your money than a brick and mortar bank and without, again, those fees. But in terms of cash on hand, I think in terms of a week's worth of living expenses. Tell me your thoughts, though.

Well, the way you're speaking with the emergencies that I had not thought of, I'm thinking probably if you can swing it a month. Okay. Yeah. You can certainly do that.

I mean, there were to come through like we've seen so many hurricanes. That's right. Yeah. Well, I don't think that's a bad idea. I think at that point, though, you'd probably want to have a safe, fireproof safe somewhere in your home, you know, to securely store that kind of money.

But I think, you know, somewhere between a week and a month kind of on the high end is probably prudent thinking. Anything beyond that, I would think would perhaps be just a little bit excessive in terms of what you might want to have physically in your home. Now, do you actually have chickens in the back?

No, but I was going to go get one if you recommended it. I'll tell you, I think it's not a bad idea. More and more of our friends seems like have them all the time for some great fresh eggs. And my little 12 year old has been begging for a chicken.

But we've, to this point, at least not made the purchase. Barbara, grateful for your call today. Appreciate your fun personality. All the best in the days ahead. Worcester, Ohio, WCRF.

Hi, Lisa, how can I help you? Yes, I was talking to a friend whose husband's getting close to retirement age and has had stroke and heart issues. He thought that his life insurance that he carried through work, he would be able to keep but they thought in the last month, we found out that he will not have that once he ends his employment there. I know that for some it's possible to roll over, but I'm not sure for everyone.

Yes. Well, that's true. You know, a lot of times when you separate from the company, you will in fact lose your employer sponsored life insurance. So, you know, I mean, they're really depending on his medical issue. I mean, you know, ideally, he would go out and get a term policy to replace what he had at work, make sure he has enough coverage to offset the risk that exists of the Lord taking him home, meaning, you know, a dependent or a loved one, a spouse would lose his income and therefore we'd want to be able to make that up through life insurance or there would be an additional burden financially placed on the family with his death and that's where insurance comes in. Now, depending on the health issues, that may or may not be possible. There is the ability to go after something called guaranteed issue life insurance, you know, where there's no health underwriting as a part of it, obviously a lot more expensive. So, he's just not going to get as much coverage and he's going to pay a bit more for it. But I think the key is to just really weigh that risk and make sure that there's something in place. Ideally, he would find a company that looks more favorably on his particular medical condition than another and allow him to buy a term life insurance policy even if he wasn't, you know, rated as highly, if he was rated a bit lower from a health standpoint, you know, he could still perhaps get the coverage but just have to pay a bit more for it. So, I would encourage him to go ahead and start looking into that now because ideally we wouldn't want any lapse in life insurance coverage which would mean that he'd want to go ahead and qualify for and have a policy that's in force prior to losing the one at his place of employment. Does that make sense?

It does make sense. How does one know? I mean, they all sound good when you see an advertiser on TV and everything and I don't know about the fine print. How does one know where to even start on those things? Yeah, I would say one of two places. One would be to find an independent life insurance agent. Perhaps you could call your church, you could connect with a certified kingdom advisor there in Ohio and ask for a referral. Most financial planners or investment advisors will have a life insurance agent that they recommend. And an independent can go out and look across a large number of companies and I think the key especially with medical issues is to find the company, if there is one, that looks more favorably on his particular medical condition from an underwriting standpoint and they all kind of have their certain things that they don't like or are willing to accept. So finding that independent agent to look across a bunch of companies and then come back with some options would be key. The other option is to take advantage of the great online tools.

If you just search for life insurance coverage online and then look at some of the rating services to see which of the brokers that are online are the most highly rated and then they'll give you any number of options where you can input information about your health status, your age, your weight, how much coverage you're looking for and they'll come back with a whole laundry list of carriers to explore. So I would say one of those two options would be best and hopefully he'll find exactly what he's looking for. Appreciate your call on behalf of your friend Lisa. God bless you. Mindy's in Oklahoma. I appreciate your call today Mindy.

How can I help? Yes, thank you so much for taking time. So my husband is in education and he has some retirement built up and we are looking, it really looks like God is moving us into full-time ministry very soon. And so in the past we have been in full-time ministry and we had used Guidestone for our retirement.

Yeah. But we didn't have that much so we actually pulled out to help with our move at that season in life. And so we were just curious, we always let God lead in these just you know what we need to do but we are very curious into what you suggest. So he has about 20,000 in retirement right now.

Do you think it would be smart to pull out, pay the penalties, maybe help with the move that we're fixing to have? Or I don't even know if it's a thing, can we just put that back into Guidestone and then go from there and build it up or what do you think? Well a couple of thoughts. I mean one is I love to hear you're following the leading of the Lord into full-time ministry. That's great.

I can't wait to see and hear how he's going to use you in that. Number two, I love Guidestone, a wonderful organization, one of the biggest Christian retirement to plan companies primarily serving the Southern Baptist but now expanding and serving all believers and some wonderful investments and great retirement plans and insurance products. I would certainly connect with them because my preference Mindy would be that you take this retirement plan and roll it over into an IRA and allow it to stay invested. So you're not paying that penalty, you're not paying any taxes on it but most importantly you keep it invested for the purpose in which you have it which is to continue to grow and compound over the next decades ahead so that when you need it down the road it's there for you to supplement social security and other income sources especially going into ministry and probably being on a tight budget. Having that intact and not having to use that I think is essential and then finding a way to limit your lifestyle spending so that you could continue to fund a retirement account either provided through his ministry or if not at the very least through a Roth IRA for you and him $6,000 apiece up to age 50 and then $7,000 apiece based on the current contribution limits. So I would try to leave it intact.

Now if you were to say, well the only way we're going to be able to do this is to put the move on the credit card then I'd say well let's talk but as long as you can swing it with the reserves that you have, you're not having to take on any debt, I'd say let's try to prioritize keeping that retirement plan intact. Okay, thank you so much. Okay, appreciate your call today.

God bless you. Thanks very, very much. Donna has been holding very patiently in Canfield, Ohio but Donna we are out of time so I'm going to ask you to do this. Hold the line as soon as we wrap up here today.

I'll spend a few minutes with you here in the studio and see if I can get you some help. We appreciate your call today. Also, Sally called today and couldn't hold wanted asked about a 401k moving that into an I-bond. Unfortunately, you can't buy I-bonds within an IRA or employee sponsored savings plan.

You have to buy them with money that you didn't save in these programs which means you go direct through treasurydirect.gov. We appreciate you calling, Sally. This is MoneyWise Live.

We're a partnership between Moody Radio and MoneyWise Media. I want to say thank you to Robert, Dan and Amy today. Thank you for being here as well. I hope you'll come back and join us tomorrow. We'll look for you then. Bye-bye.