The Secret to Financial Freedom

Thanks for tuning in to MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions.

Together, we want to try to hold God's money loosely and live generously and find contentment and joy as we pursue God's purposes using money as a tool. Now let's do that together as we chat today. All the lines are full with some great questions, folks calling in from literally all over the country. We're going to head to Chicago, Illinois next.

In fact, we've got several folks in Chicago ready to go. Doug, you're up first. How can I help, sir?

Yes, sir. Hey, Rob, thanks for taking my call. Just want to let you know I appreciate your wisdom in financial matters.

It's really a blessing. You had mentioned you had a call within the past couple of weeks. A fella had some cash, I think $8,000 to $10,000 and was wondering the best place to put it just for savings where it's very liquid and you'd given him an online tool, I believe, or I didn't write it down and I'm wondering if you could remind me of that.

I'd be happy to, Doug. So a couple of thoughts. One would be if you're looking for a high-yield savings account, I like the online banks primarily because there are no fees. So they don't have monthly maintenance fees or transaction fees, so they try to eliminate all the fees because they don't have to pay the cost of the brick and mortar banks and they pass that savings on in the form of higher interest rates for their savings accounts. So I like to use the online banks for my FDIC insured savings and because there are no fees, you could even have multiple savings accounts for various savings goals. The three that I like right now are Marcus, which is the retail operation of Goldman Sachs, Marcus.com, Ally Bank, and Capital One 360. All three of them pay the best rates going right now with FDIC insurance, no fees, they have great customer service. If you're wanting just though to look for the best rates for any kind of loan, be it to mortgage, credit cards, personal loans, car loans, there's two websites I would recommend for that. One is Bankrate.com. They're one of the leaders in this space tracking the best rates for all those various types of loans and the other is NerdWallet.com. They do a great job with that as well. So if you're looking for a savings account, I'd use one of those three if it were me.

If you're wanting to find the best rates for any kind of loan, I'd use either Bankrate or NerdWallet. Does that sound good? Yes, sir. Thank you so much.

Appreciate your help. All right, Doug. I appreciate your call. Marilyn, actually a couple of questions related to advisors. Marilyn has one related to a certified Kingdom advisor.

How can I help? Hi. I met with my financial guide yesterday and in the course of the conversation, I was concerned about not getting a good return. He said the best returns come from vice investments, casinos, guns, and tobacco. When I told him I was not interested in that at all, I was looking for a more conservative, socially responsible, Christian responsible. He almost wanted to abort the conversation there, but he mentioned something like an ESG, environment, something else, and governance kind of account.

And he said that he would have to send my account to somebody else because he was not a CK8. So how are those related and what recommendations do we have there, Buck? Not being in a vice investment, but trying to get some return on something that's responsible. Yeah, well, I love this question. There's a lot of pieces to that.

Let's unpack that, Marilyn. Number one, the good news is that there is now an opportunity through what I call faith-driven or faith-based investments for you to have your values reflected in the investments in your portfolio. So as an owner of a company, whether that's through direct stock ownership or through mutual funds or exchange traded funds, you're an owner, a very small owner, very small percentage, but you're an owner in the companies you invest in.

The question is, what are those companies doing? And are they companies you want to be aligned with, with God's capital that's been entrusted to you? Well, as believers, we have the opportunity to form our own convictions about how we want to invest God's money. I don't think there's necessarily a right, wrong or a wrong, you know, a right way or a wrong way.

I think it's ultimately between you and the Lord. But if you want to avoid companies that are involved in activities that you believe are misaligned with your Christian values, like some of the industries you just referenced, then you can avoid those altogether if you have the right advisor who can do that for you. So the avoid piece is one part of this. The engage or embrace piece would be another, where instead of just avoiding companies doing things that don't align with your values, you're actually, or the advisor is actually selecting companies for you to invest in, that are actually having either a kingdom or a social outcome, creating human flourishing and, you know, making the world rejoice, those kinds of things. All of this rolls up under something called faith-based or faith-driven investing. Now, what he's describing is ESG, which is, you know, faith-based investing would be a subset of that. The environmental, social and governance investments are growing rapidly, but they're not always aligned with kingdom values.

They really are promoting, again, environmental issues, social issues or governance issues that may or may not line up with your ideology. So I think what you need to find and what you'll be most happy with, given what I'm hearing, is an advisor who can deploy, not necessarily an ESG portfolio, but a faith-based investment strategy. And in order to do that, I would find a certified kingdom advisor in your area. And when you interview them, I would say, listen, I'm looking for faith-based investments. Can you offer that?

And many of them do. And I think that will give you exactly what you're looking for. Does that make sense? Yeah. And how would I find that in the online directory? CKA?

Yes. Go to our website, MoneyWise.org and click find a CKA. We're actually going to be enhancing that search in the coming months where you can say specifically, I want a CKA who does faith-based investing. But in the meantime, just find a CKA and ask that question.

Many of them do, some don't, and you'll find out very quickly. Marilyn, thanks for your call. This is MoneyWise Live. We'll be right back. Stick around. Thanks for tuning in to MoneyWise Live.

We're so glad you're along with us today. Take your calls and questions on anything financial. Let's head right back to the phones. Just before the break, we were talking about advisors and Ron wants to continue that conversation.

Ron, how can I help you? Well, it looks like we just lost all of our phones. That happens periodically.

Not very often, but it does happen. And so while we try to get those folks back on the line, we'll take some emails today. Let me just back up for a second while we pull up some emails here and remind you why we do this program. You might be asking the question periodically when you hear us come on the air every afternoon to talk about money. Why talk about money from a biblical perspective every day? Is that really something we should focus on? And is this really just about building bigger barns?

Is it about making a little bit more money? Or is there another reason why we do this? And you know, the bottom line is the reason we do this every day is because it's important to God. You know, when we look through the Council of Scripture, we see very clearly that this is on God's heart. You know, the money conversation, handling money, is something that's referenced thousands of times in the Bible.

And I believe the reason for that is because, well, at least in my experience, it's one of the primary competitors for lordship. You know, we think about handling God's money, we're often looking at our spending decisions in light of how the world says we should use our money because it's ours, when in fact a biblical worldview says it all belongs to him. And we should be thoughtful, prayerful about how we're going to use his money because in fact, we're stewards. And when we think about it that way, we realize that even how we handle money ultimately has a ripple effect into our own spiritual life. You know, the late Larry Burkett used to say that the way we handle money is the clearest indicator into what's going on in our lives spiritually.

Well, that wasn't his idea. That was originally Jesus' idea when he said, where your treasure is there, your heart will be also. So if our heart follows our money, then this is really a big deal. And money is ultimately a tool to accomplish God's purposes. The question is, are we happy with the way God's resources are being used? And perhaps we've made some mistakes in the past.

We all have. The question is, how do we move forward as a steward of God's resources? And I think that's what we're all trying to accomplish together. I think we've got our phone lines back, so we'd love to hear from you.

The number is 800-525-7000. We're going to try to go to Ron again in Chicago. And Ron, I appreciate your patience. How can I help you, sir? Yeah, my question is, and Ellen, thanks for taking my call. Sure. My question is, what is the difference between a kingdom advisor that you talk about quite often and an advisor, like right now I have an Edward Jones advisor because of work, and I've heard a lot about fiduciaries.

What's the difference between the three? Yeah, great question. You know, here's the key. We do talk about certified kingdom advisor a lot, and it's because I really think it's important that the advisor you're working with related to your money, for all the reasons I just mentioned about the role of money in our lives, that your advisor understands God's heart as it relates to financial decision making and the role of money. And that's really why we recommend the designation. Now, does that mean that a traditional non-kingdom advisor is bad and a kingdom advisor or certified kingdom advisor is good?

No, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying they're different, in the sense that a non-kingdom advisor, non-certified kingdom advisor would be someone who typically, unless they're a believer and really have pursued this kind of education on their own, they would be really offering investment or financial advice that's based on just the financial side alone, without the understanding that God's word brings clear planning differentiators into the equation. If we're looking at just the financial side, we might miss the fact that when it comes to retirement, the Bible takes a different approach than the culture in terms of how we think about being in service to the Lord throughout the whole of our life. We might approach debt differently if we don't understand a biblical worldview, where there's clear warnings in Scripture around the use of debt. It's not a sin, but we understand the borrower becomes the lender's slave. We would approach, perhaps, giving and generosity differently if we don't understand the counsel of Scripture, because that starts with the idea that we were created in the image of the ultimate giver, God himself.

It might mean we'd approach investing differently and wealth transfer differently. So really the key run for a certified kingdom advisor is not only have they met the experience requirements, which most advisors have, and the technical training and the regulatory review, but they've gone to a higher level to be educated at an extensive level to the biblical underpinnings for financial decision making. And in addition to that, they're held to higher character and integrity standards with pastor references and client references. So I think that's really the key. Again, it doesn't mean you can't get great advice from somebody who doesn't have the CK designation.

You absolutely can. But if you're wanting somebody who necessarily understands God's heart and can bring that biblical counsel, that's where the CK designation comes in. You asked about a fiduciary, and that's a word that we're hearing a lot more about in financial services. And it's an important term because it just simply means that a fiduciary is a person that acts on behalf of another person and has a legal requirement to do so. So in the case of a financial advisor who's a fiduciary, they have to put the client's interests above their own. Well, why is that important? Well, if your advisor is a fiduciary, somebody who's managing your money, he or she is not able to select an investment because it pays more to them because that would be violating their fiduciary responsibility to you. They are only responsible for your interests, which means they have to select the investment that's going to be best suited for you. So I think that's an important term.

I would recommend you have a fiduciary and whether or not you choose to have a certified kingdom advisor would just really come down to the things that I described a moment ago. Does that make sense? It does, and I appreciate your time. Yeah, absolutely, Ron. Thank you for your call, sir. We are grateful for you listening and calling today. Karen is in Spokane, Washington. Karen, thank you for your patience.

How can I help you? Hi, I had a question on I am currently taking Social Security. I took it at age 65.

But I am now back working. And I have a feeling that this next year will be higher than possibly one of the years they use to figure my Social Security. Is there a way to get that refigured if you go back into the workplace? It happens automatically. So it's automatically calculated each year, Karen, based on what they call your high 35. So if you earn more this year than you did in any of the other 34 years you may have worked, your benefit will automatically increase. So you're going to be in a situation where, you know, if that's the case, that's automatically going to come through in your check as it's recalculated. Okay, perfect. I didn't know if I needed to do something about that. So that's great.

Thank you very much. And what have you reached full retirement age? Full retirement would have been 66. But I took it at 65 because I wasn't planning on retiring. But because of COVID and everything, I just wasn't able to find a job. But you are past 66 now, is that right? I'll be 66 this year. Because once you reach your full retirement age, then you're able to earn as much as you want without your benefits being reduced. If they were reduced because you're earning more than $18,900, you'll get that back eventually.

But once you reach full retirement age, you're clear to earn as much money as you want and not affect your benefits. Karen, I hope that helps. We appreciate your call today. Stay with us. Much more to come on MoneyWise Live.

We'll be right back. Thanks for joining us today on MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. If you haven't downloaded the MoneyWise app, you can do so in your app store. Search for MoneyWise biblical finance. You can take this program on the go and listen live or listen to any of our broadcast archives.

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Again, head to your app store and search for MoneyWise biblical finance. Let's head back to the phone. Scott knows in Chicago, Illinois, wanting to ask about I bonds. Scott, go right ahead. Hello there. Thanks for taking my call. First time caller. Love your show.

Thank you. Question I have about I bonds is I know a single person can purchase up to $10,000 per year in I bonds. And my question is, does it make sense to break that purchase up and say $2,500 bonds or two $5,000 bonds with the purpose of in case you want to cash them in, you don't have to cash in the whole $10,000 bond. Yeah, you know, it I don't think it would really benefit you to do that because you could redeem a portion of it if if you wanted, you know, to do that. So, you know, if you percent for any reason, you knew that you were going to, you know, break it up down the road, you wanted to redeem it in smaller increments, you could certainly do that.

But, you know, I think you can accomplish the same thing by having the whole lot at once. So I wouldn't necessarily opt for buying them, you know, in smaller increments than 10,000 if you know you're ultimately going to buy 10,000 worth. Okay, is there any kind of like, is there any fees when you cash them in, like if there were $2,500 ones? Well, so you, you've got to hold it for a year.

And then if you hold it for less than five years, when you redeem it, you're going to lose three months worth of interest, prior to the five year mark. Okay. Okay.

All right. Thank you very much for answering my very welcome, Scott. Thanks for listening and calling today. We appreciate it. Grace is in Indiana. Grace, how can I help you? Hi, thank you so much for taking my phone call.

Okay, so I wanted to get some kind of opinion or help. I'm a federal employee, and I have participated in the Thrift Savings Program since 2008. This year, I turned 50. So I'm contributing the 19,500 plus an extra 6000. And I, when I was really young, I went through bankruptcy, I used to be a mortgage broker, and everything just went bad. So with my TSP from the get go, I've always put everything into the G Fund. And now that I'm 50, I only have 171,000 in the G Fund. So I'm wondering, should I explore the C Fund? It carries a little bit of more risk, which I don't know if I'm comfortable with it. Or should I be investing money and somewhere else outside of my TSP? Yeah, no, I like the TSP plan, but the G Fund is going to be too conservative for you given your age and time horizon. You know, the G Fund is basically Treasury securities. And it's going to be, you know, short term Treasuries and it's going to provide the lowest rate of return. Now, you're going to have a lot of safety, you won't have any volatility. But it's not going to do what you need to do in terms of getting compounded returns over the next 15 years or more until you retire. So I would look at, you know, the appropriate way to invest.

One way to do that, Grace, to ensure that you don't take too much risk would be to use the L funds, which stands for lifestyle, or excuse me, lifecycle funds. And these are like what might be called target date funds where you would choose the maturity date of the L fund that actually aligns with, you know, when you're going to retire. And what happens is the mix of investments automatically gets more conservative as you get closer and closer to retirement. So it'll have some portion of stock, some portion of bonds. And, you know, as you get closer and closer to that retirement maturity date, it'll get more and more conservative. So you'll get the stock exposure, but you won't find yourself, you know, too highly concentrated in stocks and therefore, you know, taking more risk than you'd like. So that would be one approach. The other approach is to kind of do that yourself, where you would use either the C fund, which is this common stock index, or a combination of the C, the S, and the I, which are the common stocks, the small cap stocks, and the international, with some of the bond funds as well, which is their fixed income index. And you can determine the allocation you want between stocks and bonds. But if you want that to be done automatically, that's where those L funds come in. Does that make sense?

Yes, it does. Thank you so much. I appreciate you taking my call. Absolutely, Grace. Thank you for listening and calling today. We appreciate it.

Andrew is also in Indiana. Andrew, I understand you want to start a not for profit, huh? Yeah, I have five close Christian friends of mine. And the idea is that we pool our resources and make decisions together using a board structure, and we file for 501c3 status. And if we have any appreciated stock or assets, we can donate those as a group. And then we can make larger donations together communally, you know, to missionaries and church and parachurch groups. Yeah. Is that a good idea?

It could be. Yeah, I think the key is what do you want to do with it? And if it's just a vehicle for giving, I would just want to make sure that you going through the process of forming the corporation and filing for the tax exemption, and then the annual filings and the bylaws and the board of directors and you know, all of that is necessary for what you're trying to accomplish. It could be that you could do the same thing with something like a donor advised fund, where everybody, you know, you all could open a donor advised fund, you all could, you know, pool your resources there in that donor advised fund, and then just granted out, you know, out of that, and not have to have the corporation and the nonprofit status and all of that. So I think you just need to do a little homework on what is it we're trying to accomplish.

And what's the least onerous way to do that in terms of the annual upkeep as well as the expense associated with it? But give me your thoughts on that. Well, the larger goal is to get an endowment that we, my thought is that 50% of the donations go to an endowment fund that we take the gains from and give those out. And then that endowment grows and eventually we replace our leadership with our children or somebody else who's wise. Yeah, I see.

Okay. Here's what I would do. I mean, in terms of the nonprofit organization, I mean, basically what you have to do is you choose a name, you file the articles of incorporation, you'd apply for the IRS tax exemption. And if you haven't done that before, I'd probably have somebody who has some expertise in doing that, a CPA or an attorney, you know, do that for you, it'd be worth the cost of that, just for somebody that has the knowledge of how to fill that out and get that through in a way that has the most likely acceptance from the IRS. And then you'd apply for the state tax exemption, the bylaws, the board of directors, you know, hold the meeting of the board, obtain any licenses and permits.

I mean, it's a pretty straightforward process. And again, I think you'd benefit from having somebody walk you through that. Then once you have it, you'd obviously open a bank account and then you all could each make contributions into the nonprofit to fund it.

And then, you know, you're kind of off to the races at that point. So that would be one option. But before you do that, I might visit with my friends at the National Christian Foundation. You'll find them at ncfgiving.com. They have an office. I don't know where in Indiana you are, but you know, there's a great office of NCF in Indianapolis.

There's several of them there. But regardless, if you talk through that with them, they may have some other ideas on creative ways to do this that would just lessen the annual burden, both cost and complexity. So I would at least place that phone call and talk it through with somebody at NCF. But apart from that, if you do form the nonprofit, which is not a bad thing, there's just some upkeep and ongoing work you'll need to do as a part of that.

I would wait to make to pool those funds until you have the nonprofit in place. Does that all make sense? Yes, thank you very much. Okay, Andrew, appreciate your call and appreciate your vision for generosity, especially as it relates to the next generation.

That's awesome. Jay is in Miami, Florida. Jay, just about a minute left. How can I help you, sir? I'd love your show for some caller. Always listen to the show. Appreciate it. I appreciate what you do.

I'll make it quick. I am applying the snowball effect to credit card debt that my wife and I have, and she's a teacher. So the question is that there is a few months up ahead that we're not going to be making as much. Should we shore up our emergency fund or continue to do both, shore up the fund and do the snowball effect?

Yeah. How much do you have in your emergency fund? I want to say about close to $8,000. I want to pay off my car, which I could, and that's another couple of hundred bucks extra a month that I can apply to something else. You have $8,000 in the emergency fund. How much do you still have on credit cards? I want to say between her and I, it's already a piece.

We're looking at close to $60, $70. We do have some rental incomes here and there that we've been blessed by. So I mean, financially, I have merger or we have merger, but like I said, I do have these months that are coming up during the summer, which, you know, every teacher in America knows what I'm talking about. Yes. So how much of that $8,000 do you know you'll have to use this summer to get through that? Probably half of it. Okay.

All right. So you'll have about $4,000 left. You know, I would be okay with that given how much credit card debt you have. I'd rather prioritize getting those paid off as quick as you can, as long as you know that you only need $4,000 of it and then you'll be able to build it up on the other side. Given the amount of credit card debt you have, Jay, I'd also contact my friends at Christian Credit Counselors at christiancreditcounselors.org. They can get these interest rates down, get you on a fixed monthly payment that's going to help you pay this debt off 80% faster.

christiancreditcounselors.org. Thanks for your kind remarks and for listening to the show. We appreciate it. 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 Melody, who was answering our phones today, Dan Anderson Engineering, Deb Solomon Producing, and Mr. Jim Henry along the way as well. Thank you for being here. We'll see you on Monday.