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Hi, everyone. My name is Emma, and I serve as a producer here at Moody Radio. I want to take a quick second to tell you about our newest podcast, 52 Weeks in the Word. This podcast hosted by Trillia Newbell will walk you through the Bible cover to cover in 52 weeks. Each week, Trillia sits down with a guest for a 10-minute conversation about the weekly reading, Bible reading habits, and spiritual disciplines.

Some of these guests include our very own Chris Brooks, Jen Wilkin, Nancy Guthrie, and many more. If you've ever wanted to read the Bible in a year, now's your chance. Listen to the trailer, follow and subscribe on the Moody Radio app or anywhere you listen to podcasts.

Episode one drops on January 1st. Hi, thanks for joining us today for MoneyWise Live. I'm Rob West. We all know the cost of living has risen this year, but I have a question for you. Do you know what your personal cost of living is?

Just ahead, I'll explain how to calculate it and why that's important. Then we'll open the phones for your questions on any financial topic. Here's the number, 800-525-7000.

You can go ahead and call right now, 800-525-7000. This is MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Every other week or so we devote the opening segment of our Monday program to talking about the financial basics. Our framework for those discussions consists of the five things you can do with money. You can earn it, live on it, give it away, owe it to someone or grow it for the future by saving and investing.

Just about anything related to money will fall into one of those five categories, earn, live, give, owe and grow. Today we're focusing on using money to live on, that is the money you need for your monthly expenses plus a few other expenses that only come due from time to time. Now, because of inflation, I suspect your expenses are higher today than they were a year ago.

We've all paid higher prices at the gas pump and the grocery store and in lots of other places. The federal government issues a report each month on the overall cost of living and while that report is helpful in some ways, it doesn't tell you anything about you and your household. What you really need to know is your personal cost of living, that is how much does it cost each month to put food on your table, keep a roof over your head and pay other expenses. Knowing your personal cost of living can help you construct a realistic spending plan or budget. Now, when I say realistic, I mean one that matches the reality of your cost of living and still has some cushion built in for other important financial obligations.

You don't need fancy software to calculate your cost of living, you can do this with pencil and paper. First, write down your monthly giving. For a Christian, giving should be a priority, so make that first on your list. Next, put down how much you're saving each month for general emergencies, so carve those two out up front, giving and savings. Now, start a separate column for your various living expenses. Begin by listing all your fixed expenses. That would typically include things such as your mortgage or rent payment, a car payment if you have one and any bills or debts for which you pay the same amount each month. For bills with variable amounts each month, you'll need to calculate monthly averages.

To do that, get the last 12 months worth of those bills. For each account, calculate the total yearly cost, then divide by 12 to get a monthly average. Then list those monthly averages in the same column with the fixed expenses that you've already written down.

You'll also need to figure out and write down your monthly average for transportation costs, including gas and, if applicable, subway or bus fares. Next, take into account things that only occur every so often, such as car repairs and household repairs. Look back over the past year and figure out a monthly average with those items too.

For example, if you had a car repair this year that was $1200, that works out to an average of $100 a month. Also, think about regular bills that come due only once or twice a year, such as property taxes and insurance payments. Calculate monthly averages for those too and add those averages to your list.

And there's one more thing to include. You need to take account of your gift giving. Total up what you spend on gifts over a year, including Christmas, and divide it by 12 for a monthly average.

Now, here's the easy part. Simply add up all your fixed expenses and the various monthly averages for variable expenses. The total is an estimate of your average cost of living. Now, because it's an average, the amount won't match your actual spending in any given month, but it'll give you a good ballpark idea of your monthly needs.

Next, do one more thing. Take that monthly cost of living figure and add in the giving and savings amounts you listed earlier. If that total exceeds what you're bringing in, you know you need to cut expenses somewhere because your outgo is exceeding your income. With a new year just around the corner, this is a great time to go through this little exercise of figuring out your cost of living so that you can adjust your budget accordingly for 2023.

Sure, doing the calculations will require a little effort, but what you learn about your personal cost of living will help you make the most of what you have in the year ahead. In a moment, we'll go to the phones for your questions about anything of a financial nature. Here again is our number, 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. Thanks for being with us today for MoneyWise Live. We'll be right back. Hey, great to have you with us today on MoneyWise Live. I'm Rob Les, taking your calls and questions today on anything financial. The number to call is 800-525-7000. We've got some lines open today. We're ready to dive in and so we just need to hear from you. Again, 800-525-7000. Let's begin today in Chicago. Hey, Wendell, thanks for calling. Go right ahead.

No problem. Listen, I got problems, but I hope you have a solution. My wife and I, years ago, got involved in timeshare. We're trying to find out how to get uninvolved.

Yeah, I wish there was a quick fix for this, Wendell. Unfortunately, there's far more people that want to get out of them than folks that want to buy them on the secondary market. They're still being sold by companies that are selling them and do a great job bringing people in, giving away free nights in exchange for a tour of the property. Many of these properties are compelling, but often they're sold instead of bought, meaning people aren't seeking them out to buy them. They happen to be involved in one of these properties and they get sold a timeshare that they think they're going to use and be able to afford well into the future and that it will actually be cost-effective. They come to find out they're expensive and they tend to be limiting in terms of how you want to vacation and folks find themselves wanting to get out from under them. The challenge is there's not really much incentive on the part of the folks that are selling the timeshares to try to make a secondary market for reselling timeshares that have already been purchased because they're interested in new sales, not helping you unload yours.

So what do you do about that? Well, you can go to a website. It's the Timeshare Users Group.

It's at TUG2.com. It's a community of timeshare owners essentially who offer advice and share their experiences. They'll tell you there that you should never pay upfront fees when you're trying to sell your timeshare. Some companies will want you to pay something before they take you on as a client.

Don't do that. You can also try to list it on the TUG2 community because there are folks coming in to that community on occasion who are looking to actually buy them on the secondary market. You of course can try to give it back to the company you bought it from.

It's called a deed back but for that to work, it must be paid off and you can't owe any back fees or taxes on it. You can also try to give it away to a third party that's basically finding someone to take it over for you and if all else fails, you may be able to rent out your timeshare on your own or through the management company that you bought it from. Bottom line is it's difficult to get out from under it and many of the quote-unquote exit companies that tell you they can get you out of it, I've just not had a good experience with that. They don't get very good reviews and again there is some fraud in this space, notably where they charge a big upfront fees and then don't have much success on the back end. So I guess the bottom line is I would try to exhaust all of your options starting with the ones I mentioned today.

Visit tug2.com, talk to the company you bought it from, see if you can give it away, if there's somebody who might be interested in taking it over because you've already put some money into the original purchase of it and then I think finally renting it out. What are your thoughts, Wendell? Listen, it's just like you say, it's like a Chinese handcuff situation. We're just trying to find ways to get out of it and we're trying to do the responsible way of doing that and that's just what we are right now. Yeah, yeah. Well, hopefully this gives you some new ideas.

Make it a matter of prayer and just be really diligent in exploring every opportunity to get out from under it and we'll wish you the best in exploring that. Thanks for your call today. To Chattanooga, Tennessee. Hey, Gary. Thanks for calling.

How can I help you? Hey. Whoa, whoa.

Had to get off the rumba strips here. Uh-oh, you all right? Yeah, I have a question about you. I'm driving, I'm sorry. Okay, be careful. Yeah, I'm good.

I have a question. My wife is on Social Security. I am 66 years old and last year come tax time, I found out that we ended up having to pay tax on her Social Security because I earned, I guess it's a $45,000 threshold combined and so I was wondering, it's of course a little late for this year, but I was wondering for next year if I increase, is it worthwhile for me to increase my pre-tax 401k contributions to keep that under that $45,000 limit? Is that worth the pressure, I guess might be a good word.

Yeah. Well, I don't think that's a bad idea and I would probably be talking to your CPA about that just to analyze the cost-benefit analysis. I mean, it's never a bad thing to, if you have the ability to limit lifestyle and get more going into Social Security, or excuse me, more going into your 401k while you're still working, that's going to do a couple of things that's going to help you have more saved when you get to that point and you need to start living on this retirement account. It's also going to reduce your adjusted gross income for the year, which could push you down to where you're not being taxed on as much of your Social Security benefits. So I think all of that is a good thing and you're right, married filing jointly above $44,000, you are going to pay taxes on up to 85% of the benefits. So if you can get down below that, your CPA could run the numbers and say, yeah, here's the savings you would get from your tax bill.

It may be significant, it may not be, but it would be good to know that. And then again, there's never anything wrong with trying to put more away, especially if you're going to get some tax savings at the same time. Yeah, certainly.

I'm struggling back and forth because we're trying to put money down payment together to buy some property. So yeah, that's a good thing. Sure.

Go ahead. One other quick question. If the money, when I put in the pre-tax 401k, is Social Security drawn off your gross or off of the taxable amount? I guess is where I need to frame that. Yeah, it's a matter of the FICA taxes that you're putting in. So it would be based off your taxable income. So it would be if you have money coming out pre-tax, it's reducing your taxable income. That would reduce the amount that you're paying in for Social Security. For Social Security as well. Okay.

I'm over 66, so that was the increase there. Thank you so much for your time. You're welcome, Gary. Thank you for calling today. We appreciate you listening to the program. 800-525-7000 is the number to call. That's 800-525-7000. We've got some lines open. Quickly to John in Tennessee. Go ahead, sir.

Yes. In the Bible and the end times, the United States is not mentioned. And I don't know if that's due to our country imploding itself or takeover of another country. If a person wanted to buy gold, would that be a good idea? Just in case it happens before I die or I'm talking about myself. And if gold is a good option, what denomination of gold should I put my money in so I can spend it? And is gold going to be helpful?

Yeah. Well, I'll leave the eschatology to others. What I will say is the Bible is very clear. Matthew 24, 36. But concerning that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven nor the son, but the father only.

So we leave that in the Lord's hands based on what we know today. I would say you'd be better off with a properly diversified portfolio. I would say that could include gold, but I wouldn't put more than 5% in it. It doesn't pay an income and it doesn't perform as well. And it's more volatile.

And I'd probably use a tracking ETF if it were me, rather than taking physical possession. Stay on the line. We'll talk a little bit more off the air. We'll be right back.

Stay with us. Hey, thanks for joining us today. I'm Rob West, your host. This is MoneyWise Live. We're taking your calls and questions today on anything financial. The number to call is 800-525-7000. Back to the phones to Deerfield Beach, Florida. Hey Andrea, how can I help you?

Hi, I'm calling. I just took financial pieces. I was giving about 7% of my tithe to my local church and maybe to organizations. And it would be a challenge for me to continue giving to those organizations in order to give 10% to my church. I'm wondering, like, how I should navigate that. Like, is it a strict, like, giving to the Lord means to my church 10%?

How can I adjust? Yeah. Well, I think it's a great question, Andrea. And clearly you want to honor the Lord with your giving. And I love that because that's what giving should be.

It should be an act of worship. It's a demonstration of our dependence and God as our provider. Because when we give a portion of it away, it says that I'm not ultimately in control of my provision.

I trust you, God, as my provider to continue to provide for me. And because of that, I can loosen my grip on God's resources that has been entrusted to me. Where does the tithe fit into all of this? Well, clearly it's an Old Testament idea. The word tithe means a tenth. There was actually three tithes in the Old Testament.

One occurred every three years. So in effect, the tithe was 23 and a third percent when you put them all together. And that was just the beginning. And they gave off the top the first and the best of their harvest or their provision to support the work of the church. Malachi 3 10 says, bring the full tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house.

So we believe that God's plan A, if you will, is the local church. And that's where we should give first. And I like the idea of using the tithe as a starting place and then as God allows you to prioritize giving even at a higher level. You know, Jesus kind of raised the bar in the New Testament for those of us who had seen the cross to say, well, we should give as we've been blessed and to whom much is given, much is required.

And then he commended the poor widow who gave her last two copper coins. So I think by giving his life as a sacrifice, he demonstrated whole life generosity. Now what does that mean with regard to how you should approach it? Well, I think you need to start somewhere.

And clearly that's what you've done. I think you need to always be on your knees saying, Lord, what would you have me to do? As far as I'm concerned, I'd love to see you be systematic in your giving as you're able to do a tenth, starting with your local church. And then as God raises your standard of income and provides more resources for you, that you would prioritize continuing to move up your giving in a way that allows you to participate with other ministries that God has laid on your heart. And I think over time, what you will see is that there's great joy that follows with that, being able to give to the Lord's work. Now, does that mean that's a hard and fast rule?

No, I don't think so. I don't think the Lord would have us to see this as a, you know, a legalistic type endeavor where we're kind of checking a box. He wants our hearts and he wants us to give cheerfully and sacrificially. So I guess at the end of the day, what I'm saying, Andrea, is I would make it a matter of prayer and ask the Lord to give you a real conviction as to what he would have you to do. I would prioritize giving to your local church and I would try to give that full ten percent there. Now, if he directed you otherwise, I don't think anyone would take issue with that, but I would certainly, at least over time, try to make that full ten percent tied to your church and then give beyond that as the Lord leads.

But give me your thoughts on that. I guess part of my heart breaks to say no to like CREW, for example, which I've been giving to, like college ministries, to like withdraw my giving monthly. But I do believe that's something I'll have to pray more about, like you said, and just see. Because in order to continue with the baby steps and like get out of debt, I don't think I'm in a position to give that much above ten percent in general. Well, I totally get that and I love that that's the journey that you're on because God is allowing you to take what you have, to budget it wisely, to prioritize getting out of debt, which is clearly supported in scripture. Borrowing is not a sin, but there are a lot of warnings there. And so I think you saying that I'm going to really make an effort to get out of debt as quickly as I can, but I'm also going to continue to give and that's going to include my church first. But there's also these other ministries that God really has laid on my heart and I want to give there, too. And you're just kind of wrestling through that. And that's why I believe, Andrea, that your financial journey is one of the key ways that God shapes your spiritual journey, because in that wrestling, he is kind of working on your heart and you're relying on him. And that's a good thing. And again, if it were just a formula, it would remove a lot of that from the equation.

But I think because it's not a formula and it requires you to really seek the Lord and come to a decision for you as the steward of what he's entrusted to you, that's going to actually grow your relationship with him and draw you into a more intimate relationship with him at the end of the day, which is what he cares about, because he's always been about our hearts. Does that make sense? Yeah. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Hey, thanks for calling today and for listening to the program. We appreciate it.

Eight hundred five to five, seven thousand is the number to call. Before we head back to the phones, we do have to get a quick break. And let me also tackle an email that came into us over the weekend. This is from Daniel. He writes, I'm recently retired and I'm fearful of the market's volatility. Where can I find a safe investment? And Daniel, what I would say is that all investments carry risk, even bonds.

We certainly saw that play out this year as they've been losing value as interest rates rise, at least the face value. The key to successful investing, Daniel, is to have a long time horizon. I would say a minimum of five years, preferably 10, and then build a well-balanced portfolio that's diversified. Keep in mind, you know, once you reach age 65, if the Lord tarries, life expectancy is for men about 83 years old. And you could live far longer than that if you're in good health. So you may need this money to last two, three decades.

Well, that allows you to still take a long term perspective, even though you're still or currently retired. I think the key is getting the investment mix right and not having too much risk or volatility by allocating too heavily to stocks. Appreciate your email today. You can write to us at questions at moneywise.org and we'll be right back.

Stay with us. Hey, great to have you with us today on Money Wise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Coming up in the next segment of the broadcast today, we're joined by our good friend Bob Dahl. Bob checks in each Monday to share with us his insights on the market and all eyes on the Fed this week. It seems like the Fed has become the focal point of economic activity and market action.

Well, that's certainly the case this week as their meetings get underway about yet another increase in the interest rates here in the United States. Hey, a quick announcement for you. We've been talking about year end giving here at Money Wise Media as a listener supported not for profit ministry. We rely on your donations to fund the ministry and do the great work God has called us to. Well, we got an exciting call last week from somebody who wanted to offer a fifty thousand dollar match here at Money Wise Media. So to meet our year end fundraising goal of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, this donor said, how about next week? That is, this week I put up fifty thousand to match every dollar given during the course of this week.

And we were certainly grateful for that. So that means any gift made to Money Wise Media this week will automatically be doubled up to fifty thousand dollars. And we've already heard from many listeners, Nancy in Indiana, Jessica in Wisconsin, Trinidad and Pennsylvania, Matthew from Illinois. They've been responding this month. And we're certainly grateful if you were considering a gift to Money Wise Media and you'd like to do that before December 31st to help us meet our year end giving goals.

Well, this week would be a great time to do it. So just head to Money Wise dot org. You'll click give at the top of the page.

And again, every dollar matched. Thanks in advance. All right. Back to the phones. We go to Cleveland, Ohio. Marquis, how can I help you?

Yes, I have. I was calling. I have two IRA accounts, one with Union Bank interest and another one with Fidelity. And I have more in the UBT account than I did with Fidelity.

It was just inflation. I had lost money in both. And I was wondering, will it be wise if I was to combine the two together to make it into one IRA account?

Yeah, I like that a lot. I think, you know, with certain only a few exceptions, you should be able to combine that without any problem, as long as they're similar. IRA is both traditional. And the benefit of that is that, you know, you'll just have less upkeep. So that's instead of two statements, whether that's physical or electronic, you're getting one instead of having two portfolios to manage in terms of the investments that are inside them. You only have one.

You only get one set of, you know, tax documents. So I think that makes a lot of sense. Combine everything in one place for simplification and to make sure that you have the right investment strategy, because a lot of times when you're managing two portfolios, you can get out of balance with regard to your desired, you know, investment allocation target. And having it all in one place is going to give you a little bit more visibility, a little easier to see how much do I have stocks, how much do I have in bonds and cash, that type of thing. So I would support combining the marquee.

I think you'll be glad you did. Yeah, that's what I was thinking also. My second question was, I was trying to find out the best way to make any investments with stocks. I don't know where to look at. Okay. How much do you have in total investable assets?

I don't know. I have to reach the market at this time. Okay. Do you think you have more than 100,000?

No, I'm less than that. Okay. So what I would do is one of two things. One is you could check out our friends at soundmindinvesting.org and they would suggest through the Sound Mind Investing newsletter some high quality mutual funds that you could use to invest in. The other is you could use what's known as a robo-advisor. This is where you would answer a series of questions and then the algorithm would build a very low-cost what's called indexed portfolio. It's a portfolio of exchange-traded funds that basically, based on your age and your risk tolerance and your time horizon, it would determine, okay, we want this percent in stocks.

We want this percent in bonds. And then among the stock portion, we're going to use the broad market index for large-cap stocks and small-cap stocks and domestic and international. And then in the bond, we're going to use corporates and treasuries and short-term and long-term duration and it'll build all of that using these low-cost indexes. And so you'll just capture the broad moves of the market but with an allocation that's right for you based on your age and goals. And it's very low-cost and what it allows you to do is to be a systematic investor and every time you make a deposit, it will be immediately reinvested and rebalanced into the portfolio and the total expenses might be one-fifth of one percent a year. So pretty inexpensive. And I would look at the Schwab Intelligent Portfolios for that option.

So either soundmindinvesting.org or the Schwab Intelligent Portfolios, I think, will give you what you're looking for. We appreciate your call today. God bless you, sir. To Indiana, hey Jason, thanks for your call today. Go ahead.

Hello, thank you. My sister died in August and my wife and I took custody of her daughter, 11-year-old daughter, and she left her life insurance to her daughter at 85,000. It was through her work. We're still trying to get that.

We're kind of giving us a runaround a little bit on it. But anyway, now they're saying that the company is saying, well, it wasn't actually life insurance, it was an annuity. I don't know anything about annuities.

I was calling to see if maybe you could explain it a little bit. And also they said once we do get it all settled, that there'll be different payment options. Is there a certain payment option that would be best? Like I don't know how they tax it.

Like if you got it all in one lump sum, if they would just tax it to death or what would be the best way to go about the payment options? Yes. All right.

Very good. Well, yeah, you do need to get to the bottom of it. And I think you need to get some professional counsel here just to look at what you have. Not all annuities are created equally. This is probably a retirement annuity where there was money that was being contributed out of her paycheck each month into this annuity.

And then there was sub accounts or what you might know as mutual funds inside it that it was likely invested in so that it was growing. And as the beneficiary of a tax deferred annuity, you'll have several payout options. And the option that you take will determine how the income benefit will be taxed. And you know, that's just going to be something you'll have to work out with a tax professional and an investment or a financial planner just to determine what makes the most sense given what you've got. And they'll want to take a look at just the details on that particular annuity and you know what the payout options are. You know, a lot of times there's a life insurance policy attached to these.

In some cases there isn't. But I think in either case, you know, if you could create an income stream from this that you could use for her benefit as you're now raising her, I think that could make a lot of sense. But I think this is the time, Jason, to get some professional counsel.

And if you don't have somebody that you could walk alongside in evaluating your options, including the tax side, you can reach out to a certified kingdom advisor there in Indiana on our website MoneyWise.org. Just click Find a CKA. Now I've got to hit a quick break here. Did you have a follow up question? No, that was pretty much it. Okay. All right. Unfortunately, I can't give you all the details as to what the payout options are going to be and then the corresponding taxes, but it's not rocket science.

They'll be able to tell you very clearly based on the what the payout option that you select, how that's going to be taxed and how you need to plan for that accordingly. I'm so sorry to hear about your sister's passing and I know I'm grateful that you're going to be taken on raising her daughter. What a blessing that is for them. Thanks for calling today, sir. God bless you. And we'll be right back on MoneyWise Live.

Stay with us. Thanks for joining us today on MoneyWise Live. I'm Rob West, your host. In just a moment Bob Doll joins us, but first back to the phones. Catherine's in Virginia. Hi Catherine, how can I help you today?

Hi there, Rob. So my husband is about to graduate with a degree in respiratory therapy and a lot of the jobs he's applying for come with a sign on bonus around about $10,000 is what the average is looking like. It's something that if you don't spend two years at the institution, you would have to give back. I have a job that's very mobile and could mean that we move out of state.

So we're trying to figure out if he signs to get the sign on bonus. We do have about $10,000 in debt. That looks very appealing to go towards, but if we're going to have to give it back at the end, if we don't stay, what is the best thing to do with this? Yeah, I think you've nailed it on the head and that is it would be great to pay down this debt. Unfortunately, I don't think you can take that risk given that you know that there may be a likelihood that you're moving.

It's not uncommon for a bonus to have either a schedule where it's paid out over time or at least a predetermined date by which if you resign prior to that, they would ask you to pay back some or all of it. So what I would do is probably stick it in savings until either you know whether or not you're moving or you have passed that predetermined time by which you have to stay in order to keep it. Okay, and what would be the best thing to put that in as far as savings? Would that be some sort of an investment, some sort of high yield savings account? Yeah, and what is the time horizon on this?

You'll know within a couple of years, right? I believe it's a two-year commitment for the bonus. Yeah, so given that time horizon, Catherine, I would be looking at a high yield savings account. Good news is they're paying 3% now without any fees.

I'd look at Marcus for instance. They're paying 3% right now in their high yield savings at marcus.com. Ally Bank, Capital One 360, any of those are going to pay the best rates that are out there as online banks. You can link it to your checking account electronically. It's FDIC insured, but there's no risk and that's the key here. You don't want to invest this even though you have the potential to make something on it, you have the potential to lose as well.

And this is money we just want to park until we know whether we need to return it to the company or we can keep it. Fantastic. Thank you so much. All right, thanks for your call today.

God bless you. Hey, before we go back to or stay with the phones and go to our next caller, Bob Dahl joins us. Bob is Chief Investment Officer at Crossmark Global Investments. He joins us each Monday with his market analysis. And Bob, all eyes on the Fed again this week, huh?

Yes, for sure. We've been watching the Fed carefully really all year long and let's hope we can have a Fed that's going to raise rates by less than they've been raising. That's the big change.

50 basis points most likely instead of 75. And of course, we'll see what the statement says and how they talk about the future. Can we see a period early next year when they stop raising rates and see what impact the massive rate increases they've had has on our economy, Rob, with that long lag? Yeah, most of the index is up about one and a half percent today. Bob, is that saying that they're anticipating they've already baked in that 50 basis point increase and they're hopeful that we'll hear some remarks from the chairman that maybe we're starting to take our foot off the gas pedal? I think that's right, Rob. Plus, some hope that the inflation number we're going to get this week, the all-important CPI, is another reasonably good number as we saw a month ago so that we can worry a little bit less about inflation and start thinking about what do earnings look like.

Yeah, no question. Bob, you're going to be coming out with your top, your annual predictions, 10 predictions right after the first of the year. I suspect you're hard at work on those now. I won't ask you to share any of them, but perhaps you could give us just a bit of a high-level overview of what you're expecting for 2023. Sure, we're not yet ready to dot i's and cross t's, but obviously we always have a view of the market and is somewhat of what we've talked about before. I'm a rather boring neutral, meaning I think we're going to frustrate the bulls and the bears as we've really been doing the whole second half of this year. Stocks are a bit higher than they were on June 30th, and we traveled thousands and thousands of Dow points to get there. And I think it's going to be more of the same. We'll have a reason for a rally and then, oops, don't get too careless because they're going to turn around and correct them and then vice versa. So I think the crosscurrents, because of the longer list of uncertainties than usual, will take some time to unfold.

I don't see big downside, Rob, even if we have a mild recession and until we resolve these things, inflation, earnings, et cetera, hard to see big upside either. So you got to be careful to buy the dips and trim the rallies. Don't get sucked in on a big green day and don't panic out on a big red day. All right, very good. Always appreciate your insights, my friend. We'll talk to you next week.

Sounds like a plan. Bye bye. All right, Bob Doll, chief investment officer at Crossmark Global Investments.

You can sign up for his weekly market commentary called Dolls Deliberations at crossmarkglobal.com. Thanks so much for joining us, Bob. Back to the phones.

Danny's in Illinois. Danny, how can I help you, sir? Hi, Rob. Good afternoon.

Thanks for taking my call. Hope I haven't been spending too much time on TikTok. I've been hearing a lot about this, the digital dollar rollout and how a lot of the big banks are behind it and that there's speculation, everything speculation that they could take, the government could take control of our money. And I'm wondering like, okay, is this going to affect all banks? Is it going to affect credit unions? What should I be doing with my money to safeguard it against something like that potentially happening? Yeah.

You know, in my view, Danny, there's nothing you need to do right now. This is a wait and see kind of thing. I mean, basically where we stand is the Treasury Department recommended moving forward on the development of a central bank digital currency as a part of the White House's framework on development of digital assets. The framework allows the executive order from March in which President Biden outlined the government's approach. But it also asked several government agencies to come up with policy recommendations, everything from the digital dollar itself to regulations on cryptocurrency.

Here's the reality, though. There's more than 100 countries representing 95 percent of the global gross domestic product that are exploring a digital currency. And now with the U.S. stepping up its activities, nearly all of those countries are going to be asking what Washington will come up with and making sure their currencies work with the world's reserve currency. But the U.S. is still a long way off from this thing. The digital euro, for instance, is scheduled to go online in the middle of the decade, and the digital dollar is well behind it. It will be most likely several years before anyone's using a digital dollar in normal life. You know, keep in mind, China started working on their digital currency in 2016 and they're still in the pilot phase. You know, here we are in 2022, although it's a huge pilot with over 260 million users.

But the bottom line is it's a long way off. The other thing is just the political environment. You know, the executive branch doesn't have the authority.

It's constitutionally clear that coinage is a congressional function. And so we'd have to have, you know, Congress coming together on this and agreeing to do it. It would be hard to get, I think, legislative buy in on this just because of the lack of trust. The Federal Reserve doesn't have a high degree of trust right now, just given what's going on with inflation. It's hard to get consensus on anything, especially when you have a divided government and you've got privacy concerns and just a whole host of other issues. So I think beyond the fact that it's still a long way off, you know, this is not something that is going to be done by the president. It's going to take Congress getting deep into the weeds on.

And I think, you know, that's going to be a pretty tall hill to climb in order of getting consensus on that. So I think long answer to a short question, but I think at this point, Danny, it's more of a wait and see and there's not anything you really need to do. OK, I appreciate it. All right. Thanks for your call today. God bless you, sir.

To Chicago. Diane, how can I help you? Yeah, I have a question on long term care insurance. OK.

So, yeah. So I'm just wondering, you know, obviously, as I'm aging, premiums keep, you know, going up pretty incrementally. And I'm just trying to decide, do I continue it or not?

I'm in my low 60s. So it's going to be probably quite a while before I actually need it. But this is a company company group fund. So it's a good rate that I'm paying.

But it's still the whole thing of do I need to pay it? Yeah, I like long term care insurance if you can afford it, if you can build it into your budget and allow for premium increases over time, which we've seen quite a bit of those just given the increasing cost of health care. Seventy percent of Americans over age 65 will need long term care somewhere between 18 months and two and a half years on average. And it's probably the thing that could erode your assets the quickest in this season of life.

This year, full nursing home care is on average about 9000 a month. And so it, you know, it's going to continue to rise over time and having a policy that could step in and at least shoulder a portion of that with some sort of inflation rider that could allow that to increase over time, I think makes a lot of sense. Between 55 and 65 is typically when you want to buy it so that you can get it at a reasonable price. But again, it doesn't do you any good if it becomes cost prohibitive over time and you end up having to drop it. So I would say, yes, I like it. Yes, I think, you know, if we look at the data, it would say that you are going to need to use it at some point, most likely. The key is just make sure that, you know, it fits into your budget now and based on kind of where you're headed with retirement and what your retirement budget will look like and the income sources that you'll have that you will continue to be able to afford it.

And if so, I think it's something that to look at very closely and perhaps move ahead with. Hopefully that's helpful to you, Diane. We appreciate you calling and checking in with us today. God bless you. Well, folks, that's going to do it for us. Let me say thank you to my amazing team today.

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