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Have you ever wanted to read through some of the words, home title fraud are enough to cause concern for many homeowners, and there are several insurance products on the market that claim to provide protection.

But do they? I'll talk about that today and we have some great calls lined up, but we won't be taking your live calls today because we're pre recorded. This is MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Okay, we've talked about this before, but we've been getting a lot of calls about it lately, so it's probably time to revisit the idea of title fraud insurance. The idea behind it is that you're minding your own business one day, and you get a call or letter saying that a lender is about to foreclose on your home for non-payment of a loan you didn't take out.

You think, how could this happen? Well, an identity thief simply strolled into your county deeds office, faked your signature on a quitclaim deed, and transferred ownership of your home to someone else. The thief then took out a home equity loan, or refinanced with cash out, and skipped town. After a few months of non-payment, the lender is now looking to foreclose.

On you. Now, as I said, many companies are claiming their insurance can protect you from this type of fraud. Well what exactly are you buying with title fraud insurance, which, by the way, usually costs around 15 bucks a month?

Well first, you have to understand what you're NOT buying. This isn't what's typically known as title insurance, which you should always get when you purchase a property. It protects you against any claim involving the validity of your ownership of the property, and it's a one-time purchase, usually several hundred dollars. Title fraud insurance, on the other hand, what we're talking about today, is a completely different product.

It isn't really insurance at all. It doesn't lock your title, and it won't protect you if a scammer forges your signature and transfers your title. These products will usually just monitor whether your deed has been transferred out of your name at the county records office. Now that might be helpful if you're able to react in time and challenge the deed transfer at the records office before the scammer takes out a new loan, so it's on you to act.

Also, there's no way to actually lock a title in any state. There's nothing to stop a scammer from forging your signature and transferring a deed out of your name. But the good news is, you can monitor whether a fraudulent transfer has occurred all by yourself. Most counties now allow you to view the status of your deed online, and some counties even allow you to sign up for automated alerts involving deed changes. But again, if you don't challenge a fraudulent deed transfer in time, a thief can still take out loans against the property.

Okay, but there's more good news. In theory, at least, you don't really need protection against this type of fraud. If someone forges your signature, transfers your deed, and then takes out a loan against the property, it's still fraud. The con artist didn't legally own your property, so the lender doesn't have a legal claim to it as collateral. If the lender tries to foreclose on you, it would be wrongful foreclosure and wouldn't hold up in court. Plus, the lender almost certainly required the scammer to buy lenders' title insurance at closing, protecting them against loss. So the lender would be covered and might not even take you to court. And one more bit of good news?

Possibly. Take out your title insurance documents from when you purchased the property. Look to see what it covers and doesn't. It will always protect you from legal claims against your ownership, but not necessarily against fraud. If it doesn't, you can purchase a title insurance policy that protects against fraud, even if you bought the property years ago.

Now, I realize that all of this can be a bit confusing, so let's review. I mentioned lenders' title insurance earlier. You usually have to pay for that whenever you finance the purchase of a property, but it protects only the lender. That's why I said it's important that you get owner's title insurance when you buy a home to protect you. It not only protects you from legal claims against your property, it will also cover any fees involved with defending your ownership. In most cases, the title company will actually provide an attorney to represent you. So the bottom line is, title insurance, always a good idea.

Title fraud insurance, probably not worth the money. All right, I hope we cleared that up. Hey, we're going to pause for a brief break. By the way, if you're a part of the MoneyWise family and you want to support this ministry, you can do that quickly and easily on our website at moneywise.org.

Just click Give, and thanks in advance. I'm Rob West, and we'll be right back. Stick around. This is MoneyWise Live with Rob West. Hey, if you hear a phone number mentioned today, please ignore that number and don't call us because today's broadcast is a reprise edition, but we think the upcoming information will help you and make you a wise steward of what God's given you, so please stay tuned. This is the program where we apply God's wisdom to your financial decisions and choices, not so we can enrich ourselves or build bigger barns, but so we can find the heart of God as it relates to our money, recognizing our role as managers of God's resources with a goal of being found faithful, holding it loosely, living generously, and using God's resources to serve his purposes. That means providing for our families and, yes, enjoying what we have, but also being able to see those on our path that we can help to meet a need, and that's the opportunity we have as we think about our role in managing God's money each day. Before we head to the phones, let me just remind you here at MoneyWise, we're grateful to you, our friends and supporters of this ministry, for your faithfulness and for your prayers. If you've never given to MoneyWise, let me encourage you to consider how we're working every day with the Lord's direction to help people break free from the worldly view of money and possessions and learn to live in the truth of God's Word. You see, our vision here at MoneyWise is to see people live their lives fully surrendered to God, because we humbly recognize that's easier said than done, and so we want to equip you in that. Two areas that often stand in the way of full surrender are money and possessions. We tend to hold money too tightly.

We depend on it too fully, and we may even be tempted to find our meaning and purpose in it, but the Bible has a different message for our lives. That is, a message of freedom from the financial bondage and dependence we see around us to a life full of contentment, generosity, and wise stewardship. So here's my request to you. If you've been blessed by this ministry, I would invite you to prayerfully consider how you can partner with us so together we can bless even more people in the coming year. To do that, you can simply head to MoneyWise.org and click Give and see all of the giving options available. Again, that's MoneyWise.org and just click Give, and thanks in advance. All right, we're going to begin in Michigan today. Ruth, thank you for your call.

How can I help you? Well, we are wanting to give in advance our inheritance to one of our sons who needs some money to expand his home. And we are wanting to do what we can do and avoid as much tax as possible. So we are wondering if either we or he would take out a loan for some or all of that amount.

Would the payments that we would be making, instead of giving it in a lump sum, would we be earning more on our investment or would we be paying more in interest on the loan? That's one question. Okay. And then what about gifting? Is it possible to do some gifting without taxes?

Yes, it is. So there's not going to be any tax on the gifts that you make to your son. The question related to taxes is just if you generate a taxable event by, let's say, withdrawing funds from a retirement account to make a gift, that would generate a taxable event. But if you're using after tax dollars, either savings or money that you receive as income and just turning around and making a gift to your son, there's not going to be any tax on that. The way that works is this year in 2022, you can make a gift of up to $16,000 without telling the IRS anything. And the next year that goes up to $17,000 and that would be per person. So let's say you're married between you and your husband, you could make a gift each of $16,000 to your son for a total of $32,000. Now what if you want to give more than that?

Well, you can absolutely do that. There's still no tax involved, but beyond $16,000 this year, you would just need to let the IRS know that you're doing that by filing a form with them that will allow that amount over $16,000 to be taken off of your lifetime exemption. And that's over $12 million, Ruth. So unless you plan to give him more than $12 million, at least with the way the IRS tax code is today, you're not going to pay any tax. The only question is whether or not you need to tell the IRS you're doing it. OK, so when we take the money out, however, we would be taking tax on that, even though he would not be taxed on getting it.

Well, it depends on where you're taking it out from. So tell me where your source of funds is that you would be giving to him. We would be taking it probably from our IRA. OK. And what is your age? We do have, pardon, our age is our mid 70s.

Mid 70s. OK. Yeah. So there's no penalty on that. You can take that money out whenever you'd like. But yeah, anytime you take a withdrawal from your IRA, that's creating a taxable event, assuming it's not a Roth IRA and it's what we call a traditional IRA. So whatever amount you withdraw, you would add that to your taxable income for the year and pay federal taxes on it. And then at that point, you could turn around and gift it to your son and there would be no tax on that gift. OK, so if we would take out a loan for some or all of the money he needs and we were only be paying out, you know, a tenth of what it is per year, would we be earning more on our investment through that year that we're not taking everything out at once than what the interest would be? Probably not, because you're going to take a loan against your home, a mortgage.

Is that right? No, it would just be, well, I suppose they would say that. I mean, we could always pay it off if it was called, you know, at once.

But we would, I just don't know if we'd be paying more taxes, taking it all out at once. Yeah. Are you thinking a personal loan, Ruth, or are you thinking of taking out a mortgage on your home? Not a mortgage on our home, no. So you'd go to the bank and ask for a personal loan? Yeah.

Yeah. So the interest would be on either case. The interest would be a good bit more probably than you should expect to be earning, even if you were to turn around and invest that money over the long haul, because you're probably talking at a personal loan that's going to be, you know, nine percent plus. If it was a mortgage, you're probably talking at least seven percent.

And both of those numbers would be higher than I would expect you would earn as an average return over the next, let's say, decade, even if one hundred percent of that were invested in stocks. I think you also just need to look at the wisdom and your financial readiness in doing that. Does it make sense for you to borrow money to then turn around and give to your son as much as you want to be able to help your son? I just want to make sure you all aren't putting yourself in a financial predicament by honoring your desire to help him, but taking out money that you don't have, borrowing it, paying interest on it, presuming on the future only to turn around and give it away, especially if you're going to dole it out in very small portions. So I would be looking at other sources to be able to make this gift.

And I would always be asking the question, apart from our desire to bless him, are we able to do this financially without putting ourselves in a difficult place? Does that make sense? Yeah. We would be able to do that. OK. We're just trying to know what's the best way to avoid as much tax as possible on us.

Yeah. I understand. Well, I would not borrow for it. So I think if your only other source of funds, Ruth, is your IRA, that would be the place to go. But you are going to pay tax on it as you pull it out.

You're not, though, going to—he's not going to pay any tax on it as a gift tax, because there is none until you get to $12 million. Stay on the live. We'll talk more off the air. We'll be right back. You're listening to MoneyWise Live, and you can find us online at MoneyWiseLive.org. However, today we're not live, so if you hear that phone number, please don't call.

But do stay with us. There's lots of great information ahead. It's great to have you with us on MoneyWise Live today, but unfortunately, today we're not live. We're prerecorded and therefore won't be taking your calls. However, we've lined up some calls in advance that we think you'll find helpful.

So stay tuned and enjoy the rest of the program. As we think about handling God's money, generosity should be at the forefront of our minds all the time. You know, so often, especially in challenging times like we find ourselves now with 40-year high inflation and the prospect of a recession and challenges all around, a lot of times our giving is the first to go.

Let me just challenge you to keep that in the midst of your financial plan. Use your dependence and trust in the Lord by holding what God gives you loosely and giving generously. Be systematic in your giving. Remember, Jesus raised the bar beyond the Old Testament Mosaic law tithe and said we should give as we've been prospered and to whom much is given, much is required. And he commended the widow who gave out of her poverty. You know, we as people who have seen the cross and what Jesus did on our behalf, we should be the most generous, grateful to God for what he's done for us, the abundance that he's given us before even the first dollar. And as a reflection of that, we should be generous givers, giving as unto the Lord and following his lead, the ultimate giver as he gave us his son. Well, today's an opportunity to refocus our thinking on that idea and perhaps consider where we can be giving to the ministries that are aligned with our passions and where we see God at work. Today's a great day to be generous. Let's head to Louisiana. Lance, you're next on the program, sir. Go ahead.

Yes. I was calling. I want to ask you, what would be your suggestion for someone who is 57 and do not have any retirement started, had it in the past, but had to use it due to unforeseen circumstances that occur. And so I'm trying to start all over again on a new year and I just want to find out what would be the best thing, your suggestion on what I can do from here forward.

And I do plan to work at least 70 since I've come really late getting started again. Very good. Yeah. So that's great because that's one of the first things we need to be looking at as we think about trying to catch up in our savings. We don't want to shortcut toward getting ultra aggressive or speculating. We still want to take a sure and steady approach.

The Bible calls that steady plotting. And one of the best ways to do that is to feel the effects of the compounding over a long time. So you delaying your retirement from paid work to whatever God has for you next until age 70 is certainly going to go a long way because, number one, that would allow you to delay taking Social Security and that's going to allow that check to grow by eight percent a year beyond full retirement age up to age 70. So you can maximize that amount and it gives you more time to continue to save and allow that money to work for you.

The first step on that, Lance, is always trying to limit your lifestyle. So if you're not on a spending plan, I would create a budget here in December that you can deploy in January and begin to really give every dollar a name and control the flow of money in and out. The goal being to free up as much margin as possible so that after you've taken care of any high interest debt, if you've got it, and after you fund an emergency fund of, let's say, three months expenses, so you've got something to fall back on, then you can take all of that surplus beyond your monthly spending and direct that into long term retirement savings. In terms of where to put that, the first question is always, what do you have available to you? So for instance, do you have a company sponsored retirement plan at work that you could participate in? Oh, yes, I do. Okay, very good. And are you putting anything in that right now? Not yet.

My plan is to start in the beginning of the year. Very good. Is that a 401k? Yes, it is. Okay, got it.

All right. So the good news is that there's a lot of room in terms of what you can do for that. So for 2023, you can put in up to $22,500 per year. And now that you're over age 50, you can actually put in a bit more, I believe it's an additional $6,000. So you could get up to $28,500. So you have the ability to do quite a bit of savings per year, which is great. And so what you'd want to do is get them to start pulling that out of your check every month up to that amount. So it actually went up to $6,500 over age 50. So you can put in a full $29,000 for 2023 if you start that 401k. So you'd want to first determine how much do you have available that you could put in and then tell them the percentage that you want them to take out of every check to get you to maximize whatever is available going into that account. And then once it starts hitting that account, we want to get that invested and you'd probably just want to put that in a good balanced fund with, you know, given that you've got a 23 year time horizon, we want the majority of that in stocks, especially with the market down so you can participate in the recovery as that happens.

Even if it heads lower in 2023, eventually it will recover and move to higher ground. And as you systematically invest, you're going to be able to take advantage of that. Okay, in America, would you suggest anything about going to Roth or RRA? You certainly could.

Yeah, you certainly could. How much do you think you'd be able to put away per month? Maybe about, well right now maybe about $500. About $500 a month. Okay. And does your company offer any kind of matching in the 401k?

I think it is, I think it's a 3%, I can't remember, but I've been looking to see what the current land use is. Do you have a Roth 401k or would it be a Roth IRA that you're considering? No, I was on the Roth IRA. Okay. Yeah, I wouldn't do that because of the match and because you're only planning on putting in $500 a month, $6,000 a year, you want to fully maximize that match before you'd ever consider a Roth IRA. So I'd probably stick with that 401k.

Let's get as much money as we can going into that out of your paycheck every month and let's look for ways to cut back so you can get that $500 up even more. Okay? Okay, awesome. Thank you so much. I appreciate your time.

All right, Lance, we appreciate your call today. Listen, I know it can be discouraging when you look at the fact that you don't have any retirement savings and you're thinking, man, I'm 57 years old, but here's the key. As long as you limit your lifestyle and you're disciplined in your savings, you will get there.

You'll be surprised at how much you can put away over time. Just stay with it. Hey, we're going to pause for a brief break. We'll be back with much more. Stay with us.

.com Thrilled to have you with us today on Money Wise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Hey, our team is taking some time off. We're not here, so don't call in, but we lined up some great questions for this segment in advance that I know you'll enjoy. So let's head right back to the phones. Let's head to North Carolina. Jack, you're next on the program, sir. Go ahead. Hello.

I'm the unusual situation. We had a credit card that we had shut down because it had a yearly charge. But we discovered a few months ago that somebody had reactivated it and hacked into it and were charging it, and we reported to them, to the company, they dealt with that. But as a result of that, for the next two months, it was telling me I did not owe a payment, and with the financial pressures, I was delaying making any more payments. But now they are saying that I owed a payment, even though their recording said I did not, and they are charging me a late charge. Do I have any recourse? Do you have any documentation on the fact that they said no payment was due? It was a recording. So you called into the automated system, and when you clicked make a payment, it said no payment is necessary?

Right. And even if I had been wanting to make a payment, I wouldn't have known what I'm about to make, because as I was saying, I didn't owe any. Do you get paper statements or electronic?

Actually, I don't get either. Well, you have to get a monthly statement, so if you're not getting it in the mail, it's coming electronically. Do you have online access to this credit card account? I do not. I never set it up for this particular one, no.

Okay. I would set it up, go on their website today, set up the account, it shouldn't take you long, and then go in and pull your statements for those two months, because if the automated system was saying you didn't owe a payment, then the statement should reflect that. You can pull historical statements, and let's just see what it said as to the minimum payment due.

I would then call and try to escalate this. Obviously, if you get the documentation, once you create the online account and you download those statements and it verifies that then you're covered, assuming it says you did owe something and you either misheard, or the online system, or the automated phone system was wrong, well then you just need to appeal beyond the basic customer service level to somebody higher up. They will generally offer a one-time forgiveness on the late payment and take that away. The key is, this is what's going to hurt you worse, although if you're not pursuing credit, it's not as big of a deal, but you want to try to avoid them reporting this as late to the credit bureau, and so you want to get this rectified as soon as possible either way. But I would expect, I've never heard of them not offering at least a one-time cancellation of that late payment. If you were just to ask for it, then I would specifically ask for it and explain the situation. But I'd also create that online account and pull those historical statements for the months you're talking about, just to see what it says as to what was owed, because that may give you all the ammunition you need. Does that make sense?

Yes, it does. Okay, very good. I would also pull a copy of your credit reports, Jack, just to make sure there's not any other erroneous accounts on there. Go to AnnualCreditReport.com, you can pull the three credit bureau reports for you and your wife, absolutely free, Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax. Because your accounts were compromised, I'd do a couple of additional things. Number one, I'd monitor those credit reports every quarter, pull new ones. I'd also be very diligent in monitoring your credit accounts to make sure that there's not any other charges. I would also put a fraud alert on the accounts, just so there's a warning there. And lastly, I would look at freezing your credit files with each of the three bureaus. You can do that over the phone or electronically. That's simply just going to place a PIN number on those three credit files with Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax. And what that will do is if somebody tries to open an account in your name fraudulently, because they've accessed your personal information, when they try to check your credit to verify whether or not they should extend the credit to the fraudster, they won't be able to because they won't have the PIN number. And you do that by issuing a credit freeze.

There's no cost to that as well. So those would be the steps I would take to make sure, given the situation, that you do everything you can possibly do to avoid this happening again. Jack, we appreciate your calling today, sir. God bless you.

Let's see, to Montana. Hey, Craig, thanks for your call today. Go right ahead. Hey, thanks for taking the call here. Yes, sir.

Got an I-BOND question. OK. A couple of them. Simple ones, I hope.

Are they still a good idea? Yeah, I'll say it depends. And here's what I mean by that, Craig. It was a no brainer when they were paying 9.62%. At 6.8% with government backing, which means it's almost zero risk, it's still a phenomenal rate of return. You're not going to get that with essentially a risk-free investment anywhere else. The question is, what bucket of money are you pulling from?

And let me explain what I mean by that. If this is money that's in your emergency fund, bucket number one, that you need ready access to, I wouldn't put that into I-BONDs because you can't touch it for a year. And by definition, you need immediate access to your emergency fund.

Let me skip bucket two and go to bucket three. If it's money that you're looking at not needing for five years or more, I wouldn't put that in I-BONDs because I think you'd be better off in the stock market with a properly diversified stock and bond portfolio for long-term growth because what we're experiencing with the I-BOND yields is temporary. That will come back down to where it normally is and I'd rather you be in the market and experience the recovery and the growth that I think is going to happen over the next decade. But if you're in bucket two, if it's money that you don't need for a year but you probably need in less than five years, then that's where I think the I-BONDs make a lot of sense up to $10,000 per person at 6.8% with essentially a risk-free investment.

You're not going to find that kind of return for that money anywhere else. Does that make sense? Yeah.

Yeah, it all does. Does it stay at 6.8% forever, I mean for as long as we have it there? It does not. It's a 30-year bonds but the rate resets every six months. It will reset again in May. Now if you were to put $10,000 into the electronic I-BONDs today and you couldn't do it today, it would take a few days to fund but let's say you did it today, you'd get the 6.8% for the next six months and when six months goes by from the date that you purchase them, then you're going to get the new rate and we won't know that new rate until May of 2023 and it's going to be based on the consumer price index and given what the Fed's doing to try to essentially engineer somewhat of a soft recession in order to get inflation back down to their target of 2%, I could pretty much guarantee you it's coming down because CPI is going to be coming down with these high interest rates. But six months is the worst case scenario is after six months if it goes real low, we could take it out and have to pay what a three-month penalty? You'd have to wait a year so you'd have to keep it in there another six months and I don't think it's going to go really low. I think it'll still be north of 4% which is again for money that you're going to need in less than five years, that's a great rate of return especially since you've got US government backing. Okay, so that's still but the penalty is three months?

If you take it out after a year, you got to leave it in there a year but after a year in less than five years, you'll pay a three-month penalty of interest so when they credit the interest which is what they do when you redeem it, they'll just subtract three months of that interest before they credit it. Hey, I've got to hit a break here Craig, thanks for your call sir and for listening to the program, we appreciate your call today. Folks, we're going to pause for a quick break again, we're not here today taking some time off so don't call in but more questions just around the corner. This is MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions.

I'm Rob West and we'll be right back, don't go anywhere. Delighted to have you along with us today on MoneyWise Live, I'm Rob West, your host. This is where we apply God's truth to your financial decisions. Here's what we recognize on this program, God owns it all and money is a tool to accomplish God's purposes because you're a steward and so am I, we're money managers for the king of kings. Here's the other reality is that money issues are hard issues. My experience is that our financial journey is one of the key ways God shapes our spiritual journey and really money issues, the way we handle money, it's a training ground of the heart. It's one of the most tangible, visible expressions of what we value and where we've placed our trust. The question is, is there a misalignment between what's really important to us and what money says is important to us?

And if it is, perhaps we need to change the way we're allocating God's resources. Well, we can all get better at that, and so let's do that together. Our phone lines are not open at the moment because we're away from the studio, but we have some great questions that we lined up in advance. So we're going to go right back to the phones to North Carolina. Jacqueline, you're next on the program, go ahead.

I love your program, let me say that first. Thank you. I might be in a bucket-two situation. I recently turned 72. I have a 403b retirement account through my previous employer, 403b annuity. In six months, I'm going to be required to start taking distributions from that money. My question is, I don't have good knowledge about investing, but I do great at saving. I guess I want to know, which is the best option for me to take the distributions, leave the money where it is, or are there other places that the money might be more beneficial to me, and said something else about making charitable donations. I guess that would probably lessen my tax liabilities. Yes, that's exactly right.

Those are great questions, Jacqueline, and let's step through those systematically. So the first question is, what type of account should you have this in? Is it best in the 403b, just where it is, or would it make sense to roll it out to an IRA?

Those would really be the only two options. Leave it where it is or move it to an IRA. Anything else is going to create a taxable event. The benefit of moving it to the IRA, which is what I would generally recommend, is twofold. Number one, you'd have complete control over the investment options that you would choose from. So inside the 403b, there's limited investment options. When you get it in the IRA, there's basically unlimited investment options.

That's the first thing. The second is you'd have more control over the fee schedule and who's managing it, whether you're doing it yourself or hiring someone to do that. And then thirdly, when you get it into the IRA, you also have the option of what's called a qualified charitable distribution, which you don't have in the 403b, which is where you can satisfy that annual required minimum distribution the IRS is going to make you begin taking now that you're 72. You can do that with a gift directly to a charity where that amount doesn't get added to your taxable income and they get the full amount and you get to satisfy that required minimum. And you could do that as a way of replacing money you were going to give to the same church or ministry out of your savings or cash, but do it from your IRA and therefore satisfy the required minimum and not have to add that to your taxable income for the year. All that's available to you in the IRA. The only remaining question though with that is what's the right investment strategy for those funds once it gets into the IRA and that just is based on how much income do you need from it, if any, how much risk do you want to take and who do you want to manage it? So I've thrown a lot at you there.

Give me your thoughts. Okay, probably I would simply, you know, establish the IRA through my bank. I already have a money market account there. I'm zero debt. I own two homes, debt-free and I just use a credit card periodically for small purchases.

You're doing a great job, Jacqueline. God's blessing, he has given me the financial wisdom to make smart decisions and I'm just so grateful because I know that he did this through me and not my own intelligence. Well, you've done a phenomenal job and clearly you've followed biblical wisdom and principles as you've managed his money well. Jacqueline, how much do you have, if you don't mind me asking, in that 403b? I have approximately a hundred thousand. Okay, and do you want to have this money invested where you'd take a portion of it, let's say, and perhaps put it into high quality stocks, you know, and maybe some bonds or do you want it in more bank type instruments? You think more bank type would be good because I am really at the point where I don't need a lot of money. Okay. I think I can more than adequately meet my financial needs from what I have put aside.

Okay. And I just want to do something good and perhaps some good for the benefit of someone other than myself with this money. Well, I love that because money is a means to an end, not an end, and it's most effective when that means to an end to someone other than us, which is exactly what you're talking about. So here's what I would do. I would open an IRA with that bank, whatever bank you have a relationship with, I'd talk to them about getting a high yield CD, maybe a CD ladder. So maybe you put a third of it in a year, a third of it in two years, and a third of it in three years, and then every year you just roll it forward and take advantage of higher rates as they're available.

You keep enough out to do the qualified charitable distribution for the required minimum that you'll have now that you're 72, and that can go directly to the ministry or charity of your choice. Okay? Okay. Okay.

Great advice. Thank you so very much. You're very welcome, and thank you for calling today. We appreciate it. Let's head to Arkansas. Dana, you're next on the program.

Go ahead. Well, I really like the advice you just gave her. I was calling because I've been hearing about that central bank digital currency or whatever that Biden has authorized people to check into and make a report on, and I was wondering whenever I semi-retired, I got a $50,000 life insurance thing that if I never take out more than like 2% or 4% a year or whatever, whenever I pass, my charities and my beneficiaries get $50,000, you know, that kind of thing, so I like that deal. But I was wondering with that, how close do you see, what hang-ups do you see might be in the works, what can we do to prevent it, and especially what should I do with my money to prepare for, is that, or can you prepare for it? Yeah, I'm not sure there's really anything you need to do to prepare.

I mean, so you're right. The Treasury Department recommended moving forward, based on President Biden's request for research, moving forward on the development of a CBDC, central bank digital currency, as a part of a comprehensive framework on the development of digital assets. They asked a lot of government agencies to come up with policy recommendations for tackling everything from a digital dollar to the regulations on cryptocurrency. Now, keep in mind, more than 100 countries now representing 95% of the global gross domestic product are exploring a digital currency. So now with the United States stepping up its activity, nearly all of these countries are going to be asking what Washington will come up with and make sure their currencies will work with the world's reserve currencies.

But keep in mind, the U.S. is really far away on this. The digital euro is scheduled to go online in the middle of the decade, and a digital dollar is well behind it. Most likely it will be several years until anyone is using a digital dollar in normal life. They've got to build a model that works, and there's more questions than answers right now. China started working on its digital currency in 2016, and they're still in a pilot phase.

That's a big pilot with 260 million users, but basically the U.S. is a long way off. You also have to recognize that the central bank doesn't have the authority. It's constitutionally clear that coinage is a congressional function. Central bank, they regulate banks.

They don't even regulate the coinage. So it's hard to get legislative buy-in due to a lack of trust. The Federal Reserve doesn't have the highest degree of trust right now, and it's hard to get consensus on anything, especially with a divided government. So I think this is a good ways off. It's certainly not coming anytime soon.

There's been a rumor out there that it's coming at the end of the year. That's just not the case, and I think we're years away. So there's really nothing, I don't think, that has to be done at this point, Dana. I have concerns, as I suspect you do, about going in this direction, but it's going to take a long time to flesh it all out, and it will ultimately be a Congress action that will make it happen. Does that make sense?

It does. I appreciate that. I didn't understand the time frame, and of course, Congress is doing crazy things with just 50 percent or whatever, but still, thank you. I appreciate it. All right, Dana, thank you for listening to the program.

Well, folks, that's going to do it for us today. So thankful that you stopped by as we together in community try to find God's heart for managing His money. You know, when we think about our role as steward, it's a high calling. We're money managers for the King of Kings.

Well, it doesn't get any bigger than that. So we want to be found faithful, and we want to go back to His Word so we understand how to go about that. Well, our team is essential to what we do here every day, so let me give them some thanks. I want to say thank you to Amy and to Courtney and to Melody and to Jim, the team serving us today, doing an amazing job, pushing buttons and serving you as you call in and doing all the things that makes this show possible.

MoneyWise Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and MoneyWise Media. That's going to do it for us, but I hope you'll come back and join us next time. We'll do it all over again. In the meantime, may God bless you. Bye-bye.